Sri Lanka haikuafter traveller’s tummy — ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ Fourteen Days Buddhas of Asia Europe haiku sequence ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ A Lapsed Catholic’s Prayer |
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Tag: An Index Of Women Poets
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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
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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 sayI 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 unfurlBut still I talk and talk
In the hope that one day
I will have earned the right
to stay silentTop 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 -
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.
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Siegfried’s Homecoming
You come home from the war
at least a third emptier than you were,
Like all the words were scooped from your head
with the butt of a rifle
that you constructed with your own hands
and demolished too,
leaving so much of yourself in the barrel.The teeth in your gums white crosses and country lines,
none of them belonging to you anymore,
rattle like augury bones in your sleep
because in the night you are some twisted, ugly thing
like a trout gasping for breath
on the floor of a fishing boat,
running from the yawning mouth at your heart
to get away from what remains here :
a battlefield.You come home from the war and leave your love behind
in the hands of a poet,
a soldier whose eyes stare out at you in each nightmare
the claiming mark of his blood splattered across your face and emblazoned on your soul,
his smile tinged mustard yellow in your memory
but his hands so vivid;
pencil, pages, and the pistol,
flickering
callouses against your cheek
trampled into the mud
sonnets painted into your skin
frozen in his favourite shade of indigo.You are dreaming of the hospital that had become,
by virtue of his presence,
your home –
and here is the battlefield stretched out again before you
but you are tired of fighting without him,
waiting for one more cloudless day in August,
50 years away he is a bruise in khaki pyjamas,
and you come home from the war,
finally,
into his arms.Aorta
I will give myself to the sea
to the sunset
to the stars
I want to be unravelled by something greater than two handscracked apart at the ribs
in feast
a hollow empire no longer
filled with cloudless sky
venom dripping from my ears“Eat” he hisses holding
a ventricle to my lips
bloody and raw
my own; still warm
pouring rainHe takes a bite
tearing chunks with glittering pillars of jagged salt licks
this is how it is done
how you get a dying bird to eat
or freeze in the nightribs a ladder exposed that my body
might cower beneath
leaking blue blue sky
mouth agape
puffing clouds into the darkness for him to drinkthe bird with no wings
choking on aortaa sacrifice to the stars.
Eclipse
The woman lives
when the shadow of the moon
falls ebony on the earth
and the trees of her forest
are like burnt matchsticks
on scorched fields
she lingers then –
like smoke in the dark,
until we meet
in the appointed place,
two black holes in the abyss of the cosmos and
she opens
a nightmare mouth,
words slithering forth
– the tip of the tongue the teeth and the lips –
dripping from her chin
in jet black ink
“Are you ready?” she screeches
a crow
a banshee in the graveyard
I cannot speak, cannot see anything but the ink that rolls like a wave from her lips
dark and terrible
a blood moon
“I See you” she calls with open arms
a lover’s embrace
but the shadow is receding
drawing you to the heart of the forest
and she reaches for you once more
your hand twitches
the path is tangled
brambles whip and thorns claw
and you both understand
time is up
“Never again.” She croaks splayed against a tree-trunk “Never again”
the woman fades with the last of the shadow
she cannot return
and you are alone again
hands shaking in the sun
lips covered in inkDon’t Cry
The milk spills
and spills
and spills,
the table still set in neat little rows –
too long for the runner –
dripping onto chairs and floor in swathes of ivory,
but the milk is always spilling in this house
running from eyes and mouths and ears –
this is what it means to grow up,
crying years of spilled milk
like they’ll help fill the seats with warm bodies
or light the candles’ stumpy wicks,
where you sleep just to keep the weeping at bay,
in the hopes that somehow,
it’s all just a dream,
but you wake up every morning at 7 on the dot
with milk crusted in each eye and bottles surrounding the bed,
milk teeth standing guard beneath the pillows,
like maybe you were a mother,
once,
or a child;
like you still are.You Are the Sun
You are the sun,
calling lowly to the galaxy,
tragic and celestial,
40 billion light years from the closest star,
and the moon rings like a bell;
earthquake vibrations across the vacuum of space,
echoes roll over your skin, just whispers of what once was,
like a house that has already been burned down,
alarm still shrieking into the shell
that this is danger,
this is living,
but the moon is too far to hear a warning over
the bell tolls,
an angelus to Sirius and Orion and
Pyxis,
and the sun is farther still, drowning in a sea of silent stars,
baying softly of loneliness and terror to the empty night,
I am the moon,
you, the sun.
in the end, we are all just houses,
waiting to be burned down.A Witch Hunt
Tear it all down
it is built on rot,
the sickly sweet cologne of wonderland decay,
and we are starving
but watch it wither,
feral smiles painted bloody across our cheeks,
prodding at the scars with witches nails,
hunters in the fray;
spitting poison and daggers and shards of glass,
leaving small disasters in our wake,
too many to fathom
still, we are starving,
tearing the world apart at the seams
from within,
demanding:
you peel back the curtain
and you will witness the ruins
filled with our skeletons picked clean,
but the flood water is rising,
and we have been so hungry…
peel back the curtain.
we are done waiting.Siegfried’s Homecoming and other poems are © Suzanne Stapleton
Suzanne Stapleton is a nineteen-year-old emerging writer and Dublin native. She is currently a student of Film and Broadcasting in DIT, and often can be found writing poems instead of working on her scripts. Having spent most of her childhood writing, 2017 marks the first time Suzanne has shared any of her poetry with anyone outside of her immediate group of close friends. Her poems span a range of topics, including history, womanhood, and growth, but most are forms of self exploration and catharsis. -
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 ashesand 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 restlately 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 milePast the little stone churchyard
Long-forgotten graves spilling
Stones onto the sodden bog
A soft snore from behind
My two angels sleeping
Thirteen thousand milesFrom 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 herCome for my mother
Locked in her own
Immortal struggle
The sister returned
So I know it won’t
Be long nowAnd I cry a little at
The unbearable beauty
Of these diastoles
When we are all
Suspended
Here in a heartbeatBetween 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 plainsii. ravening
on a sunlit lawn
a plump slug streaks forward
eyes on stalksiii. a new religion
branches bowed with bloated fruit
nod to the gilded idol
dark clouds fall in behindiv. aftermath
a squat lizard basks
on a sickle-hacked trail
black legs flail from his lipsv. in the bay
beacon dimmed and tablet fractured
the lady endures
her robes about her feetvi. 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 motherThat’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 novenaLong before we had
Local radio
Our town had my mother
Harbinger of the death notices
And the funeral arrangementsBestower of colloquial wisdom
Bearer of news on all things
Great and small
Who was home
And who hadn’t comeWho 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 mugIgniting a spitfire
Of resentment each time
Then draping me for days
I’d wear it like a horsehair shirt
All the way backUntil the sunshine and the hustle
Had worn it threadbare
This extra bit of baggage
In every emigrant’s case
Their mother’s broken heartI 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 absenceI 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.)
burnt offerings and other poems are © Anne Casey
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). -
Are you feeling this?
My desire is holding you in its mouth
shaking like a dog toy
amputated to fit my mould.
Regularly, I confuse excitement for affection
in a slow, crowded elevator
where a whisper of white buttoned shirts
is the scream of a night sky in my head,
close as a shoulder brush.
Something to work with
For the work, he says.
Square panels of it
lighting up my screen:
tarp-painted abstractions
punctuated by self-capturing,
sun-faced with grey crown
but not old.
Never old.
A father’s age perhaps.
Yet, I open the message;
orange brimming notification
tells me that he’s thinking
of my shivering in bed
on the other side of the island.
Says that he’ll be good
if he gets the chance.
Good for me.
Good for his ego.
Small slip of a thing waiting
for a night visit, the hot
shower of another body
sliding under covers.
Strong tattooed grasp
on waist; leathered, but
not old.
Light breath in my ear
catches hair like a summer
breeze in his stubble.
As if we’re not in October.
As if we’ll ever be here again.
He whispers, for the work.
It’s all this is.
I am for the work.
Candle
Eyes into the fire he tells me
that he sees it,
the next painting:
chrome yellow,
petals on the floor like ash
by our feet,
heads drooping close
like ours could
be
if I hadn’t left my heart
in the dregs of a pint
soaked through, too wet to carry.
I hold it, cold glass
little sanctuary while my legs burn
bright against the flame shadow.
He notices
I keep stretching it away,
a short press against
the slick stone and back
in again to see the orange
flicker on white,
to feel the pain of stolen heat
and I wonder
will my thin calf be the painting;
warmer in his eyes,
burning under the weight of him,
untouched.
Leftovers
A jug of milk in the fridge
is what he left me;
half of his own litre
brought from town.
For the tea, we imagine, but
standing in the kitchen
brewing it strong
he feels more like ground coffee;
ember smell of him
from lighting the fire,
rough-handed from work.
Outside, rusted mountains
crease along the skyline
like his eyes, laughing now;
almost disappearing but so full,
I want to believe, of me,
and the clouds of Kerry
in that moment
they look like cream.
At the door
Now, watch as I hang in the air
tempting as a sunset
and just as long.
Storms are not inclined to wait;
better to spill my secret wilderness
as I leave this love,
sucking light out of your blue.
At the door and other poems are © Eva Griffin.
Eva Griffin is a poet living in Dublin and a UCD graduate. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Tales From the Forest, All the Sins, ImageOut Write, Three Fates, The Ogham Stone, HeadStuff, and New Binary Press. -
Limited Horizon
Trees, thick leafed trees of April
Through to thicker early autumn
Encompass my horizon,
Stop me
Seeing beyond Cloonkeen, Gurteen
Hold me back from Balymac–
Their constant summer teasing
Filling up, greening up
My pegged fence line.
Only I know come late autumn
And into winter, I’ll catch my glimpse again
Prolong my view beyond this one room Parish.
By then, Hungary’s one hundred and ten mile fence
Across its Serbian border
Tasked to hold optimistic migrants back,
To keep them out of view
Of European leafed trees, keep them in view of peep holed wire
Throughout autumn, winter, spring. Again–
Will be joined by bigger fences, bigger struggles
Europe troubled.
Previously published Scarlet Leaf Review, 2016
Into Death
Her grief was as palpable as the malnourished
Briars of November, jutting from each shrunken ditch.
Unlike the briars, their thin wristing arms protruding
Towards my chest, she stood away from me, in the West
Beyond the lapping of an Ocean in Milford, Connecticut.
Placing thumb and finger upon a weakened thorn
I felt a stabbing pain and my eyes drooping
Fell upon hidden roots, gulping like my uncle did
Gasping at every molecule of oxygen, drinking
Slurping, swallowing each pocket of winter’s witching air
Between shrapnel’s of frost, and sanding’s of snow
Each element attempting to stave off contorted valves, strangling,
Cursing each tautened briar to death.
Previously published JuxtaProse Magazine, 2015
Freeze Frame
It was the second day
Of the middle month of autumn,
Almost 8pm, not yet dark but heading there.
The patch of sky, where your black tipped wings
Soared above my head, was red,
A reddish hint with whitened clouds behind it,
And in the gaps some blue. A glimpse of days before,
Long summer hours when you and yours
Flew bellied up, above my head
Circling, like children out of school
With lengthening days out stretched to play.
That day you flew alone, the rest no doubt behind you
Returning from a practice flight,
Weeks were all you had, before departure
To your sun drenched nest.
Underneath your wings I stood,
Hand waving, knowing of the little left,
The seasons change, the hotter sands.
And in that moment,
That picture frame I would no doubt gaze upon
During a frosted night, or starlit evening,
I asked, if you would freeze it too,
That joyous bond, your wing beat
Close my waving hand.
Only, you didn’t answer, I never knew.
Previously published Literature Today, 2015
Haunted House
A house need not be haunted
To scare the sanest mind,
Hidden in our folds lie ghosts
Their memories unkind
We keep them locked behind a door
We keepers of the seal,
We live our lives away from them
As if they were not real
Their voices rise like smoke at night
Their chains rattle at our door,
Their laughter that of storming wind
To coax us to the floor
Should we open up their box…
We enter to the past,
Should we travel deep enough…
They might not let us back.
If I Had Known
If I had known what I know now,
I wouldn’t have been silent,
If I had known the counting clock,
I’d have asked more questions,
If I had known I’d lose your face,
I’d have taken more pictures,
If I had known the little left,
I’d never have let you go,
If I had known what I know now,
Would it really be any different?
Previously published Poems from Conflicted Hearts, An Anthology 2014
Life is not enough
He had just life itself
No love to call his own.
Bounced about
Thrown between the walls
Of other children’s homes.
He had just life itself
Enough
Was said
This life was his to breathe
But life itself was not enough
No chance had he to live
No chance had he to ever fully live, or breathe.
Limited Horizon and other poems © Marie H. Curran
Marie Hanna Curran holds an Honours Degree in Equine Science and is qualified as an Accounting Technician. However, her time is now spent farming words as she refuses to allow illness – Myalgic Encephalomyelitis – impact her quest to fill the world with words. Her articles have appeared in the Galway Independent, Connacht Tribune and Irish Independent and her regular column sits between the pages of the magazine Athenry News and Views. Along with freelance writing, her poems and short stories have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies across the globe and her solo collection of poetry Observant Observings was published by Tayen Lane Publishing in 2014.
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BIRTH
The last point of the quadrant remains to be drawn,
Out on the fringe of a shadowy dawn.
The air is still, devoid of all sound,
The raven encircles the battleground.
The troops are assembled, their swords held with poise,
To face the enemy engulfing his choice.
He arrives with his foe, emits a loud cry,
The prophetic bird falls dead from the sky.
Morning’s mist begins to fade,
The child is here, no longer afraid.CHILD’S PLAY
The couple play a childish game,
Their toys are guilt, betrayal, shame.
They scatter them across the floor,
Expose insecurities raw and sore.
Their song is angry, well-rehearsed,
A tune of sadness, bitterly versed.
Their painting, an unfinished mess,
Made in haste, under duress.
They dance a dance of hideous precision,
Wrong is right, final decision.
Nothing to lose and less to gain,
Familiar role play, hate and pain.
Their child looks on, he takes the blame,
Discarded toy in an adult game.
WOODEN SPOON
Deed is done, misdemeanour little,
Anger rises, no acquittal.
Shriek is sharp, the echo rings,
Room spins, skin stings.
Hot tears, salty lip,
‘Water please, just one sip,’
Words strangled, sound drowned,
Face of inequity gloriously crowned.
Door slams, key turns,
Legs weak, stomach churns.
Patterned flowers on the wall,
Footsteps thud and stab the hall.
Captive now in my own space,
Prisoner in this sacred place.
Fear abates, the edge is gone,
Acquiesce to what is wrong.
No apology required,
Guilty conscience long expired.RELUCTANT ORATION
Faces staring, pressure loaded,
She fears she will be taunted, goaded.
Hands moist, mouth dry,
Self-expectation running high.
She takes a stand, she’s on display,
Composure falls to disarray.
Blood pumps, breath claimed,
The sound emerges, wounded, maimed.
She perseveres, an uphill battle,
Spectators whisper, chairs rattle.
Her colour deepens, voice shakes,
Seeks perfection, makes mistakes.
They cast their judgement, mark their score,
Perverse entertainment, wanting more.
Silence falls, she concedes,
Last remnant of strength, fades, recedes.
Emotions naked, reserve depleted,
Feigned applause, occasion defeated.Reluctant Oration and other poems are © Fiona King
Fiona King is a married mother of four from East Cork. She is currently on career break from her job as a primary school teacher, to care for her youngest son, Adam (in picture). Adam is 3 years old, and has a genetic condition called Osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle bone condition. In recent months, She has begun to reflect on the arrival of her precious boy into this world and has found the best way to express her thoughts and feelings through verse. From this, she wrote the poem ‘Birth’. After this creative expression, deeper reflections from my past inspired her to write further, on experiences with emotions of such gravity that they stay with her. -
No-one is watching
Unharness your two beasts
Ambition and Anxiety
from your chariot
Unharness yourself
from all electronic devices
You will not be followedDid you look, did you
see the tree tops career above you
in an ecstasy of elements,
smell the damp brown
leaves under your feet?
Did you witness yourself
in the middle
of all this rejoicing
and all this decay?Or are you still stooped
under the weight of your expectations?
See the grey clouds skitter across a yellow sky
See the fat bluebottle climb the window again
See the oceans
who have carried our ships on their backs
and from whom the feast was delivered
See the oceans
Rise up
No-one is watchingstar
our smallness is vast
realised in darkness
my stardust is boneanimated by light
sculpted in our sway
stone is changing stillthe moon
i am the crayfish, from the murky waters of the sea of cleverness
i am the yellow dog, the moon illuminates me and i shine
i am the dark dog, the moon illuminates me from behind
and i remain in silhouette
i am the path, i wind and dip
you think you can see me but you can’t see everything
i am the two stone pillars, i am petrified
i am seas of dust and rocks, the illusion of what has become known
i am the crayfish, my wet armour gleams in the moonlight.Stupid Cow
Do you think he can hear you,
your missing baby?
his world lurches and surges
doesn’t know where he’s heading
still thinks he’ll come back
to solid ground and your warm flankDo you think she can hear you,
your absent mother?
latched onto her udders
gluttonous metal jaws
drain every drop of milk
her body just keeps on
making for youThe Demon
You cannot name me
yet I mould your normality.
I make a squalid mockery of
all the pretty things in your house.I slip like an adulteress
between your soft sheets,
and suck the air from your chambers.
You wake in musty spoil.I stack up episodes
like ill-matched crockery
Rankled by uncertainty, you
deny me; I reign.
Unnamed, I crouch
in your heart’s lower cavities.No-one is watching and other poems are © Nicola Geddes
Originally from Scotland, Nicola Geddes studied Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and Cello Performance at the London College of Music. She has been based in County Galway for the past twenty five years, where she works as a cellist and music tutor. To date her poetry has been published in Crannog, the Galway Review, and Skylight 47. In 2017 Nicola’s poems received a Special Commendation from the Patrick Kavanagh Award.
Chris Murray 