Friday Poems
Art on the Walls
by Nicholas McGaughey — At some point someone was moved to / put on canvas something that moved / them towards the easel. These reveries / colour and haunt our walls: some bought, / most bequeathed by the discerning dead
Domestic Economy Reader for Irish Schools
by John Mee — THE FIRST SCHOOL OF CHARACTER / The most delightful task that can be undertaken by a girl / is to make the home happy. A shovel may be heated red hot / and held over the pie dish. Why not use heather
Imagining Sow
by Roger Elkin — Imagine her grin’s wicked innocence — / the sly-eyed tightness of her gaze / glazing over in her blear of peering, /her almost show of not knowing // Imagine her wet ferreting-out snout / nuzzling through earth-dust, her maunching at slops
The Laugh
by Christopher Arksey — It was like you’d surfaced after a spell / underwater; spent and roused at the same time, / breathless toward the inevitable / big-reveal of your long-delayed punchline. // Then you let fly — the laugh of someone twice
Quellenstraße, 1100
by Kathryn Gray — February—and I was young. / Spring Street! My blue bag was swinging // in uncommon warmth, even the shadowed / shapes of pavement under awnings // seemed ripe with a peculiar kindness / and promise. The snows, at last
Old Woman Ravine
by Jennifer Copley — No one knows where it is. / Maybe behind the sloping granite stones / of Carlingill or in the dip / between Hobdale and the sea? // The old woman who lives there / has been heard cursing anyone who seeks her or her place
Double first, 1957
by Beatrice Garland — Judy in rose chiffon balancing / on four inch heels like blades / makes a late entrance / to the Dean's sherry party / for the First Years in the College library — / and everyone stops talking. // The MG she arrived in can be heard
Forester
by Vera Lynch — The local news adored it / A female forester! / Our very own lumberJill! / I smiled patiently // Laughed along / Answered their questions / I've always loved being outdoors (true) / I've always enjoyed working with men (false)
Tulipa Ingens
by Oliver Comins — Once again, the tulips have been immense this year, / having the appearance of beanstalks when viewed / through the ground floor windows. From our loft, / on the second floor, you could reach out and touch / their sail-like petals
from Testimonies (Scotland 1623 – 1930)
by Hamish Whyte — PAISLEY, 1684 // Margaret Whythill, spouse to James Love, / said she saw James Algie, a merchant, bring his wife / to the close mouth and throw her down / in the strand and saw her rise again
Wet for Literature
by Devon Webb — I used to go out of my way to get laid / but now I’m lying here on a man’s bed / thirsting for the third instalment in the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman / you know like I’m not even that fussed about sex anymore I just wanna read
Visiting David Hockney
by Michael Di Placido — He looks up and half smiles / as I drift in and settle on a chair — / as though I was expected: / “The studio would have to be a riot / of colour with you in it”, I say. / And when I tell him I live near Brid — / not far from his mum's