All posts filed under: Ireland

“Delicate” by C. Murray

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Delicate We trace our path from the harbour to a dark-stepped lane opening out onto the old churchyard. Green and blue sea-glass, a rough blush pink is clearlit. We find small rib bones scattered there. I pick up the cap of a skull. Small, its sponge ossified to a mineralized honeycomb. I cup its yellow cream in my hand. Delicate, a sea snail, most precious egg, as if it had touched the ruby feather of a bluebird. A most precious thing, bird-egg-shattered, dust in my pores. We place the bones down on a portico shelf. Are they human bones, those of an infant? We lay them under the wing of a sheltering grave, a small bone heap. We move through the labyrinth. An excerpt from “Delicate” was published by HiRISE (MRO, NASA) as part of the “Beautiful Mars Project” (Mars Poetica) Image © HiRISE

“The Moment Daphne Survived” and other poems by Maria Karapish

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The Moment Daphne Survived First, it was my legs that went shooting down below the known world that knew me. As they reached further and further and continued to extend until I touched upon something safe and nurturing and secretive but liberating all at once, as my lower half Was shielded from your hungry eyes. Second, was the fear as I continued being engulfed by not just my final resting place, but by a new vessel if I was to continue living on in a way that could be considered living. Without suffocation from your paralysing advances Yet you still reached for me one final time and at that moment, I couldn’t even scream, my mouth was the next to go. Next, came the pain no longer anesthetized by shock, accompanied by your own screams of anguish and perverse tragedy at what was being made of my mortal self as I seeped into the soil. Oh, my steadfast arms splintered away and upwards as I grew those bare branches in turmoil. The strain so searing …

“Villanelle to Cold Psalms” and other poems by Jane Burn

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Villanelle to Cold Psalms Here among the gloam owls, their cry of cold psalms I am treetops, bearing a crown of night. The dark is born. I imagine the death I would make in the strange of your arms, shiver beneath the void of stars, sing the charm of moths. Wish them against my neck. My skin mourns, here among the gloam owls, their cry of cold psalms. Dusk is a lie. This is crushed light, visions of curious calm. I am prey, twitching in uneasy sleep, a distant spire’s thorn. I imagine the death I would make in the strange of your arms. Here are the tendons of my neck. Here is the throb of harm. I am lost as one drop of rain is lost to a storm, here among the gloam owls, their cry of cold psalms. I bear a ghost of gloom in the curl of my palm. I am the moonlight’s gash where the sky is torn. I imagine the death I would make in the strange of your arms, …

“Swimming” and other poems by Eimear Bourke

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Cerebral Sorbet I’d like to take my brain out Just for a day. And put it on ice Cerebral sorbet A chance to cool down and let these thoughts melt away A hollow cranium could be lots of fun My skull drying out while I play in the sun I’d go to the beach and get salt on my skin Under the waves, With the fishes I’d swim Deeper and deeper To dark blue I would dive Where ringing in my ears would signal I’m alive I’ll come back of course. There’s no other way A brainless lawyer in the sea cannot stay. Sand ‘tween my toes, I’d walk to the shore Encephalon recharged Bad thoughts no more   Attempts to summarize nine years in a page First, there were bubble-gum candy shoes and a low-slung ponytail You. Standing in the hallway of a dorm filled with 2011 college girl energy. Which you were lacking. Half nervous. Half apathetic. I had my own reasons for coming out to say hi. In bed with a beautiful …

“The shame of our island” and other poems by Siobhán Campbell

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The shame of our island is that we killed the wolf. Not just the last but the two before that. I knew a man who met a man who was the cousin removed of the great-grandson of the man who killed the third-last wolf on the island. Slit it he did, to see the steaming innards – how long they were, how tightly wound. Had it a white paw to the fore? That gene would have been recessive. Was there a black bar across the yellow eye? No time to notice its différence. Is this a wolf with its bared teeth and its lairy smell and its fetlock tipped with white? Is this wolfish?   Tone Tone says here is the other cheek, why don’t you have a go at that? Tone is when you’re giggling at a double bluff and you see someone crying. Tone is an artist dropping a Ming vase and calling that art. Tone is another artist slashing that guy’s canvas, calling him a fart. Tone is muscling up to the …