Poetry

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care to act,
it starts when you do it again after they said no,
it starts when you say we and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

Marge Piercy

Saturday, 03 April 2021 16:47

but if you are happy, what will you write about?

Written by Fran Lock

in Poetry

but if you are happy, what will you write about? by Fran Lock the surfeit-stink of mornings, doubly sulliedand pungent in my memory. the intercessionof a sword, christ's body, luminous and reeking.i will write concealment's season, the laudedthorn, a calcite myth of kings, the swaggeringrapacity of guards at arms. are…

Saturday, 03 April 2021 16:31

Easter 1916 and Maeve Cavanagh, 'poetess of the revolution'

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Poetry

Jenny Farrell introduces Maeve Cavanagh and presents one of her poemsLast Easter, we published some poems written by three leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. They were Pádraig Pearse, who wrote the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic, and his comrades and signatories Thomas MacDonagh and James Plunkett, accessing…

Thursday, 01 April 2021 16:47

We don't expect Napoleon to fill our glass with Courvoisier any time soon

Written by Fred Voss

in Poetry

We don't expect Napoleon to fill our glass with Courvoisier any time soon by Fred Voss We make parts for a company that wants to send a manto Marsbut all we need to do is leave the hard concrete floor of our machine shopand step inside our company offices to…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 31 March 2021 12:26

Plague Songs

in Poetry

Written by Martin Rowson

In May 2020 the award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson set himself the challenge of writing a Lockdown Diary in verse. The result is Plague Songs, a unique cycle of furious, bleakly comic and often offensive poems about COVID-19, fiercely inventive and desperately funny. Rowson, who recovered from the virus at the…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Thursday, 25 March 2021 10:56

No Money in the Bank

in Poetry

Written by Samantha Mansi

No Money in the Bank by Samantha Mansi No money in the bank. But how will we pay our bills? No money.The computer algorithmmessed up again. Why won't it let us be?They all sigh, they say Why can't you get a job?I'm doing my childmindingcourse. I'm moving. I'll applyfor care.I…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 24 March 2021 11:17

One Year On

in Poetry

Written by David Erdos

One Year On by David Erdos, with image by Paulette Parker Birds wake me to sing a mutant song for us. Unusual for them, This stung chorus catches wracked power as well as the pitch That’s been rising even as we all fall far from shape. It has been One…

Covid19

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 21 March 2021 17:37

No Amnesty

in Poetry

Written by David Betteridge

No Amnesty A soliloquy from a still-to-be written political play by David Betteridge, with image by Bob Starrett [How can we] offend the dead and shame the livingBy these despairs? And how refrain from love?This is a difficult country, and our home.- Edwin Muir Today I am giving up politics.…

Saturday, 20 March 2021 21:01

He's Behind You

Written by Sally Flint

in Poetry

He's Behind You by Sally Flint, with image by Martin Gollan My shoes aren't suited for walking fast, home's only minutes away ̶ I'm gripping a door-key in my hand when, out of a gateway, a shifting shadow, taller than me. Is it the man from the bar who lined…

Sarah Everard

Saturday, 20 March 2021 17:40

The Problem We All Live With

Written by Gabriel Rosenstock

in Poetry

Gabriel Rosenstock presents a tanka in Irish and English, written in response to Norman Rockwell's 1964 masterpiece The Problem We All Live With, (above) is bóthar fada échun na scoile, a Rubytóg céim ar céim é bróga is stocaí geala ag lonrú faoin ngréin, 'Ruby a long way to schoola…

BLM Norman Rockwell

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 19:55

today of all days

Written by Fran Lock

in Poetry

today of all days by Fran Lock even now there are names we will not stoop to say.between the famine and the feast. the prostrate partof silence. what the dog digs up, what the well drawsforth: cromm crúaich. cromwell. conquest. all limbsand skins through the heat of siege. even now,…

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 19:45

Meeting the Irish

Written by Edward Boyne

in Poetry

Meeting the Irish, 1972Connemara by Edward Boyne We were hoovered-up off the known streetsby revving buses nervous in The Coombe,rushed at speed, through drowsy posh estates.It was like a moving quarantine.We had polished the Doc Martensand sharp-shaved the heads.Wore braces for the half-mast jeans,leather jackets, studs, Led Zeppelin tee-shirts.Left behind…