Category: new poetry
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“Moss” and other poems by Niamh Twomey
Homing Salmon Under the gush of shower water your greying skin flails. In your mind you wade back to the brook, the water icy even in summer, your seven siblings balancing on the pebbled belly of the River Fergus, suds in your hair, brothers dunking you under, ice forming in your brain, penetrating your veins,…
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“Time” by Fidel Hogan Walsh and Julie Corcoran
2020, Memories Blinded in a winter’s dread no prophet foresaw. Spring’s new life erupted into a chaos of fear. Desolation replaced the warmth of a hug. Children banished from our everyday lives! Ahh, the blessings — a swift journey home to the unexpected happiness under one roof. Chatter, laughter — a family enduring dark days…
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Poems from ‘Alchemy’ by Fiona Perry
Postpartum You are as naked as a shucked oysterso, my breasts are slashed and raining pearlsfor you, my suckling child. The universehas too many doors. A terrifying flowerunfurled overnight to tell me if they tookyou away or carted you off to dielike pink tender veal. I would be preparedto stand on my own mother’s shouldersto…
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“In Rivers” and other poems by Alison McCrossan
Sunray Here you cast your dazzling eye through clouds ruptured on surging waters, where in winds on a mission across skies born of voids words were loaded: let me out; crowns of heaving leaves spilled trees, turned them upside down, a splay of tangled guts, and spat out the despair of the years in a…
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‘The Writing Desk’ and other poems by Sinéad McClure
Subsidence I’m of the age now That’s how my GP put it as he half muttered something about female hormones leaving my body I imagined them packing their bags happily, looking forward to exploring better terrain, cooler plains. They don’t leave quietly there is a deep boom sounding in me loud enough to raise heckles…
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A Celebration of Irish women poets on Bloomsday 2020
‘Words Like Stars’ by Roisin Ní Neachtain How they flow unformed Then fix themselves like the stars Shivering and held up Worshipped And I And they Staggering and squawking Sweating and squabbling Night and day Wobbling words Singing Dust Dust Dust Corrosive mantles Wrought to a stain Stain us Stain the water to the earth…
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“Children of Agent Orange” and other poems by Asma Zulfiqar
Mythical Night Oh Night, Oh Calm and Mythical Night, Have you not seen the moon? How bright! ‘Tis not the sun but the twilight, To the earth holding tight. How soothing! Cool and warm in winter’s night, Calling it the noon, ‘‘tis all right’’ See the stars twinkling at height, A moth gently flying around…
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‘If I Weren’t Afraid’ and other poems by Ella Bowler
I Don’t Talk, I Let You Talk All The Time You sit opposite me, on a broken stool, smiling with your teeth. Rain drips from the ceiling, seeps into table cracks, running onto jeans. You speak in trauma, in childhood, in breathy laughs, in old love. I show my teeth. You take up more space…
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“Justice” and other poems by Rachel Lauren Storm
Justice I believe in transformation, pupa-to-winged emergence. I believe in the power of the pulsating chrysalis the eating of lessons and the uncurling of fetal winters. I believe in the stillness of calm after storm the redressing of old wounds and the snakeskin-shed of bandages. I believe anger is grief in new clothes, I believe…
Chris Murray 