Untitledfor Andre Breton Magic Bullet(for Tristan Tzara) Grand Hotel Abyss Masque of the minutesfor Adam Lovasz Hygge |
 My name is Rus Khomutoff and I am a neo surrealist poet in Brooklyn, NY. My poetry has appeared in Erbacce, Uut Poetry and Burning House Press.Last year I published an ebook called Immaculate Days. I am also on twitter:
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I mbreacsholas na maidine, leagaim uaim an scuab
nuair a aimsím radharc nach bhfacthas cheana
ag dealramh ar an mballa: fuinneog úr snoite as solas,
líonta le duilleog-dhamhsa. Múnlaíonn géaga crainn
lasmuigh na gathanna gréine d’fhonn cruthanna dubha
a chur ag damhsa ar an mballa fúthu, an duilliúr ina chlúmh
tiubh glas, an solas ag síothlú is ag rince tríothu.
Fuinneog dhearmadta ar dhomhain eile atá ann, áit agus am
caillte i gcroí na Brasaíle, áit a shamhlaím fear ag breathnú
ar urlár na foraoise, ar an mbreacscáth ann, faoi dhraíocht
ag imeartas scáile, dearmad déanta aige ar an léarscáil,
ar an bpár atá ag claochlú ina lámh: bánaithe anois,
gan rian pinn air níos mó, gan ach bearna tobann
ag leá amach roimhe. Airíonn sé coiscéim
agus breathnaíonn sé siar thar a ghualainn,
mar a bhreathnaímse thar mo ghualainn anois,
ach ní fheiceann ceachtar againn éinne.
Níl éinne ann.
In morning’s piebald light. I set aside my duster
on finding a view I’ve never noticed before
surfacing on the wall, a new window, sunlight-snipped,
filled with shadow-twist and leaf-flit. Branches shape
the sunlight from outside, sculpting dark forms
and setting them dancing on the wall, green-furred with foliage,
light swaying and simmering through. I watch it become
a window to some other world, a time and place forgotten,
lost in a Brazilian forest, where I imagine a man stands, gazing
at the forest floor, at the reflected speckle-shadow, enthralled
by the play of shade he sees there, and he is forgetting his map,
the parchment that is swiftly transforming in his hand, emptying
itself now, until no trace of a pen remains and a sudden void
stretches before him. He hears a footstep and his breath quickens,
a gasp, a fast-glance back over his shoulder,
as I glance over my shoulder now, too,
but neither of us see anyone.
No one is there.
Tosaím i gcroí na Samhna. Cíoraim gach seilf,
gach siopa, gach suíomh idirlíon. Caithim laethanta
fada ag cuardach fuinneoga na cathrach ach fós,
ní thagaim ar an bhféirín cuí.
Tagann agus imíonn na seachtainí. Táim ar tí
éirí as, in ísle brí, go dtí go ndúisíonn glór na gaoithe
i lár na hoíche mé, freagra na faidhbe aici.
Tabharfaidh mé boladh na báistí duit, a chroí.
Meán oíche. Siúlaim síos staighre ar bharraicíní
chun múnlán oighir a leagan ar leac fuinneoige.
Oíche beo le báisteach atá romham,
díle bháistí á scaoileadh sa ghairdín.
Amach liom, cosnochta faoin mbáisteach.
Bailíonn braonta na hoíche isteach sa phlaisteach,
seomraí beaga bána ag borradh le huiscí suaite
na spéire tite, dromchla gach ciúb ar crith le scáil
na scamall tharstu, agus ina measc, blúirí den spéir
réaltbhreac. Ritheann creatha fuachta tríom agus fillim
ar an tigh, rian coise fliucha fágtha i mo dhiaidh.
Sa reoiteoir, iompóidh an bháisteach ghafa ina hoighear.
Cruafaidh scáileanna réalta ann, claochlú ciúin, fuar.
B’fhéidir nach n-inseoidh mé an scéal seo duit riamh.
I ngan fhios duit, ar iarnóin Nollag, b’fhéidir
go líonfaidh mé gloine leis an oighear ar do shon,
féirín uaim, cuimhneachán d’oíche nach bhfaca tú,
nuair a d’éalaíos uait, chun braonta agus réalta
a bhailiú duit. I ngloine, sínfidh mé féirín dúbailte
chugat – boladh na báistí agus luas a titime araon.
Scaoilfidh mé braon ar bhraon le titim tríot,
báisteach na hoíche ag stealladh ionat, á slogadh
scornach go bolg, titim réaltbhreac tobann.
Bronntanas.
I begin in November, and search every shelf,
every shop, every website. So many afternoons,
spent peering through windows, and still
I can’t find a gift for you.
Weeks come, weeks go, and I become glum,
I begin to think that I’ll have to give up. But tonight,
the wind’s voice wakes me and her answer is clear.
I will capture the smell of rain for you, my dear.
At midnight, I tiptoe downstairs
to place a plastic tray on the windowsill
and find the night alive with rain,
a flood-fall spinning in the garden.
Barefoot, the rain lurching around me, I watch
drops rush into the plastic cubes until all
the small white rooms brim with storm-waters;
between surface reflections of cloud,
slivers of a vast dark speckled with stars.
Shivering, I turn back home, drizzling damp
footprints after me. In the freezer,
this captured rain will turn to ice.
Stars will harden and take hold in a transformation
both silent and cold. Maybe I won’t tell you.
Maybe on a Christmas afternoon, I’ll just
fill your glass with these ice cubes, a silent gift
from me to you, souvenir of a night you never knew,
when I crept out to catch rain and stars and parcel them
in ice for you. When I hand you a glass it’ll be a twin present –
both the scent of rain, and the velocity of a fall.
The drops will plunge again, a night-rain
moving inside you, gullet
to gut, a sudden, star-dappled plummet.
A gift.
Foraois Bháistí agus dánta eile le Doireann Ní Ghríofa & english translations by the poet
Faoi Ghlas
Tá sí faoi ghlas ann fós, sa teach tréigthe,
cé go bhfuil aigéin idir í agus an teach
a d’fhág sí ina diaidh.
I mbrat uaine a cuid cniotála, samhlaíonn sí
sraitheanna, ciseal glasa péinte
ag scamhadh ón mballa sa teach inar chaith sí —
— inar chas sí eochair, blianta
ó shin, an teach atá fós ag fanacht uirthi,
ag amharc amach thar an bhfarraige mhór.
Tá an eochair ar shlabhra aici, crochta óna muineál
agus filleann sí ann, scaití, nuair
a mhothaíonn sí cloíte. Lámh léi
ar eochair an tslabhra, dúnann sí a súile agus samhlaíonn
sí an teach úd cois cladaigh, an dath céanna
lena cuid olla cniotála, na ballaí gorm-ghlas,
teach tógtha ón uisce, teach tógtha as uisce
agus an radharc ann:
citeal ag crónán, gal scaipthe, scaoilte
ó fhuinneog an pharlúis, na toir i mbladhm,
tinte ag scaipeadh ar an aiteann
agus éan ceoil a máthair ag portaireacht ina chliabhán,
ach cuireann na smaointe sin ceangal ar a cliabhrach
agus filleann sí arís ar a seomra néata, ar lá néata
eile sa teach
altranais, teanga na mbanaltraí dearmadta aici,
seachas please agus please agus please,
tá sí cinnte de nach dtuigeann siad cumha
ná tonnta ná glas. Timpeall a muiníl,
ualach an eochair do doras a shamhlaíonn sí
faoi ghlas fós, ach ní aontaíonn an eochair sin
leis an nglas níos mó tá an chomhla dá hinsí i ngan fhios di
an tinteán líonta le brosna préacháin
fós, fáisceann sí an chniotáil chuig a croí
ansin baineann sí dá dealgáin í, á roiseadh go mall arís,
arís, na línte scaoilte ina ceann agus ina gceann
snáth roiste: gorm-ghlas gorm-ghlas gorm-ghlas
gorm-ghlas gorm-ghlas gorm-ghlas amhail cuilithíní
cois cladaigh nó roiseanna farraige móire. Sracann sí
go dtí go bhfuil sí féin faoi
ghlas le snáth á chlúdach ó mhuineál go hucht.
Ansin, ceanglaíonn sí snaidhm úr, snaidhm docht,
ardaíonn sí na dealgáin agus tosaíonn sí arís.
Under Lock and Green
She is locked there still, in the empty house,
despite the ocean between her and this house,
the one she left behind her.
In the green sweep of her knitting she imagines
layers, green layers of paint
a wall peeling in the house where she spent –
– where she turned a key, years
ago, before, the house that is still waiting for her
gazing over a vast ocean.
She wears the key on a chain that hangs at her throat
and she returns there, sometimes, when
she feels weak. With one hand
over that chained key, she closes her eyes and daydreams
that house by the beach, the same colour
as her wool, the walls blue-green,
a house from water, a house of water
and the view there:
a fretting kettle, its steam loose, leaving
through the parlour window, where the furze is aflame,
fires swelling through the gorse,
and her mother’s songbird chirping in its cage,
but thoughts like these bind her chest too tightly
so she lets go, and returns to this neat little room,
little day
another in this home
this home for the elderly where she forgot the nurses’ words
years ago
except please and please
and please, and she’s certain
that they understand neither cumha
nor tonnta nor the glas at her throat,
the weight of a key for a door she imagines
still locked, but the key won’t slot
into her remembered lock the door has fallen from its hinges
in her absence
the hearth fills with the kindling
of crows
still, she nestles her knitting in near her heart
then lifts it from the needles, unravels it slowly again,
again, the lines released one by one
unravelled, the thread: blue-green blue-green blue-green
blue-green blue-green blue-green like little ripples
scribbling on the shore or immense ripping oceans.
She tears
until she is under
lock and green again, with wool covering her neck and chest.
Then, a breath, and then, she ties a new knot,
lifts the needles and begins again.
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Hanging #2(Things Fall Apart) For JL As I relax in Inchydoney you encounter a real life Twenty four hours later First published by HeadStuff.org Shades(After ‘To Any Dead Officer’ by Siegfried Sassoon) In memoriam: J.J.J. Well, how are things in Heaven? Are there quarrels amongst the shades? Have you met Robert Tressell How many others have you met And how fares William Blake who was Do those who died poor, genius or not, Oh, if only the ways of Heaven, Hell and First published in ‘Boyne Berries 1916’ special edition literary journal commemorating the centenary of the 1916 Rising published by Boyne Writers Group in Spring 2016; Video recording of the poet reading Shades at the launch of Boyne Berries 1916 in Trim, Co. Meath in March 2016 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0WlfOxmvrkyLUZUMU5OZzdGbUE/view Young UrchinsIn memoriam Aylan (Alan) Kurdi We walked on the beach, heads down, These young urchins washed First published in Issue #3 Picaroon Poetry, July 2016; Editor: Kate Garrett The poet reading Young Urchins as part of the invited Ó Bhéal Closed Mic event during the Cork Winter Warmer Poetry Festival, November 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8sb-iF951Q RosaDo not prune the roses said Vita Sackville-West, The rose metamorphosed in Istanbul Do not prune the roses said Vita Sackville-West. First published in Boyne Berries 20: Autumn 2016, Editor: Orla Fay; Published by Boyne Writers Group [ISSN: 1649-9271] SeedsAfter Derek Mahon’s translation of the poem ‘L’ignorant’ by French poet Philippe Jaccottet. My hair shows a hint of grey. Garden of weeds, mint, parsley, sage, oregano. Surrounded by computers talking in bits. A swing returns to my garden First published by Stanzas in Stanzas – Ekphrasia August Chapbook MMXVI; Video recording of the author reading Seeds at the launch of the Ekphrasia Chapbook in August 2016 in Limerick – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxugA4iXJ8k&feature=youtu.be Father to DaughterFor Rafiq Kathwari Do you realise there is a war Used to being stopped Sounds of war do not An Arab friend gently plucks High fashion – hand made Five women dressed in black A letter goes astray to Tehran “Rosa” and other poems are © Bernadette Gallagher. |
 Bernadette Gallagher, one of eight children, was born by the seaside in Donegal in 1959 and now lives on a hillside in County Cork. At 22 years of age she accepted an offer of a job in Baghdad where she lived and worked for 2 years. Ever since she has had a special affinity with the people of the Middle East. While working full time Bernadette studied for a B.Sc. in Information Technology and an M.Sc. in Internet Systems and continues to work full time now as a project manager.
Bernadette Gallagher has been writing a personal journal for many years and her poetry has been published in print in Boyne Berries, Ropes 2016 and Stanzas, and online at HeadStuff.org, Picaroon Poetry and The Incubator Journal. On most Monday evenings Bernadette reads at the Open Mic during the Ó Bhéal Weekly Poetry event in Cork. |
Here in the Indian foothills,
I share a house with a man from Greece
who speaks no English perfectly,
disappears for days on a motorbike,
leaves his laundry on the low make-shift line,
grieving an absent sun.
Side by side they hang: his shirt, my summer dress
as if they know each other well
and when he returns, smelling of engine oil,
monsoon, rolled brown cigarettes,
we have no formal language,
to share our separate joy.
Drip-drip on the balcony,
a queer, white pool gathers below.
He holds at a sleeve, looks to sky.
I open my palm for signs of rain.
It is the scent of hanging fruit
more than roots pulled
from lines of parallel dirt
that lingers
after all that has happened.
I touch a pyramid of lemons
and everything is new again.
I pick one, and close my hand around it
as if to test these immutable seeds
glowing in my darkness.
For what, I do not know.
Pomona of Orchards, please:
like the finder of a planet
seeing for the first time
an otherness, I am afraid
the life I dream exists.
One cut and the hair worn since childhood
fell upon the floor
dead soft.
A spear-thistle;
her new, bald skull
refused order.
She belonged to heather
and in tail-streams
cupping frogs,
delighting
in the small, green pulse of life
between palms,
not here:
at the dark centre of reunions, separations,
starved of air.
This was a protest of love, against love
demanding
sun, rain, wilderness.
From a finger, she slid a band
placed it underfoot,
pressed down
until the stone
made the sound of a gold chestnut
cracking open.
The villagers did not unite
in outrage
but instead, they set about their days as usual,
posting letters, buying fruit, forming queues in the bank after lunchtime.
They said little
but within that little lay much;
little was a gated field in which something extraordinary was buried.
They held to their inner selves
resilient
in emergencies of projected light.
And yet,
over time, there happened a slow retreat from joyousness;
a packing away of the Emperor’s new clothes, for good.
Only the giant oaks
would live to remember imagination.
The first time
a tree called me by name,
I was thirteen and only spoke a weave of ordinary tongues.
It started with a leaf and next,
a mist came down from the hills, beating a lone skin drum,
looking for me.
Scarlet pimpernels dropped hints
that could not be ignored:
no red is innocent.
Badger trails called me aside for a word.
Come underground, they said,
see what we are made of.
Market Prayer and other poems are © Annemarie Ni Churreáin
 Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet and writer from Donegal, Ireland. She has been awarded literary fellowships from Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany), Jack Kerouac House (Orlando) and Hawthornden Castle (Scotland). In 2016, Annemarie was the recipient of a Next Generation Artists Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. In Autumn 2017, Annemarie’s debut collection ‘BLOODROOT’ is being launched by Doire Press, Galway. For more information, click here.
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When I drink, it is always 1967.
The dog lies still on the frozen grass, white blades bowed
under blinking crystals; the chain
from its neck to the conifer muddied and knotted
like a root from which it draws life.
I remember it as a pup, like all the pups
my father ever brought home when drunk,
the milky smell of its vigorous body, fonts of sorrow
in sloe-black irises.
What do we have here? What is this?
He produces the pup from his inside coat pocket
carefully as a birth, his face at its most wounded:
he could cry, vomit, or even laugh, the pup held high
like a boyhood memory beyond his reach
yet as close as yesterday,
alcohol collapsing time like time in a fairy tale.
I am tired of my father; we’re all tired of him –
a continuous season of storm upon storm,
calm only the calm of the eye.
And so the pup ends up tied to a tree, savage;
the half-moon it inhabits no larger than ours, grass worn
down like chewed fingernails, the verge jagged
as the amber outline of piss stains
on the bed-wetter’s sheets.
To give my father his due, he never slaughters a dog
that hasn’t first bitten him. He stands with a pitchfork at the edge
of Rex-Prince-Spot’s sphere of mud,
goading – a flagellant coveting his own blood,
scourging his sin, craving a cure
stronger than drink to kill
another tomorrow;
our mother’s mouth red as a cut, Christ, not in front of . . .!
Lassie blares all around us in the kitchen.
Runner up in the iYeats International Poetry Competition (2016).
By now, I’m a collector of secrets.
I seek mute corners,
sift dream from the half-remembered,
meaning from the half-known –
staccato night whispers in the kitchen,
the long silence. Bone-white elbow tip, all that’s seen of my father’s
arm under my mother’s skirt in the orchard that sunny day, her toes
clenching grass, the shudder in her voice, nettle-sting shock
ripping between my legs.
I move silently against the scent of their bedroom,
against white light soaked from sheets
stretched skin-tight, the black suitcase
beneath the bed; the lining, blood-red as blood, dotted with dot-size,
white stars, carnival in scale,
my mother’s old dresses – blues, greens, pinks, black & white stripes, vital
shades in a magician’s trick.
I covet them,
as though knowing the burn of a man’s hand
on a body that looms in me, one I recognise in slim, belted shapes
I drag from her raw self, a girl who flirted, jived,
her dress the flared bloom of a foxglove, her core signalling its want for
me in her womb,
not knowing that in giving me life, I will seize everything
from her
time after time.
Winner of the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition 2016
I still see her fold in half, one leg ballerina-
raised for balance as she bows into the wooden
barrel for next day’s flitch of bacon.
My brother wears his cowboy suit – black hat,
leatherette waistcoat with fringes across
the chest; his gun holster buckle the Lone Star.
Meat steeps in a bowl of water overnight.
Salt liquefies, spume rises and floats while
she sleeps in a house of thunder, moths’ furred
bodies pattering the whore-red glow of
the sacred heart lamp on the kitchen
window, The Virginian’s gun under his pillow.
She slices bacon with her loneliness, the air
marbled various auras of sad – dawn, midnight,
August, the long years of her love like
starlight’s colossal dying, John Wayne
at the kitchen door, I’m the sheriff ‘round here.
Hands in the air, an’ nobody gets hurt.
First published in Communion 2015 (Aus)
Mental asylum – my first big words, motherese
for sad man and my mother drinking
tea at the front wall, on summer Tuesdays.
Her voice cords with his, words sung
in each other’s face, spun out film noir
mumbles, something late-night, Ingrid Bergman;
sudden silence like the abrupt black
of a blank television screen on a couple kissing,
frisson between her and Father
amid the kitchen smell of second-day stew,
squandered flesh.
On those heat hazed afternoons, chestnut horses
in Madden’s furlong field tongue each other’s
withers, neck, flank,
tail-swish, swish,
wind among pampas, swish,
across steppe –
two mugs in the sink,
teardrop tea stains.
First published in Orbis 2015
After her third child, X marks the forbidden
days, and my mother sleeps in my bed, sour
in her heat,
summer Sunday odour of seaside, odd nights
when she’s suddenly
beside me, gasping,
hiding underwear beneath the pillow
after wiping herself, rosaries murmuring
through damp fingers in birdsong dawn,
prayer and seed coursing
to her very womb, the Our Father,
Hail Mary mumbled to the inner chant –
I hope I’ve escaped,
this time.
Days when the house is a chorus
to her strain; doors bang, pots clatter:
she loathes her nature,
not sex, but holding him, his whispered doubts
pleasure to her heart, a fault before Christ
the redeemer, the child a curse, mishaps buried like pups
in dung heaps.
They avoid each other
in the evenings, the Please and Thank you
of strangers, air crackling, the ferocity of
unspent sex worrying every cell, bodies
hunched over chairs, his voice leading hers in the Rosary,
all of us clustered,
as though the last people on a wreck,
the round haunches of them both,
the flesh of her
rippling like any animal that runs.
First published in Banshee 2016
The clash of shovel against stone
carries from the haggard through the open
kitchen window, where my mother and I
watch television. Alone,
we take the men’s seats
beside the cream and black range, scent
of baked bread seeps from the oven.
Alone, we are women. She, forty-five,
seven months gone, and I, menstruating,
a Leaving Cert student, the first of my kind
from bog-ignorant Ireland.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is on. With her career,
apartment, and, apparently, no man,
she is sheer pornography –
arousing rebellion and regret between us,
the fault line that of last comely maiden
and first material girl.
I’ve not slit a hen’s neck, my legs flecked
with hot blood, a rite eclipsed when I stepped
onto the free school bus, unembellished by my mother’s world –
bar the memory of her knife-hand
pulling the faithful cut,
a violinist drawing the final note.
First published in Skylight 47 2015
© Breda Spaight
 Breda Spaight is a poet and novelist from Ireland. Her poems are published widely in Ireland and abroad, including The SHOp, Burning Bush 2, Banshee, Orbis, Envoi, Atticus Review (US), Communion (AUS),The Ofi Press, and others. She is the 2016 winner of the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition, and runner up in the iYeats International Poetry Prize. |
Laughing at Funerals. Mam said you always should. A Van Gogh MomentI am having a Van Gogh moment when A Few Home TruthsTrust – trust is what flies out the window A Day Out At The SkipUsed to be – You could have a good one. I want to be Barney Rubble again and you can be Fred Flintstone, |
Helen Burke was born in Doncaster to Irish parents in 1953. A number of chapbooks, including Book of Beyond, Island of Dreams, Zuzus Petals, And God said Let There Be Chocolate, and Americana, are from Krazy Phils Press. Her full-length collections of poetry are The Ruby Slippers (Scarborough, Valley Press, 2011); and Here’s Looking at You Kid (Valley Press, 2014). She has won a number of awards, including the Manchester Poetry Prize, the Suffolk Poetry Prize, and the Ilkley Literature Performance Poetry Prize (twice). Also an artist, she has had poems set to music by an Australian orchestra and has performed with jazz, rock and folk musicians, with an especial reference to Irish folk musicians. (Profile: Irish Writers Online)
Italians hunt song birds, gawping silence,
decaying rope from where a small girl hung
in the rubber hoop of an old tractor tyre
a lifetime ago, no limits on adventure
growing up to carry the fire
not knowing about box files,
computer monitors
the prescribed texts and reading lists
that deformed desire
replaced it with a constabulary of deception
despite all this she did not dwindle
into a wife and mother
the spindle of life is cruel
it twists and turns –
one makes the other.
The brushwood burns,
watchmen flock together
and camp in the open.
Love is not real estate
expansive as flood plains
intimate like silt
destructive and constructive
it is not for those who role play
or get lost in the night
led astray by bright lights
and flesh turrets
maidens with drawn out hair
beefy knights.
Love is insomnia of the soul
and you are always watching
it is more satisfying
than breathing a little
call that a life?
to watch over, to be there,
to suck out the poison
to break down delusions
delicate as spiderwebs
surf the tsunami
cradle the fragile skull
like a Fabergé egg.
Nursery rhymes house more truth
than any ideology.
Humpty Dumpty’s great fall
makes martyrs of us all.
Let us be grateful
for the gargantuan effort
it takes to stay awake
a ball of cells vacuumed
in the first trimester
scarabs and virgins
bore children alone
became religious symbols
the maternal ball is horse manure
an oval-face on the wane
blue babies and young beetles
emerge
housewives and whores
are lower on the food chain
the messy trade of sexual fluids
wets our lips
traitors speak about
roses, love and birth
as if we own this earth
after Brueghel’s Icarus
plop
a small figure in the distance
a pair of feathers
the farmer continued to plough
the angler taken by a scheme
somehow did not register the boy
the shepherd counted sheep
as the sun fell in the sky
ship rapt in glorious masts
drew the eye
a small figure in the distance
a pair of feathers
plop
Shattered ranunculus flowers
petals like teeth from a dream
the garden is not real
wind prowls round
a research station in Antarctica
the sky is a hologram
I don’t give a damn
downing cup after cup of coffee
complex as an orchid
the death of insects
one long-drawn funeral
I tend flowerbeds
dreaming of a mother
Alice stands stock-still
amongst butterflies
moths with laughably
long tongues probe
eyes, velvet antlers
© Kate O’Shea
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One Has To Admire His Ability As A Poet“I was struck by … his courage in speaking out to defend the memory of Charles Haughey” To defend the memory of Boris Yeltsin’s KEVIN HIGGINS |
 Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine and is co-organiser of over the edge literary events in Galway City. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon. His work also features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (ed roddy lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Frightening New Furniture, his third collection of poems, was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in april 2012 by Salmon. (SALMON)It Was For This by Kevin Higgins |
The Wind of the World
For my grandmother
you are under the earth
I am on the earth
with your body that is tired of carrying
the wind of this world
-a stone in the middle of my heart
has been rolling without stop-
I don't know where you have gone
the only thing which is clear is that
you are not here
The Phenomenology of Writing
Now you are
an empty page
inviting
writing
–maybe-
because of lust
just not ready
-your call is on my mind for quite a while-
call me call me
the flow of ink
is a remedy
for my wounds
Illness
You hit me
like you were punching the wall
woman
isn't your cave
in which whenever you like
you can lie down
you can't climb over her
like a squirrel.
not of his nectar
but of his pee
he lets inside
he loves
like he shakes a tree
manhood
is a serious illness
Rajm
Outside is night
inside is separation
this must be the last day
of the world
-I think of him-
love ends (…)
the heart
remains as a woman who was stoned to death
in the middle of reality
my heart is the biggest
stone that God threw
at me
'The Wind Of The World' & other poems are © Müesser Yeniay, translated into english by Müesser Yeniay
 MÜESSER YENİAY was born in İzmir, 1984; she graduated from Ege University, with a degree in English Language and Literature. She took her M.A on Turkish Literature at Bilkent University. She has won several prizes in Turkey including Yunus Emre (2006), Homeros Attila İlhan (2007), Ali Riza Ertan (2009), Enver Gökçe (2013) poetry prizes. She was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Muse Pie Press in USA. Her first book Darkness Also Falls Ground was published in 2009 and her second book I Founded My Home in the Mountains a collection of translation from world poetry. Her second poetry book I Drew the Sky Again was published in 2011. She has translated the poems of Persian poet Behruz Kia as Requiem to Tulips. She has translated the Selected Poems of Gerard Augustin together with Eray Canberk, Başak Aydınalp, Metin Cengiz (2011). She has also translated the Personal Anthology of Michel Cassir together with Eray Canberk and Metin Cengiz (2011). Lately, she has published a Contemporary Spanish Anthology with Metin Cengiz and Jaime B. Rosa. She also translated the poetry of Israeli poet Ronny Someck (2014) and Hungarian poet Attila F. Balazs (2015). She has published a book on modern Turkish Avant-garde poetry The Other Consciousness: Surrealism and The Second New (2013). Her latest poetry book Before Me There Were Deserts was published in 2014 in İstanbul. Her poems were published in Hungarian by AB-Art Press by the name A Rozsaszedes Szertartasa (2015).Her poems have appeared in the following magazines abroad: Actualitatea Literară (Romania), The Voices Project, The Bakery, Sentinel Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Shot Glass Journal, Poesy, Shampoo, Los Angeles Review of Books, Apalachee Review (USA&England); Kritya, Shaikshik Dakhal (India); Casa Della Poesia, Libere Luci, I poeti di Europe in Versi e il lago di Como (Italy); Poeticanet, Poiein (Greece); Revue Ayna, Souffle, L’oiseau de feu du Garlaban (France); Al Doha (Qatar); Tema (Croatia); Dargah (Persia). The Anthologies her poetry appeared: With Our Eyes Wide Open; Aspiring to Inspire, 2014 Women Writers Anthology; 2014 Poetry Anthology- Words of Fire and Ice (USA) Poesia Contemporanea de la Republica de Turquie (Spain); Voix Vives de Mediterranee en Mediterranee, Anthologie Sete 2013 ve Poetique Insurrection 2015 (France); One Yet Many- The Cadence of Diversity ve ayrıca Shaikshik Dakhal (India); Come Cerchi Sull’acqua (Italy). Her poems have been translated into Vietnamese, Hungarian, Croatian, English, Persian, French, Serbian, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Hindi, Spanish and Romanian. Her book in Hungarian was published in 2015 by AB-Art Publishing by the name “A Rozsaszedes Szertartasa” She has participated in the poetry festivals like Sarajevo International Poetry Festival, September 2010 (Bosnia-Herzegovina); Nisan International Poetry Festival, May 2011 (Israel); Belgrad International Poetry Festival, September 2012 (Serbia); Voix Vives International Poetry Festival (Sete), July 2013 (France); Kritya International Poetry Festival, September 2013 (India), Galati/Antares International Poetry Festival, June 2014 (Romania), Medellin International Poetry Festival, July 2014 (Colombia); 2nd Asia Pacific Poetry Festival 2015 (Vietnam). Müesser is the editor of the literature magazine Şiirden (of Poetry). She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Turkish literature at Bilkent University, Ankara, and is also a member of PEN and the Writers Syndicate of Turkey. |
Trompe L’OeilTidied away, fast disappeared, Hidden phallic symbols litter the test What escaped thought becomes you? It would do well to save ink and rest, Eyeball to eyeball, keeping in check Stuck in the village. You’re lost, after all. Citrus RefreshBruised flesh, eaten by spinsters’ cries No one spies without a purpose The scented candle reverberates with intent Choosing select friends for me, Identical dress, though hips not developed Associating with local heroes Waiting for this mess to subside, Not caring for silent soldiers, speed bumps as such Skin on SkinIt rubs me up the wrong way, Woken up by solid cold extension, I am not amused, or inspired Outlining separation procedures close to hand Bloody finale, a pregnant conclusion You lie down, beyond reproach, not seen again They croon in time to your desecration Open WoundA cooked nerve, gaping at nothing Bespoke man-shoes don’t avoid the issue, Dancing in time to excruciating pain, It will pass, I know. Avoiding gangrene is good, Using my head for something, besides bright fantasy, Fine Feathers Do Not Make Fine BirdsBy foul means or otherwise, I stake my claim Not so much rebellion as assertion Is my eyeshadow too obvious? Puberty drags its heels, so do I, My friends can’t figure me out. Invisible curfews taken as read Trompe L’Oeil and other poems are © Patricia Walsh, Patricia Walsh image © Linda Ibbotson |
 Patricia Walsh was born in Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. She was educated in University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. Previously she has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors (Lapwing Press, 2010) Her poetry is published in The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, and The Evening Echo, a local Cork newspaper with a wide circulation. She was the featured artist for June 2015 in the Rain Party Disaster Journal. In addition, She has also published a novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014. |
Chris Murray 