TMO is proud to publish original works of fiction and poetry as part of its literary coverage. If you’d like your work to appear in TMO magazine, please check our submissions page for details.
As a child, mother’s aluminium head-lice comb Was more beautiful than any princess’s diadem. I saw it’s avatars in music box clockworks, Turnstile’s thaumatropes , science fair spectroscopes And lately, on the Grosvenor Road . The park railings diffraction grating Transfigured the wet road. The tram-lined aurora of traffic and car lights Slothful as […]
The enlarged photograph hangs low on the opposite wall. She is sitting at the edge of her sepia chair, sipping at her cup of cappuccino which she finds expensive and doesn’t like much. The doorman sweats and bows outside the glass door. She can hear the behind-the-counter bustle of aproned men and women running this […]
The Confidence of Youth My friendship with McGiolla was in some ways the story of my college career. I met him towards the end of my first Michaelmas term, on a cold night in November 1990. At that stage, we were both heavily involved in the debating society – the debsoc – but had yet […]
Kate’s story was the best thing that I had read. Not just the best thing anyone had sent to our magazine but the best thing that I had read, ever. All I could do was accept that I loved this story more than anything else. There was nothing I already had that I cared about […]
Beyond (2): Crisis Cell Prazma spins on her swivel chair and scissors her legs into the webcam. ‘Loubou tahn, Josh, baby. Are you getting this?’ ‘This is Prazma,’ Claire shouts into the laptop. ‘A tall, authoritative woman.’ ‘Claire once tagged me in a Facebook photo,’ Prazma says, ‘as ‘Prazma’ and then ‘Prazma’s tits’.’ ‘She has […]
No Más This is what he tells me. He was married before but the soldiers shot his first wife, and only later did he marry our Mamá. At least half my life gone and only today I am hearing this, from a professional liar. The old dilemma: how can I be sure if it’s honesty […]
To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong. William Wordsworth. And so Bella stopped crying; Stopped waking in the night Stopped being the person she had been for all of her thirty-seven years years. Bella became someone else. The softness inside her […]
RAINDROP I hold on by day, but in the night when lonely shepherds tend their flocks bending low from arching lights under an iron sky, the blackness criss-crossed with prayers, laced with phosphorous tracer and laden with soldiers metal, I listen to mosquitoes choosing their moment. The sirens begin to wail but I am dead […]
BAD DAYS The mist peels back for the rainfall, I feel the craziness once more. In the wild eyes of an old man’s face I see his mirrored thoughts fouled by the bad days just gone, still trapped here in this place. The sky is falling, lingering mist slowly revealing pain as it […]
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE Iconic sleeve art for Pink Floyd Displays a triangular chunk of glass Alone on a black background, Dramatically separating a thin straight beam Into its constituent colours. The rainbow spectrum. Inert matter sawed, releasing More inside than meets the eye. A sacred structure built in Rome, B.C., Was named The […]
