Soon
“Let’s get together soon,”
without setting a date
is the tactic we always use
to keep others on the line
without actually giving of our time.
You’ve made it clear you don’t have time for me,
so why would I tell you my secret
when everything would have to change?
I’m torn.
I’ll be a burden either way.
I’m stuck trying to decide which is more humane.
Do I inject grief now into your too busy timeframe?
Or wait and risk you maybe cursing my name
because I didn’t give you the chance to say goodbye?
I tried to tell you in my wordy way
but forgot you never read what I write,
so wouldn’t know I was going away.
The words are just too hard to say.
So sure,
let’s get together soon.
Someday.
Bubbles
Swamp bubbles lurched from the mud below
belching the stench of repressed memories I hadn’t let go.
Forgotten trauma attacked in waves,
pain and self-loathing vomited in saving grace.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my fist,
I staggered to my feet,
this memory I would no longer resist.
Screaming my rage across the sky,
the swamp fell silent, still full of dark stains left to die.
Umbrella
We didn’t have an umbrella but,
laughing, you grabbed my hand.
Those Irish blue eyes were dancing
as you pulled me along,
dodging cars and cold November raindrops.
Inside a turf fire was burning.
Hot whiskey in hand,
we leaned in to hear over pub noise.
And despite the late hour,
we yearned to linger.
But we left once we were dry,
laughter subdued as confusion took hold.
The fire had warmed more than intended.
Were we becoming more than friends?
The opportunity to find out
washed away with the last of the rain.
We didn’t have an umbrella.
Too Small
No one hears my screams as I claw,
bound and trapped,
by barbed wire skin
two sizes too small.
I bleed and can’t catch my breath.
Why did I put it back on at all?
Blind
My heart is surely going blind.
I used to know every fleck of gold
In your hazel eyes,
Even if mine were closed.
I can’t see your eyes anymore.
I panic when I stumble and bump into the pieces of the old me
I no longer recognize; the ones I never put away.
The ones that now make me trip and fall.
My heart has gone deaf.
I used to hear the sound of your voice
Even if you were far away.
Like a buoy ringing out on a foggy sea, calling me home.
Now I can’t hear you at all.
In silence, I wreck upon the rocks and frown.
So I stare at photos, holding them close to my dying eyes,
And watch you get blurry and fade.
Please don’t disappear.
Soon and other poems © Lisa Bain
Leo Kuhling is an Irish-Canadian poet based in Limerick, and a lover of all things spoken word. His poetry has appeared in the Ogham Stone, Silver Apples, Artis Natura, Dodging the Rain and the RTÉ Sunday Miscellany. Currently, Leo is finishing a M.Sc in Psychology and working towards his first book. 
Ellen Chia enjoys going on solitary walks in woodlands and along beaches where Nature’s treasure trove impels her to document her findings and impressions using the language of poetry. Her works have been published and are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, NatureWriting, The Honest Ulsterman, Zingara Poetry Review and The Tiger Moth Review.
Shadab Zeest Hashmi is the author of poetry collections Kohl, Chalk and Baker of Tarifa. Her latest work, Ghazal Cosmopolitan has been praised by poet Marilyn Hacker as “a marvelous interweaving of poetry, scholarship, literary criticism and memoir.” Winner of the San Diego Book Award for poetry, the Nazim Hikmet Prize and multiple Pushcart nominations. Zeest Hashmi’s poetry has been translated into Spanish and Urdu, and has appeared in anthologies and journals worldwide, most recently in Prairie Schooner, World Literature Today, Mudlark, Vallum, POEM, The Adirondack Review, Spillway, Wasafiri, Asymptote and McSweeney’s latest anthology In the Shape of a Human Body I am Visiting the Earth. She has taught in the MFA program at San Diego State University as a writer-in-residence and her work has been included in the Language Arts curriculum for grades 7-12 (Asian American and Pacific Islander women poets) as well as college courses in Creative Writing and the Humanities.
Lisa Ardill is a twenty-something-year-old woman with a passion for feminism, human rights, neuroscience, literature and film (roughly in that order!). She writes poems and prose to entertain herself, cheer herself up on gloomy days, and keep the spark for creative writing in my brain alight.
Alicia Byrne Keane is a spoken word artist and poet from Dublin, Ireland. She has performed at festivals such as Body & Soul, Electric Picnic, Castlepalooza and F Festival. Her poetry has been published in magazines such as Bare Hands, Headstuff, and Impossible Archetype, among others. She is a long-time performer at poetry events around Dublin such as Lemme Talk and Come Rhyme With Me, and was more recently involved in the Science Gallery’s INTIMACY exhibition. She is currently a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin researching translated literature and placelessness, more specifically in the case of authors who self-translate. Her work explores the absurdity that arises from losses in translation, even when interacting in one’s native language. She is interested in the effect of unexpected sincerity afforded by short, snapshot-like poems.
Rhiannon Grant lives, writes, and teaches in Birmingham, UK. Her writing engages with questions about religion, philosophy, how we understand the world, and how we communicate with one another. Most of her published work so far has been in academic journals, but she has a book on Quaker theology forthcoming and some poems recently appeared in the magazine A New Ulster.
Wasekera C. Banda is a twenty-three-year-old Psychology student at City College in Dublin, Originally from Malawi, she has lived in Ireland for three years and was the 2016 winner of the Irish Times Africa Day Writing Competition. Wasekera enjoys writing and reading poetry, she is inspired by the late Maya Angelou.
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway City. He has published four collections of poems: Kevin’s most recent collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, was launched at this year’s Cúirt Festival by Mick Wallace TD. His poems also features in the anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and one of his poems is included in the anthology The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). His poetry was recently the subject of a paper titled ‘The Case of Kevin Higgins: Or The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire’ given by David Wheatley at a symposium on satire at the University of Aberdeen; David Wheatley’s paper can be read in full
Peggie Gallagher’s collection, Tilth was published by 
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 
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.
Chris Murray 