Category: How Words Play

‘Acceptance’ and other poems by Deirdre Gallagher

June 4th, 2018

Words

The crisp dew of
words,
that sing
in spring
Jubilant is their ring.

The soft gentle breeze of
words
which appease,
please
Leave tickles of tease.

The blazing heat of
words
which incite,
ignite,
Defiant in their fight.

The strong gale of
words
that wail,
prevail,
Woeful is their tale.

The cold depth of
words
which pound,
astound,
Deadening in their sound.

Acceptance

Throat itches and scratches,
raspiness of an otherworldly quality.
Lips miming the words,
their echoes silent.

From deep within,
the surges pulsating,
desperately attempting to blast into the atmosphere.
A concerted effort,
both messenger and vessel
willing, wishing, wanting
the ripples to meet the surface.

Flows and ebbs of lapping dialogue,
sparkling glistening leaps of innocent,
complicit laughter,
lulls of serenity and quiet contemplation
all in a blink of the mind’s eye.

Each page turning as if courtesy of a fast-forward button.
Slipping, falling, fading,
thugs of resistance futile.

The stark realisation,
this is coldness,
this is acceptance.

Your resting place

The glistening Shannon,
a magnificent twinkling curtain
rolled out smoothly,
a veil is drawn over the valley below.

Rosary in unison
to the grating of the clay
back and forth the swings,
gathering rhythm
only momentarily disrupted
by the exchange of hands.
A new crew lies in wait
to take up the chorus.

The many gatherers scattered
witnesses to the careful descent
into your resting place

A quilt of roses adorns you,
Each petal precious and sweet
Keep warm my love.

Celtic Bride

Tumbling tresses of auburn,
slender, lithe and graceful frame
Bambi eyes – a depth of beauty
instantly recognisable.

Beaming, effortless smile
finely crafted hands which have
penned many a touching message,
prepared many a loving meal,
reached for many a tender embrace,
and now act as protectrice to
your very own High King of Ireland.

Youth marked by boundless energy,
instant engagement, rebellious spirit, insatiable curiosity.
Inquisitive student, keen linguist, intrepid traveller,
Cuisinière de résistance –
tasting and delighting in the delectable delicacies
of this glorious multicultural world.

Erudite, quizzical
mindful of the lessons of our elders,
firm and steadfast in convictions,
hopeful, driven to forge a better
Ireland for those to come.
Attuned to the voices of many,
considerate and considered in rhetoric
the consummate politician
a fusion of past, present and future.

Life ignites, infuses, thrills,
courageous in pursuits
standing strong, upright and resolute
climbing every mountain
with an indomitable spirit,
there is something about this maiden.

As your wedding day approaches,
your chieftain awaits
on the mountain top –
Cnoc na Teamhrach
This particular climb sees
you ascend assuredly,
with each step to the summit,
you are brought home.

Proud to call you friend

Memories,
childhood jewels,
treasures in the recesses of my mind,
the pounding of tennis balls on the tarmac
during the hot Summer days.
Both as equally eager to smash it with a formidable forehand,
the dual recorders in sync (well most of the time),
we were after all the instrumental saving grace
of each year’s Nativity play!
The dreaded own goal
You poised for a glorious save,
I, oblivious to your cries
dealt the fatal blow
I tested your patience that day,
you the model of decorum never let it show.

Teenage years brought a keen interest in historical pursuits.
Con Air showings back to back,
fabulous Super Mac extravaganzas,
Infinite ripples of laughter and giggles
a reflection
bringing comfort and company
when I needed it most.

Never mind Tipperary
it’s a longer way to Letterkenny,
such was the legal route
but boy was it worth the journey
Success, Freedom, Fun
not forgetting Cupid
awaited,
you never once looked back.

Eyes blue and gentle,
the small contented smile
you’ve navigated the peaks and troughs,
I can see
you’re happy with your lot.
This is your moment,
bask in the joy,
feel the excitement.
I’m privileged to witness the triumph,
but most undoubtedly
proud to call you friend.

Strength is in our past

Do not mourn me my love
I am near you still,
notice me in the Autumn leaves
strewn magnificently
lining the roadside
in your honour.

Each leaf that falls
memories we shared
weightless, wistful
gliding to their peaceful slumber.

My time has arrived
so has theirs
gracefully, elegantly,
swirls of multicolour
our befitting final dance,
a waltz.

The day will come
when the leaves will fade.
growing dim
flickering sweetly
prepare yourself
arm yourself
Strength is in our past.

Magnetic

Snug, at ease
camaraderie complimenting
the fireside warmth
a fitting forum for festive cheer.

Random responses
friendly jibes
carefree banter
giggles galore
Verses of old time classics
and one hit wonders
giving way to ripples of merriment
savouring the delight.

A shadowing possibility
this occasion might be our last
Reminding ourselves to make it count
holding it tight as a precious jewel –
delicate, fragile, magnetic.

Sorry

‘Sorry’
a murmur, a mutter,
falling indifferently, clumsily, irreverently from parted lips.
Sometimes a habit, a courtesy, an afterthought,
always a marker of our hard-won freedom.

Seemingly innocuous word, a nod to our ancestors,
ingrained in our bruised dialect,
woven through the beaten tapestry of our history,
stirring the ghosts, the troubled sod,
foremost in our legacy.

‘Sorry’ for suffering eight hundred years of oppression,
‘Sorry’ for having our native tongue ripped out,
‘Sorry’ for building another nation with our blood, wood, sweat and tears,
‘Sorry’ for being denied the right to toil on our own soil.

Let us not lament further sacrifice.

OUR ETERNAL LOVE

A soft gentle milken hand caressed our hair,
A sweet embrace pulled us close for comfort,
A listening ear let us know we mattered,
A wise word offered in times of distress,
Warmth so innate it had the touch of the divine.
A curious question to highlight your sense of devilment,
A wry smile which knew what we were up to,
A generosity which knew no bounds.
You offered your heart openly to share among us all,
We lapped it up as we did every delicious meal.
A style merchant as well as a speed merchant,
A domestic goddess as well as a hostess extraordinaire,
The aroma of fresh brown bread married with a brew of tea
Danced through the air and set the scene,
You balanced it all while raising a family of ten.
You were our sun, moon and stars,
You made sense of the world when we had lost our way,
You were our safe haven,
Our place of shelter and warmth when the journey got weary.
You took pride in us, you took delight in us.
You gave us everything,
And all you asked in return was our happiness.
We yearn to have you near to us again,
To remind you one last time how dearly we love you,
Express our gratitude and inadequacy at your selflessness.
Queen of our hearts,
No time to say goodbye.
A ray of heaven on earth, the apple of our eye,
A presence so soothing, babes fell asleep in your arms.
We knew this day would come – the eclipse loomed,
Our hearts would know this heaviness.
Our stomachs wrought with anguish.
We know you are among the chorus of angels,
We need you still to keep a watchful eye,
Let us know you can hear us.
May God cradle you in his arms just as you cradled us,
May you have peace and joy and comfort in your heavenly home,
We carry forward your presence in our hearts,
And know you will continue to guide us in this life,
Until we meet again Our Eternal Love.

Acceptance and other poems are © Deirdre Gallagher

Deirdre Gallagher has works published in A New Ulster, Crossways Literary Magazine, Poethead, Comhar, Feasta and upcoming in The Stinging Fly. Literature is passionate, powerful, restorative and transformative. It makes an immense contribution to our evolving world. A language enthusiast, she believes that we can dispel the shadows cast by checkered history and disconnection to see the emergence of a bright, compassionate, and equitable future that celebrates the advantages of multilingualism within national and global contexts.

‘Prime’ and other poems by Peggie Gallagher

May 19th, 2018

Parlour

A bolthole, a room half elsewhere
adrift in distant grandeur,
where breath condenses between damask drapes
and the wing of a mahogany table.
Where an ear might catch the scratch
of a pen, a girl trawling the depths of an inkwell
pouring words, slippery as a river of fish
spilling loose of their net,
slapping their wet tails on the brocade.

What to do with such riches —
feed them to her mother’s wedding gifts,
pile them into fluted dessert dishes,
fling their blue-black panic into the belly
of the lamp ravening on the sideboard,
the soft spill of innards silvering her fingers
cracking their verbs and consonants
the way her mother cracks
the necks of chickens.

The Three Card Trick Man

After a line by Tom Duddy

The reason I come here is not the horses,
though bookie shops abound and a litter of crushed slips.
It is always sunny and work is over for the weekend
and the girl in the red dress has just stepped out –

not exactly a carnival atmosphere, more
a thoroughfare of anticipation, the mood buoyant,
a painter’s delight,
the air still holding the day’s warmth.

There he is just off a side-street,
part of a circle hunched around a makeshift table.
The scrubbed nape,
an odour of soap and aftershave.

The picture steadies, the table is swept,
and the look when he turns to her
pales the red of her dress.

Impossible to say what passes between them –
a wager of innocent measure,
the small treacheries of love and its necessities.
Here I will leave them with everything still to play for.

Prime

It is midwinter.
Your hands are chilled.
I lift you,
gather your first whimpers onto my pillow,
knowing as much by instinct as touch of skin.

We lie here amazed at the dark,
aware of the house sleeping around us,
the quiet patterns of breath.
Outside, the snow lies thick.

In this landscape of wild skies
and running tides,
and mornings lit with rapture,
I think
I must have been falling most of my life
to land here temple to temple
in this pre-dawn calm,
this kinship

of breath with breath
your hands cupped in my palms.

Early Delivery

What had us on the road
that early May morning
when the Ballisodare bread van
slalomed past
and dropped two wax-wrapped, sliced-pans
on the tarmac
warm and fragrant
as two babies
tossed from their cradle.

The van sped on
swing-doors unbolted
like a run-away train
or a liberated pony
lifting its tail.

Prime and other poems are © Peggie Gallagher

Peggie Gallagher’s collection, Tilth was published by Arlen House in 2013. Her work has been published in numerous journals including Poetry Ireland, Force 10, THE SHOp, Cyphers, Southword, Atlanta Review, and Envoi. In 2011 she was shortlisted for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition. In 2012 she won the Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection. In 2018 she is the only Irish poet on the Strokestown International poetry competition shortlist. Peggie Gallagher’s work was facilitated by Paul O’Connor.

Author image: Southword / Arlen House

‘Fourteen days’ and other poems by Maeve O’Sullivan

May 8th, 2018

Sri Lanka haiku

after traveller’s tummy —
a calming breakfast
on the Laccadive Sea

˜
handbag-free
no iPhone to count my steps —
beach walk

˜
Gangaramaya shrine…
an old lady adds some jasmine
to our flower tray

˜
accompanying us
uphill to the sacred footprint —
frog tones

˜
the temple’s lily pond
stripped of its blooms —
full moon day

˜
chatter in the tour bus stops tsunami damage

˜
storm breaking we circumambulate the wishing stupa

Fourteen Days

Mother has stopped eating
I google what happens next:
others who have done this
survive around fourteen days.

I google what happens next:
hunger-strikers and anorexics
survive around fourteen days,
declining to drink water.

Hunger-strikers and anorexics
turn their faces to the wall,
decline drinking water,
refuse all foodstuffs.

She has turned her face to the wall
though she seems quite serene:
refusing all foodstuffs,
just lying in her bed.

She seems quite serene,
like others who have done this,
just lying in her bed –
our mother has stopped eating.

Buddhas of Asia

After seeing the world’s largest indoor seated bronze Buddha at Nara,
I visit the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha outside Hong Kong.
This difference is important: big Buddhas mean big business –
everyone wants a piece of His calm. Later I see the smallest
Buddha in the world, through a magnifying glass placed
behind more glass, in a temple in Colombo;
not long after I stumble upon the casket
bearing some of His skullbone relics
in the National Museum of India
where I learn that He had had
an early aniconic phase: His
only representations then
the Wheel of Dharma,
an empty throne,
the Bodhi tree,

footprints…

Europe haiku sequence

coffee al fresco
the horsefly takes
half a bite

˜
human statue –
his companion applies more paint
this sweltering day

˜
peeling a courgette…
the sound of child’s play
in another language

˜
boat tour of the port –
a drone generates
the most excitement

˜
balmy night
a swallow dips close
to my breaststroke

˜
city lake –
a moorhen leads her chicks
towards the evening sun

A Lapsed Catholic’s Prayer

or two, or three,
or try twenty –
said in twenty churches
and cathedrals, all
along St. James’s
way, with rows
of matching flame-wax.

On a May-day
I come to rest
in Notre Dame
as choral notes
drift upwards
to kiss a trio
of glass roses.

Fourteen Days and other poems are © Maeve O’Sullivan

Maeve O’Sullivan works in further education in Dublin. Over the last twenty years, her poems have been widely published, anthologized and awarded, and her haiku have been translated into ten languages. Her previous collections are Initial Response (haiku, 2011), Vocal Chords (poetry, 2014) and A Train Hurtles West (haiku, 2015). All three were published by Alba Publishing and have been well-received by readers and critics alike. Elsewhere was published in 2017. Maeve O’Sullivan is a founder of Haiku Ireland, and also a long-standing member of the British Haiku Society. She is also a founder of the Hibernian Poetry Workshop and performs with the Poetry Divas collective of women poets. (Source: Alba Publishing)

‘If I were spring,’ and other poems by Mihaela Dragan

May 1st, 2018

Quinces.

Quinces seem to come from fairy tales.
People even think of them as aliens,
neither round nor oval
neither glossy nor trivial
not too dry and not too mellow
but Lord, how they are handsome!
They bring the Sun into a home
dusty and drowsy,
as if it had slept quietly among them!

Cats

What if, overnight,
after a cup of cocoa with milk,
we all wake up,
mewling and whiskered?

Crackling our jaws
arching our backs
becoming cats.

Better than humans?

Sunrise

The cool sunrise, suddenly
caused my heart to shudder.

It seemed that cricket songs
were slowly drilling into my soul.

All day long, in summer,
they surround me with their ardour,

their birds’ wings spread into the air,
flapping, moving since dawn,

tempestuous!

If I were spring,

If I were spring -
I would disguise myself without much ado
as a beautiful swallow,

I would chirp
 among the cheerful kids,
     weaving from the sweetest sun rays
     brought by the light blessing of the Zephyr,
my cheery, noisy song.
Which I would like, as expected,
the cherry trees to ascertain.

       Or,
          better yet!
I would disguise myself
      as a flowery pencil box
      to sneak into your desk.
And there, I would whisper in a soft voice
hidden behind the arm of your compass
that spring dwells next to you,
 
                       one step away!

Mihaela Dragan was born in Bucharest. She has dreamt of becoming a writer since she was a child. She was a primary school teacher for 10 years between 1986-1996, during this time she attended the University of Bucharest and obtained her degree in history and philosophy. Afterwards, She studied Law, changed her profession and became a member lawyer of the Bucharest Bar Association (1996). She loves poetry and visual arts equally finds inspiration in images that impress her through bold choices of colours, textures or composition. She has two wonderful daughters who chose to study abroad. With her newly found free time, she took on a new challenge to improve her creative skills and to dedicate more time to writing.

If I were spring and other poems were written and translated by Mihaela Dragan

‘Top Shaggers’ and other poems by Emma Gleeson

May 1st, 2018

Top Shaggers

At first, we felt a clear hot rage.

This girl.

Torn into hysterics.
But not beyond reasonable doubt.

Fear Response
freeze,
a mind grasps it’s body tight
brain-stem trained by centuries
in how useless it is to fight.

But where justice
is hewn from happenstance
consent is an irrelevance.

But those boys.

Raised on porn and privilege
paying for impunity
in more ways than one.

We have let them down too.
We have let them all down.
We turned blind scoffing eyes as they grew
unfettered.
uninformed.

We let it happen.

My Grandfather,

stepped into his wife’s shoes
the day she died.
He learnt to make soda bread.
Took the smallest one, my father,
to sleep in his bedroom with him
the first year after.
Squeezed the boys orange juice
before school in the morning.

I never knew him in his prime.
His spark and sight dwindled as I grew.
I covet the memories of my older cousins
like jewels through a shop window,
nose pressed against a room I cannot enter.

A few years after Grandpa died,
I asked my father
if he still missed him.
He laughed,
and then looked very old.
And I felt young and foolish
not to know.

Someday I will be the one who hasn’t stopped missing.
Couldn’t.
And perhaps my children will fail to notice
How much my father always loved fresh orange juice.

Snow

rules relaxed
neighbours greet and smile
brighter than eye whites
it tells us to slow

we walk in the middle of the road
giddy with transgression,
the air is glistened
and it feels changed forever.

melts as it falls
like the mayfly
it lives just one bright day.
we cannot help but destroy
the diamond silk of the paths
never touched by another human
we plant our footprint flags
claim it as our own.

looking at the drenched-clean city
we feel the stirring of the great water within.
that from where we come
and that which sustains.
the original sea-womb of all life.
we stand
in a drop of our own essence.
the howling lake inside
silenced in snow.

Holding

I am interested in what is held in the body
when we have been unheld
when we have split from ourselves.
Subtle as a dew-kissed leaf
a muscle hardens.
a knuckle can freeze
we crystallise
slowly,
until one day no melting can come to ease.
But turning back to the hard light
the melting pain
that cure which no one wants
because it hurts,
we can lift our arms high
in the letting go.

Silence

I talk to you
as if my tongue skids on ice
the words slip out,
unruly children
no translator by my side
my word birds drop their seeds on barren ground
I stumble and mumble
wishing I could shake you and say

I CANNOT SPEAK TODAY

I have to sink myself into someone
like a hot bath,
the first touch being too much
small talk singes my skin,
always too thin
and it takes more time
than most
to unfurl

But still I talk and talk
In the hope that one day
I will have earned the right
to stay silent

Top Shaggers and other poems are © Emma Gleeson

Emma Gleeson lives in Dublin. Her writing adventures include poems, cultural reviews, and essays. She has worked in the theatre industry as a costume designer and events coordinator, and lectures on sustainability. She has a BA in Drama & Theatre and an MA in Fashion History.

Instagram @emmajgleeson
Website http://www.droppingslow.com

‘Our Sleeping Women’ and other poems by Attracta Fahy

April 25th, 2018

Our Sleeping Women

I think of my grandmothers,
their faces etched in mine,
their strength sleeps in my bones.
We meet in fields of crows,
their voices speak through the wind.

Old graves sloped down
from our farm. As a child,
I played house, tea sets
on tombs, innocent,
listening to spirits.
Daughters left to work
with duty not to themselves
but others who cared little
for the objects they’d become.

From the clay they cry
the song of the crone,
dreams of lives unlived, hope
moves in the soil beneath
my feet, rises in my breath,
they call – willing me on
with their work,

let your blood bleed
for daughters defiled, mothers
abandoned in shame,
scrubbed of sin in laundries.

Don’t listen to scavengers
who have taken your use,
their fear ripping your pleasure.
Starve if you need, until you’re heard.
Scream yourself into your body.

Your face ours, your womb creator,
the only real home, your self.

Red

After her father’s death she needed
a new bag, a red one, ‘a particular red’,
she searched, described the colour:
not the brown-red jasper, carnelian
or sardonyx, stoic like stale blood,
the fire red of scarlet, zircon,
flaming fluorite flames – of hell.

Not caring for dark rose, blood red rose,
rosewood or even a rose itself,
she continued her pursuit, not magenta,
garnet, or even red topaz –
too dark, they felt murky, dim,
vermilion looked too dainty.
Everyone tried – salespeople,

traders, desperate to sell,
appease and please, ‘No’ she said,
‘No’. She needed this bag,
this exact bag, the colour specific
in her mind.
Not jasper, fire opal or sard – although
patterns are appealing – not opaque,

chalcedony stones of the high priestess’s
breastplate. Merlot felt obscure, shadowy,
and too rich. She bought red shoes,
tourmaline, not quelling her longing;
this bag, colour, stone, haunted
her travels, she needed to find it.
Crimson could suffice, virtually

there, this hunt could leave her bereft,
she explained that the red-orange of
carnelian felt weak, it would not carry
her identity – a woman now – and the pink
red agate, amaranth and coral seemed
too youthful. Still in her prime,
the extremely rare beryl appeared

exceedingly old, barn red burgundy
like lava, too strong. Salmon although
elegant, robust, was fragile and flaky
when cooked, orange-red amber
could calm. Tired in search of her red,
unable to unearth that colour, the search
for red defied her. She gave up.

Her friend called. Just back from holiday,
she had found the perfect bag – Imperial Red.
Within, her gift, an antique ring, gold, with a
red stone – fire ruby.

Despondency

arrived as an unwelcome visitor,
a hungry heron, unsure of prey.
A dark cloud filled the air.
At first glance, I could not see
its slate eyes penetrate,
empty places. Sound,

a vibration, like a crow
cawing before rain.
This time, I welcome its company,
unlike when shutting it out.
We spoke, I listened, chatted
about necessary loss, the things

I loved,
pictures, trips, that china cup
and him, the importance of
grief in letting go.
Peace moved in. After,
we made tea, dunked biscuits.

This dark cloak, my friend,
its pockets, brimmed with wisdom.

A Diagnosis /My daughter speaks

I remember when my mother forgot simple
things, like where she left the hairbrush.

I helped her find it.
Older than my mother when she

forgot, I don’t remember little things.
Impatiently, my daughter tells me I need

to see a doctor, I may even have Alzheimer’s.
‘I’m worried,’ she says, ‘you’ve got

the wrong names for thing’s
and everything is lost in our house.’

She asks about breast checks, –
her friend’s mum had found a lump.

That mole on my skin needs to go,
she heard about melanoma. Yet again she

asks ‘What age can you get Parkinsons?’
After a half hour in the kitchen,

‘Can I get a lift to my friend’s house?
We’re having a sleepover.’

I lay the basket of her worries
on my table,

I drive.

Deirdre of the Sorrows.

With fierce perseverance,
a heart, broken with love,
she walks each day, two fields
from her house, to Lough Corrib.
Picks steps like a cautious
curlew on solid ground,
finds a secluded place,
unknown to others.

Hidden between reeds,
she leans in to shelter
against ancient trees.
Caught by a shimmering ripple
across the winter lake,
she dreams the music of another
and weeps for her loss.
No birds sing, instead,

winter mist, in harmony
with grey clouds, reflect
on water, no corals or shells,
only the impassive stems
of dead iris flaying in the wind.
A swan drifts to the lake edge,
others wait in the distance.
She also waits, to hear a bell,

as if to transform the tears that drop
like pearls in an Annaghdown inlet.

Ophelia

There is a storm looming,
somewhere mid-Atlantic
hurricane legs pound toward shore.

Ophelia, unpretentious
builds strength, overemphatic
waters, her eye focused,
moves with intent.
Her swirl dress manoeuvres,
blue hair stream waves
across horizon,
glisten in hazy sun,
clouds heavy with rain.

You listen, hear the eerie prelude
to the roar of her womb.
A thunderous rumble,
seagulls hide behind stone.

Tension, gusts,
brewing stomach knots,
like a braid waiting
to be undone;
her froth mouth
explodes, white foam lunging
her breath onto our path.

A day for sitting,
looking at old postcards,
remembering
you longed to leave,
cascade like others
into the wild, like
Ophelia,
betrothed to Hamlet,
became tornado,
wedded herself.

Your ticking watch,
louder than time,
ruby warm fire flames sucked,
as Ophelia swallows the tide.

A garnet sky,
silver cumulus turns rose.
It is raining –
lines on cards,
from those who stormed
their adventure.

Ophelia
is gathering,
criss-crossing twists
pink, intertwines blue,
crashing she flows over rocks,
flooding

Her entrails
blow over your window,
trees stripped bare
like dangling threads,
call you to let butterfly
fingers, slip ribbons
onto your hair,
rip your tide.

‘I will leave, follow you in winter,
‘Ophelia,’
you whisper, to scattering leaves,
pots, chairs,
the cards thrown over your table,
30 years on.

‘I will wear
a blue swirl dress,
twirl swelling waves,
into hurricane.’

Attracta Fahy’s background is in nursing and social care. She works in private practice as an integrative humanistic psychotherapist and supervisor. She is living in Co.Galway, and has three children attending college. She completed her MA in Writing NUIG in 2017 and participates in over the edge poetry workshops with Kevin Higgins. Her poems have been published in Banshee, The Blue Nib, The Lake, Burning House Press, and Galway Review.

‘Brontë in Boots’ and other poems by Denise Ryan

April 18th, 2018

Portobello

The summer is in town
when the ducklings wear their sequins;
performing the salsa,
gliding on the continental ripples
from the lights’ projections.
Glistening water arena of summer juices
featuring mirrored swans
wearing white tuxedos dancing the tango
to an applauding sun
and ever changing clouds
imperilled on the lacquered sky.

Delicately they flush their sacred win,gs
a waterfall of transparent energy
to baptise birds.
Happily, I rest beneath the arm
of a weeping willow.
Time is in no frantic rush,
unwinding near the rushes.
Can-Can dancers perform on the Canal Bank,
swishing their feathers to and fro,
a chorus line of marsh plants,
costumed in petticoats of weeds
and black root stockings.

They look burlesque for the seedy traffic,
as clowning butterflies uplift –
their papier-mâché coats,
like tiny fluorescent parachutes
ejecting from the smallest of flowers
landing gently on the rugged edge
of silken waters.

Brontë in Boots

Winter, my Heathcliff warms the narrative,
growing in my chamfered heart.
I imagine the moors reaching out behind
the city skyline, heather snapping like a whip;
under my studded-belt, novels gleam into portholes.

November mornings drool in romanticism,
I am at home among sinuous shadows
tailored in the fabric of winter,
listening to the wind’s barbed echoes fence the swallow like snow.

I sip my coffee, staring at the clouds’ heavy
hopelessness, whorls of hail clatter
against my window like Kathy’s shattered soul,
winter’s air is a man’s granite kisses;
the dark, his wiry black hair.

Like a metal flower, I bloom in biker boots
and cashmere, welcoming winter’s
intractable sorrow and it’s inward desolation.
Dwarfed under the emptiness of light
leaves unhook themselves from hollow trees.

Dali

You plant
your thoughts on duality
inside the cranium of her skull.
They grow into razor-edged roses
creeping down her nasal spine.
You wedge art inside her eye sockets,
arousing your desires to bloom through her frontal bone.
Her body mirrors a five-point star touching nothing,
except light touching darkness,
the moon cowering under her breastbone like a nuclear atom,
the gods assembling on the Moebius strip of her hip,
while you sit in the carnal cavity of her cheeks,
breathing in the olive air of Cadaqués,
your restless need for form hardening into infinity.

On a High

Build me a house in the cleft of a cliff
where we can live life on the edge,
raise it up on wooden stilts
so we can see the neck of the ocean
and feel the sun in the folds of our skin

drink gin for breakfast
moshing in the shadows
cracking the morning bones
both naked in blushing light
pebble-eyed and dewy

watch the night crawl like a giant crab
as we lie on the blue tongue of the moon
breathing each other in like vapour,
but promise never to look down
the fall too steep.

Out of the Blue

We enter sleep as conjoined twins,
my head resting on your chest
listening to your heart beating
like the thundering drums of China.

I lie twisted within myself
as the moon capsizes over Asia,
nursing my dreams, but one.
The heart reveals itself in time.

I imagine how beautiful it must look,
a clotted poppy
rooted between your lungs,
sluicing bouquets of blood through your veins.

I long to hold your thick burning fist
in the ewer of my hand,
kiss your hollow-pumping swell
that love acclaims

nuzzling my face into the smooth
membrane of the inner surface,
tasting a mouthful of your existence,
shadows shifting around neck and elbow

as you push in the blue light
detaching from our wild flower oneness
gaping from your wiry chest
an ugly black emptiness.

Brontë in Boots and other poems © Denise Ryan. Play Stone (Youtube)

Denise Ryan is a writer of contemporary poetry from Dublin, Ireland. Denise has been published in THE SHOP, Crannóg Magazine, and also several online journals including Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts.

Between 2010 and 2013, Denise was selected to write a series of poems for the National Famine Commemoration. In 2010 Flowers of Humility was read at the Dublin Commemoration and at the overseas twinning event in New York in Battery Park when President Mary McAleese officiated at the ceremony. Denise has been internationally received and has been highly recommended, shortlisted and runner-up in several poetry competitions. These include The Francis Ledwidge, and the Jonathan Swift awards. She is a member of the Rathmines Writers Workshop, which is the longest-running writers workshop in Ireland. Denise’s poetry has been published as part of an anthology by the workshop’s Swan Press, entitled Prose on a Bed of Rhyme (2012).Her debut collection, Of Silken Waters, was published in Autumn 2017, through Ara Pacis Publishers (Chicago, USA). Denise is currently writing her second collection for publication.

‘burnt offerings’ and other poems by Anne Casey

April 11th, 2018

burnt offerings

swilling cinders
of eucalypt forests burning up
and down the coast
tinged with hints of fear
singed possum hairs lifting into
clear blue air
an earthquake in Italy shakes me awake
a mother crying somewhere
volcanic embers cycling into
smoke of broken promises
women’s choices smouldering
charred remains of exiles’ lives
democracy doused with lies
and set on fire
headless horsemen prancing in the coals
blackened souls stirring
soot from scorched relics
ashes to ashes

and my mother in a box too small
to hold her all
laid in a field with all the others
when she could have flown
with the four winds
so I could taste again
the sharp tang of her loss
married to the rest

lately everything tastes of ash

(First published in apt literary journal on 3 July 2017, with sincere thanks to Editor-in-Chief, Clarissa Halston.)

where the lost things go

we sat upon a golden bow
my little bird and i
indivisibly apart
we dived into the sky
and to the purple-hearted dark
an ocean we did cry
for all the lost things
gathered there
in rooms beyond the eye
the aie, the I, the eye

(First published in where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry 2017), with eternal gratitude to Jessie Lendennie, Publisher and tireless campaigner for women poets.)

Between ebb and flow

Mist rolls off moss-green hills
Where wind-wild ponies thunder
Manes flying as they chase
Their seaward brothers
Locked in eternal contest
On this deserted grey mile

Past the little stone churchyard
Long-forgotten graves spilling
Stones onto the sodden bog
A soft snore from behind
My two angels sleeping
Thirteen thousand miles

From all they have ever known
Running our own race
To make the best
Of spaces like this
A rainbow rises along the horizon
And I recognise her

Come for my mother
Locked in her own
Immortal struggle
The sister returned
So I know it won’t
Be long now

And I cry a little at
The unbearable beauty
Of these diastoles
When we are all
Suspended
Here in a heartbeat

Between heaven and earth

(First published in where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry 2017), with eternal gratitude to Jessie Lendennie, Publisher and tireless campaigner for women poets.)

Metaphoric rise

A brief history of incidents surrounding the emergence of POTUS#45

i. rousting

hot wind howls through a hollow log
tawny tumbleweed trundles
over downtrodden plains

ii. ravening

on a sunlit lawn
a plump slug streaks forward
eyes on stalks

iii. a new religion

branches bowed with bloated fruit
nod to the gilded idol
dark clouds fall in behind

iv. aftermath

a squat lizard basks
on a sickle-hacked trail
black legs flail from his lips

v. in the bay

beacon dimmed and tablet fractured
the lady endures
her robes about her feet

vi. paradox lost

a fiery sunrise
heralds stormy days to come
ice shifts at the poles

(First published in The Irish Times newspaper on 20 January 2017, with sincere thanks to Martin Doyle, Books Editor. Subsequently published in where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry, 2017), with eternal gratitude to Jessie Lendennie, Publisher and tireless campaigner for women poets.)

In memoriam II: The draper

“The town is dead
Nothing but the wind
Howling down Main Street
And a calf bawling
Outside The Fiddlers”

My mother’s words, not mine
In a letter, kept in a drawer
These long years
She had a way with words
My mother

That’s why they came
The faithful of her following
Leaning in to her over the counter
For an encouraging word
Or the promise of a novena

Long before we had
Local radio
Our town had my mother
Harbinger of the death notices
And the funeral arrangements

Bestower of colloquial wisdom
Bearer of news on all things
Great and small
Who was home
And who hadn’t come

Who had got the Civil Service job
And by what bit of pull
The Councillor’s niece
Smug in her new navy suit
Oblivious to the circulating countersuit

“Would you ever think of coming home?”
Her words would catch me
Unawares
Lips poised at the edge
Of a steaming mug

Igniting a spitfire
Of resentment each time
Then draping me for days
I’d wear it like a horsehair shirt
All the way back

Until the sunshine and the hustle
Had worn it threadbare
This extra bit of baggage
In every emigrant’s case
Their mother’s broken heart

I never thought to ask her
“Would you want me to…?
So I could look out at the rain
Circumnavigating the empty street
And shiver at the wind
Whipping in under the door…?”

I don’t miss that question now
On my annual pilgrimage ‘home’
My father never asks it
Like me, I know he feels it
Hanging in the air
Alongside her absence

I miss my mother
And her way with words

(First published in The Irish Times newspaper on 31 January 2016, with heartfelt thanks to Ciara Kenny, Editor, Irish Abroad. Subsequently published in where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry 2017), with eternal gratitude to Jessie Lendennie, Publisher and tireless campaigner for women poets.)

Anne Casey’s poetry has appeared internationally in newspapers, magazines, journals, books, broadcasts, podcasts, recordings and a major art exhibition. Salmon Poetry published her debut collection, where the lost things go in 2017. She won the Glen Phillips Novice Writer Award in 2017 and has been shortlisted for prizes including Cuirt International Poetry Prize, Eyewear Books Poetry Prize and Bedford International Writing Competition, among others. Originally from west Clare, now living in Sydney, Anne is Co-Editor of Other Terrain and Backstory literary journals (Swinburne University, Melbourne).

‘Hinnerup’ and other poems by Jess Mc Kinney

March 28th, 2018

  *dint

It Began as most things do                       moist things do
everything everything       berry stained mouth
beer stickied floor & blood bloom undies
you ‘don’t mind’          and sure
                          I could probably get into you 
                          I only ever feel the bubbles on impact
                          during I’m somewhere else
                   the sun was a hot coal in the sky 
 seeing another one like you      he came just before   I                 
      decided a bit too late that I didn’t want what he
 asphyxiated thinking about sourcing justifications for those who 
insist            swear 
                  that my saliva isn’t a contagion
                  for those who are unknowing

  because kissing me will give you cancer 
then you’ll never be the invisible thing you imagined running 
alongside the     car          
                                               
and In Dreams     my hair falls in chunks to a cheering audience
        I grow old & genderless for money
nightly I wake feverish   trapped in the tight fist of your affection 
   drowning between cool bathroom tiles & Christmas cake sponge

but I won’t keep us downstairs    knitting and gritting at the base
          begrudging closed doors & far off hearing
          while I’m far off reliving tepid buoy lights
           & what you wanted me to hear
so I turn my mouth into a repurposed palette for the 
new             you
 walking the length of it with sparse sentiments blowing 
	you           but retaining no heat

   because unfortunately only others can administer the calming
            needed for the curdled bulb of my brain
      between me + heaven: 	    a place where I can smoke
so I left you holding the cuff of your jumper 	   waiting 

                   & bracing for the blow

AMY: spelled the right way

Frisbeeing your father’s slicked records into the ocean foam
not ‘boomeranging’ as you had once said
not coming back, not this time
but stuck in flux and spinning
reflective disks, CDs scratched and hanging
in the treehouse from which you will fall next year
on a wet November night when you weren’t old enough
trying to smoke a cigarette you stole
that’s why you fell, they said you weren’t old enough

Half our friendship was spent visiting each other in hospital
sparkling butterfly clips offered up on plastic sheets
conniving, bartering for my silence
I’m not supposed to tell anyone it happens
but it was hard to be alone after each cosmic collision
between tempered concussions and snapped clavicles
between fighting parents and shared rooms
so we continue, hushed and daring together, I pinky promise

Primary school passes, as it does, in a flurry
a few fearsome sparks and over, all of a sudden
as if all our memories already belonged to someone else
as if we didn’t need the fumbling trouble to become wisened
hardened, our most emblazoned fights mellowed
our passions come cartoonish like cheap plastic cheese slices
I can’t forget how you’d ring landlines all around town
to find me, 8pm and desperate before bed, to apologize

And when the time came to finally confront you
we were 16 and alone in the middle of a field at night
I’d crawled away from the boyfriend I got to match yours
from the tsunamis of cider, from the gendered expectation
but it was impossible still to make you understand
probably between my being drunk and crawling
so you say it never happened as you help me up
and then I just can’t stand you

turning vodka into wine

*hushed* it’s not just
not just the tropic tonic_____ now
it‘s heavier glassier receptacles
that are emptied quicker

quickly quenching the wild fire
the candle burning at both ends
wilting there now_____by the oven
before bare feet & childish eyes

sonic mother, please provide the cover
and resuscitate my ignorance
hand over cries, humming under covers
could I have been anything_____but a lover?

steady the line between us_____ just & unjust
a lot thinner when you’re stumbling
I’d do anything to be older
old enough to help you up

cortado

when well-meaning people align with me
align their lives with mine
it seems that they quit trying to become
or achieve themselves for a time
in a dastardly sense which can only descend
descend to ashes on communion
quickly quenching my reckless romance
romancing which necessitates an end
and so I approach you with an openness
forward an eager and honest grasp
but with well-meaning hands instead I rouse
rouse the ashes already put to bed
tidied away when setting aside the past
covertly hushing the used and the dead
so my digits recoil with the disenchanted
dragging back reverberated perspectives
the intoxicating promise of new loves
desires staining my plain epidermis
with electric potential that will not adhere
when I explain that I’m trying to be good
I don’t want to be problematic at all
honestly not at all and I never did
but that’s the woe of commitment and honesty
a small drop of milk to offset the acidity
I just wanted to love and be loved once and truly
not violently over and over as it has been
a great many loves each more fantastic than the last
the salubrious possibilities adjacent my reaching
my salivating hands reaching towards you
pulling you into the room and into my life
promising you a great many things
leaning beyond you to shield my eyes
but yearning to stay put please
hands reaching to never stop holding yours
I don’t want to disappoint another one
I will not disappoint you anymore

Hinnerup

sewing after so long
i wonder if there exists a song
a glass of water warmed in the sun
for each age she’s ever been
all the taps here run scalding
following the dregs of wine
flowing from hot water factories
tell me about her lover
stagnant on the periphery
who lived three towns away
making it harder to soak
she would travel hours to him
the wilting orchids
every other weekend
softening on the windowsill
found sanctuary with his family
reaching up into the day
young and in love
delicate and deliberate
i’d like to know how she felt
like grandmother’s thin fingers
on the birthday that I learned to hate
shaking but capable
the night i faked to get away

Jess Mc Kinney is a queer feminist poet, essayist and English Studies graduate of UCD. Originally from Inishowen, Co. Donegal, she is now living and working in Dublin city, Ireland. Her writing is informed by themes such as sexuality, memory, nature, relationships, gender, mental health and independence. Often visually inspired, she seeks to marry pictorial elements alongside written word. Her work has been previously published in A New Ulster, Impossible Archetype, HeadStuff, In Place, Hunt & Gather, Three fates, and several other local zines.

Poems by Valentina Colonna translated by Pawel Sakowski

March 27th, 2018

Ho raccolto un’ombra
quando salivo le scale.
Stava giusto scendendo.

Mentre toccavo le tegole
ho perso un’idea. Rotolava
avvolta tra i panni.
Poi il vento ha smosso le fila: è
scivolata
travolta di vuoti.

Il carro stava giusto passando.
– Flatus Fluit Ad Fortunae
Fossam –

Ho appena cambiato
l’acqua ai fiori.˜

I picked up a shadow
when I was going up the stairs.
It was just going down.

While I was touching the tiles
I lost an idea. It rolled down
wrapped in cloths. Then the wind moved the strings:
and the idea slid away
overwhelmed with emptiness.

A cart was just passing by.
– Flatus Fluit Ad Fortunae
Fossam –

I have just
watered my flowers.

Mentre cammino in terrazza la banda
suona e ti dico “La senti?”
Mi insegue da una parte all’altra
del perimetro di confine al mio riso
perché non sentano i vicini
quest’allegria dei miei anni
spaiati al vento.
Così suona nella casa di fronte
poi dietro in piazza, davanti
al secondo piano del muro bianco.
La cassa armonica ha la sua casa sul pozzo
in piazza dove la gente passa,
si siede, ripassa le arie
che da vent’anni riascolto
d’estate quando mia nonna
ancora alle nove mi sveglia
e ripete “Valentina, la banda!”

I am walking on the terrace while the band
plays, I ask “Can you hear it?”
It chases me across the space
to the borders of my laughter
so that neighbors won’t hear
this joy of my years
scattered in the wind.
So music plays in the house across the street
then behind the square, in front
of the second floor, the white walls.
The sound box has a house as its source
in the square where people pass by,
sit down, repeat the melody that
I have been hearing for twenty years.
Every summer when my grandmother
woke me up in the morning at nine
and repeated “Valentina, the band!”

Io non sono per gli altri che altro.
Sono ciò che non sanno,
che tace il senno.

Io non sono che nulla
nell’inattuale molto
che la mente scansa.

Per gli altri sono l’altro
che altrimenti vaga
oltre la trascuratezza
che ci separa.

Apparenti d’essere
mutati in nulla.

˜

To the others I am nothing, someone else.
I am what they don’t know,
where their reasons fall silent.

I am nothing, but nothing,
very much outdated,
avoided by their minds.

To the others, I am the other
who otherwise wanders
beyond neglect,
separating us.

You seem to exist –
you turn into nothing.

A MIO PADRE

Quando sento suonare e tu
non ci sei ma stai
in ogni spazio che ci trasciniamo
dietro da anni ogni volta è
sentire in anticipo il taglio
che entrambi sappiamo
irrevocabile un giorno.

Sei tu, compagno di nove mesi fa,
padre, che non posso evitare
col mio modo impacciato
di fare. In fondo sai
che i miei silenzi da sempre
arieggiano tra le foglie armoniche
per la nostra casa sollevata.

˜

TO MY FATHER

When I hear music and you
are not here but you are
in every space, we have been stretching
through all these years that have passed
to feel in advance this cut
of which we both know
is irrevocable, one day.

It is you, my companion of nine months.
father, whom I cannot avoid
with my clumsy way of acting.
Deep down you know
that my silences have always been
floating among harmonic leaves
in our house in the air.

A STUART

Mi accorgo che in fondo
eri tu il solo capofamiglia.
Me ne accorgo dalla voce
che ancora mi esce quando
per scherzo invento parole
che non avresti mai dette.

Siamo troppo presi dalle nostre
vite in bilico per annusare l’aria
come facevi tu, alzando il capo
e il naso strizzarlo a cogliere
ciò che non sentiamo, che non
intravediamo. Tu vedevi
visionario oltre il balcone
e sfiorarti era calmare
lo sguardo che gli altri
dicono non hai.

In silenzio hai aspettato
l’ultimo calore del pavimento.
Poi hai atteso che chiudessi la porta
per lasciare di te un solo grumo
bianco sotto il letto.
E un’intera casa senza voce.

˜

TO STUART

I realize that you
were the only head of the family.
I realize it by the voice
still coming out of me when
as a joke I invent words
I have never told you.

We are too busy with our
life on the edge to smell the air
as you did, raising your head
and squeezing your nose to seize
what we do not feel, what we do not
see. You noticed,
visionary beyond the balcony.
We touched you to calm down
the look that the others
say you did not have.

In silence you waited
for the last heat from the floor.
Then you waited for me to close the door
to leave you one white clump
under the bed.
And the entire house was voiceless.

Al mio funerale non portatemi fiori.
I ricordi non patiscono il buio.
Quando volti, le rose
che hai reciso per me
prendono il colore dell’ombra
e cieche posano all’ossario dei poveri,
dei sacchi all’angolo dove posto non c’è
per un chiodo al muro.

Non c’è più spazio alla tomba
dove l’abito la sera scende.
L’ho cucito in anticipo il mio
e la coda spolvera di pizzo il pavimento,
nel caso rimanga un alone
o il muro perda di salsedine.

Alla mia tomba non portatemi fiori.

Ne ho raccolti parecchi
sul mio strascico oggi.
Il tempo è questo.
È bastato passare
per trascinare dietro radici.

˜

Do not bring flowers to my funeral.
Memories detest the darkness.
When you turn away, the roses
you cut for me
take the colour of the shadow.
Blindly they cover the ossuary for the poor,
in that corner full of sacks with no space
to nail anything to the wall.

There is no more room in the grave
where my dress descends at dusk.
I sewed mine in advance
and its tail dusts the floor with lace,
in case a halo should stay
or the wall loses its saltiness.

Do not bring flowers to my grave.

I have collected many on my train today.
This is the time.
It was enough to pass,
even as my feet were bound with roots.

These poems are © Valentina Colonna – English translations © Pawel Sakowski

Valentina Colonna is a poet and composer. She was born in Turin in 1990 in a family of musicians and published the poetry books Dimenticato suono (Manni, 2010) and La cadenza sospesa (Aragno, 2015). Distinguished in several poetry competitions, in 2014 she was presented as an emerging poet in two national literary festivals by Davide Rondoni, who in the same year dedicated to her and Giorgio Caproni an episode of In which goes the world, broadcast on RTV San Marino.

Valentina Colonna plays A. Marcello – J. S. Bach