Poetry

Magic

My bastard
Magic has stopped

And once more I'm
Beside myself,
All around.

Feeling the
Next wave press
Upwards and
Focussed, angling
Towards the centre

Into the shadow
Through the shadow

To the beginning (not the start)
Of everything

My centre

Julian Pickles

---

Scratches

You held my hands
The way a carpenter holds wood.
Turning, smoothing, soothing, closely
Observing. See, here is
A small (you raise it for closer
Inspection) scratch.
Where is it from?
I don't know.
Did it hurt.
Yes. No. Perhaps, a
Little. Some.
Each time.
Each scrape each nick each
Scratch each drop of
Blood was duly marked and
Mended with a
Kiss.
There is a scratch on my hand.
It is peeling at the edges.
Soon you would never (you
Will never) you would
Never even know that
It was there.

Belou Charclaff

---

Dystopian Prevaricate

What's this screaming in my mind?
Gradually, I fear the blind,
What do you know of your future
Upon the ignorance of your past?
Foetal grace, my life, my waste,
Discovers the infinitesimal of this infinite process,
The overwhelming realisation, sincere as my fortitude,
Begins in me at last.
And from this womb I finally see,
Detest the creation of man
And weep at the murder of christ.

Chris Stocking

---

Eimear's Holiday III

(continued from the last issue)

Twenty three,
With a Master's degree
In Philosophy
From Trinity-
Oh, woe is me,
What can ail thee?
(With "wel-a-day" to boot,
Though poetic clichés
had best be mute)
What moved her from her happy state?
What turned her genial loves to hate?
Those basic comforts of creatures
Had let her down; they just didn't feature,
She had no hobbies, but for smoking,
And what some folks like to call "toking"
(Though this latter was most probably due
To deficient speech caused by poisonous fumes,
Or the trend of making new words,
And scorning the user of yesterday's terms),
Her vices were vodka and indecision,
Her entertainment television,
But The Simpsons grew less funny each week,
Revisiting old plots like forgotten friends,
Empty of jokes twenty minutes from the end
Of each ill-framed instalment; many would weep
As Homer angled for soap-opera pity,
The show now had depth- but once it was witty.
Yes, high culture was in decline,
Ireland's champion of the melodious line
Had visibly succumbed to delights of the larder,
Now Chair of Something or Other at Harvard,
Troubling times for writers of words,
And a song worth singing was not to be heard,
Save "Ruud van Nistelrooy, tra la la la la",
But alas, Domestic Violence, Ha Ha Ha
Was the musical with its name in lights,
Treating big issues with little insight,
Converted from a book,
Adapted for the stage,
Read from the rafters,
Sung from the page,
Its author, they say, was of an odd humour,
For there always abounded a rumour
That he and quotation-marks were deadliest foes,
And would not at all be seen together,
But in likeness to Joyce, that's as far as he goes,
Not half as good, though ten times as clever-
For those in life seeking something to savour,
Literature was doing no favours.

Chris Murray

---

Going Beyond

How could you go
down that path?
How is it you fell
on that straight road?
You,
who always transcended
the narrow way.
You,
delving dark,
dangerous depths,
going beyond.

David Wilkins

---

Verse

If time is old and I am young
The wind blown out, the clouds all wrung
I'd slip inside a shell so thin
To only grasp your rubbery skin.

Bertram Trotar

---

Anorexic Dreams

Don't take us again
Don't make us go back
We are trying to walk in between the things that are not really there
We are trying to keep our heads
This tightrope between our places is thin
Thinner than before.
I can't carry her forever in this state because she's too heavy
And with that smoke billowing out of her
Whatever next.
We are becoming allergic to ourselves
If I could rip it off, I would. And eat it whole.
Our skin is running terrified.
Peel us like an orange
We surrender.

Helen Walker

---

Cawdor

You are
so carefully placed here
and sided against
silence and the cold wall
stretching for miles up the hill.

The castle is too far
away to hear or hope.

Your lungs fill up
with blood and honey
dripped into your mouth
as you sit there, gormless,
staring into the night.

Every word you spoke:
a universe,
each note a science.

Anger is spelt out
in sand upon the grass
where you tried to write
to me, believing I
was not watching.

Little murmurs advance
from the root of your throat
echoes of choking
smothered by the sounds
of your teeth falling and jangling
onto the loose bricks that
fell from the wall.

Sitting beside you,
we wait patiently for the sun.

Gently
I take your hand,
and your life away.

Julian Pickles

Back to Contents