Today’s choice
Previous poems
Anne Donnellan
Lent
As if it wasn’t enough cycling three miles
to eight o’clock mass on cold white mornings
I stayed in the chapel after the final blessing
too early for class in the Colaiste
I filled in time around the shadowy stations of the cross
the unconditional faith of childhood
drawing me with drills and hymns
to the sealed tomb at the fourteenth
I prayed for resurrection
that the sun in the sky
might dance Easter morning.
Ash Wednesday
years on
as light dawdles
around the edge of a cloud
and seeds of promise
struggle to scatter
I yield to Lent
a tomb stone thrown back
that hardly matters at all.
Anne Donnellan’s debut collection Witness was published in 2022 by Revival Press. Anne’s work has appeared in poetry journals including Crannog, Skylight 47 and Cassandra Voices .She was 2023 winner of the Allingham Poetry Competition. She hosts the Poetry Lobby reading events in Galway.
John G. Hall
Thrift In the shadow of Drumadoon the pink bobble headed Thrift stitch the bones of basalt scree summer's wreath for the cold stone that once rose angry red hot columns pastry cut pressed into the science of my camera. John G. Hall...
Sue Finch
A PELICAN IS DANCING ON THE PATIO And there is a disco very deep in the woods. The pelican is tapping out its rhythm and no one can quite name the tune even though it is right there on the tip of tongues. And the people that know about the disco...
Neil Fulwood
TOSCANINI In later life, he will profess to dislike it, this symphony from a besieged city, this masterwork of human resilience its score smuggled to the States on microfiche, spy-story tradecraft the order of the day. Still, it is his the...
R.C. Thomas
Waking Memory Whether the documents, separated by type, format and function are easily accessed depends on the amount and the quality of the oil applied to the filing cabinet. There are nights when the metal doesn't glide, nights when the rollers...
Elizabeth Osmond
Action Man When he was a kid, he crucified Action Man He enjoyed that the rubber hands submitted perfectly to the hammer, nails passing easily into the wooden cross. As Action Man hung in the garden he reflected upon how unhelpful the trappings of...
Emma Gawlinski
Freight Train For Elizabeth Cotten (1893 -1987) American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter. At a gas station in Malta, Angelo fingerpicks that song as the boys eat ricotta pastizzi and Ruth restrings her banjo and Romey plays at...
Michelle Diaz
The Sorry Letter I’m nine years old & it’s 6pm & I’ve been sent to my room. I open a new pack of felt tips & grab some Victoria Plum paper. It’s time for The Sorry Letter. I want to be in the laughing living room, watching Knight Rider...
Michele Benn
Sephardi Legend When Susona ben Susòn betrayed her father did she beg for her head to be severed from her body and nailed to the door or did she hide in the cloisters of a convent an orphaned Conversa enduring her days in penitent contemplation or...
Julia Webb
This is about violence This is about the surprise you felt as you lay on the kitchen floor at your friend’s house, his hands round your throat their dog barking and whining. This is about the way you thought you were strong (and you were strong)...