Purple blush of sky and lilac drooping by the greenhouse. The last heat of day rests in the grass, and from the shadows under the conifers, there comes a moaning, a pain riddling from the undergrowth, a voice caught out after dark. And my mind, closed off from sight and the body’s reading … Continue reading ‘Kyrie’ by Seán Hewitt
Tag: Poetry
‘Poem for Oscar with Stars in it’ by Kevin Graham
Poem for Oscar with Stars in it Hoisted in the high chair of my arm – all bum and elbows and chocolate ice-cream hands – you point a finger up at the fluid night sky and say star. We’re on the porch of your uncle’s house, on one of the year’s fledgling days, a couple … Continue reading ‘Poem for Oscar with Stars in it’ by Kevin Graham
‘Amy, how to write poems’ by Katherine Stansfield
Amy, how to write poems for Amy McCauley again in these times of boxes and unlearnt languages and cats dreaming twitchyleg distress? I do what the advice books say and write every day but lately o lately my poems are just lists for leaving: buy new cat carriers, microchip the cats, tell the cats about … Continue reading ‘Amy, how to write poems’ by Katherine Stansfield
Séance by Zoe Mitchell
If anyone here can talk to the dead, please tell my Dad the news of his daughters that would bring him the most peace. Tell him of the dreams we made real, and the grandchildren who laugh in his image. Tell him we miss him and we know he always loved us. List … Continue reading Séance by Zoe Mitchell
Two poems by Jessica Mookherjee
The Liar I never believed in Father Christmas as I crawled out of the chimney, soot-stained, ingrained dust in the whorls of my skin. I never feared the dark, crawled under my bed, talking to dust, moulding it into imaginary friends. We sang together to the soil. Suspicious of prayers to invisible gods, I stared … Continue reading Two poems by Jessica Mookherjee
‘Hazel’ by Aled Thomas
Hazel Swedish and new and steel it would take his thumb as keenly and cleanly as the shoots off the hazel canes he’s shaving and stacking against the wall. The wound would be the same, for a bit - the colour of cream and smooth as an ice cube on a zinc bar. The other … Continue reading ‘Hazel’ by Aled Thomas
‘Rose Petal Jelly’ by Angela Readman
Rose Petal Jelly The apples drip slow as September dabbing sun to the rain, juice slips over the glazed lip of a jug. Outside, a resilience of roses hold in the wind. We feel petals open, jagged caruncles in the corners of our eyes. One nod and I shin a fence, grab a second flush … Continue reading ‘Rose Petal Jelly’ by Angela Readman
‘Ode to a Flat Earth’ by NJ Hynes
I’m bored by infinity. I want to sail a long time, paint my gums with lemon, sharpen my teeth on hard tack, slip over salted sheets of water, slide across mats of emerald algae, reach the edge of the earth’s table top and stop – to admire the thousand pounding waterfalls and the mouldy … Continue reading ‘Ode to a Flat Earth’ by NJ Hynes
Two poems by Tess Barry
White Girl’s Sonnet for Barack Obama I come from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Donegal, from Croatia, from Mont Saint Michel, from Troy Hill, from a long line of immigrants, from steel mills, racists and bigots, from the city of bridges, the Mon and Yough rivers, from egalitarian blowhards, from an infant left in a … Continue reading Two poems by Tess Barry
‘The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale’ by Dzifa Benson
What is the meaning of Legba’s red baritone saxophone in the Five Spot Café at midnight? On the cliff face of this wet indigo, he is the man who tied water. A trumpet sounds: the prince is in a hurry to dance in the street. Sometimes it sounds like the boom of the earth stretching … Continue reading ‘The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale’ by Dzifa Benson