Cirencester bells announce tomorrow

above the faintest of lingering murmurs

from children excited by new discovery

and stilettos striding over Roman mosaics

echoing through now darkened galleries

at frequencies inaudible to all mankind

yet heard by one headless whippet

of Coxwell Street and me

for vast doors are now bolted shut

the Corinium desolate for another night

apart from my desperate flitting

in search of release from yesterdays

after a torment of two millennia

spent striving desperately for my freedom

from shackles of a lingering death

when warring Britons I confronted

as a foot soldier in Claudius’ legions

that marched across their primitive land

participating in bloody conflicts

wielding axes and double-edged swords

now preserved for perpetuity

after battle-site excavations

together with my wounded soul

to torment descendents omnipotent

for I may be but an apparition

still tainted with a wretched stench

of formaldehyde and methanol

laced with a pungency of long decay

hence release me from that vacuous realm

extricate me from ethereal dimensions

deliver me from this Corinium

before church bells announce tomorrow.

*

Biography

Born in Scotland of Irish lineage, Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse and has achieved success in poetry competitions. Recently, he has featured in literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He is a performance poet with extensive experience. His influences extend from Burns to Shakespeare, Kipling to Betjeman, Dennis to Mazzoli.

Black-driven, chaos-bent, breathing brute cacophonies,

It lumbers up the wooded slope at midnight, swamped in moonlight,

Flanked with fervent wind-blown limbs of green grown black with shadow,

Comes from heaven’s darkest hollow, clambers, clutches mountain, draws

Breath on black-blown breath, claws

Air, imagines skin, bare –

Null-brained, we swim

Under lulling sun,

Our cool, succulent nothingness

Trembling at its fat, black root.

*

Biography

Féilim James is a young writer from Dublin, Ireland, currently an undergraduate of English Literature and Psychology in Trinity College, Dublin. A writer of both poetry and prose, his works have been previously published in various literary journals such as Icarus, Rant + Rave, and Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. His poetry through Irish has won five Oireachtas literary awards from 2011-2015, as well as earning publication in the journals Feasta, Comhar, Comhar Óg, and An Scríbhneoir Óg. Féilim has also twice been selected for Fóras na Gaeilge’s Tutor Scheme.

not the kind you think of

It hangs like a terrible tapestry

In the throne room of your house

You receive your exalted guests

Beneath its colorful folds,

Less blue and green than pastel shades

But the swirls of cartographic art

Embed in my mind the legend

‘Here be monsters’

*

Biography

Dermot (Diarmaid) Hurley is an aspiring (read unpublished) poet, former professional bodhrán player (other instruments are available), and a language enthusiast from County Sligo. After a few years living in the artistic hub that is Galway city, writing as Gaeilge, and a brief stint in Dublin, Dermot relocated to sunny Valencia, on the east coast of Spain, where he lives with his partner and baby son, writing in whatever language comes closest (which means lots of bad Spanish rhyme).

First you feel them writhe

as they feed in your sleep:

peccadilloes furrowing —

wriggling through the mind’s

mire, burrowing deeper

every night…until

they metamorphose,

A sensory deluge of hair,

dust, and scales

flutters, — no strikes —

at the back of your throat

and can’t be coughed away.

You’ll wake from choking

on their powdery residue.

You drink your coffee so strong

that you’re sick—smoke

your scut-bitten nails yellow,

and keep a candle lighted

to burn them wing by wing.

Tonight’s fight is over but

you still can’t shake their taste.

Don’t look in the mirror

while you brush your teeth.

Daylight isn’t all it seems;

something twitches in your optic nerves

controlling your every blink:

it’s the moths flitting back and forth

puncturing the darkness of your pupils…

that’s how they escape your dreams

*

Biography

Trish Delaney is originally from Wexford but currently lives in Dublin where she works in programmatic ad operations for an Irish advertising agency. She writes her poetry as an escape from the world of maths and calculations that dominate her working day. Some of her previous work has been published in Skylight 47,Spontaneity.org, increature.com, Oddball Magazine and as poem of the week on Headstuff.org 

Amsterdam

Amsterdam you humid bastard

all my clothes are soaked

but I bought more in the second hand market

on Haarlemmer Road.

I fell in love with Vincent Van Gogh

he was just as fucked up as me

and I feel an affinity with anyone on the periphery.

I faced my childhood on the side of the road by the river down in Amsterdam.

Me and my mother, we took a plane

we went back again.

I met my mother, we got on the yellow tram line.

We were talking about Summer

a little girl who was a friend of mine.

We walked the old streets I played on

I was just a child then

we ended up at the old apartment

it used to be a heroin den.

Oh what’s worse is the silence that happened then

*

North Donegal

There is a place, north Donegal

some of my memories are there

the blonde and the brunette

the girl with the short hair.

It’s the place where I made

some of my earliest mistakes

the best thing that I ever did

was getting out of that place.

I remember the winter

the springtime and the autumn

but most of all those summer nights

we spent in her garden

and I’m going back there

no matter what you say

I’ve been invited

to her wedding day.

Stones’ throw from you.

It’s the lying, it’s the wasting

it’s the cheating on yourself

I’ll wait for love.

It’s the drugs, it’s the late nights

it’s the bottle I love the most

I’ll wait for love.

The autumn, the fading light

the darkening day, the compensating night.

I walked home, left it unsaid

with pounding heart I died a distant death.

The days draw down, dwindle, scatter

it all ends and none of it matters.

I linger on, become undone

I learn my fate is to always be in love.

Slip and slow down, square one again

I’ve made mistakes that I deeply regret

I’ve made mistakes again, again, again.

*

Biography

Born in Dublin in 1984, David Boland spent his childhood variously in Amsterdam, Dublin, Limerick, Shannon and Donegal. He has lived in Galway for the last decade where he is Artistic Director of An Áit Eile and curates the popular Citóg night in the Róisín Dubh. He also makes music under the name New Pope.

In early hatcheries

the fry lived in a pool,

over which a dead cow’s

head was hung. The maggots

that devoured the cow’s head

dropped off in the water

and became salmon food.

This taught the baby fish

to wait for food to drop

from the sky. They lost their

instinct to fear shadows

of predators above.

Mothers, remember this

when you are preparing

to feed your little ones.

*

Biography

G.B. Ryan was born in Ireland and graduated from University College Dublin.  He is a ghostwriter in New York City.  Elkhound published his SURPRISED BY GULLS in May 2015.

Calibos takes Andromeda from her sleep,

The Clash of the Titans, 1981

The steel playground slide collects at its base

rainwater that is warm as a pool

of seawater in the sunlight

left over by the tide.

Lush green trees are heavy with hawthorn;

perfect pearl throws.

On the electricity pole

the single crow

on a corner of wire that forms a square;

the north, the south, the east and the west.

The swallows dive pulling heart chariots;

theatrical daredevils.

The sky vacantly journeys aided by twilight

and abetted by the moon.

In the middle of the night I awaken

to scurrying sounds that rise up

from below through the open window.

“Who is it?” the owl calls. “What do you want?”

Paralysis starts in the feet, travels

upwards coldly gripping calves.

Tumbling through darkness

I disturb fixed stars that startled

fall in glitter showers

in a world where trees drag their roots

across the swamp,

where voices are echoes,

where he fawns over his own reflection

in a pool adorned with vines

that are caressed by his arm’s stump.

When the fire dawn birds call

I am picked up in talons

and returned to the cauldron of morning.

And I never remember who he was,

my captor, nor what he wanted

except that some dark part

of my soul questioned

and he answered.

*

Biography

Orla Fay is the editor of Boyne Berries Magazine. Her poetry has been published in Boyne Berries, Crannog, Abridged, The SHOp, North West Words, The Linnet’s Wings, The Stony Thursday Book, Orbis, Carillon, Shot Glass Journal and Silver Blade Magazine, among others. She is a Forward prize nominee and she keeps a blog at http://www/orlafay.blogspot.ie