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.
Ruth Lexton
It is late at night and the kettle is boiling,
a quire of steam fanning out in the white kitchen
you are holding me as if I were your girl again
Stewart Carswell
It’s the house at the end.
White paint flakes off the front gate,
wood rots beneath.
Chris Kinsey
Hey cat, you’re doing really well,
three fields stalked and only one to go.
Holly Magill
. . .you’re swallowed whole
into this cocoon: pine-scent, antibac and the dry
whoosh of his heater – lean your careworn bones into
synthetic leather snug, . . .
Dave Simmons
My sky is a hole from which the bucket drops.
Like all heretics, I am put to work processing stones.
Paul Fenn
To impress you, I became
a seven-year-old son of Sparta.
A little hard man, crayon
marching down the page.
Ruth Aylett
God had been playing computer games
for a chunk of eternity when he became aware
he’d left creation in the oven for a long time
Chris Campbell
The View From This Hospital Window
I admire an empty bench for hours –
then a glum couple sit to share strawberries.
Patrick Deeley
He sees a stainless-steel spoon
burned off at the base,
a bunch of wild flowers dropped,