Flowers and night-time flowers – DS Maolalai

 

camden. the bus

flipped like a swing

in bad weather

with somebody

kicking their heels.

11pm. earth gone

grey in salty

shades of orange.

the shops all closed, bars

curled open,

like flowers

giving way to night-

time flowers. someone

already hammered,

being sick in a corner

next to a fish shop.

pavement alive

like a pond

with ducks.

a part of the city

with evening in shades,

beautiful and busy.

stylish people

and shirts

bought from second

hand stores.

 

---

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).

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April 4, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: beauty, Camden, city, clothes, colours, corner, creative, creativity, DS Maolalai, earth, elements, evening, flowers, Ireland, life, night, pavement, people, poem, Poetry, time, weather, writing Leave a comment

Brick – Samuel W. James

 

Feel the slugs sliming on your underneath

and wait for summer, when a colony of ants

may claim you as their spot. Feel the kick

as you hop off the road, and the landing.

Think about your situation on the pavement.

 

Feel the mosses and lichens take hold

as flakes and cracks drive into your outer layer.

Feel them checked for insects by birds,

and the many threads of spider web left.

Think about your situation on the pavement.

 

 

Samuel W. James’ poems can also be found in Allegro, The Eyewear Review, The Fortnightly Review, Dissident Voice, The Literary Hatchet, Amsterdam Quarterly, London Grip, Clockwise Cat, Peeking Cat, Sentinel Quarterly, Scarlet Leaf Review, Door is a Jar, The Beautiful Space, Elsewhere Journal and Ink, Sweat and Tears.

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, ants, birds, brick, claim, creative, creativity, creatures, fauna, insects, landing, nature, pavement, poem, Poetry, road, Samuel W. James, situation, slugs, spider, summer, wait, writing 1 Comment

Too late? – Kieran Egan

 

Mrs. Reardon walks down the pavement

which is more broken now than when 

she pushed four different children in their prams,

two of whom will be at the funeral today,

of the man she married

because the man she loved married her friend.

Her friend died last year and the man she loved

will also be at the funeral of the man she married.

The man she loved realized too late, too late

that he cared less for the woman he married

than for Patsie Reardon, née Walsh, of days long gone.

 

Mrs. Reardon and the man she still loved 

passed on this street with their children in prams, 

then he with a son and football and she with ballet shoes and a daughter

then walking with further sons and daughters, some taller than either of them.

 

Would he, after the funeral and after due time . . . ?

Her heart and stomach were afraid and light and excited.

Or will the formal reserve they had cultivated like a shell

be now so hard they can no longer break through it?

Were they still the two who had once loved each other?

His once hair . . . her once taut skin . . .

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (U.K); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: UncategorizedTags: body, Canada, change, children, creative, creativity, death, family, funeral, hair, heart, Kieran Egan, loss, love, marriage, pavement, poem, Poetry, shell, skin, street, time, writing 1 Comment