Cyphers 100 was launched on December 13th in Dublin. Five invited poets read their work from issues ranging from 1 to 100 and the voices of Leland Bardwell and Pearse Hutchinson were heard in recordings. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin read from THE CELLO SUITES by Macdara Woods. After fifty years we are ceasing publication. We wish all […]
Cyphers
Cyphers 94 published on 4th December
Cyphers issue 94 was launched on 4th December in Books Upstairs, D’Olier Street, photos by Jean O’Brien.
Rough Magic
When naming the storms the meteorologists
choose from Shakespeare, the Bible, the Greek gods.
This one will come bringing monsoon rain
and leave us needing candlelight.
The worst of it will be the flood
pawing the back door to get in.
I dTÚS NA nDÉAGA
By Pól Breathnach Gearrchaille ’s stócach i dtús na ndéaga faoi éadach rocach ar shop in éindí. Caithriú na beirte: cíocha a’ péacadh, fionnadh ag eascairt in ascaillí ’s i mbléine. Fiosracht is fionnachtain, diurnú ’s freagairt, tráthnóntaí samhraidh ’s a muintir sa gcathair. B’ionadh liom do ghliondar is do ghníomha prasa. Ghlac tú liom […]
He Made It All Too Obvious
He made it all too phony about affection,
made it all too creepy about using women,
made it all too Don Juan about his alleged amours,
all too evident he was twisted and all
too dull when anyone interrupted him by
so little as a word,
Head Wounds
Each thin line of fresh blood on my forehead
is an insignia of age
I claim,
my genetic baldness, ambushed and bled
stanched by paper scrap or band aid
no shame.
William Soutar’s Room
Because they love him and want him to live
and know in their hearts he will leave this room
by neither window nor door, they have ordained
that the lintel that has been always there
Yes, In The Beginning
Long before the goats there was a shadow,
a breath, yes in the beginning a breath
sifted light from dark, washed the dust
with rain, drew a sun in a big round sky.
Made clay.
The Geologist In Lockdown
By Nell Regan Shanganagh Cliffs The last great melt is scored through each layer of these cliffs – these shelly drifts below our home, cut clean by the knife of the sea. I scan for sun bleached stone, delivered from a desert long gone, find a speckled piece of the Firth of Clyde but my […]
REED BUNTING Emberiza schoeniclus
By Mary Montague REED BUNTING Emberiza schoeniclus: from a sequence after the species’ singing styles (2) I Sing Me To More Myself I begin in the dark / as I began in My / own dark unformedness / making a syllable / after a syllable / after a syllable / which is the kind of faith / […]