Kieran Beville: Summer Then

With hurleys tied to the bars of our bikes

we sped to Foley's Field to play poc fada

until the cogs of hunger turned us

homeward for midday dinner.

In the afternoon we slapped handball

against a sunlit gable-end on Quarry Road,

our palms, red and sore.

In the evening we went skinny-dipping

in the high tide at The Point

beyond the Metal Bridge.

Day after day we spun the chain of time

while the spokes of the sun shone.

Kieran Beville is an Irish author, poet and journalist. He is author of Write Now – A Guide to Becoming a Writer (Limerick Writers Centre, 2019). Beville has had a substantial number of poems and articles published in various newspapers, journals and magazines and five collections of poetry (Revival Press). 

Mark J. Mitchell: Mourner #51

(From the Tomb of the Count of Burgundy)

His book, wrapped in cloth, drags

down his right hand, holds it

still as the rock it is.

A cowl shadows his face—

though that was carved—shaped just

to hide in this white shade.

His left hand clutches cloth,

precise disarray falls

from his feet to his face—

Cool stone folds, white with tears

shed beneath a real corpse

constantly. His shoulders

can’t vibrate. This grief can’t

breathe. His sorrow’s frozen.

This mourning is eternal.

Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel, A Book of Lost Songs is due out in Spring of 2025.He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco where he points out pretty things.

Patrick Deeley: Wicker Man

Old lank nexus of brooms, old

purple-black loft of leafage,

old rib-cage with thickened gams 

and stiff-stretched arms,

old frightener at the garden’s end,

you become a wicker man

in my imaginings. And although

you contain no sacrifice,

no penned cattle, pigs or goats,

no trussed-up hens or geese,

no captive human being in panic

or forlorn beseechment –

with only insects and songbirds

flitting among your twigs,

nurtured, maybe even charmed –

still there is the haughty

towering buoyancy you possess,

the grim, glowering look

you throw that hooks me deepest

at sunset or by moonlight,

when the smudge-mark

of sadness feeds off your outline,

and I see nature funning

with itself and with us, in one place

a firestorm ravishing

the forest, in another a torrent

breaking its sides laughing,

the world no less a grief than a joy,

and, in your wicker dance,

the light tangling with the dark.

Patrick Deeley is a poet, memoirist and children’s writer from Loughrea.  Keepsake, his tenth collection of poems, appeared from Dedalus Press in 2024. www.patrickdeeley.net

Alyssa Curcio: A Death in the Family

When our family rabbit died, it was the doldrums of January, 

All grey and biting and spitting down snow. 

A cold year for Virginia. 

The ground was still frozen, too hard to dig him a grave deep enough

To keep the rain from turning him up again. 

So we tucked him away in a shoebox, decorated with hearts and stickers, 

And folded our thoughts of him delicately away 

In the industrial freezer we kept in the garage

While we waited for spring to thaw the red clay. 

Eventually, the sun broke through and the daffodils sprouted, 

And a shovel could finally cut through the baby grass. 

The red clay loosened, unfolding itself to make way for

Shoots and blooms. 

Out came the box. 

Out of some morbid fascination, I opened it and peeked inside. 

Trick lay there on his side, 

His tufted spots sparkling slightly with frost. 

You may not know this, but because of the shape of bunnies’ spines, 

They have to flop over on their side before they can rearrange their 

Little bones into a laying position. 

That’s how he looked—mid-flop, ready to snuggle up 

Once his frame was flush with the ground. 

But instead, he was cast in perfect stillness. 

Suspended somewhere between life and death.

No longer with us, but corporeally tethered to us still. 

I can’t put you in the freezer and delay your departure that way. 

You wouldn’t fit, for starters. You don’t fit anywhere now. 

Not at the empty kitchen chair you used to haunt, 

Not rattling at the other end of an unstable phone line. 

Not by the window folding the yellowing pages of your Bible

Again and again and again. 

I find myself in some liminal space, defying July’s fiery sun 

With the permafrost that holds me here, 

Sunken into the tundra of your laughter 

And your smile lines

And your puttering around a holiday kitchen. 

I’m left banging my fists on the cold, hard ground, 

Wondering how to hold on to you

Now that you no longer exist.

Alyssa Curcio is a reproductive justice activist and lawyer. Her scholarship has been published in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum. A Virginia native, Alyssa currently lives in New York City. 

Tristan Moss: Poetry seekth

“The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

     - from Milton’s Paradise Lost 

 

metres meet

across this field

the plough has shared its sheen

with the smooth-cut planes    

on these dark clods of clay

community & form

take the bucket away 

and soon the sand 

falls apart

sandstone takes 

thousands of years 

to form and then

is prone to erode

whereas glass 

is made in no time 

at all

a subtle line

often there’s a thin line 

between poems being so subtle 

that most don’t notice their subtleties, 

and there being little to notice at all 

and most noticing 

and saying nothing

markings on a polished pebble

signs of having fallen

at speed

through our atmosphere 

and/or

small fossilised columns 

of coral 

running through 

it and down its sides

Tristan Moss has had many poems published in online and paper journals. Most recently he has had poems published in Litter Magazine. Last year, he published a pamphlet called 'Ligaments' with The Red Ceilings Press. 

James Penha: The Capriciousness of Crackers

For an unusually short haul of potatoes from Long Island to the Bronx market I got to ride with my father in the cab of his truck. Rare gift enough, but he said the real treat was  a chilli lunch at Red’s—I figured that meant cold cuts—but when we hauled into the parking lot the sign didn’t say Red’s, it said The Big Road Rest, so I asked why Dad had changed his mind. “Oh, don’t worry, son, this is Red’s all right. You’ll see why.” And I did. The owner had a carrot-top head of hair and more freckles than all the beans in the pot out of which he ladled us bowls of chilli. It was the thickest soup I ever had, and I made myself like it cause Dad loved it and he hoped I would. What I really loved were these hexagonal puffs of saltines Red called oyster crackers when he offered me more to crush into my chili which wasn’t chilly at all, and I found no oysters in it or any pearls in the crackers which was fine with me as I was having a lot of what Dad called rights of passage.

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) lives in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published. His newest chapbook of poems American Daguerreotypes is available for Kindle. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry.

Angel Altamirano: I have two dogs

One of them lunges at me in my sleep. 

I awake with a startle. 

The other presses her cold wet nose to my face.

I awake with a smile.

On my walks, one dog leaps into my stomach, taking me by surprise.

I feel the wind knocked out of me.

The other dog walks beside me, looking around at the birds, sniffing the crisp air.

I breathe in the air with her. 

One dog sneaks around corners to pounce and bite at me.

I move about carefully, wondering when it will reappear.

The other dog lays in her usual spot, looking softly at me.

I always know where to find her.

At night one dog loudly bounds all around me, pulling at my hair. It demands attention.

I do not sleep.

The other dog gently snuggles in beside me, warming my side. She snores softly.

I doze off.

I have two dogs.

I’m not sure they get along.

One dog seems to fear the other.

It finds fault in her soft nature, her silly games seem only to frighten it.

I had two dogs, now I only have one. 

She’s a good dog. 

Angel Altamirano is a 32-year old Mexican American, working in software.

Stephen Boyce: Hem

You have cut the cloth

assembled the pieces

to make something useful

something that fits & adorns

You turn to the hem

– a womanly word

measured / tender/ strengthening

a word that needs breath

a soft outbreath

that ends

where the lips meet

You are bent to the task

in a trance of sewing

You fold & tack

the selvedge

stitch & trim

Just so

A threshold turned back

pressed

to leave a margin

a border

where cloth lies upon cloth

drawing a straight line

between something & nothing

I turn to you

wanting to fold back the years

with their creases

raw edges and loose threads

to lay the fabric of my dreams

upon yours

smooth the surface

stitch & trim

Just so

Stephen Boyce is the author of three poetry collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead 2010), The Sisyphus Dog (Worple 2014) and The Blue Tree (Indigo Dreams 2019) and three pamphlets. He is co-founder of Winchester Poetry Festival and lives in north Dorset. stephenboycepoetry.com

Abigail Ottley: Widow's Walk

Evenings, she puts on her second-best hat

skewered by a tortoise shell pin,

buttons up her heart in her mohair coats and

goes out to pick a bone with the moon.

On the red-leaded step she scans the stars,

imagines them sparks from his hammer.

Her heart is fierce and as his chisel,

weighs like a bag of four inch nails.

In her pocket she’s packing a fistful of humbugs,

matches, twenty Players Weights.

She hears the black kettle hissing on the stove on stand-by,

the relentless ticking of the clock.

On her tongue, a retort fit to slice a man open.

In her head, a dozen what ifs.

[Originally published in Ink, Sweat & Tears, 2021]

Abigail Ottley writes poetry and short fiction, A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee and twice winner of the Wildfire 150, she came second in the 2024 Plaza Prose Poetry competition. Her debut collection will be published by Yaffle's Nest in May, 2025. She lives in Penzance in Cornwall.

Maurice Devitt: Recidivist

It was only when he reached the house,

that he remembered he didn’t live there

anymore and that she had most likely

changed the locks. It’s funny how

the stresses of a day can cause us

to seek refuge in the patterns of the past.

Her family home, he still remembered

the first time, standing on the step,

wondering whether to knock or ring

(she had told him there was a strict house

preference, which he had quickly forgotten),

and hoping that she would answer,

not her father, it would be easier

to explain the forgotten corsage.

Maurice Devitt is the Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site. His Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. His second collection, ‘Some of These Stories are True’, was published by Doire Press in 2023.