Drawn to the Light Press

Issue 1

October 2020

Aurora Deirdre McKernan

Contents

I Gave Up My Old Way Attracta Fahy 4X. devant le Sacré Coeur Ross Hoey 5Where Did You Go Dad? Deirdre McKernan

Crosby6

Uncompanioned, address unknown Sven Kretzschmar 7Lightless Gillie Robic 8Bouquet Siobhán Mc Laughlin 9September in Ireland Jean O’Brien 10Foolish Love Jorge Leiva 11Created or Destroyed. Patricia Walsh 12Sinking Ships Aoife Bradshaw 13Dingle Wilds 6 – Cow Chatter Polly Richardson

Munnelly14

Disconnected David Ratcliffe 15I gave you my heart in a burlap bag Kara Lynn Amiot 16The morning Lorna Collins 17“Cloaking a Thirst” Nwuguru Chidiebere

Sullivan18

The Stiperstones Bernard Pearson 19Citizenship Kate Ennals 20Holiday Monday Nessa O’Mahony 21The Yellow Pen Clive Collins 22Noble Incomprehensible Things Richard W. Halperin 23Embers Micéal Kearney 24on loving wisely and thinking from the heart

Simon Alderwick 25

After Hirst’s Ordinance (2018) Mary Melvin Geoghegan

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Ode to Ara Stephen McNulty 27Halloween Safari Maurice Devitt 28Kreuzberg: The Intimacy of Strangers

Annie Deppe 29

At eighteen I knew nothing Anne Tannam 30The Instinctive Drowning Response Colin Dardis 31Vanishing Point Giles L. Turnbull 32As a boy I used to Dylan Benjamin 33No burial for little girls Liz Chadwick Pywell 34Hope Antoinette Rock 35Duolingo Gerry Stewart 36December John Noonan 37

Notes on Contributors 38

Editorial

Welcome to Issue 1 of Drawn to the Light Press! The idea to create the magazine came over the summer as I worked on my poetry chapbook of the same name, Drawn to the Light, which is called after a poem within the collection. Drawn to the Light will be available soon.

Thank you to Deirdre McKernan who responded to my quest for an image of a butterfly on social media. Deirdre went out of her way to help and painted an acrylic called Aurora. Aurora is Latin for dawn and it is an auspicious title for the painting which marks the birth of this adventure. Deirdre also has a poem in this issue.

Submissions came from all over the world. They flew though cyberspace from Ireland, the UK, the USA, Canada, India, South Korea, Africa, Europe and Australia. Thank you all, I look forward to reading more of your emails for Issue 2.

In a world that is constantly changing don’t be afraid to change. Often the only thing certain is change. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Do it now. See how fast the river runs. It never stops. As Reinhold Niebuhr said “Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” If you must adapt, adapt. From out the chrysalis the butterfly.

Drawn to the Light Press Issue 1 is launched!

Orla Fay, 17/10/20

Attracta Fahy

I Gave Up My Old Way

cried for days into a notebook, hoped nobody noticed, ‘a sinus problem,’ I said, and carried on, the world carried on too.

I didn't want anyone to see my grief, for fear they might band aid my pain. I needed to transit dark, knew somehow this was the portal.

I walked with auburn leaves down to the well, an eternal spring of tears dissolving all forms, bloodshot eyes baptise my unborn light.

I walked to the lake, saw early frost transform spider’s web into a silver snowflake. Watched a swan glide over water, dip her head between ripples, took her time to move to the edge.

When I got back, I talked to utensils, pots, pans, spoons, the stove, gave everything life to feel alive, as they got on with being themselves.

I spoke to the moon, stars, the deep void,and after a while I wasn't so sad.I didn't want to be alone either,sometimes it’s easier to pretend, find your way through,

the body knows how this works, symptoms, whatever ails, remedies offered for comfort, and ‘you poor thing.’

Ross Hoey

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X. devant le Sacré Coeur

I am one of those bowed at your feetoffering gold, offering crownshanding you the world

arms outstretched asking what more can I giveyou look dead aheadaccepting none of my gifts

in a church you became Jesusin a painted cityI was on my knees before you

I left haunted by the obsession I feltI had to shake it offI have to shake you off

you’re a blackhole a tornadoI am being hurled around against my will

like an addict afraid of going cold turkeyI crave only that poison which is killing me

I’ll always give you up tomorrowbut stay with me tonight

Deirdre McKernan Crosby

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Where Did You Go Dad? Where did you go Dad?When did you begin to forget?When did it begin to matter?The assault on life’s palette. Where did you go Dad?On days lost in company.In the loneliness of the Bookies,I saw you, and you became somebody. Where did you go Dad?When you smiled and linked my arm.Reminisced of bike rides to Dun Laoghaire.Before the fateful electrical storm. Where did you go Dad?Amid confusion and anxiety.Daily tasks drenched in driving difficulty.Non-conforming, no complacency. Where did you go Dad?When conspiracies raged.When we finished the Simplex crossword.No matter - our hearts, forever aligned. Where did you go Dad?When you looked back on the day.Seamus rang, Fionnuala called over,Written carefully, in your pocket diary. Where did you go Dad?When silence hung in that empty space.Dream of Mama, grieve for dear Rosemarie?Sleep, sweet peace at last, for all eternity.

Sven Kretzschmar

Uncompanioned, address unknown

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On Smithfield pavement, youngand old rush into the night not extendinga hundred thousand welcomesfor me to follow. Unaware

of the newcomer up there, they roam never on their own, don’t askabout the mystery of an air-shortribcage in the dark while I, homesick,

gasping for breath, standmy ground in a hostel room facingin the mirror the face I deserveenvying even a beggar

for his pug companion. Evening wind takesa written scrap of paper on a walkover the kerbstone, uncompanioned by stray cats or nocturnal birds –

a message delivered to no address.

Gillie Robic

Lightless    

The last of the matches; nothing fires

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now but thunderheads, their reflections trouble the relief of the sloped ceiling. I shut my eyes but can no longer hear

the whirr of wings.  I lie down with my ear against the floorboards to listen for the soft beating of dust and membrane. Nothing; desiccated husks, used up silence.

With no light-source as night comes oneven the luna moths have gone.

Siobhán Mc Laughlin

Bouquet   Phlox, to make you complicit. Or so much more: our souls united. For tender truths told: narcissus, 

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petals as gentle as fingertips.  Baby's breath, this love as light as air.    Snowdrops, precursors of joys to unfold. Or love yet to be awakened: jonquil. The fierce promise of a primrose - timid tempered only by resolve. Let this not go unacknowledged.   A hundred-leaved rose, extravagant declaration of my sincere affection, petals paramount to my adoration.  Honeysuckle; sweet, heady, a token of my devoted affection.   Let variegated tulips testify  to the beauty of your eyes. And yellow, the sun of your smile. Fuchsia a symbol of this secret love  still budding, waiting to be told.   Thoughtful pansies, faithful violets.  Love me truly: daisies. Love me loyal: lemon balm.  High summer’s ease, wildflower breeze. Lily of the valley: return of happiness.   Asters, like fallen stars, for patience.  And peonies. Big, bold, hearts burst into bloom;  richness of love undisputed. Whimsical  ranunculus, for I am dazzled by your charms.  Forget-me-not blues, through and through.

Jean O’Brien

September in Ireland

Imagine the narrow, cobbled streets of Crete, empty of tourists who now huddled at home, the stray cats roaming free, hunting scraps, that no longer fall from careless tables. These battered wooden taverna doors locked

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down for months now. The basket chairswe sat on, upended, legs to sky.

Yellow and red bougainvillea still tumbles in papery excess over roofs and walls, snatched glimpses of sea between buildings and the rinsed clarity of light is the same. It is we who are not there.Memory and longing wash through us.The heavy bottomed glasses still brim

with milky Ouzo, threatening to overspill at any moment, the tatzike is spoilingin the sun and the baklava is a fester of wasps as we cocoon with our cupsof strong tea and raisened brack, dolefullywatching September rain, hearing its racket wondering if we will ever get back.

Jorge Leiva

Foolish Love

For you, I would carry out homicide,like in Double Indemnity.I would make it look like a suicide.Your hips are the road to perversity. I would climb the K-2 Mountain,rob at gunpoint the Royal Bank.

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I would find the misty fountainfrom which the old gods drank. I would sign up to the gymwith a feeling of euphoria.I would dive in the Antarctic, swim,hope for pneumonia. I would enlist in a senseless war,fight for a lost cause.I wouldn’t mind wounds, nor an ugly scar,if you gave me a round of applause. I would run the New York Marathon,race before the bulls in Pamplona,I would rebuild the Parthenon,a kiss is well worth an hematoma. I would gladly give myself infor crimes I did not commit.I would sing Video killed the radio starat the most decadent, karaoke bar. I would perjure myself in court,deny having known your name.I would go through plastic surgeryto end up looking just the same. I would carry your bags to the stationfor a train to an unknown, final, destination.Then, I would wave you sweet goodbye,while you slip away from my life.

Patricia Walsh

Created or Destroyed.

Aimed poor and unknown, at least unto death,Semi-precious wastage of a daughters skillChewing on the precious literature in an inklingNot a whit the wiser for swallowing words.

In the underground swathe, ascertaining probabilityPlaying with the lungs, keeping peace with mighty

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Seen once, then forgotten, wanting to be pickedFrom the wealthy and loving goldmine that burns

Converted into forms, similar the betterEscorted home in disgrace, enjoyment forestalledWatching elephants in the classroom, thunder forthBroken into pieces the watchman stands.

Wrecking on the level, tripping on holidaysSingular knife twisted to a legendary groom,Worse than is able, the cotton-on defeats,Jobs too big or small, continuous, above board

The instant ideation, purely academic,Cities numbered on the back of another historydistilled sentiments poison the persuasiveDefensive drinking shoots the hip fantastic.

Sitting in wait, reading one's own debtsTo a hardened clique, being seen oftenContaminating the sweet, lost in a lectureThe real suicide perplexed for the better.

Aoife Bradshaw

Sinking Ships

They go down fast, When descent begins.Ready. Canon. Fire.

What a blaze it madeOf the night’s cold.The ship has sunk with its load.

It bore a name

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I dare not speakLest I call it back to life.

But there was treasure Once, hidden in the hold.The ship has sunk with its load.

Its former grace, Vanished on the wavesWhispers through the deep.

I hear the song.Where once it flowed, Now the ship has sunk with its load.

Polly Richardson Munnelly

Dingle Wilds 6 - Cow Chatter

Silence speaks volumes, eyes hold the scaring the distant wonders of past slaughters, churn fermenting insides to regurgitations, unwanted digestionsacidifying cuds, burning holes with each morsel chewed dripping drool to the blackened,

they say we ingest the fear of bovine’s green milebefore the eyes turn white, the moment deaths sensed the realisation the grey pasture maze has no way out.

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Their own Auschwitz, we the exterminators manoeuvring.

The bullocks in the pasture dream, suckle the mountainstake the cake offered over decades of fences erected,revealing baby’s teeth, belch seven rounds, heavy in aromaenough to knock out sea.

Under sun basking giving curiosity a terrific show, smellgreen apples crunched amongst parting dormant briars,

slap tongues to clap their approval as mouths synchronise opening,silent, taking smallest of sweetened bits as if nestlings.The days milk into weeks, no lowering decorates ebony

to serenade lunar light, only hock movements speaking its ownas if earthen ballet, bowing to shadows cast.

David Ratcliffe

Disconnected

I witness astonishment,envy its virtue, feel the contours of her wide expression, long to capture the essence of her beingto journey south from the breastbone.

To lie in the infirmary, behind battlement walls, 

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receive intimate attentionfrom curative fingers.

To trace the horizon,place myself at the kernelof understanding, and return to the place, I last gave a shit.

To recognize truth; find purpose beyond abandoned faith, something that drives blood through my wasted veins.

So, try I must,before apathy slows my pulse, time takes my bonesand she averts her gaze.

Kara Lynn Amiot

I gave you my heart in a burlap bag

There I was, in the palm of your hands,fragile but safe, no need to fret the trust.That was until you began to tug and tug,finding one angry thread,the weak link, the loose hold on the rest of me.You tug, and the unravel begins,the spiral of panic-reactions you waited for,hands holding tight that suddenly let go.It was the dance canon unfolding, on repeat,the weave unraveling at the seams.

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The one lonely thread of me - all of my fibres that twisted out from one,that knotted and looped into every complexity of my being.That was all that it took to leave meripped open and spilling apart,exposed inside from out,completely undone.

Lorna Collins

The morning

Immediately,with expediency, my eyes burst open.

It’s 03:12am. Alert, prised, exposed, I climb downstairs.

It’s still dark, but sparks of lightjerk the murky dregs of night.Soon it’s time.

I step outside, through cracks

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tracked across the wide, lightening horizon.

The birds’ sfumato captures me.Enraptured at their unknown, atoning, sweet vibrato,

I’m held, to listen.As nature glistens,softening air blossoms my care.

The dog and the cat follow,filling my hollow,together we swallow, wallow in nature.

Nurturing creation,purchasing time to breathe,here I thrive.

Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan

"Cloaking A Thirst"

The best way to obfuscate evidence of shame is to dissolve into darkness,This is how the street groomed usto become nightmares swallowingthe footsteps of strangers.There's no way our blotches can be seen without light,I tell you this to show you how our palmsbear the zigzag route to a slum----our body,where boys hide under the grey bulb to profess love to their fellow.In this place, a girl cannot kiss her fellowwithout being shown a pathway to ashes.Even if you've not seen how men made the semiotics of love monotonous,you'd have heard that there's only one route to love& it is by dragging the swollen legs of a heart

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contrary to whatever gender you are.There is no safer way of drawing peacefrom the throat of this society as an alien in your body,without being nailed on the cross.Here, concealing one's true thirstis a better way to stay safe& hypocrisy is the truest disguised way of life.

Bernard Pearson

The Stiperstones

I see why the devil tarried to spill fromhis apron these rocks like tumbled dicefor all we know such soaring beauty maystill draw him back through the drift of yearsto spy across to great Snowdon and then to casthis ancient eye over to the chair of Idris Gawr. He may have paused, as evil does,to refresh his satan soul amongst the glint of quartz,his horned head resting upon yielding heathersoothed by something of the beat of hellfrom those who toiled in death like darknessfor the lead until oft times the day on which they fell.

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Kate Ennals

Citizenship

As a child, I lay curled in a nest of cranes Embedded in cracks, in a land of concretea blink of neon, a moment. I collected red buses, black cabs, amassed beliefs. Absolutes

Today, I belong to a land of disturbance, dashed hopes, madness, matriarchy, and distorted lyrics. I am becalmed by salt skies, mountains of granite, toothless mud, wit, windwry amusement.

Light here is bold yet fluid, filled with drops of waterStrong, deliberate, fleet of wit, swift of soft. It is fiery, wild, with a delicate, unreliable touch; it holds me.

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Nessa O’Mahony

Holiday Monday

Tinnies West, Valentia Island, 13th August 2020

A water-drop on barbed-wire sort of day.Shedded cows bellow to ones in the fieldwho munch oblivious to crow-calls.The cloud-sky teases the channel,offering a meeting it might just withholdif the mountains make a better offer.Last night’s amber alert was just the turf’s last grated flicker.The tethered collie sniffs the air,bristles at every moo.The coffee awaits the plunger,the day its plan.

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Clive Collins

The Yellow Pen Morning, pad, aYellow pen, and thenSome wingéd creature,Butterfly or moth,Flaps past the toothyCanopy of ourlittle park’s lastLeft-standing cherry.  Prunus serrulataSerrulata? Small serrations;Trust me, I’ve just lookedit up. Bird’s songs now, whichI haven’t, but some guessesWould be praise of the day,Alarm, Dismay, a thousand smallDistresses. Someone knows.I suppose, just not me. Capping the yellow pen,I put it, the pad and all suchthoughts away.

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Richard W. Halperin

Noble Incomprehensible Things

I have to go slowly here. At twenty,Poetry visited me: ‘You are hired. Now,Figure out what to do.’ I am still 

Getting the hang of it. The first thingI thought of at the time was ‘firmament,’A word in Genesis I still do not understand:

Something interposed between two worldsWhich keeps the two worlds from utterlyCrushing each other. Maybe death – 

That of a bug; of the dog Buffy; ofMy mother; of myself one day – isThe sudden withdrawal of firmament. 

I do not know why we have the impulseTo return our dead to the earth. I am struck,In the story of the martyrdom of Stephen, 

By the fact that after the crowd left,His friends stayed on, to decently bury him.

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If today a Martian descended, 

Wanting to better understand our race,I would say, That.The perpetual too-late of brief life.

Micéal Kearney

Embers

A rusting rim gathers siblingssome now parents. Short-lived orange flies soar from the bonfirethen quench in calm, frightened Covid air. Rotten pallets, wine, Johnny Green & Jim Guinness; native trunks, a transplanted Swede even a foreign one from the Pale trade war stories of how we expertly fooled our parents. From wherever she ended up Gran chuckles.

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Simon Alderwick

on loving wisely and thinking from the heart

I decided to experimenton myselfcut out my braincut out my heartthen stitched myself upwith the two organsswitched

I tried to understand the worldwith all my heartbut my heart brokeunder the weight of the world

and when I looked backand rememberedmy ex-wives and loversI banged my chest against the walluntil I was brain damaged

the funny thing wasafter allI felt perfectlyfine andwell adjusted

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leading me to concludethat the brain is merely a broken heartand the heart nothing morethan a brain-damaged mind

Mary Melvin Geoghegan

After Hirst’s Ordinance (2018)

Perhaps, in a manic impulse – the artist caught the butterfly wingswith colours never mixed on a palate.He assembled those hypnotic rings.

Iridescent, at the centre of each orbitall the intricacies of the universeconcentrated in a solitary yellow butterfly.Almost, as a cosmic mandalain a staggering expression of light.

Fresh from the atlas of waiting to be celebratedbeyond all prejudicejust awe –

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Stephen McNulty

Ode to Ara

Ara, what do you mean you never heardthis word that floats along the western seaboard

sometimes you’ll see her wander angry, alonemostly she leads others, sets the tone

lends herself to times funny, boring or awfula grammatical Birdseye potato waffle

Ara is less of a word than a moodthe teapot in which a sentence is brewed

if words were bread, she’d be a toasterand if they were mugs, she’d be their coaster

the shrug of shoulders in a quiet roomor the pin popping a bullshitter’s balloon

Ara is an exorcist when spirits are brokeor planning permission to tell a joke

she’s a sinner walking into a box of confessionor three little letters that could hint at depression

she’s the prodigal son’s head ‘round the corner,the look of disgust at a poor pint of porter

Ara can be the icing on a christening cakeor the plate of cigarettes passed around at a wake

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the fat lady singing when victory is goneshe’s our tongues equivalent to an emoticon

but as accents dissolve in transatlantic sprayI wonder how long will Ara remain?

Maurice Devitt

Halloween Safari In late September they appear,moving in long dribblesagainst the straining light of evening -young boys with bright eyes and mottled faces.Scouts, cycling ahead, whistleand whip the band along the chosen line.Freewheeling through whispering stalksof grass, they clamber over bedframesand discarded bikes to lay bare their prey,pulling the lifeless rubber from the heap.Tyres too heavy to carry are rolled and dragged,coaxed along the trek home,rucked over pallets onto the waiting pyre.There they lie in anticipation of a bottleand a petrol-soaked cloth - a sacrificial flameclimbing into the night sky,as surrounding houses cowerin the exaggerated shadowsand residents peek through net curtains,while shivering in the heat.

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Annie Deppe

Kreuzberg: The Intimacy of Strangers

Friday morning, seven a.m.,and I’m drowsing in bed reconsidering a visit to the fruit and vegetable manwhose day it is to come from the countryand set up his wares on a cornerthree blocks from here

—all those tempting fruits bearing German namesbut I’m limited to what I can carry.And that problem of touch. His unwelcome assumption of intimacy.

Shouts draw me to the window:a pair of men, alive with curses,anger-dance their waydown cobbled Falckensteinstraße.

Elegant graffiti explodes nightlyon the red door opposite ours

but on the bench beneath the linden treetwo Turkish women chat together unperturbed. Between them an orange bag overflows with onions.

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Anne Tannam

At eighteen I knew nothing

of death and dying, so when a girl from collegetold me three of her brothers had drowned alongside five others, eight bodies in allrecovered from Doolin Bay,eight lads not much older than I was then,just down for a weekend music festival,a scorcher of a day, the sea within shouting distanceI didn’t have the language, didn’t know the words,never thought to ask her brothers’ names.

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Colin Dardis

The Instinctive Drowning Response It starts off white;it always does: the day holding onto an idea of purity. Yet the sun and moonare in constant battle,the skies, a warzone. A tuft of cloudfights against a sunbeam,warriors suspended. Consider the energyspent in forming the skyinto a fist of lightning. Against such fissionthe oceans are chargedwith postcard wilderness. Churning threnodiesfor lost sailors, she receivesthe flashes and the falls. Engine and heartgo down, softened together,twofold interment.

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Giles L. Turnbull

Vanishing Point

The sunless sky compressedinto an irisblack Black BLACKblack boundlessbottomless cleftbetween sour-faced canyonsacutely cuttingloose-rockedlemon-lippedeach glimmerdroppingECHOINGdropECHOingdrop DropDROPscrambling from the depthsa thousand shades of longingcauterised greyshaping memorysingle-file dreamscreeping up behindwith pockets full of surprisesa little bleatan ephemeral star in the ever-expandingsizzling and fallingachingly fragilevanishingly small

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Dylan Benjamin

As a boy I used to

taste the metallic sweetnessof a coin on top of my tongue &I’d be in the eighties. Twisting.Running Up That Hill. shouting for the central park five.small silver coins brought the nineties pregnant technology & grungemobile mercenaries; unanswered messagesI could draw the sweat on my tongue swill time in my mouth like a seacarrying a small boat.the brimstone face of my fatherpennilessseared into my subconscious, alwayswhile we walked over weekends;no money for the bus. no car.cracked ice pops – cobalt bluesauntering through summer heatin silence and surrender. Like a prisoner of war throwing palmsto the Lord in front of a man hedoes not hate but does not understand.It wasn’t until later in life when afist burst blood from my nose I thought Wow, how fitting that blood tastes like money.

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Liz Chadwick Pywell

No burial for little girls

You said, It’s a disease,or abuse, whichever’s worse,and I swallowed pan-hot chilliswhole to keep my throat thick,keep the words in my bones.

You said, It’s fine, I don’tcare, I just don’t want to seeit, and my stomach boiledsearing lava soup.

You said, It’s not that they deserveit, it’s that they can’t controlthemselves, they have noself control, you see, and my lungsflamed, belching spice and smokelike a fire at sea, drowningand burning at once whilegulls circled warily, divingoccasionally, hoping for blood.

There are many ways to smothera bonfire but you can’tbury a volcano, mother. Noamount of damp soil and landfillwill stifle that heat andwhen it reemerges,shedding its gravefingers first, dirt under its nails,it will gather the twigs andthe leaves left by thosewho died alone, the hot bonesof birds and ghosts, press theminto itself and grow, relentlessly,stalk you on glowing embers,shove capsicum down your craw, screaming and crying at once,hoping for blood,

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hoping you will saynothing.

Antoinette Rock

Hope

It's not realA word often usedto fill a space – marking the unsure bendin a sentencenot the real McCoy.Like hope when we’re  sittingin hospitalwaiting for results,or hope whenthe flat line happensit’s not the endit is what it is.Hope a word slotted inwhen there isn't any.

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Gerry Stewart

Duolingo

Tha mi ag iarraidh Glaschu, mar sin tha mi ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig.I want Glasgow, so I am learning Gaelic.

It tastes of the salt and sand of the islands, but its music draws me back to my first Glasgow's streets. I pay 75p on the bus to Pollokshaws to sit in too small desks in Sir John Maxwell School,our laughter making the new words singlike being in primary again.

Sorley Maclean reads his poems in a Glasgow University hall and I follow the dark sounds with silent lips.

We slake our thirst at the Halt Bar,earwigging for the drip of a few phrasesthat fill the night with song.

Almost three decades on, I stare at my screen. My tongue dances and stumblesuntil Finland is far away and I am home.

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John Noonan

December

In the funnel of torch light the chillof our breath coiled close together.Like the wise men we crossed fields

far contours glittering with frost,  mother and I, bringingcows in for the milking.

We hustled them betweenscattered cow pats stitchedstiff by mid-lands weather.

Seepage of straw-coloured lightfrom the barn door guided us undercobweb strung rafters.

I placed hay offerings in the mangeras she hunkered down, a foamingmilk-moon rose in the enamel bucket.

Our warming byre dissolves frost speckson my black boots, tears of the newbornagainst this winter night.

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Notes on Contributors

Simon Alderwick is a poet from Surrey.  His work is featured or forthcoming in Eye Flash, Seiren, Dust, Near Window, Whatever Keeps The Lights On and Riot Act, among others.  He is on Twitter @SimonAlderwick.

Kara Lynn Amiot is an emerging writer from Canada, and her poetry was most recently published through Revolt Magazine and the Unpublishable Zine.

Dylan Benjamin is a writer and poet from the North of England whose work has featured in Door Is A Jar Magazine, Misery Tourism, The Showbear Family Circus, Detritus Online and more. He should be preparing his upcoming pamphlet but you can currently find him procrastinating on Twitter @_DylanBenjamin.

Aoife Bradshaw studied English Literature and Film Studies at Trinity College Dublin and holds an MA in Screenwriting for Film and Television. She was awarded the Writers Guild of Ireland Award for Screenwriting in 2018 and has a background in journalism, contributing to Hotpress, Go Rail and Enterprise among other publications.

Clive Collins is the author of two novels, The Foreign Husband (Marion Boyars) and Sachiko’s Wedding (Marion Boyars/Penguin Books). Misunderstandings, a collection of short stories, was joint-winner of the Macmillan Silver PEN Award in 1994. Carried Away and Other Stories  is available from Red Bird Chapbooks.

Lorna Collins is a Peer Support Worker with Oxford Health NHS eating disorder service. She is Patient Representative at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (eating disorders). She leads research in Arts in Health, after her PhD as a scholar at Cambridge University. She writes articles in several newspapers and journals.

Deirdre McKernan Crosby lives in Greystones Co. Wicklow.  Her first published poem, Uninvited Guest appeared in the Bray Arts Journal in 2019. Her work is also published in Boyne Berries, The Blue Nib and Pandemic.ie. Deirdre wrote There Will Be Time – Cancer & Covid-19 which will be preserved by the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at UCD Library. 

Colin Dardis is a poet, editor and sound artist, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His work has been listed in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award, and the Saboteur Awards, as well as being published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. Previous collections include The Dogs of Humanity (Fly on the Wall Press, 2019), the x of y (Eyewear, 2018), Post-Truth Blues (Locofo Chaps/Moria Books, 2017) and Dōji: A Blunder (Lapwing, 2013).

Annie Deppe is the author of three books of poems, Sitting in the Sky and Wren Cantata from Summer Palace Press, and Night Collage, forthcoming in 2021 from Arlen House. Her work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, and The Forward Book of Poetry 2004. She lives in Connemara.

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Maurice Devitt is the winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland and Poems for Patience competitions, he has been nominated for Pushcart, Forward and Best of the Net Prizes and been runner-up in the Cuirt New Writing Prize, Interpreter’s House Poetry Competition and the Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition. He published his debut collection Growing Up in Colour with Doire Press.

Kate Ennals has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals. Her first collection of poetry At The Edge was published in 2015. Her second collection, Threads, was published in April 2018. Kate also runs At The Edge, Cavan, a literary reading evening. Her blog can be found at www.kateennals.com.

Attracta Fahy lives in Co.Galway, a Psychotherapist, with three children, completed her MA in Writing NUIG ‘17. She was October winner in Irish Times New Irish Writing 2019, Pushcart, and Best of Web nominee, shortlisted for Over The Edge New Writer, and Allingham Poetry, a featured reader at Over The Edge Reading in Galway City Library. Fly on the Wall Poetry published her debut chapbook collection Dinner in the Fields, in March ‘20.

Mary Melvin Geoghegan has five collections of poetry published.  Her most recent As Moon and Mother Collide with Salmon Poetry (2018).  Her work has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Sunday Times, The Stinging Fly, The Moth, The Stony Thursday Book, Crannóg, Skylight47, Orbis, Boyne Berries and Cyphers, among others.

Richard W. Halperin is an Irish-U.S. dual national living in Paris. His poetry is published by Salmon/Cliffs of Moher and by Lapwing/Belfast. His work is part of University College Dublin's Irish Poetry Reading Archive.

Ross Hoey is a 26-year-old writer from Northern Ireland. After attending medical school, training at drama school, and working as an actor for some years, he has turned to his real passion for writing. He had his first publication this year with Haiku 90 in Covidioms by Poetry NI.

Miceál Kearney, 40. Living and working in the West of Ireland. He began writing at the turn of the century. He’s published 2 collections of poetry. Inheritance; Doire Press, 2008 and The Inexperienced Midwife; Arlen House, 2016. He also has had 4 short plays staged.

Sven Kretzschmar hails from Germany. His work has been published widely in Europe and overseas, e.g. in Writing Home. The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019) and Turangalîla-Palestine (Dairbhre, 2019). New work is forthcoming in Voices 2020 (Cold River Press), 100 Words of Solitude (Rare Swan Press) and others.

Jorge Leiva lives in Galway and is originally from South Spain. Some of his work has appeared in Skylight 47, The Galway Advertiser and Pendemic.ie. In 2019 he was long listed in the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition.

Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet from Co Donegal in Ireland. She is an English literature graduate and creative writing facilitator. Her poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry 24, Quince Magazine and Donegal Daily's poetry series: We Are the Poets. She also has poems forthcoming in The Paperclip, The Poetry Village and

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Trouvaille Review.   She shares her love of poetry at www.a-poem-a-day-project.blogspot.com Twitter: @siobhan347.

Stephen McNulty is a Mayo man trapped in Galway. An attendee of the Over the Edge poetry workshop, his poems have appeared in Boyne Berries, ROPES and Vox Galvia.

Polly Richardson Munnelly is Dublin born poet, currently writing in Dingle, Co. Kerry. She runs the Bull’s Arse Writers Group Navan remotely and Tuesday’s Zoomers. She has been published both nationally and internationally. Her debut collection Winter’s Breath is out and available on Amazon. She is currently working on her second collection.

John Noonan’s work has been published in many anthologies and magazines including Poetry Ireland Review, Crannóg, Skylight 47, Red Poppy Review and Pinewood Review, Revival Press, Boyne Berries and North West Words. Has been shortlisted for awards and he won the Goldsmith Award.

Jean O’Brien is currently working on her 6th collection (Salmon Poetry). She is an award-winning poet and is published regularly both in print and online. She was awarded a Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship and holds an M. Phil in cw/poetry from Trinity College, Dublin. She currently tutors in cw/poetry. www.jeanobrien.ie .

Nessa O’Mahony lives in Dublin. She has published five volumes of poetry, the most recent being The Hollow Woman and the Island (Salmon Poetry 2019). She teaches creative writing for The Open University and American College, Dublin.

Bernard Pearson’s work appears in many publications, including Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, North West Words and FourxFour. In 2017 a selection of his poetry In Free Fall was published by Leaf Press. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing.

Liz Chadwick Pywell is a poet from York, North Yorkshire. She is particularly interested in listening to and representing the voices of women who have been ignored or drowned out in history, literature and mythology.

David Ratclifffe is poet, playwright and short story writer from the north west of England.He has been published in a number of magazines both on-line and in print. In 2016 his poem ‘Home Straight’ featured at the Fermoy International Festival. The stage play ‘Intervention’ was produced for World Peace Day.

Antoinette Rock lives in Cavan.  Her poems have appeared in The London Reader, Windows Authors and Artists, The Moth, North West Words, Skylight 47, and other anthologies. Antoinette was honourably commended in the Blue Nib Chap Book Contest and commended by Happenstance Poetry and Westport Poetry Prize and shortlisted in Bangor Poetry Competition.

Gillie Robic was born in India and lives in London.  Her poems have appeared in the UK and the US. Her two collections, Swimming Through Marble and Lightfalls, were published by Live Canon in 2016 and 2019.

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Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. Hedgehog Poetry Press will publish her collection Totems  in 2020. Her writing blog can be found at http://thistlewren.blogspot.fi/ and @grimalkingerry on Twitter.

Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan is an emerging writer from Ebonyi state, Nigeria. He’s a penultimate medical laboratory science student who explores medicine in the day and worships literature at night. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in several literary journals; both online and printed. He was the winner of 2018, FUNAI CREW Literary Contest.

Anne Tannam has published two poetry collections; Take This Life (WordOnTheStreet 2011) and Tides Shifting Across My Sitting Room Floor (Salmon Poetry 2017), with a third, Twenty-six Letters of a New Alphabet forthcoming with Salmon in 2021. For more information on Anne’s poetry visit www.annetannampoetry.ie .  

Giles L. Turnbull is a blind poet living in south Wales. His work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Acumen, Three Drops from a Cauldron, and Nine Arches Press, amongst others. His debut pamphlet, Dressing Up, is published by Cinnamon Press.

Patricia Walsh was born in the parish of Burnfort, Co Cork,and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday, Southword, Narrator International, Third Point Press, Revival Journal, Seventh Quarry; Hesterglock Press, The Quarryman, Unlikely Stories, and Otherwise Engaged.

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