Issue 29

Popshot Magazine

The illustrated magazine of new writing

Popshot Magazine2 min read
Editorial
Lockdown and the curtailment of some parts of ordinary life have, perhaps perversely, been the perfect opportunity to explore the theme of freedom. During this period we have had a chance to examine the freedoms we take for granted, the freedoms that
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Popshot Magazine
Editor: Matilda Battersby Art Editor: Lauren Debono-Elliot Group Editor: Steve Pill Publisher: Simon Temlett Subscriptions: CDS Global +44 (0)1858 438816 popshotpopshot.com/subscribe Published by: Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd chelseamagazines.com Dis
Popshot Magazine4 min read
Locked In A Box
Kate looked at Pete as if he had just ordered her grandmother’s corpse, pan-roasted with Cabernet sauce and asparagus. “You know they never see sunlight? And they spend every waking moment in a two-foot box?” He did know. During isolation, they had b
Popshot Magazine2 min read
Bluestocking
I have a moustache. It’s nothing much, just a little Frida Kahlo fuzz, but I like to stroke the wisps of it, tenderly. I drink tea and it becomes a glistening thing. I look at it in the mirror, the tip of my nose smushed against the glass, admire the
Popshot Magazine11 min read
Blended
The garbage truck driver in my neighbourhood has acquired the intuitive ability to know which households don’t have their shit together. I knew this because on that sunny but lousy morning the beeping of his truck lingered at the front of our yard lo
Popshot Magazine2 min read
Dog World
Okay so, as you can see, I’m a chihuahua. Fifteen years ago, Elon Musk invented a translator that allowed dogs to talk to humans, and vice-versa. It’s this little triangle on my collar. And no, the collar doesn’t mean I’m owned by anyone. They’re sty
Popshot Magazine1 min read
'An Idea Arrived'
an idea arriveson a low-loader |the humourless driver slides down from the cabin a yellow puffaand hard hat, works the leverstill the four hydraulic feetstand planted, crabbed | I haven’t prepared a suitable base;he’ll set it downin the yard for now
Popshot Magazine1 min read
What I Always Wanted Poetry To Tell Me
Hey, being gay is fine – it is actually quite lovely and warm, and here is this woman I have fallen for, here are descriptions of her that will make you cry with relief, see stars of desire. And oh, god, the human body is wonderful: all hair and swea
Popshot Magazine11 min read
Wow, What A Day
As the wind picked up and howled between the bridge pylons, I bobbed about with the blue sky beyond me, like an over-inflated life ring at sea. I hummed as I readjusted my position and moved behind one of the pylons. What a day, wow! It must be 22 de
Popshot Magazine1 min read
'To Let More Sun In?' You Ask
‘We need another window…’I twist & turn in self-destruction like a dog whirlsaround in poop. Can’t you senseseventy-two million galaxies of violencewithin me? Options roulette-rolling:cars against trees, cars off motorway bridges, carsinto rivers, ju
Popshot Magazine4 min read
Clarence Dock
When I tell my friend, Jenny, that I am holding a writing workshop at the Cottage Road Cinema she lets out a bitter laugh.“Oh God, don’t mention the Cottage Road Cinema.” Instantly I know, from the way she’s raised her eyebrows to their highest point
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Empress Matilda Flees Oxford
December 1142 The city is sleeping without eyelids,the army at its gate not seeing a womandrop out the castle like ballastwrapped in white:a cloak and a blizzard. She drifts under hornbeam and beech,dead branches with a canopy of ice,following the ri
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Tranquilised
My clothes are buttoned wrong.They say I do it myselfin a fugue state,but this is no toccataand I am no Vanessa Mae.They lie.I see them when I am asleeppulling at my clotheswhile I hover by the ceiling.I have yet to master the artof swimming through
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Wolf Man
Because of this existential threatyou pop up out of the blue onto my screen beautiful and dangerous as everwith eyes as blue as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane we have so many names for the deadlyyour dark hair’s now silvering around your edges you are
Popshot Magazine7 min read
Freedom
She was on time. Anxiety would have nibbled at her otherwise, worrying her date would get bored and leave before she had even arrived. His attention was a thread she held as lightly as she could, as though he were a creature who would startle and rea
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Shedding
I shed all clothes that feel too tight,take off my shell, the one for teaching.And the books I won’t read, I give away.No more thinking about our dogs,buried under the forsythiain my childhood home. I try to shedthe darks, the askance glanceof the wo
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Somehow, He Knows
Tonight, like most other nights, I am awake. Unwelcome thoughts scurry forth from the darkness like vermin. They scratch at my eyes, gnaw through my skull, nest in my brain. I try to count the flakes of paint peeling from the ceiling, willing boredom
Popshot Magazine10 min read
Mother House
My mother pointed out nuns on the street like they were movie stars. Look there's a Dominican, look a whole bunch of Ursulines, there's a pair of Franciscans, oh my God there’s a Benedictine, that’s rare. She rated their habits for style and flashine
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Roadtrip
They become our hideouts;Places in which we canFinally let hands roam,Lips utter words otherwise unspoken. We plan our journeys and days outNot by the distance travelled,Or by the time it takes to reachOur destination; we don’t consider Economic or s
Popshot Magazine11 min read
Partial Truths
In the bleary half-second after Clem woke up, she thought she was in her bedroom at home. Muted orange walls, a woven rug to cover the worn old carpet, faded vintage postcards holding the landscapes and mountains of Capel Urig and Snowdon, Penmaenmaw
Popshot Magazine1 min read
There Is A Place Where My Thighs Don’t Matter
I have been building to thisfor a year. Salads. Smoothies. Herbsthat don’t work.Panels in swimsuits with skirts.Hurry and heat thwart my elegant strollto the foam, where the shore meets the seawhere I cannot stand, because peopleare thinner than me.S
Popshot Magazine1 min read
House Plants
Even though you knowThat the air outsideWould be enough to kill you,You still strain against the glass,Leaning towards the light. And it’s like our daysIn safety, but in shade,Are being replayedOn my kitchen windowsill. Sculptural, solid aloe vera.Ne
Popshot Magazine11 min read
Mutilated Gods
It was Friday night. Another few stripes of the mower and she would finish the manor lawn. Sue planned on retreating to her flat and savouring a couple of ice-cold beers. Tipping the grass cuttings into the compost, a faint breeze wafted tiny green s
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Resurrection
Lax and limp-legged in my palm. Downedbreast heaving as though half air.Only one tail feather remainsthe others laid like petals on the rug.Outside, swollen bees sipfrom the antlered heartsof poppies. The cradle of bird-cherrydrips with fruit and son
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Disperse
You pluck them from the dirtto watch them wilt–those pretty things on the sill.Claiming your power over natureto play God with the peonies.You love the silk-skinned narcissithe ignorance of feverfewand the irony of freesiashopeful gazes trained on op
Popshot Magazine3 min read
Endnotes
8–Harry Guild works in advertising strategy for a mayonnaise brand (Don Draper, eat your heart out) but hopes to carry on writing stories in future. 10–Chloe Tomlinson has had two short stories published in The Dublin Review. Her flash is about a wom
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Illustrators
Amy Moss mossamy.com Carson McNamara carsonmcnamara.com Chu Chu Briquet chuchubriquet.com Clare Davis claredavislondon.co.uk Claudie Linke claudielinke.com Dominic Twigg twiggillustration.com Elisa Caroli instagram.com/laloisss Emily Dayson emilydays
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Write For Popshot
We showcase vivid writing by the literary new blood. Each quarter we announce a new theme for the magazine. Details about our theme for the next issue will already be available on our website. Find out more about how to submit and sign up to the mail
Popshot Magazine1 min read
We Need You
The beautiful illustrations that make Popshot really pop are produced by a team of creatives every issue. If you’d like your illustrations to appear in the magazine please get in touch with a link to your portfolio. illustration@popshotpopshot.com ■
Popshot Magazine1 min read
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