Tag: New Poetry From Ireland

‘Bathwater Love’ and other poems by Niamh Twomey

July 22nd, 2018

Bathwater Love

I wear you wrong;
my reasons inside-out
and love like perfume
for others to admire.

At night you draw feathers
on my Skin.
And your kisses
teach me new vowels,

but we are in bathwater.
Slowly adjusting to the cold,
soaked in Inertia,
eyes squeezed, knowing–
spiraling
down

Song of Grendal’s Mother

They gave me no name
but ‘mother’.
Those Goldbricks in their golden hall;
I was not the Virgin Mary
of their wet dreams–
but real–
One who took an eye for an eye.
Agloewif.

Repeal that oldest fairytale,
old as the gold you play with.
I only took what I deserved
and ran–
But there’s something of Monster
in Man.

I

I am now.
My blood is words
bilingual,
and blighted stories.
My name is mine
but borrowed,
my home is Troubled
wet soil on dry days,
and cow shit springs.
But cut me open
and you will
find
nothing
there.

Family, Mine

Every family
is a sealed
can.

Father–
open wounds,
drooping wit,
salt.

Sister–
fire breathing
sister.

Mother–
angel
of cowardice
and fruit trees
I pinch you.

But we are a can
of good beans
despite it all.

Untitled

After You Died
You became Enormous.
A stone in every step,
garlic on the breath.
Suddenly from every spot
bloomed a memory,
and you lived
a hundred times over
in every head
of cinnamon curls
I saw from behind.

Sometimes I followed
your bouncing curls down the street,
standing back,
willing the head not to turn
and show the face of someone else
so you would die again

Someday

Some day
I’ll have my own house

With a shelf of poetry books
by the toilet
and short stories
for those long, difficult stays

with vibrant colours
painted on the walls
every wall a different colour
like Lego

With a deep couch
that swallows bums
and snoozing cat
meditating on a warm fire

With an old phone
waiting to sing
it’s wire in tangled ringlets
coiled like angel’s hair

With oriental spices
and a box of perfumed teas
of every fruit and flower
and porridge

With a kettle always brooding
on the blistering hob
while friends take seats and I ask
do you like macaroons?

With an old dusted piano
out of tune, but crooning still
rubbed down with old underwear
draped with a doily

With space to move mountains
in idle passing thoughts
with sun waking room
through velvet curtains in the morning.

There will be space for two heads
on the cushions on my bed
and my rusting red bell
will wait there for your touch

When some day
I have my own house

bathwater Love and other poems are © Niamh Twomey

Niamh Twomey is a student of English Literature and French in University College Cork. Winner of Hotpress Magazine’s ‘Write Here Write Now‘ competition in 2016, she has since published works in journals such as ‘Quarryman’, ‘Quill & Parchment’, amongst others.

‘Live Bulbs’ and other poems by Katherine Noone

July 15th, 2018

In May 

You are everywhere.
Arthur Bells’ yellow bloom
fragrant and fleeting,
whitethorn buds abound.  

Mint makes it’s way to our door,
ready for picking. 
Swallows sing a sweet song
as they soar.

On my route
I detour,
lured by a lilac in bloom.
This month, of the mothers. 
                                                                                       
                          
Our Village in the Fifties

Vibrant.
Most houses endowed  
with broods of children.
We run around freely
unhindered by snatchers and traffic.

Play out in the fields
rich with daisies and daffodils.
Scale over walls to orchards
their branches bowed low 
with ripe rosy apples,

maimed by migration
it succumbs to stillness and silence.
Neighbours reach out.
Sheepdogs wait.
Footballs deflate.

                                                              
Live Bulbs

After red and yellow weather alerts
when floods and storms subside.
Broken tree twigs around  you
garden soil stripped aside.

Your emerald shoots  
remain sturdy and serene.
With enough resilience, robustness
to turn a blue moon green.

Live Bulbs and other poems are © Katherine Noone

Katherine Noone’s first poetry collection Keeping Watch was published by Lapwing Press (2017). Her poems have appeared in Orbis, Crannog, Boyne Berries, Linnets Wings, Her Heart Anthology, Skylight 47, Proost Poetry, Vallum digital edition, A New Ulster and Ropes Journal.

Shortlisted Vallum Poetry Award (Montreal) 2012. Poem for Patience 2015, 2016 and 2017l.

‘The House That Don Built’ by Kevin Higgins

July 15th, 2018

“The sky is high / We shit on earth / We look up the sky /
The earth gives birth / To our future”
Yoko Ono, Poetry (July/August 2018)

(i)

The Christmas lights which bat their eyelids
all year round on the screaming pink terracotta roof
are classy as Demis Roussos’s
ground-breaking retranslation of the Odyssey.

The gold-plated giant front gate tasteful
as the prison raps of Bill Cosby and Orenthal
James Simpson combined.

The foundation wobbly as the sestina sequence
Access Hollywood says, Miley Cyrus,
is currently sweating over.

The walls and internal supporting beams
solid as a verse novel by Big Bird of Sesame Street.

The water faucets in the vast bathroom
he had purpose built for himself
understated as the last line of the Haiku
Admiral Tojo wrote the morning
he was hanged.

(ii)

In cases made of teak,
behind the thickest glass
Chicago has to offer:

Ezra Pound’s raised right hand;

Weldon Kees’s obviously suicidal car keys;

Eileen Myles’s last leather jacket
but one;

the bunch of blue violets
Emily Dickinson was buried clutching;

Edgar Allan Poe’s and Charles
Bukowski’s embalmed private parts
side by side for comparison;

a stray candle from Robert Frost’s
eighty fifth birthday cake;

and several false beards
Walt Whitman allegedly wore.

(iii)

For these are the endowed halls
where poetry goes to get preserved
in the finest glitter and formaldehyde
moldy Dollars can buy.

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 here. Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews, was published by Salmon in April, 2012.

Kevin’s blog is http://mentioningthewar.blogspot.ie/ and has been described by Dave Lordan as “one of the funniest around” who has also called Kevin “Ireland’s sharpest satirist.”

‘Mangoes are a night food’ and other poems by Finnuala Simpson

July 1st, 2018

Linen

A candied calligraphy of colours, I said
that I would change the sheets later.
And I said also that I could handle it but I could not, and will I fry for that?
I may, but only if you return.

The stink of sheep hangs on me like wisdom.
You leave in a blur and your bag is heavy with spices,
I hope I do not let you back again.
It depends on my resolve, and on whether the seasons let me float.

I’ll take myself running for the friction of denial,
cross my legs under the tables of the library.
I’ll spin yarns and wear black and eat fruit in the evenings,
till I’m taller and more thoughtful than I have been before.

And I’ll try harder, too.
Kindness is like witchcraft, it must be brewed and stirred,
mulled over in secret with the herb scent of the night.
If it threatens to drown you, you must set yourself on fire.

Do you think of me? Or am I a stop-gap to you?
I marveled at you on the phone when you were talking like a man,
Not laughing or stroking like you laugh and stroke at me.
Talking figures like your car was a woman,
You said fuck it we will fix the white van instead
For by the time the summer comes you will be traveling.

I changed my sheets and they were smeared
sprinkled with both blood and mould.
But washed away now, and quietly, while you are asleep and going south.

Warren

God’s the opposite of sentient,
God’s gotta lot on their plate right now
You hate phone calls but you rang rang rang rang rang rang
Kinda like the knock knock don’t stop of the old stories about Jesus and the hearts.

I sit in a pub like the underground volts of mole town with glistening mirrors and brown
And think: and think: and think :
What if I AM us
What if we ARE me

Amen. That boy gets bloody sleepy-eyed and ties you down with internet rope to have the best time,
you can still be held by the every-man compass of inner direction and salt.

Lake licking
I’d be down for some
front door seconds

I love overhand
and crying boys
and absolute disgraces
and civil war tales make me puke
because we are you and I am us and they are
watching
Jesus Christ and the cherubim all interconnected with stones and pencils and lust

Frown Upon Me

When winter falls out I cheer up
Semi-automatic pistol you grip and
It’s like
Put that down honey I’m
Just in league with the bears you know
Don’t be afraid
Just because I am socialist without understanding politics
Just because I say this is how I FEEL out loud loud
And you don’t do anything out loud loud
You say: I am bad at words
You won’t kiss me goodbye in the street
You’re a removable boy access unacceptable
When the moon looms
When your blood is flat
When you are sober
~ Biggest mood: you not letting go of my hand drunk

Mangoes are a night food

I unfurl a peach strip of self denial,
curling tendrils like the mannerisms that
wind me in a high spiral,
each time I sleep I see extensions of my worst trade-offs
and subtle lingering traces of worn out faces and fading tastes.

I see the way your limbs are positioned, they are unsure of
holding company with the air (and really baby I feel that)
yellow soft flesh without a skin and a concrete world he sings
that you stand in hallways thinking about the positioning
of your feet, and the happiness of our lives
was only coming.

I do indeed know the strangest of manifestations,
I do certainly keep company with the eeriest of loves.
Boys can surely contract themselves into small spaces,
the gaps in my brain are of the overly hospitable young.

I held onto him in our old bed and tightly traced
the profile graced with the ability that I gave him
his eyes were closed to look more firmly at the wall
he knew my heart was at his back
he may have held my hand but he did not.
I let love drop from my ears my eyes my tear ducts
(Love
Is forever I think)
I held him and said, I wish you well I wish you well I wish you
you hurt me so much
I wish you well I wish you well I wish you everything you can get nobly
I love you
Even as I fall for a better boy
I love you
He took my love in mime
Stayed curled-up, inaccessible and pure
In the dream my sister woke me with her heart at my back
She never touched me
I never touched him
I think that real love is forever
Mango is a night food.

No Chill Kids

I’m sweeping
cold callers collect thoughts and manic and deathly
are you grossed out by sad?
I’m the icky girl no chill just spooky abandon to the rhythmic pulse
gymnastics of feeling floods
like crying toilets drunk
maybe we’ll get cool again I’ll put weed on the balcony
I need a lamp to grow me a glo-up
baked
half streaming
live rot

Well I take photos of lights to hold them in my wet hand cracks
Before
After
Told her there were two of me that’s a lie there are a million and one
me things
Shakespeare was a matching addict holy hell that quill quick quick good god
give me some Adderall
but I’d only focus on the wrong thing

Drunk dial
Low capped smile
I’d get off at the next stop but he’s gonna miss it
while mentally I put myself down the stairs bang bang
The street slush don’t stop us
Every fucking night I get shot at in my dreams I’m not joking
Last night it was my grandfather
There’s fingers and there’s whingers but I barely kiss gingers
Someone threaded their headphones through their jumper strings
What a strange little hullabaloo
I could do better if I were you
Because I’m a neat-freak never-speak who clean eats
I’ll go far

Mad girls and sad girls might be onto something
I’m crying holla holla wake up at the stars looking down on this shit attack
Honestly get me out asap
I’ll sail space smooth and I won’t look back
But my bones are hollow they don’t ever crack

I see faces places and wastes but I am the one standing on a hill and
Pencey Prep is real as all hell
that is, not very, dubiously transient and flickering like the flame of
a secret place that never cleans itself so sleep me now

Mangoes are a night food and other poems are © Finnuala Simpson

Finnuala Simpson is a twenty-year-old english and history student based in West Cork. In her free time she likes to write, cook, and walk as close to the sea as she can get.

A Celebration of Irish Women Poets on Bloomsday 2018

June 10th, 2018

‘Hinnerup’ by Jess McKinney

.
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

Hinnerup is © Jess McKinney

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.

‘Prime’ by Peggie Gallagher

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.

Prime Is © 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

‘Linen’ by Finnuala Simpson

A candied calligraphy of colours, I said
That I would change the sheets later.
And I said also that I could handle it but I could not, and will I fry for that?
I may, but only if you return.

The stink of sheep hangs on me like wisdom.
You leave in a blur and your bag is heavy with spices,
I hope I do not let you back again.
It depends on my resolve, and on whether the seasons let me float.

I’ll take myself running for the friction of denial,
Cross my legs under the tables of the library.
I’ll spin yarns and wear black and eat fruit in the evenings,
Till I’m taller and more thoughtful than I have been before.

And I’ll try harder, too.
Kindness is like witchcraft, it must be brewed and stirred,
Mulled over in secret with the herb scent of the night.
If it threatens to drown you, you must set yourself on fire.

Do you think of me? Or am I a stop-gap to you?
I marveled at you on the phone when you were talking like a man,
Not laughing or stroking like you laugh and stroke at me.
Talking figures like your car was a woman,
You said fuck it we will fix the white van instead
For by the time the summer comes you will be traveling.

I changed my sheets and they were smeared
Sprinkled with both blood and mould.
But washed away now, and quietly, while you are asleep and going south.

Linen is © Finnuala Simpson

Finnuala Simpson is a twenty year old English and history student based in West Cork. In her free time she likes to write, cook, and walk as close to the sea as she can get.

‘June’ by Geraldine Plunkett Dillon

I fill my heart with stores of memories,
Lest I should ever leave these loved shores;
Of lime trees humming with slow drones of bees,
And honey dripping sweet from sycamores.

Of how a fir tree set upon a hill,
Lifts up its seven branches to the stars;
Of the grey summer heats when all is still,
And even grasshoppers cease their little wars.

Of how a chestnut drops its great green sleeve,
Down to the grass that nestles in the sod;
Of how a blackbird in a bush at eve,
Sings to me suddenly the praise of God.

June is © Geraldine Plunkett Dillon

The text of Magnificat and images associated with Geraldine Plunkett’s Dillon’s historical and cultural work were kindly sent to me by her great-granddaughter Isolde Carmody and I am very grateful for them. I am delighted to add Geraldine to my indices at Poethead. I hope that this page will increase interest in her work. Excerpts from the Preface to the 2nd edition of All In The Blood, memoirs of Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, edited by Honor Ó Brolcháin,“My greatest regret throughout the process has been how little credit she gives herself, for example she does not mention a paper she gave in the Royal Irish Academy in 1916 or her contribution to the article on dyes in Encyclopedia Britannica or her volume of poetry, Magnificat, or contributing to the Book of St Ultan, or being a founder member of Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe (the masks of Tragedy and Comedy she made for the Gate theatre are now on a wall in the Taibhdhearc) and the Galway Art Club, where she exhibited for years, or making costumes for Micheál Mac Liammóir in 1928, or being responsible for Oisín Kelly deciding to become a sculptor – he was one of very many who said that she enabled them to do the right thing for their own fulfillment. When she wrote it was in order to provide a history of her times and an insight into what made her family so strange. Like many of her generation she did not write much about her own feelings and her humourous and optimistic nature does not really come through in her writing. I would like to have been able to put that in but could not in all faith do so. “ It is also worth noting that Joe (Joseph Plunkett) named her as literary executor, and she edited his Collected Poems in 1916

‘At the door’ by Eva Griffin

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 is © 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

‘Cooking Chicken’ by Alice Kinsella

Pink is the colour of life
of new babies’ wet heads
and open screaming mouths.

Pink is the rose hip of a woman at the heart
of what’s between her hips
and the tip of my tongue between bud lips.

There’s the hint of pink on daisies
when they open their petals to say
hello to the birth of a new day.

But pink is also the colour of death
as the knife slides between the flesh
and separates it into food.

Pink is a suggestion of sickness when I pierce the skin,
dissect the sinews, glimpse the tint of it and turn
it to the heat to kill the pink and the possibility.

It’s the quiver of the comb atop feathers,
and the neck as it’s sliced from the body
by the executioner’s axe.

It’s the colour of cunt
and the hint in the sky
when the cock crows.

Cooking Chicken is © Alice Kinsella

Alice Kinsella was born in Dublin and raised in the west of Ireland. She holds a BA(hons) in English Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin. Her poetry has been widely published at home and abroad, most recently in Banshee Lit, Boyne Berries, The Lonely Crowd and The Irish Times. Her work has been listed for competitions such as Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competition 2016, Jonathan Swift Awards 2016, and Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition 2017. She was SICCDA Liberties Festival writer in residence for 2017 and received a John Hewitt bursary in the same year. Her debut book of poems, Flower Press was published in 2018 by The Onslaught Press.

‘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.

‘The Fold’ and other poems by Alison Driscoll

May 19th, 2018

The 22nd Minute

The inners of the ash tree twirl fibres up Cú Chulainn’s stick
Splintering out like a cut open stomach in centre-forward line
The bas is hugged by black steel rods no match in a clash of the ash
Which sees your elbow crack it like an egg in one quick blow
As you wave your calloused hand to catch the leather bound wine cork
It hooks in the L of your fingers and bends thumb like an Allen key
You are laid out in black and yellow still like a fragile bee in October
I bring you two halves of one ash root, the third one this season
They drill screws into ivory phalange as if it was a notice board
And your floppy hand is strapped in a headlock waiting for me to sign

Forbidden Fruit

Eden’s apples were the sweetest, full of wet juicy flesh
That pools between teeth and bottom lip in each bite.
Was it worth it Eve, to break that red fibrous skin
And all the rules around it for one little taste?

And Persephone, that pomegranate wasn’t yours to touch
But it hung on that branch waving at your wagging tongue
Just six simple seeds sat softly in your mouth
Each one exchanged for a month on plush throne.

A golden apple of discord at the feet of a few can start a war,
Just ask Aphrodite whose fairest beauty brought down Troy
Or innocent Snow White who took only one measly bite
To be sent into a slumber among seven little men.

Yet I can walk into any supermarket aisled with super sixes
I’ll eat apples and pomegranate in little plastic tubs as I walk.
No one is waiting to banish me for my cheek in having a taste.
My only concern being; do I have pips in my teeth?

Green

Green is abandonment, the overgrown, the unattended
The ivy asphyxiating pebble-dashed walls
Green men moonwalking at night, the green of isolation
The green of bilateral fields waving us home, our gemstone analgesic
The unbiased green of maternity wards and the present tense
Malignant weeds, the green of fresh nodes
The margins of the seasons – nature’s etchings in doorframes
The green of greenhouses, sweating incubated cabbages
Green of poaceae, green of inspiration in poésie
The green of the real life – the rhizopus in the bread bin
Surging bile in the peritoneum tidal waves invisible
The alopecia of trees sighing in change
Green is the central line of our world body electric
The green of amitriptyline; healing is just outside
Doc(tor) leaves the age old cure
The green of the first aid kit, the tea and the tree at my back door.

Coordinates.

I am your own personal gift shop map
Spread across your torso palm flat
I rest in the divot your white piano bones
Leave for my head, caught like a surfer
In this accordion wave of oxygen

I have imprinted my scent into your skin
Pomegranate noir lingers on the pillow
My hair fanned last night as we talked
And the coconut oil conditioner
Tickled your cheeks and tastes like last night

I can take you all over this world if you let me
I’ll paint you sunsets stretched like Drumsticks
Spilling from sticky smiles at the seaside
We can collect corks from cheap red wine
And just once share the heart of your sliotar

My tongue can feed you spices you can’t pronounce
And speak un petit peu de Français between European kisses
My hands can knead Italian bread dripping in oil
And show you how to treat dough like piano keys
Until the kettle clicks and the duck down falls to your feet

Anatomy of a sonnet

“Count back slowly from ten with me”
In measured iambic phalanges
The pulse rushes in steady practitioner’s hands
Where the pen sits like a scalpel – ready

The page turns. It’s new tissue sheet
across a bed where once lay a dying man
His vacant grey eyes catch mine then
We smile in solitude at the things we must beat

I am the form’s medulla oblongata
His is replaced by apparatus
Our breath synchronises on the page

I pull on the sounds of the machine like strata
This hand is trained to do no harm
His signs on the dotted line Do Not Resuscitate

The Fold

My darling, I didn’t know it was when
you rattled off a list you could expand
of all the things we get wrong that we were damned.

I think about this crumbling quite often.
In a bed with one half now unwrinkled, or at the iron
when its holes etch my shirts because I forced my hand.

I wonder what armoury it takes to withstand
a blow to the once sewn together heart. What en-
chantment protects lovers who can’t be still
hand in hand after years? How do we avoid the threat

of a wobble when we change or address
or voicemail to house us two. When did we beguile
each other? That love was under our remit.
When was it you knew you were safer outside our nest?

Apocalypse

It is not a question of colliding in fire or ice.
For us it’s about the muddling and snap
of daily life. That is our only vice.

When you leave dishes with dried out rice
on the sink, why don’t you just run the tap?
It’s not so much a question of fire and ice,

but rather the things we do wrong; contrived
as mini Armageddons in our happy
daily life. That is our only vice.

If I throw harsh words like rolling dice,
know it isn’t really the toothpaste that
makes me spew like fire and ice.

That tube squeezed from the top is a slice
of evidence that you do not listen to our scraps.
Being you and me; that is our only vice.

I wonder how many more apologies suffice.
Are we lucky or damned that this is our catch?
That it isn’t an ending in fire or ice.
But rather us, our daily life – that is our vice.

The Fold and other poems are © Alison Driscoll

Alison Driscoll is a writer from Cork and is currently undertaking an MA Creative Writing in UCC. Her work has been previously published in Quarryman literary journal. She has been longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize and the Over The Edge New Writer of The Year Award.

‘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.

‘Siegfried’s Homecoming’ and other poems by Suzanne Stapleton

April 14th, 2018

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 hands

cracked 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 rain

He 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 night

ribs a ladder exposed that my body
might cower beneath
leaking blue blue sky
mouth agape
puffing clouds into the darkness for him to drink

the bird with no wings
choking on aorta

a 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 ink

Don’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.

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.

‘At the door’ and other poems by Eva Griffin

March 20th, 2018

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.

Tag: New Poetry From Ireland

Bathwater Love

Song of Grendal’s Mother

I

Family, Mine

Untitled

Someday

Linen

Warren

Frown Upon Me

Mangoes are a night food

No Chill Kids

‘Hinnerup’ by Jess McKinney

‘Prime’ by Peggie Gallagher

‘Linen’ by Finnuala Simpson

‘June’ by Geraldine Plunkett Dillon

‘At the door’ by Eva Griffin

‘Cooking Chicken’ by Alice Kinsella

Words

Acceptance

Your resting place

Celtic Bride

Proud to call you friend

Strength is in our past

Magnetic

Sorry

OUR ETERNAL LOVE