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Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
Jacqueline Saphra - Valentine for Turbulent Times
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance
Valentine for Turbulent Times
Jacqueline Saphra
When you open your eyes to find great love
beside you and you tease open the heart
with kisses and coffee and you yawn and yearn
and reach towards this snowdrop morning,
a few lines of bliss might achieve lift-off
but for the cacophonous news that rolls
across your horizon grinning from
its armoured tank as it exits the hatch
to trip you up with its big dirty boots, even
before you have a chance to rise. And love?
There it is, running from fire and terror,
small and useless like the unseasonal
ladybird crawling across this page,
confused about what to do with its wings.
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