Poem of the Week

A Cheap Flight After Discharge by Leonie Lacey Our mother's worry echoes in his every footstep, a slush of wet sock meeting frayed insole. A teaming fog of talk to me talk to me trails his slighter frame, chokes our hello in the…

Wabash Banner Blue  by Bill Ratner Listen to Bill Ratner reading Wabash Banner Blue A night of trees and winds  mangled sparrows  a dreamless sleep  a shutter opens  nursing in brumal air  moans of the slowing Wabash…

Moving by Ruth Quinlan There is little of me here now. The final days of sweating, bleaching  erase all but coffee rings on the table,  blushes of wine on the couch,  Blu Tack stains on walls from seven calendars. This slate…

Astronomer Seal by R.P Moran Torpedo snouted, gazing up to  battleship-grey skies. Scanning for what? Sonar singing through clouds,  fishing for stars; hungry for answers. Arria after the roadside sculpture by Andy…

Tuesday Night by Sarah O'Neill Sometimes I feel like we are two sailors lost at sea. Stranded for days, bodies slowly dissolving in salt, Overwhelmed by thirst, our lips a distant memory, We look at each other and it’s like, Jesus it…

St Rumbold’s Well In Memoriam of the Tuam Babies by Fiona Perry I was born in a field blazing with corncrake call A seed released from its casement.  The hedgerows ripped from top to bottom  When I burst into the light, entered  The…

Utah Lake by Debra Fotheringham From the porch and through the plea of gulls and warbling songbirds, I hear the rush and pulse of water  out past the shoreline. Where wild olives and cottonwoods  embrace churned waves with…

Early Release by James Whyte The house sat where it always had  on the hill at the end of the lane.  Your father carried your bag from the boot to the back door as if you were a child again. It was March and a blackbird…

She Was Lightning by Aisling Twomey It was years before I learned  that the lightning comes  before the thunder. First a charge, a flash, a strike that  splits the sky,  demanding attention.  The thunder follows;  a mournful growl …

Before Staying after Brendan Kennelly by Vinny Glynn-Steed Speak to me of that night of troubled oarsmen, how we found  our lineage in timber’s forlorn form  a slanted, broken mast; a forgotten import from Golgotha.  Speak also of…