Dave Wynne-Jones

      Sonnet And did she break your heart? A woman asks, perhaps imagining A fallen chalice scattering Fragments about the tiles, only discovered Days later in corners underfoot. But there was no suddenness More a growing sense of doom A shrivelling of...

Simon Maddrell

      Bringing Pilates to Attention Four years in Knockaloe was a living inspiration for inventor Joseph Pilates. His self-contained exercise in mental- physical health spawned a method which he called Contrology — corrective drills grown within the...

Tom Kelly

      Save Me   At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce, encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort. See me fervently praying, waiting to receive the Communion host. My knees more than ache, then burn, I bless the wooden pew causing this...

Nick McGaughey

      Slow Worm And here you are slid from the rain under my door, “s” -ing along the cool checks in the hallway. I’ve had slugs silvering the skirting, a hissing squirrel cornered by the stove, even a mouse that made his den next to the cat food… but...

Cath Holland

    THE DAY WE GOT THE NEWS Let’s say we have that afternoon again. Itchy for autumn. Me in pale orange lipstick and you your best tweed with leather buttons, facts mouthed at us in a room with no room to move. We hold onto thin plastic see-through cups of...