By Fatena Abu Mostafa Ceasefire A word. Heavy with silence. It floods the headlines like morphine injected into the veins of a dying world. A numbness. A slow drip of denial. Day by day, just enough to keep us breathing, in a life that has forgotten how to live. We wait. And wait. And wait— […]
Category: Poem
Winter Aubade
By J. Kates Frost and sun, a splendid day! Still you sleep the hour away. Love, it’s time you came awake: Open up those dreamy eyes and see the winter morning break. You, my Northern Star, arise! Lately it’s been rain and sleet — heavy slush and soaking feet. Yesterday it snowed. And snowed. […]
Monet in Árann
for Kathleen Loughnane by Moya Cannon. Over the drystone, sunstruck wallwe were ambushed by the swayand scent of a July meadow—whites of tall daisy and yarrow,purples of scabious and cranesbill,the bitten yellow of cat’s ear,blue tremble of harebell,and more flowers that we couldn’t name, but we were caught, are caught still,in the blurry, summery sway […]
Rough Magic
By Gerard Smyth for Lynne Parker (Who names the storms, who names the winds and stars? – Derek Mahon) When naming the storms the meteorologistschoose from Shakespeare, the Bible, the Greek gods.This one will come bringing monsoon rainand leave us needing candlelight.The worst of it will be the floodpawing the back door to get in.It […]
DOSTOEVSKY’S GRAVE
by Leland Bardwell I am locked in this acropolisjust Feodor and meI rub my fingersin his overcoat of stonegambling my airline ticketand find in the valleyof my life-linethe gravel of Baden Baden 2022 is Leland Bardwell’s centenary year. Her complete poems will be published this year and a new book from Lepus Print celebrates […]
From THE CELLO SUITES
by Macdara Woods. The fiddler in the caveholds back the sea:the firbolgs planted the land like this the smoky kitchencandle-lighton mother of pearl: This side of the portallet me feel itlet me putmy hand there let mehold ittouch itfeel it let me somehow stay connected This poem first appeared in Cyphers 56, in 2004. It […]
Green Window
By Pearse Hutchinson The small kitchen in the attic scarcely had room for anything bar the big double bed.Which was surprisingly comfortable.There was one small square window, above the sink.It was entirely covered – and very neatly too – by some very thin green material.You’d be amazedI always wasat how much light that green window […]
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 […]
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 / […]