Today’s choice
Previous poems
Maurice Devitt
Genetics
Yes, you gave us your elegant hands
and capricious smile, but as I make my way
to the chiropodist this morning,
it’s your feet I’m thinking of and how
in your later years they gave you
constant trouble. I was still too young
for our podiatry problems to overlap,
though you did recommend a physio
who had worked on Riverdance.
It is only now that the mechanics
of what you left us are dawning on me,
and the impact of that tiny DNA tag –
fallen arches – takes centre stage,
while you are smiling in the wings.
Maurice Devitt is 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.
Gopal Lahiri
My father stitched an evening with current ripples
spill over rocks and shadows gather at the corner,
Paul Loney
i was standing
very still
my mind
Mai Ishikawa
Taxi I took shelter under a tree, where you also sheltered. You looked at me awkwardly, as if to say Excuse me before shaking your feathers – a tiny droplet landed on my cheek. Suspended, we held each other responsible for the silence. We listened to the...
Lue Mac
Sad how things expire before you work out
what they mean. Like earlier I was noticing
the rose petals on the path, all damp and slick,
Alice O’Malley-Woods
For the Peregrines of Offham Chalk Pit The quarry holds your eyrie like a grateful palm. You - indelicate gobber all gape and gum-pink circled in the beach white like a mouth stuck in wonder. O spit-shrieker coming back for yourself, tearing fur so diligently, never...
Lori D’Angelo
The cat puts his paw on my hair, and I think about
where we could go if we weren’t here. Maybe the
nail salon, which seems like a good destination for
kill time Saturdays.
Lucy Wilson
Dear Fish, you swam from life and gave your flesh; forgive me.
In your ice-tomb, your scales a rainbow of tiny glaciers, frozen in flight;
like you, I let myself get caught, sank my heart in a false sea.
Amirah Al Wassif
The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.
Cliff McNish
Heaven For starters, the standard works everyone gets: three trumpets blown in unison; your name acclaimed to the galactic hegemony of stars; plus assorted angels with ceramically smooth hands (the nail-work!) casting wholesale quantities of petals (flowers of the...