Hilary Hares

      The Pea-Sheller of Crab Street She’d be out there all hours, half past three, two minutes to midnight, shelling peas on the front doorstep, always impeccably scrubbed. The pop of the shuck and the plip of the peas as they dropped into the chipped...

Owen Lewis

      Picking Them Up at the Hospital My daughter, son-in-law struggle to strap their newborn into the car seat    pulling the seat belt across, under and back, tying a knot, trying           again. My daughter chastises her attentive husband who...

Simon Maddrell

      Any Excuse You won’t find him in there, says Alan Shea as the policeman flips the freezer flap in the fridge looking, they say, for INLA escapee Mad Dog Magee in such an unlikely haven — the home of a Manx gay rights campaigner with a telephone...

Tim Dwyer

      AWAKENED BY THE APPROACHING GARBAGE TRUCK WHILE DREAMING OF DU FU First moments of dawn immersed in song of many-voiced birds. From behind the house I wheel the bin to the still dark street. On sky’s rim colors appear that have never been named. I...

Kate Rigby

      The Long Grass They’ve just kicked it into the long grass, one politician says to another on TV. I tune out from the others sitting around me at Tree Tops. I feel it now, that long grass, cool and welcome, at the far reaches of the playing fields...

Pat Jourdan

      Today is Tomorrow I remember this from before, a sudden plane hoovering up the sky more energy than a wasp its direction is its excuse – a new war somewhere. I stand on the fresh autumn grass as the thrumming plane disappears thrusting into space,...