Two poems, by Kit Fryatt

 

air: maestoso

Freezing blockhouse. All the long night long. Sacking slapping in the squints. Whisht whisht says the wind. Never shuts the fuck up. Rain skivvers the yarrow ⁊ the purple loosestrife. Thrift. Hardy flowers. Don’t let’s compare them to the flush creeping up the naked gorge of Gabrielle d’Estrées. Or harebells to the blackrimmed downcast eyes of Rosamond Clifford. There were three of us in it. Bit crowded. Or crowfoot to the cup in which Floris stole into Blancheflor’s bower. Or sea campion to the grisaille breast of Agnès Sorel. Wouldn’t you think of the slaves who sang chwit chwit chwidogeith. The last llewyn queen sloping wounded into a craven den. The servants who carry druryes from cell to cell. Rolls reading my healing my honey the minding of thee is sweeter than manna in mouth. Hot cross buns. Holywhey. Wholewave. I am spurred through with thee. Queerfast.

Drouth causes leafdrop. False harvest. Haws before August ends. They seem to yearn towards us. Saying why. Why would you shit the nest like this. Sorrow congeals like the frost that’s later ⁊ later to come. This temperate zone worst on a fabric raddled with crime. Mean little crystals. Withheld tears of parted lovers. One buried in a barrow. A penny. Pendant moon. One crouched under a crag. Mickle mirk. Flowers ⁊ moon are metonyms for complacency. But those real oldtime craft wankers are going extinct. The Indo rang asking for comment on the president’s new spoken word album. That’s bait. Muted epiphany is a metonym for reactionary centrist. Two a penny. What you really care about is saving humans. The planet will be just fine. Well yeah. All the same. Give em to your sons. The yarrow ⁊  the purple loosestrife will be growing after us. Thrift. Even the struggling thirsty haws. From afar off (East Wall, Bull Island even) they seem to say

Wouldn’t you be well     No really wouldn’t you

 

 

 

air: rubicund

(i)

alighting with weight on the right foot, left turned out
arms cast separately, wings lost over
mm years ago at sea some cables off the nudist beach
the body chubby ⁊ unexceptional      the head (big) 

slightly turned, the eyes, once restoration cleared terrifying
deposits of black matter, silver-gilded, like
the ruddy face resembling polychromed stone
but blue, demure
topknot      ringlet      kisscurl 

next time at the departure gate
let’s not forget the rule about looking back

 

(ii) 

four-room flat deep in the complex
the heart’s walls striated by sorrow’s twine
can’t wait for summer ⁊ summer’s gone
the last old blush vandalised by rain 

⁊ a bronze bagman in a borrowed jacket
loafing on a traffic island feels more than I can
what has twined my love from me?
sickly planes absorb particulate matter
stare back along the road until the waters meet again

 

 

Kit Fryatt is a lecturer in English at Dublin City University. His most recent book of poems is Book of Inversions, co-authored with Harry Gilonis (Veer 2, 2025). Another book, all things that are passing, a collaboration with Ellen Dillon, is forthcoming from Spite Press in 2026.

Two Poems, by Pearl Pirie

 

jeep in a teacup! what a covet object
 

will I forget, or regret lost chance? want want want
like a loon song echoing across the night lake. 

it means something symbolic but what is it
trying to grasp? the need beyond the object… 

skip the middleman of purchase and hook ankle
around tree as I stumble, leda clay slide. 

by daylight’s sidewalk scramble the purity of
desire is masked, jumbled into Everything Else 

in personal semblance of Citizen Kane, mementoes
with memories escape like radon. 

lines of chipped statues, icons of youth, dusty
drop cloths over display cases of prowess 

in the warehouse of regrettables that is usually
dubbed overflow past, usually locked up tight 

but something jiggling has me jimmying my way
in squeezing sideways through stacks 

for lack of better way to distract myself from
fraught hope. what habits are making me? 

if I used a forklift to shift or ram these pallets,
I’d get no exercise or order. Michelangelo’s rays 

but no eureka. my distress is sacred and can’t
be wasted, frittered vaguely on what-ifs.

after hours of talking, music then windshield wipers

"mere prattle without practice"
Iago, Othello 

oncoming transport trailers are
exclamation points tumbling over hills 

all these comma cars come on
tired as a Karma Chameleon. 

I’ve concentrated for hours
at a snow screen of star fields. 

there are podcasts from places
I’ve never been but diverting still. 

did your kindergarten class also
draw crayon fishes? my coelacanth's gills. 

then a distressing wash
of black, but it rolls off fish scales 

the defiant yellow fins, each sheet
an aquarium in cinderblock jail.

Pearl Pirie's fourth published poetry collection was footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). rain’s smallg estures (Apt 9 Press, Sept 2021) is her chapbook of minimalist poems which won the 2022 Nelson Ball Prize. Her most recent is, Heat Lamp (above/ground, 2025) Her author site is www.pearlpirie.com

Three poems, by Colin Dardis

 

 

Ghosts Out There

All these ghosts with their spray cans
writing their name across the city
trying to convince us that they exist
as if bricks offer validity

  

 

Mid-March

The empty
papier-mâché nest
hung as a gift from
an optimistic child,
the birds waiting until
the camouflage of leaves. 

 

 

An Elastic Complacency

a glove of hand sanitiser
before pressing the button
at the traffic lights
        you have to wait
        for the green
light from the government
before staying outside
for more than an hour 

in prison,
they get daily constitutionals
in a yard
        here, we go walking
        and then return to our cells 

subjugated for our own health
        and all healths 

the revolution was televised
but the conquest was invisible
        a breath
        a touch
        a trace 

and now
we cross the road
back to normality
        an old dress
        slipped on
        and immediately
        we return to ourselves 

now the conquest
is like a strange neighbour
you hear through the walls
but rarely see
        they leave their bins out
        and don’t collect them in 

and we return
to old homes
with opened curtains

 

Colin Dardis is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist, he currently co-hosts the Poetry Poetry open mic night in Belfast, and is editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone.

Three poems, by russell carisse

 

russell carisse is currently living on unceded Wolastoqiyik/Mi’kmaw territory in New Brunswick. Here they have resettled from Tkaronto (Treaty 13) to an off-grid trailer in the woods, with their family of people and animals, to grow food and practice other forms of underconsumption. Work forthcoming or in, Juniper, Queen’s Quarterly, The Temz Review, Touch the Donkey, also online. Website: russellcarisse.carrd.co Mastodon: @russellcarisse@writing.exchange Bluesky: russellcarisse@bsky.social 

Two poems, by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Play

Now is not the time for me to dawdle
on a poem that jests at the expense
of my winter heart, not a frolic nor
a trifle, though you would be forgiven
for your quick joke as we pull on boots
to gamble at the air being just warm
enough to divert from the seasonal
sadness, dallying as I allow. But
I can find my delight in this gesture
that won’t just dabble in warmth, but fully
cavort, a bonfire, even in snow waist-
deep. Je m’ébatte avec toi, as the world
rollicks in these ending days, and we will
skylark, screaming poetry as kindling.

 

 

 

A Year is Forever When
- a found poem on nuclear semiotics, from the Sandia National Laboratory Report

This message is a warning about danger —
          and it can kill 

Rudimentary cautionary information —
          tells what why where when and how it increases toward a center 

Basic complex information —
          no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here 

We consider ourselves to be a powerful culture —
          nothing is valued here 

This place is not a place of honor —
          and part of a system of messages 

This place is a message —
          what is here is dangerous and repulsive 

In your time as it was in ours —
          this place is best shunned and left uninhabited 

The danger is to the body —
          something man-made is here 

The form of the danger —
          only if you substantially disturb this place physically 

The danger is in a particular location —
          the danger is still present 

The danger is unleashed —
          of a particular size and shape, and below us

 

Shelagh Rowan-Legg (she/they) is a writer and filmmaker. Originally from Toronto, her poetry and short stories have been published in The Windsor Review, Taddle Creek, Carousel, and numerous other magazines. Her short films have screened at festivals around the world, and she is a Contributing Editor at ScreenAnarchy. She lives in Montreal. Find her at shelaghrowanlegg.com and on Bluesky, @bonnequin.bsky.social.

Two poems, by Alice Burdick

 

Mediaeval advice column
 

Compare your eels to hares,
their snowy bellies, many hidden holes.
Treasure your husband’s person -
keep him close, keep him clean.
Keep his feet re-shod, toes up
in secrets. Identify the season’s cheese:
a melting Lazarus, a minimum of tears,
only time. A thing like time tells us
that a border agent opens the suitcase
as we watch, small autumn-shaped fish
strapped to our bellies. I growl at
the husband, who is out sweating
or freezing, holding the keys to the keep,
nightcap quivering on his tipping crown.
Sing the song of the market riddle -
choose the clearest eye, the dullest
stone rolled from the cave. Oh
friend, oh husband, the timing is off,
whatever time is. We dream of electricity
while candles wax our halls. A gulp,
a soft landing. I have heard it said
that spring is the time for blatant florals.
The reason for voices is stories.
Light a fire under the baby eels, who
are an expensive industry. Maintain
the linen’s wave on an airy line of inquiry.
My forehead tells the time, whatever
time is. Drop the second husband’s decanter
against the canal’s hitch - a lock away
from distance. If a ship lowers itself through
the locks, it means time is a nightmare of inquiry.
Sprinkle a posy bouquet onto the sheets
of early spring. If your bed is full of fleas,
address the fleas, free the fleas - shake them
onto your neighbour’s food truck. The care
of the outside world is man’s work, the care
of the inside world is woman’s work.
Everyone knows this, and I’ve written it down.
These are the simple aspects of time -
it is here, it is now. It is not education
but discernment, which can be related,
but not necessarily. Use the slippery skin
of a good carp to mend your door.
Carp at your good husband, but let him
slide down the gross hill of dirty socks.
Give him orders. Make them gentle so
they sound like music, not conviction.
He’ll balk at clear logic. Let him.
You ask me for advice, so I’ll tell
you that worms produce a soft, smooth silk.
Just so, just as love does, the worms writhe
and expend energy, to look really fly.
They shine, alive in your life, figure eights
in the rubied ancestral chalice. Nod gently,
tag your wandering bitches. No plastic,
we have a simple rhyme in our beds.
It’s more for the telling than the teaching,
dear friend, dear sister. Mortar your ramparts,
storm the pestles, grind it out, grind
it down. May every seed flower.
Bend hearts to open them,
though they may break.
Fold your heart to start again.

 

 

The possible principal earth
 

Inside winter - congress of seeds.
No flowers from leafing light.
Violence blooms through doors. 

Flowers of design, a river
unrolled a boat into violets.
The gall stains change - no art. 

Employer of labour, wealth
can yield principles - dye
indigo into fast food. 

A thief in chintz loves
slow religion - the moon
misunderstands lectures, love. 

Study last-minute science.
Do not mow the end of the world -
illuminate the cold, stone, pink. 

Peaks like crusts, a small breath -
great loads a burden on height.
A sound blinks near the sea. 

Without a good captain, we would
not agree on earthquakes,
the demolition of whole islands. 

The sea a sunken enemy.
We are at war with the story -
a mast into the sky’s open eye. 

You are a country,
a torn route. Map
of torrents, map of hands. 

Dearness, not to be scanned -
stamp the silhouette
of each fallen leaf. 

Barnacles trek through
secretions. We take years
to amass carcass information. 

We talk on booms - buoys
bounce conversationally,
slow to conclusion. 

A universe is a law
of design. We will hope
for all that we can. 

Heart beef, a way
to the end of your ass -
the trail end of days. 

Feather and its quill
are based objects, birds
made into modes of communication. 

Wallpaper blooms and fades,
camouflage in flowers -
flowers hide in flowers, too. 

Time is an allowance
we can think of
as a line at a time.

 

Alice Burdick writes poetry, essays, and cookbooks in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is the author of Ox Lost, Snow Deep, a feed dog book/Anvil Press, 2024; Deportment: The Poetry of Alice Burdick, 2018, Wilfrid Laurier University Press; Book of Short Sentences, 2016, Mansfield Press; Holler, 2012, Mansfield Press; Flutter, 2008, Mansfield Press; and Simple Master, 2002, Pedlar Press. Her poems have appeared in such anthologies as GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Time (Frontenac House, 2018), Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence, An Anthology of Surrealist Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2004), and others. She is the author of many chapbooks, folios, and broadsides since 1991. Her essays have appeared in Locations of Grief: an emotional geography (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020) and My Nova Scotia Home: Nova Scotia’s best writers riff on the place they call home (MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc., 2019). She is a freelance editor, manuscript assessor, and workshop leader.

Three poems, by Nate Logan

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

The old barrel of laughs was blasted apart last week. 

We’re in trouble with an invocation.

The empty field is hard. We kick the ground to prove it.

Cut us some slack.

Gulp of magpies, mischief of magpies, and tidings of magpies are all the same thing.

 

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

“The phrase, 'If I never saw you again, it would be too soon,' seems like the long way around,” she said, a turkey peering in the backyard.

 

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

Epizeuxis is here to stay. 

I’m sorry?

You’ve seen every movie about missing people.

I’m open to suggestions.

At the worst possible moment someone says, “What a doozy.”

The lifeguard tower crumbles.

It’s a common loon that interrupts the news.

 

 

 

Nate Logan is the author of Wrong Horse (Moria Books, 2024) and Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He lives in Indiana.