Precursor Tetrapod hardly covers it, old boy or girl coming out of the sea. Tetrapod, four-foot, accurate but basic as the mud in my mind’s eye you’re treading. Amphibian then, since you take a fresh element, the shelf of land, cumbersomely on, all to do in your warty green skin. Newt might fit, or giant … Continue reading Three poems by Patrick Deeley
Category: Irish Writing
Two poems by Mary Noonan
The Moths The artist is sitting, perfectly still, by his mulberry tree, watching it. He has been in that pose all day. The white moths have flown through my open window, drawn by the light of a bedside lamp. They are everywhere – cloaking the walls, sleeping in the folds of sheets, crawling over the … Continue reading Two poems by Mary Noonan
Three poems by Victoria Kennefick
Rib I have visited your grave many times expecting to find you tending your plot, maybe with a shovel or a strimmer, turning your handsomely-lined face towards the sun. In Kilmahon cemetery, wild garlic excretes a heavy smell. White bonnets bob at your wooden cross, embarrassed to show their faces, roots grown so deep. Reflected … Continue reading Three poems by Victoria Kennefick
Two poems by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Museum I am custodian of this exhibition of erasures, curator of loss. I watch over pages of scribbles, deletions, obliterations, in a museum that preserves not what is left, but what is lost. Where arteries are unblocked, I keep the missing clots. I collect all the lasered tattoos that let skin start again. In this … Continue reading Two poems by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Two poems by Eileen Sheehan
My Father, Long Dead My father, long dead, has become air Become scent of pipe smoke, of turf smoke, of resin Become light and shade on the river Become foxglove, buttercup, tree bark Become corncrake lost from the meadow Become silence, places of calm Become badger at dusk, deer in the thicket Become … Continue reading Two poems by Eileen Sheehan
Three poems by Jane Clarke
Winter Since the trouble with his heart she tries to keep him in but before the breakfast tea is cold, he shrugs on his coat, lifts his cap, blackthorn stick and heads out across the fields to count cattle and sheep check how far the flood has risen, break ice for cows at the … Continue reading Three poems by Jane Clarke
Three poems by Jessica Traynor
Road This old invention: immaculate in morning sunshine, relaxing in the heat like a girl who wants to dance although the night has been long. Guided by the central yin, a car reveals children’s faces – morning daisies shut tight against the last of the frost. A second shared with them; fractured understanding grasped … Continue reading Three poems by Jessica Traynor
Three poems by Mark Granier
Keys At 18, I wore a bunch of them –– pendants on a leather thong. I wanted secrets to keep, the jingle, the little teeth turning the pins, old tangible symbols. As if I might learn to belong by playing at being warder to a makeshift life: the front door to my first home, … Continue reading Three poems by Mark Granier
A poem by Breda Wall Ryan
The Snow Woman She was a blow-in then, the snow a wordless paper sheet, her footprints the first blunt penstrokes with everything still to write: spring planting, barley sheaves, a bitter crop of stones and chaneys at the turn of the year. Windblown crows dropped in through holes punched in the sky, gossiped year … Continue reading A poem by Breda Wall Ryan
Two poems by Maurice Devitt
First Days of Winter Trees blue and leafless, a doily of frost forms on the front lawn, first peelings of ice on pathways, winter coats stiff and reluctant. Words, chipped from frozen thoughts, disappear in a blur of breath, as movements slow and bony fingers burrow into gloves. Shoes, now too big for curled … Continue reading Two poems by Maurice Devitt
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