Today’s choice
Previous poems
Liz Byrne
I want to be two-tongued again
To go back to the time when I slipped
from one language to another with ease,
when I knew the contours of my Irish home.
To stand with Dad by the window, chat
in the room of our own tongue about my day,
my dreams. I want him to listen, really listen.
To be fluent again in the language I forget.
It’s a different house now, furniture sharp-edged,
doors and windows in the wrong place.
Irish says: I have sadness, joy upon me.
There are no words for yes or no. Dying
is caught, like a cold or a breath.
There are four words for family.
I always choose the wrong one.
Duolingo takes my hearts away.
Liz Byrne is from Dublin and now lives near Manchester. Her poetry appears in Orbis, Agenda, Butcher’s Dog, Crannog, Strix, The North and Under the Radar. She won the Best Landscape Poem, Ginkgo Prize, 2020 and was placed third in the Ginkgo Prize, 2021.
JLM Morton
In a dull sky
the guttering flame
of a white heron
Tonnie Richmond
We could tell there was something
we weren’t allowed to know. Something
kept hidden from us children
Morag Smith
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite
Gordon Scapens
Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.
Chrissy Banks and Antony Owen (from the IS&T archives) for Holocaust Memorial Day
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...
Clare Bryden
how do I begin?
Yvonne Baker
an etherial whiteness
that covers and disguises
as a strip of white frosted glass
Hilary Thompson
Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,
I am stopped by two women
Irene Cunningham
Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.