Issue 36 | December 2018 |

A Girl There was a girl Who lived in a glass mind And carried her emotions From room to room In a brown suitcase. Blackbirds pecked at her Through see-through walls, Hissing...

Chiromancy ‘The great Sage as high as Heaven visited here.’ Wu Cheng'en – Journey to the West, 1592 High staggered moorland crossroads too few trees, the big wide...

Nadia Wolnisty's tribute to the impressionist Kay Sage

the flag keeper he walks slowly to the place with that solemnity that cadavers bring, and leans the heavy ladder on the mast-like pole. a tilted head and gooseflesh show that today...

SUET, SUNFLOWERS AND HAY Winter is at our gate and a dozen crows, like trespassing bandits, raid our slumbering garden The sun is a hard shadow bleaching bony...

Understorey Your father in his fawn windcheater names the song of each bird we hear points out fox holes and fungi, pulls to one side an elder branch explains...

The wild time  > It took me years to find others didn't seemusic like me - as a space to enter, in whichto move between/with colours...

We must not hesitate to bewilder sensation’. Andre Breton ‘ If we say, ‘how does one write surrealist poetry,’ we are asking the wrong question?  ...

Red plums I bit into the unnoted plum, expecting sharp disappointment or at best, tolerable near-sweetness.  My thumb left an indent which gave me some hope - bruised fruit...

Fata Morgana I am lost on the Lake deliberately at sea tossing about in moody waves raging in storms of fictive selves struggling for a critical angle ebbing in the middle...

In Memoriam Here lies his naked body, like a baroque Christ. Long pale arms at his side, it is not Shakespeare’s Adonis. Nor is it the carved strength of Achilles that...

TESTAMENT ANNE ELIZABETH BEVAN ISBN 978-1-910855-82-9 £10.00 Lapwing Publications, Belfast. Testament, Cork based poet Anne Bevan’s first collection of poems, has already received praise from reviewers: Anne’s poetry gets straight...

Afternoon drinking in The Jolly Butchers feels like being invited to join in a casual conversation with a group you found yourself sitting near to...

Growing Up in Colour is dedicated to the memories of the poet’s parents, Brian Devitt (1920-1971) and Pauline Devitt (née Kennan) (1927-2014).

In creative writing, the author caters to the appeal of the targeted readers. As every audience is as diverse and complex as the people...

Brian Kirk is an award-winning poet and short story writer from Dublin. His children’s novel The Rising Son was published in December 2015. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2013 and highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2014 and 2015. His first poetry collection After The Fall was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017. He blogs at www.briankirkwriter.com.

INTERLUDE At twilight by a low stone wall, a small boy in pyjamas holds a glass box full of fireflies, points to his father swinging a net in...

Unasked, He Teaches Me Photography Keep your horizons level, he says. And not in the middle. Upper third or lower. But I don't want a postcard, nor art. I...

TEST MATCH > We watch the cricket. Clueless American, British man. Tomay-to Tomah-to doesn’t even come close. I blink at the screen, hesitate but think, what the heck, ask sorry, but,...

Three Poems Starting with 'W' Written on a Torn Package for Eric and Chris That time I stepped to the blackboard to draw a shape with chalk as...

Death’s Signature Maybe I should have known, it rained so hard, that you had gone. Maybe I should have known that yellow tulips spilling from the vase reveal...

Cultural Confusions A deserted diner off the highway; watched by the dark-haired, heavy waitress I ate alone and uncomfortable. Something wrong with her right eye so craning round to...

Christine Murray uses minimal, impressionistic language to convey images from the natural world. 

buried she’s just where you said i’d find her half-way buried underneath the pendulous trapeze to hang off of on afternoons that couldn’t move days like this one when...

AQUARIUM I dreamed of an aquarium fixed into my back a miniature box with tetras and an angel fish, its glass sunk deep instead of memories, I had to ask each...

To touch someone well is difficult. Saying, Here, take my hand requires courage I simply do not have. I am a coward. Physical touch...

The book’s appeal to readers should be quite broad since Ray’s verse is accessible and intelligible

Propped up against goose down pillows, her face is ravaged and pallid,  strung together with skeletal  bone. In one hand is a lit cigarette....

Veronica watched the snowflakes drift onto the grass, in a thin white gauze. April was always a tease; just when you thought winter was...

I see you again – walking towards me – with your confident stride. I notice your closely-shaven beard, white, button-down shirt, and neatly-pressed slacks....

On Thursday I went to the supermarket and did my usual round: salad, fruit, vegetables. While I was selecting the oranges a net bag...

Took the moon  I reached out and took the moon in my hand. I know others think she's still there in the blueblack sky lighting the world like...

Sylvie of the Stone Stoop I talk with Sylvie of the stone stoop as her hand digs around in the Cheetos bag for crumbs and her bare feet...

Brenda Read-Brown: Like Love V Press ISBN: 9781999844431 Launch date: 7 th November, 2018. Brenda Read-Brown’s biographical notes struck a chord with me, as I also changed direction after...

Babysitter > Angry return home Classic misunderstanding Parents shout and scream Weren’t lit’rally meant to sit Squash their children into paste > Bits > I’m British around the Americans American around the Brits Neither one nor...

Motherhood by Sheila Heti London, Harvill Secker 2018 ISBN 9781846558375 £ 14.99 (paperback) ‘I’m protecting onto you, coins, the wisdom of the universe’ Motherhood A meditation on womanhood and motherhood...

We’ll Catch the Next One: a ghost and a gun meet again to talk before catching their trains away to some oblivion. the gun cackles out the wide open hole...

The Bangle In the shop window, the bangle shone, its spangled beauty called to me. You saw your chance, you with your deep pockets. On...