Three Poems
By Grayson Sanghani
Words from a Rogue Confessionalist
I am not a giver,
of words, or of callow glances
from inexperienced irises,
and ripening lidded eyes.
I offer not redemption,
or a means of bloody sacrifice.
I am no son of Virgil,
I will not write you for an epic.
I will not lose an armed battle
to your undressed eyes.
You take an eyelash, plucked from my eyes as I sleep,
a sleep that I could not pin down to one night.
That fourth month you took
a tooth, plucked from my mouth.
An inhospitable bud
That you wear as a crown.
I am not a hostage,
but I would not stop a thief,
who sweats themself to sleep.
I would not stop a question,
But I might desecrate my answer.
Coronate this page
And swallow it.
Scrub your tongue and silence it.
(Re)Birth
Truthfully,
It is just as beloved
as the hand reaching into life,
small and fisted for the first time.
Not ready to be provoked,
and made impure, with the thoughts
that only
growth can provide.
Heaven may be shrunk,
and taut against the flesh
that will soon be made into meat.
It may be firm as the skin on a baby
that can hardly speak.
It may be pursed
like the lips of a child who must eat,
but will soon learn to quiet hunger
on command. It may be
the sapling, quiet with the litany
of breaking in and breathing out.
Yet, it may be the wrinkle
by the eye of the man
who stares into the same sky,
for a second time.
Sun recalled
Remind me,
of the times that I had not hidden
from the rays of the sun,
they scorched my skin to a beating red.
It’s not the way that I unravel myself
that can shock even my own flaking flesh,
but the way in which I beat back the sun
until it glows a dimmer glow.
Though an orbit of 9 is a system of 1,
might it lose its own count?
Does it look to us now?
It wades through our fears
and it preys on our doubts,
yet we still consecrate,
its every delay. Like water on skin
after thirst in our breath.
A resurgence of relief
when the wait has to end.
The prisoner would forget where he was
but luckily, the sun crafts his home,
with delicate ease.
Ensnarement is not a burden,
but a recall of peace.
Grayson Sanghani is a student and writer living in Singapore. He can be found exhibiting his ruminations at his website leaven.blog or re-blogging film stills on Tumblr.
It’s 2009 and summer is encroaching on the town of Bellingen when Rhiannon is forced to move from her local high school to one in Coffs Harbour. Initially reluctant to leave behind her best friend Ellie, she quickly finds herself infatuated with the enigmatic Vanora. It’s only on befriending her, does she discover that like her, Vanora is a girl whose home life is shrouded in a web of secrets. Secrets that relate to her mother.
Set in the verdant Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, Thora deals with family dysfunction, emancipation through friendship, and how girlhood is affected by the isolation of the country and the solace of nature.
Tilly Lawless is a queer, Sydney-based sex worker and writer. Her debut title Nothing But My Body was published in 2021.
Cover art by Rufus Shakespeare
Publication date: 15th February 2024 (Australia) / 1st June 2024 (UK)
Published in Australia and the UK by Worms Publishing
Fiction | Paperback with hand drawn dust jacket with fold-out map by Rufus Shakespeare
ISBN: 978-1-3999-7341-0
228 × 150 mm | 164 pages
£14.99 | $30.00
The ‘Artists who Write and Writers who Art’ Issue. For Worms 7 we’ve looked to our visual counterparts for some soil nutrients. We’ve wormed our way into the psyche of the artist, to bring you the ‘Artists That Write, and Writers That Art’ issue. Many of our subjects in the past have come into writing via non-traditional routes (filmmaking, curation, art, performance, podcasting, and so on), so it only felt right to cast a spotlight over those who have inspired our experimental literary practices so far. Not only those that use words within their visual practice, but those who use images to inform their writing. The reader, the writer, the artist, the activist, the poet and performer; they’re all here and they’re all worms.
In this mega worm (which is fittingly pink, for the first time somehow) you are in for a feast. Clem interview Helen Marten, Martine Syms and Diamond Stingily, Caitlin interviews actual art-writing icon Olivia Laing, Pierce talks to the profound Dr. Joy James, Philippa Snow gives us her thoughts on the act of writing art criticism (spoiler: it’s out her ass), and we have enough Derek Jarman content to keep you going for the rest of the year. We have some hilarious/insightful/weird/wonderful contributions from some of your favourite regulars too; including Jess Cole, Isabelle Bucklow, Sam Moore, Haydée Touitou, Estelle Hoy and many others.
Featuring
DIAMOND STINGILY, HELEN MARTEN, NICOLE RUDICK, NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE, MARTINE SYMS, OLIVIA LAING, DR. JOY JAMES, JORDAN WEITZMAN, WU TSANG, DEREK JARMAN, SABINE MIRLESSE, MISHA HONCHARENKO, CHANTAL AKERMAN, JOANNA NOVAK, ANNIE ERNAUX, DAISY SANCHEZ, JENNA SUTELA, ANICKA YI, TUOMAS A. LAITINEN, STEPHANIE COMILANG & SIMON SPEISER, VALERIE SOLANAS
Contributors
HAYDEÉ TOUITOU, L SCULLY & LUCAS RESTIVO, LEE RAE WALSH, JESS COLE, ESTELLE HOY, PHILIPPA SNOW, SAMANTHA ROSENWALD, ISABELLE BUCKLOW, MONA GLASSFIELD, CLEM MACLEOD, SARAH WHITE, CAITLIN MCLOUGHLIN, PAVIELLE GARCIA, IONE SAIZAR, CHANTAL JOFFE, SOPHIE DAVIDSON, PIERCE ELDRIDGE, VIOLET CONROY, ELLE PÉREZ, PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA, JACQUELINE ENNIS-COLE, MARY ADETURINMO, STEPH FRANCIS-SHANAHAN, SAM MOORE, BUG SHEPHERD-BARRON, DONNA MARCUS DUKE, SAM HOLTON BRADLEY, KITTY GRADY, FELIX PILGRIM, CICI PENG, HOLLY MILLS, THEA MCLACHLAN, ERICA GOULD, PAULA DUCAY AND INÉS GARCÍA, ELVIRA GARCIA, INÊS GERALDES CARDOSO, JODIE HILL, JEMIMA SKALA, MAURA SAPPILO, DELIA RAINEY
Founder & Editor in Chief: CLEM MACLEOD
Managing Editor: CAITLIN MCLOUGHLIN
Art direction and design: CAITLIN MCLOUGHLIN
Features Editors: PIERCE ELDRIDGE, ARCADIA MOLINAS
Contributing Editor: VIOLET CONROY
Printed by PAGEMASTERS
Publication date: July 2023
Published in the UK by Worms World C.I.C.
Magazine | Paperback
240 × 170 mm | 176 pages
