Category: Spring 2016 Irish Issue

Summer Table
by John MacKenna My mother was sitting on the cemetery wall, reciting an old poem, not loudly but with the carefulness of one who knows her

Ruins
by Thomas McCarthy Fallen martyrs of Antioch, time’s unrecoverable flora — It’s not me, it’s the garden itself that becomes nostalgic At this

Searching for Dennis O’Driscoll
by Thomas McCarthy The howling November wind, that chill Taxing Master, stiffens Entire buildings in the Castle yard. As we grow older We also

Boghole
by Paul Casey for John W. Sexton the slop migrant vortex of turf muck near swallowed him whole one grey farm day he said, but for a bubble of air

Last Wildflower
by Paul Casey for Rosie I scaled the cliffs of Moher to write about the tourists trekked south till there were no more barriers, signs of stick

Lost Things
by Jessica Traynor We are living now in the era of lost things. Can you feel the bee’s wingbeat as it dodges into the slipstream of the

Bonfire
by Jessica Traynor November slips into December like cold air down my throat. I catch my crow’s feet in the mirror and swallow the shock of years

Thistle Birth
by Doireann Ní Ghríofa Three weeks after her birth I wrap my tiny daughter in a rainbow blanket and wheel her to the forest. There, I see poems

The Backward Look
by Dónall Dempsey for D.B. The blackbird leaves me a note pinned to the sky that blue beyond blue the tide of the moment turning turning. Time

Selfie
by Kevin Higgins “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.” George Orwell My hair is the grass on the