Drawn to the Light Press

Issue 3

June 2021

Morris Island Lighthouse Mickey Bell

Contents

Lines for a Misfit Martin Mc Carthy 4Cigarette Edel Hanley 5Second Hand Jenny Byrne 6Across Silent Time Edward Lee 7Hedgehog Roisin Horgan 8Spring 2020 Fionn Rogan 9April Deirdre McKernan Crosby 10under your spell Neal Whitman 11Petrichor Niamh Clarke 12Counterpoint Honor Duff 13The Guitar Alan Murphy 14Poppies in the Breeze Avril McDonnell 15Chaos Attracta Fahy 16Blindly Breda Wall Ryan 17Straight from the Tree are Best Edel Burke 18Southward Sven Kretzschmar 19An Inauguration Day Lunch Eugene Platt 20Running in Circles Kate Ennals 21After the Fall Edward Lee 22Meltdown S.C. Flynn 23look away now Lucy Crispin 24The end of the sky Cummings homage Chaelio Thomas 25A Lightbulb Moment Siobhán Flynn 26A Year in Haiku Maeve O’Sullivan 27Four Haiku John Noonan 28Brolliologist Maresa Sheehan 29Gravity Siobhán Mc Laughlin 30The Moon Speaks Jem Henderson 31Tea at Harrods Carolyne Van Der Meer 32L’echarpe Marocain Jamie O’Halloran 33Wildflower Heaven Avril McDonnell 34Crocus Anamaria Julia Dragomir 35Heart of the Matter Katy Mahon 36Odyssey Huw Gywnn-Jones 37The End of the Exile Rachel Coventry 38The Withdrawing Room Pauline Flynn 39My Son, Skydiving Linda McKenna 40Curlew Logic Sinéad McClure 41Summer High Avril McDonnell 42Wildflower Meadow Avril McDonnell 42The Beekeeper Christina Hession 43Stepping Westward, 1995 Peter Adair 44Stone Church Tom Driscoll 45On the moor-ridge David Ratcliffe 46Barrow Boating Ann Marie Dunne 47Dingle Wilds 16 – Trespassing Fish Polly Richardson Munnelly 48Enemies Tamasine Plowman 49Every Memory Returns Edward Lee 50

Notes on Contributors 51

Editorial

A special thanks to Eugene Platt who sent in the cover image shot and put me in touch with its taker, Mickey Bell, who is Eugene’s cousin. Morris Island Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in South Carolina. Mickey writes:

I got this amazing shot after seeking advice from a photographer who had gotten a great capture some years before. I stayed with Eugene and ventured out to the east end of Folly Beach very early on April 3,2013. One has to shoot to get the sunrise close to the lighthouse around April 1. It has to be close to low tide or you will get stranded. It’s about a half mile hike. I had my Nikon d800 and Nikon 70-200 heavy tripod and chair to lug. I arrived at a good spot at 5:30, set up and waited. I had no idea if success awaited me. There needed to be clouds, but not too thick. As it turned out everything was perfect in my opinion. It could have taken a dozen tries.

My raw capture was shot at 6:06 am at 140mm in 1/160 of a second, with f/14 an ISO of 4500. I used matrix metering and the image was 206.89 mb. Isn’t photoshop memory remarkable!

Once again thank you to all who submitted. Themes explored in the work include memory, love, the moon, death, time, music, the senses, journeys, and nature, certainly nature as though the pandemic has pulled us back into the earth’s softening embrace. These thoughtful subjects are sliced slivers of the soul and silvers of wordy worth. It is good to see shorter poems and the haiku alive and well. Herein are longer compositions which push the boundaries of form and expression, while remaining within the controlled craft of artful poets.

Voices from Ireland, the UK, Europe, The USA, and Canada seep together on these pages. They are powerful whisperings to sit with, to know the inner workings of hearts and minds. Poems. Poems are songs on the radio, heard when turned up, they are moments of expansive silence, and they are creations to be pulled from the ether, muddy monsters, sticky newborns or birds on the wing. They are daydreams and visions made real as the painter Lily Briscoe muses at the end of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, “I have had my vision.” The swallows have returned for summer. The meadow grasses grow. Should we walk to the dunes to watch the eye of sweeping light on the bay? The ships coming in?

Orla Fay, 29/05/2021

Lines for a Misfit

Resist the box,don’t let them put you in there;your soul is a fox,but one without a lair.

Resist the box,and all the petty mayhemof those who put a poxon everything that isn’t them.

Resist the box,and all the narrow viewsthat make Fort Knoxthe limit of our daily news.

Resist the box,stay large and freeand calmly unorthodox,in what you choose to see.

Martin Mc Carthy

4

Cigarette

I couldn’t stand how every other night you were a cigarette,holding onto someone saying goodbye, yourself staying,throwing away regret with last night’s broken bottles.

I was a child when first I watched your hair, growing out, turn silver, where smoke rose each night like a whistle from kitchen to bedroom, slipping into your nightdress

as a daughter might in her mother’s absence. How your perfume tried to hide the smoke, I’ll never forget, desperate for me not to think you’d given up on giving up.

This morning I carry ashtray to bin, careful cinders don’t mar cushion or couch, trying not to breathe these familiar lies,again regretting the habit you’d had before having me.

Edel Hanley

5

Second hand for Jessica McClintock - American fashion designer 1930-2021

of time ticks by in a blurtwenty-six years sincewe shopped for the dress.No boutiques or department storesfor us, as we scoured the phone bookseeking ‘pre-loved’ stores –thrift shops back then.You, our guide, your element brightburrowing ‘round the haunts of Town.Frederick street, a faded awning above theflaking Georgian doorway spooked us as we climbed creaking stairs to meet the treasuresyou insisted were there.Giggling our way through 80’s frothwe pulled cocktail length black velvet.Size 6, a perfect fit to make a woman of this 16-year-old lanky body, designer andyou knew it, a diamond in the rough.We had so little, but in that moment,that laughter filled day playing dress up,our tiaras catching fluorescent light, we had it all.

Jenny Byrne

6

Across Silent Time

In five minutesyou will be hereunder this ancient clock,

but I would wait forever,as you know - did I not waittwenty years for this momentto come again - and yet,I know you will be herein five minutes, no second more, for while you were not waiting for meacross those twenty yearsseparating our teenage heartsfrom our reshaped adult hearts,you knew I would be therewhen you needed meto be there;

if this ancient clock still held time,still ticked into the air, it would soundlike a heartbeat becoming quickas the end of five minutesdrew near.

Edward Lee

7

Hedgehog

A pin cushion

Little more

Tapping

Through unswept leaves

On twi-lit glass

Filling the vestibules of my heart

With longing

My titled head promising

As if I knew the lock or a conifer filled den

Of innate rumblings

Hunger fear

Like my young

Climbing onto my tattered lap

Ever chattering

And then in an instant

Settling

Like a sand sculpture barely real

And they not seeing

The vastness

The tenderness

The tapping

Of the lost in me.

Roisin Horgan

8

Spring 2020

The bird song was louder that year,more cats crossed the road safely,fewer pigeons were verbally abused,more dogs were walked twice a day.The rivers were cleaner;the horses and cows that drankhad their thirst quenched quicker.The trees that cleaned the air had less diesel fumes to dispel;more lilac blossom fragrance lingered.Daffodil day was cancelled. Spring powered ahead.Fewer nests were made with plastic,more fledglings were overheard.The cherry blossoms simply blossomed;fewer leaves were flattened where they fell.The bees noticed no difference:each load of pollen was collected,buttercup, snowdrop, bluebell.Phenomena such as rush hour ceased to be.The school run ran no more.Taxi ranks were empty.Urban foxes were perplexedat the spoils of city in retreat.

Fionn Rogan

9

April   Mother earth bows towards the sunAffirming its perennial renaissance.Filling my soul with light and life,Escape winter’s cold oppressive veil. Darkness and shadows slowly disperseThe ground beneath my feet softens.Seeds and buds breathe new life,An earth miracle, defined by destiny. Colours abound in this season of light.Bluebells flood forest floors.Inspiring the artist’s lush palette.Captured on canvas as oft’ before. Dusting down winter’s dense cobwebsInhale the welcome light of SpringNurtured and invigorated under soft rain.April, nurturer of nature. Thank you.

Deirdre McKernan Crosby

10

under your spell

open

add an h

drop the n

my mind is made up

we fit like a pair of gloves

drop the g and the s

warms my heart

like velvet

Neal Whitman

11

Petrichor

A small freckle on your top lip –

belongs only to you.

The result of hours you spend hiking in the sun;

the Kildare forests you love – I love in return.

Your autumn hair, your muscular arms

make me nervous.

You are smarter than book smart,

a mind independent,

annihilates my bullshit,

I’m left discombobulated.

Forever unobtainable

even in my arms,

I am sick with the thought of you –

not seeking a cure.

Niamh Clarke

12

Counterpoint

When the famous pianistshook my hand,his clasp was sure and strong.

There was a strandwhich echoed all day long;snatches of Chopin preludes,Schubert and Liszt scherzo-edfrom handto armto wrist.

Piano Concertos swirledaround my earin harmony divine,and it was clear,some alchemy had madea keyboard of my spine.

Honor Duff

13

The Guitar

Strumming is a casual pleasure

if sometimes the F chord is fumbled.

Reaching out to grasp the neck fondly,

you imagine you’ll be transported

by some unexpected sequence of

notes, believe you’ll be comforted;

soon your fingers move without envy

as for brief moments phrases tumble

from its tan body, liquid treasure.

Alan Murphy

14

Poppies in the Breeze Avril McDonnell

15

Chaos

One imperial summer the poppy held out, curved stem bowingto earth, it’s flower persisted,its face to the sun.

Lus mór– foxglove– spread over the garden, as if the whole world depended on pink tubular bells to call attention to which has greater importance. 

An autumn evening, a butterfly with its broken wing hovers under the bulb,dims the light, shadows move, as if a ghost had entered the room.

We see the wrong always in another country,that same country looking back, the wrong in us. 

All this faith in an afterlife,  earth rich with ancestral bones, 

seeds scatter, plants shed their skin,leaves tumble, spread gold, amber, redat our feet,beginnings always meeting decay. 

Today, blood red petals like tissue paper dissolve into the ground, already another shoot takes over, digitalis purpurea buds in the pot.  

Now another cycle grows out from chaos gives way to a new order, we are moving in circles,one great eternal spiral,like it or not.

Attracta Fahy

16

Blindly

It is only with the heart that we can see rightly, as the essence of things is not visible to the eye.

- Antoin de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

We place our fingerpads over the socketsand find not moist, flinching eyeballsbut something softer, less mouldedto contours extending around the head’stropic of cancer: a night maker,stealing our light.

Running our fingers over its pile,it feline silkiness, we pictureshort fur, moleskin, mousepelt;sight jumps into our fingertips,reads texture and darknesshidden in unfathomable folds,cause and effect.

&

Tracing the braille map, our fingerscannot imagine how the terrainmight touch the soles of our feet, what rock might trip us on our way, or how it bubbled up from the earth’s core,molten, then cooled to an endoskeleton to hold up all we know of the path,even the obstacles over which we stumble.

&

In the care home the old sailorblinded by cataracts hovers a silvery hand over two notebooks to tell red from green:one warm as skin under tropical sun, the othercool as spring grass after rain.

&

The bound prisoner exploresthe darkness inside the hood with his facial nerves: the hood is black,double-skinned against his cheeks; its weave oozes another’s coarse fearinto his nostrils and he knows the hoodis not made with cotton or hate, but with indifference; and he is afraid.

Breda Wall Ryan

17

Straight from the Tree are Best

It seems like we are all year waiting. too many days lumbered with restraints.

The leaves have come and gone, the whoopers returned.

Who would have thought we’d be so good over distance,

your courage, in the heart of the willow warbler,

alone on the wing months, to reach her wintering grounds.

I see you now at a remote – your face

held too close to the screen, sallow and wrinkled as the medjool

you and I both love Mother, the sticky caramel sweet.

You like to doze at three,I’ll take some to share when we meet,

as if in a holy month, something to break our fast.

Edel Burke

18

Southwardafter Rainer Maria Rilke and Element of Crime

And then came the time to store summerin a garden shed, alongside worn-out whispersof sweaty love confessions by the pool edge.Time to take away white shirts and thongsfrom bath keepers, and to dress them in lightgrey suits of radar trap operators – their rules will remain vaguely the same.In that time of coming cold we would not needto see each other, but see fleecy clouds meltinto the sky like arctic ice into oceans.

And then comes the time for rain cloudsto shed their drops down on gardens for the latterto pick up again. And, stringing my bundle,I would not have to face those looking at eachother smiling, whose fingers are caught in eachother’s hands. Time to accompany the falling rain, southwardwhere fire has no form cold in the dark. The roamer’sis a portable life, made only of pass-throughs. And solid shoes. Down a barren pathway, behind a windowsomeone writes letters by a tiled stove.

Sven Kretzschmar

19

An Inauguration Day Lunch

Better is a dinner of herbs where love isthan a fatted ox and hatred with it.

- Proverbs 15:17 (RSV)

With bacon left over from breakfast,a traditional BLT seems rightfor a sorta light Inauguration Day lunchin the provinces far from presidential pomp.

And so I proceed, toasting twin slicesof wholesome whole wheat breadto hold together, I hope,a tasty diversity of disparate parts.

I wash and slice an heirloom tomato for the T,pull from the fridge a jar of mayonnaise,and look for the lettuce, the central L,an essential ingredient of an authentic BLT.

Rummaging through crisper drawers,I find withered parsley, nuts, cheese---of course, none of these is neededlike lettuce, green leaves I love.

But dammit to hell, there is no such Lfor the otherwise unbridgeable gapbetween the fading big red T and the crispy true-blue B.

Hungry but resigned to reality, I bite intothe truncated BLT and turn on the tubein time to hear a collared priest beseechso earnestly a unity as elusive as lettuce.

Eugene Platt

20

Running in Circlesfor Sarah Everard

Up close, out of nowhereI saw his lips twitch, his mouth open. He uttered a guttural glug with his throat. I twisted to turnto run, but I felt his hand grab the arm of my coat, it ripped.I lashed out, felt his gripheard his whisper not to shout. He was police. First doubt, then reliefbut fear won. I ran, sprinted past houses, hedges, every night darkness. I kicked off my heels, felt my feet touch the lines. I thought of how when I was youngI never stepped on themfor fear of grizzly bears lurking around corners. I slow down, look up,there he is with his car, holding up his badge of honour.

Kate Ennals

21

After the Fall Edward Lee

22

Meltdown

The soft apologetic grey of eveningsqueezes me out from where I’ve sat so longsafe from prying minds but close to the shimmering edge.A gaunt and prowling night cat,I stalk these polished streets alone,meeting the face of my fear in each gleaming surface. I cringefrom the masses of promised lifethat hunt in packs on every side;I rush back home where my mental bagsare ready and waiting by the door.I’m still not sure I’m even really hereand I think that someone’s moved my things around,but my shadow nods and waves politely as it always does. The same old vultureswoops low to tear me up by the rootsand beats its bloody wings around my headwhile it pours its sickly sweet taste in my mouth.I sip each day from a gritty cup;outside they are many, in here I am one.

S.C. Flynn

23

look away now

Ah, Spring, why did you have to show me this?I was after one of those dipper-skimmed, purling streams,those white stars on blackthorn, and wood anemones’ gleamsamongst the garlic’s juicy green; but you’re taking the piss.I needed that new-leaf shimmer on the hawthorn,the hum of chartreuse on beech, those choose me songsin woods ringing riot with everything the heart longsfor; instead you offer, in this field of new-bornwobbly, few-weeks’ prancing lambs, this stricken ewe callingover and over in loud, persistent chorus as I pass,insisting I don’t intrude on that patch of bright grasswhere the small black body, legs still curled to caper, lies fallen.Ah, Spring. Promise can look as promising as it damn well likes;no one’s immune from the skyfalls, the lightning strikes.

Lucy Crispin

24

The end of the sky Cummings homage  It feels like we’re on different planets (clichéd I know) ICould search for other similes (metaphors.)We were living in each other’s skin (each moment Was) charged buzzing and the hours filled up without(Us) noticing weCould look at a wall track the sunlight Tedium absent idle thoughts (But) they seemed scintillating with you Everything(Now) feels like half (or less)Too much time ExhaustedLacking your (innate) tranquilliser Withdrawal(Like) anaemiaSapped Keeps me open (awake)A dull ache. 

Chaelio Thomas

25

A Light Bulb Moment

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.- Thomas Edison

This poem is dressed in an apronand looks like housework,but the poetry is there in the corner,where a spider, fellow homemaker,gets an opportunity to escapeor at least hide better.

The scent of lavender in the mop bucketwashes over the terracotta tiles,and for a moment I almost remember something,something like; light bluewith purple makes a change.*

Later, when I rub butterinto wheaten flour between my fingersit becomes the grit an archaeologist removesto uncover precious artefacts.I discover domesticityis not important to the world of men.

Gertrude explained it all:It takes a lot of time to be a genius.You have to sit around so much,doing nothing,really doing nothing.*

Siobhán Flynn

*Gertrude Stein

26

A Year in Haiku

balcony garden

a sprig of parsley

falls into a web

March sunset translucent tulip petals

little tern colony –

startled by a loud noise

a parent takes flight

picnic basket full rose garden on the wane

I sneak a blackberry

with each lap of the path —

walking meditation

in my friend’s window a trio of frost moons

Zimbabwe cricketsunderscoring Dublin fog –evening Zoom call

cool drizzle a triad of friends in the park

Maeve O’Sullivan

27

Four Haiku

Your wet clay footprints

fill with rainwater,

the field follows you home

Barbeque embers

darkening dying glow

a sudden breeze of sunset

A swan slides away from reeds

his present, a drifting memory

Spill of toys in yard

children returned to class

stillness

John Noonan

28

Brolliologist

Delighted by their steel elbows and shoulders under taut stretched skin,their handles, proud ferrules.

The tegestologist slipping his beer mats into the plastic pockets of his album.

Staring, mesmerising her with brown empty eyes,she'll only touch their curly fur to re-arrange them, the artophile’s teddy bears, ancient and perfect.

The helixophile twists his oldest corkscrewin the palm of his hand, imagining the pulland grip of it against the cork.

Patient, proud, beautiful collections.

But won't the umbrella miss the applauseand stomping feet of the rain, and what if the wind changes

and Mary Poppins misses her ride because it was neatly folded in a display stand?

Don't teddies need to be suffocated with snuggles under duvets, fed toast with jam, their fur sticking to it?

A sogging wet and shredded beer mat must feel job satisfaction when a couple leave together?

And if the tip of a corkscrew can't sip a Rioja on a Saturday night,well what's the point of it?

Maresa Sheehan

29

Gravity

Long ago, when the earth -from some cataclysmic collision -cast aside its heart,there was born the moon.Far-flung, the heart hardened to rock, barren birthplace of pain.And kept its tethered distance.

Years it orbited its planet home,content in cratered hurt, the shock of separation borne aloft, alone. Tide-puller, tear-keeper, melancholy muse-maker.Satellite ghost of loss.

Yet amidst its scarred terrain -the Ocean of Storms, the Sea of Rain -there was named:Sea of tranquillitySea of fecunditySea of nectar.Love, can never just die away. 

Now the moon's face gazes luminous at the earth in nightly wounded wonder, knows there is no way back. Yet honours the gravity between them, spinning on an axis of unending light.

Siobhán Mc Laughlin

30

The Moon Speaks

Last night, he snuck in through my window round and fat, cackling like a magpie. Grabbed me by my pixie hair, whispered that he doesn't love me, my mother doesn't, my child doesn't, how could he whenI'm such a dreadful parent, only playacting through video games and chalk drawings of sunshines and rabbits on the pavement. My mother looks at me, fat cheeked, pig eyed, smiles her greased smile as I pile up sweets, custard creams, endless cups of weak black tea, the skin from my thighs and forearms, Lego blocks that make up the last of my sanity, the smile from my face, a million hours of tears, all on the plate before her and she gobbles it up a black hole, a void I can't fill until I wake up sweating, the moon slinking out, back to his sky and his darkness, leaving me and my emptied chest with nothing but the sad cry-catch of tears trapped in my throat.

Jem Henderson

31

Tea at Harrods

I promise to meet her in Piccadilly CircusWe’ll go to Harrod’s buy tea-things have a cuppaRain threatens I know she hates to get her hair wetafter an expensive trip to the coiffeur

I know she’ll have an umbrellaeven an extra fold-up version in some hidden compartment in her handbag where she could stash the goods for a getawayStill I wished I’d picked her up

When I spot her outside the station she looks tired lostI’m shocked by her appearance normally choreographedelle a pris un coup de vieux but I convince myself it’s the dreary weather the dark light

casting a shadow across her faceAt Harrods she begs off a shopping spree pleads for a rest on a nearby bench a cup of double bergamot Earl Greybreath shallow cold

Maybe her years are catching herBut memories glisten in her clouded eyes a fading image of her son at the Bataclan that nightParis, she says Novembre 2015 Le temps aujourd’hui est pareil

Carolyne Van Der Meer

32

L’echarpe Marocain

Scarf, you flew in from Morocco

Disguised as Africa’s sky yolked

With Saharan clouds. You slid out of

Marakesh and stowed away

On a westbound jet to land

Around my neck. Your Mediterranean

Silk grazes the meadow of my skin and

I am in your mosque all

Mosaic and blue. Muezzin, you

Call me from your minaret

To a different prayer. Your holy sea

Where I dive deep, deeper, deep.

Jamie O’Halloran

33

Wildflower Heaven Avril McDonnell

Crocus

34

Dark untamed earth,impersonal, unjudging,who made you drink upand swallow in the lighton which you chew andspit back out in colorsof touch and smell and hearingand sight?Are these ordained,or sprouts of pure randomness?So visceral, but equally sublime,forged deep in furnaces of stars,mysterious alchemic artistry,do we from these result?We harm your flesh by walking over you?I see a swelling bump,and from beneath the dry crushed leavesa perfumed bruise shows up.

Anamaria Julia Dragomir

Heart of the Matter

35

for my father, Derek Mahon

Sometimes I submit to the similarity between us, accepting the owlish, watchful eyes, and even the thoughts wedged behind the high brow.

Sometimes it’s the mannerism of slightly jutting jaw in thought, or the flicker of muscle in the cheek, taut in response to others’ words.

You were often a good listener, keen to know how others felt about a book, an article, even a joke uttered tongue in cheek.

And that’s what made us unique, united through an unspoken accord despite the broken cord you effected when I was nine.

What is established by Gaia below – a root begun and nourished, turning to flourishing flower – cannot be ignored. And so

our roots delved deep into the earth, connecting eye, cheek and bone, and our shoots infused the macrocosm with words unspoken while you were alive.

Katy Mahon

Odyssey

36

In the early lightthe dewlightof rustling leaves before all senseof a settled earthis a decision

a notion of freedomand odysseyand the road ahead

when I moveeverything movesaround methe future dancesunruly in my hair

yet when I arriveat the placeof grazing herdsand call it homeand do the thingsof well-fed menI find it blighted

leap to my feetand stride againinto falcons’ wind in search ofanother Ithaca.

Huw Gwynn-Jones

The End of the Exile

37

I left the world of menincognito; wrapped in my flesh,my sunglasses, my shawls, in navyand black, wrapped tight in my rage.

I went to live in my mother’s house,made meals three times a day, morsels for women, delicate things.I scraped ashes from the grate. Years passed. When the carers came to tend to my motherwe talked of female concerns; the foolishness of men. The foolishness of men is always the same be they Irish, Ghanaian,

or Lithuanian. We laughed the knowing laugh of women. When my mother passed awayI was left with the dog, a gentle bitch

but not enough to maintain the femalenessof this place, and quite unexpectedly, I left my exile,as a swimmer strides back into the cold bay. I kissed him very deeply, lowered myself in.

Rachel Coventry

The Withdrawing Room

38

Inside the castle, I wander airless apartments,and enter a room different from the rest– the women’s withdrawing room.On hand-painted Chinese wallpaper a fawnwalks along a path, a parrot rests in a peony tree.I lose myself in the garden, sit on the blue glazed seatby the lotus pond, eat a persimmon picked from the tree overhead, listen to the song of the yellow-tailed bird on the osmanthus, follow the butterfly hovering over the rock.I stand here in my winter coat, the room bare of furniture, wallpaper veiled in a patina of age,at home in this female domain, in undisturbed delight, from the world outside.

Pauline Flynn

39

My Son, Skydiving

If every mother knows to sew pomegranate seeds into the seams of her daughter’s dresses,

she knows to keep her son’s eyes to the ground, shield him from matches and the patterns

of clouds, show him the entrails of birds killed by neighbourhood cats. But daily,

unthinkingly, I led you across the threshold of long empty cages, past nail-studded doors;

drew rusty bolts in and out of their chiselledpockets, thought you safely cocooned

in the womb. Until under my feet, the wind vibrated the echo of a shriek, made you leap,

turn a complete somersault in your amniotic sac, acquainting you fatally with the lure

of acrobatics, the feather float of ghosts.

Linda McKenna

Curlew Logic

40

I'm a curlewWith my cew, cew cur—lee—cur—leewhistle

and my long legsand cur—vey beak

I'm a curlewThat's mebehind the thistle,looking dappledand rather sleek

I'm a curlewWith my cew, cew cur—lee—cur—leewhistle

And my currycombshaped eyes

I'm a curlewa cursed curlewWith a curvilinearpoint of view curt but cautiouswith my curlicue beak

I'm a curlewdon't forget meIf it's curiosity you seek.

Sinéad McClure

Summer High

41

Flashing sparks and diving larksBees and butterfliesDancing colours in and outLight and sunbeams high

White fluff floating in the airFeathery balls alightDrifts of snow land everywhereDancing in delight

The light and dreams of life are highKaleidoscope in motionContinuous movement in the airDazzling in devotion

Avril McDonnell

Wildflower Meadow Avril McDonnell

The Beekeeper

42

Swallowed by his jumper,he slipper shuffles along the cracked concrete path.Papery palms- used to taking the strain on a tug o'war team,struggle to turn the handle,on an Aladdin's Cavehe doesn't remember building.

A hodge podge of cobwebby tools, his bee suit and smoker.He mines the memory,clouded eyes twinkle- his cellophaned honey section in Centraand a woman's finger in it.

Christina Hession

Stepping Westward, 1995

43

Tramping that headland where the sheep

bleat and gulls screech, I’d be rock and air,

sea and sky, a nothing in the mist;

I’d be the corncrake clack-clacking,

a fly flitting over the stream –

anything, anything to forget his

gasping for breath after breath after breath,

his hand shaking, dropping a glass,

his blind feet stumbling in the dark.

Peter Adair

Stone Church

44

I venture no more than a low whisper, afraid I’ll startle the people of heaven.

- Li Po

The one stark gable form stands remindera roof once sheltered worship therewhere, now, sky spills in.

Weed, tough slender stalks of it, and othersofter, finer wild grasses groweither side of a worn threshold.

Stone masons, so long ago, carved fluted casinginto the dark wall, this coarse granite smoothedat the small entrance off to one sideof what had been the altar.

My father came forty years agodriven to the site on his own.Standing at the doorway, looking inat what was no longer there, he’d realizedthis strange sense of scale, the stature of mena thousand years — five hundred generations — back.I think he said it was raining, cold, the wind was up.Telling me, he always tried to capture the mixof comedy and awe. History. Absent tracingthe doorframe his hand had found one place smoother— more polished than the rest —

where so many had touched the stone that same placeas softly, just as elsewhere-minded as he was, fixed or tryingto fix on prayer in whatever language, the blessingsof different years, saint names, grief and its rote consolations

— or only steadying themselves as they stepped acrossa width of stone the color of pale flesh, wet with rain.

Tom Driscoll

On the moor-ridge

45

A warm breeze caressed the moor-ridgemurmuring in my earsas I angled toward the summitof a favoured mound.

Once there I lay watching a forever sky;the moons edge illuminated the finale of a rash of starsblack, grey fading, a fire burning through it.

My eyes followed the horizon toward an emerging sun that turned cotton grass into lighted bulbs.

With eyes half-closed in gleama deathly roar shook the silence it was predatory, authoritative, yet lonesome.

I gripped bracken, sat upright and there it stood above the quarry top, a Stagframed in orange. with extraordinary branches spreading from its head,

It was magnificent,close enough to outrun menear enough to admire.I felt no fear.

There was a scurry in a clump of grass, then the pale brown flashof a Hare or a Rabbit, or some mythological creature sent by the Stag to turn me back?

I stayed awhile for as long as a moment could lastwatching its majesty,staring in obedience.

The sun chased darkness,waking hills on the far side of the valleyas the beast followed its shadow fading into memory.

David Ratcliffe Barrow Boating

46

after Du Fu

Waiting for “Sale Agreed”, here in my dream home.Heart sore, I wander the rooms, reading their stories.

But today, I’m his girlfriend on the barge, learning to throw ropes on the Bisto brown Barrow.

Damsel flies entwine in azure ecstasy on the reeds.A couple of buzzards cavort and soar in slow circles.

We moor up and dine in deckchairs by the campfire.Mirrored in the river, we are silvered by the stars.

Ann Marie Dunne

47

Dingle Wilds 16 - Trespassing Fish

Remembering Mondays, cockle steam decorating windows

those shoes askew eternally damp with morning tides

encrusted with shoreline’s hearts,

glittering, just there.

I and moon are one, watching morn, the evolution.

Lone bladderwrack sits perfectly still on tongue,

As if loaning itself to Shakespeare; act 2, line 1200 organic kiss synthetic

harboured catching sun slinking in

and you dripping butter fusions, garlic marrying mango,

I sculpt furiously in mind to hold for Thursday’s vigil and tidal blessings of merlot’s

seduction seeping further into Atlantic salt seasoning sands

and tales of once a walrus came to Kerry

on echoes of solitary dolphin clicks dispersed amongst turning tides

washing up what ifs what ifs among the decaying common yellow corpses

spat out with shells.

Polly Richardson Munnelly

48

Enemies

A friendship is a diamond cast in the unique clasp of your heart

But how beautiful is the Pearl

That coated in layers and years of defensive barriers

Once freed

Shines full of iridescent colours

So can our Enemies be realised by our love

Tamasine Plowman

49

Every Memory Returns Edward Lee

50

Notes on Contributors

Peter Adair’s poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Boyne Berries, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Poets’ Republic and other journals and anthologies.  He has been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing.  He lives in Bangor, Co Down.

Mickey Bell was born in Columbia and grew up in Florence, South Carolina. He graduated from the College of Charleston, and the seminary at Emory. He served for forty-four years in ministry in the UMC all over SC. His main hobbies were music and tennis. He always enjoyed photography but took it more seriously with the end of his tennis career. He studied art at USC taking most of their photography courses and he has participated in several photo groups. He enjoys all aspects of digital photography but gravitates to wildlife captures.

Edel Burke lives in Castlebar, Co. Mayo. She was the winner of Dromineer Poetry Competition 2017, and she was highly commended by iYeats Poetry 2017. She has been published in  Something About Home, New Writing on Migration and Belonging, Crannóg, Boyne Berries, Banshee, The Cormorant, The Rush Anthology.

New to the writing scene and enjoying the practice of it and the community very much, Jenny Byrne engages with writing as her creative way to process aspects of life around her and her experience. Her poems have been published in The Galway Review and Impspired.

Niamh Clarke is from Dundalk. Her interests include veganism, walking, cooking, writing, reading and keeping healthy. She is interested in form and the musicality of poetry, the playful side of language (indulges in the odd pun), and feels she is always trying to develop her voice and place through poetry.

Rachel Coventry’s poems have appeared in The North, The Moth, Poetry Ireland Review, Stand, The Irish Times, The Shop, and have featured on RTE Lyric FM. She holds a PhD in philosophy from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her debut collection Afternoon Drinking in the Jolly Butchers (2018) is published by Salmon poetry.

Lucy Crispin is a former Poet Laureate of South Cumbria. She’s been published widely in print and online, most recently in Poetry Birmingham, Speckled Trout, Anthropocene, Pennine Platform and Channel. Her pamphlets wish you were here and shades of blue are published by Hedgehog Press. Find out more at lucycrispin.com.

Deirdre McKernan Crosby lives in Greystones Co. Wicklow.  Her first published poem, Uninvited Guest appeared in 2019 in Bray Arts Journal. Her work is also published in Boyne Berries Literary Journal, The Blue Nib and Pendemic.ie.  Her poem There Will Be Time – Cancer & Covid-19 is preserved in the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, UCD Library.  Her most recent published work Diary 1952 was read as part of Poetry Day Ireland 2021.

Anamaria Julia Dragomir came from Romania to find a home away from home here in Ireland. She has studied Philology, Literature and Philosophy. She has started to write verse in a moment of overwhelming sensitivity and is hoping to touch the borders of literature.

Tom Driscoll lives in Framingham, Massachusetts USA with his wife, artist Denise Driscoll.He’s published several collections of poems, most recently ‘Odd Numbers’ (2017).

Honor Duff is a member of the Cavan-Meath Lit-Lab Writers Group, has been published in various journals including Boyne Berries, Crannóg Magazine, The Stony Thursday Book, and Skylight 47.

51

Ann Marie Dunne lives in Co. Kildare.  She is currently a (very!) mature student at Carlow College doing a degree in Arts & Humanities.  She loves hiking, boating and being in nature.  She is unpublished and trying to hone her skills in poetry

Kate Ennals is a board member of Irish PEN/PEN na h'Éireann. Her collections include At the Edge (Lapwing), Threads (Lapwing), and Elsewhere (forthcoming from Salmon Poetry).

Attracta Fahy Psychotherapist, MA.Writing NUIG. October winner in Irish Times New Irish Writing 2019, Pushcart, Best of Web nominee, shortlisted for Over The Edge New Writer 2019, Allingham Poetry festival 2019 & 2020. Fly on the Wall Poetry published her debut chapbook collection Dinner in the Fields, in March’20.

Pauline Flynn is a Visual Artist/Poet and has an MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin, Ireland. She was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2010 and is published in various literary journals including Skylight 47, Boyne Berries, Sixteen Magazine, Irl. Light, a Journal of Photography and Poetry, NY, Orbis 81, and The Blue Nib, UK.

S.C. Flynn was born in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. His poetry has recently been published in Cyphers and Abridged.

Siobhán Flynn has been placed and shortlisted in a number of poetry competitions including the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and literary journals, including Visual Verse, The Pickled Body, Amsterdam Quarterly and The Poetry Bus. She is working towards her first collection.

Edel Hanley is currently researching for a PhD in women’s war writing at University College Cork. She has recently been awarded an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Award for her research in October 2020. Edel regularly hosts poetry and short story writing courses for gifted children alongside the Centre for Talented Youth Ireland (CTYI) and her poetry and fiction have previously been published in Crannog Magazine, #mentalhealthformillennials, New Writer’s Café Magazine, and Quarryman Literary Journal.

Jem Henderson is a nonbinary queer poet living in Leeds, UK. They have an MA in Creative Writing from York St. John University. They have been published in Civic Leicester's Black Lives Matter anthology, Streetcake, Full House and Dreich. They can be found on twitter and instagram @jem_face. They're working on their first collection.

Christina Hession is a native of Dunmore, Co Galway. She has been published in Boyne Berries, Vox Galvia, Bangor Literary Journal, Ropes and The Honest Ulsterman. Christina holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC.

Roisin Horgan lives in West Clare on the Shannon Estuary. She works as a mediator and writes constantly. She is inspired by her surroundings and the manner in which nature can bring emotion to the surface, bringing healing if not closure. She has four children and loves to garden. This is her first publication.

Huw Gwynn-Jones comes from a line of published poets in the Welsh bardic tradition, but until his recent retirement to Orkney, had never penned a line himself.  He now writes to find a different way of hearing the world, and has poems accepted by Eunoia Review, Amethyst Review and Dreich Magazine.

Sven Kretzschmar is a prize-winning poet from Germany. His poetry has been published widely in Europe and overseas, among other outlets in Writing Home. The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019), Hold Open the Door (UCD Press, 2020), Voices 2020 (Cold River Press, 2020) The Irish Times, and Das Gedicht.

52

Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll.  He is currently working on two photography collections: 'Lying Down With The Dead' and 'There Is A Beauty In Broken Things'. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

Katy Mahon is working on two, as yet unpublished pamphlets, and a collaboration with English seascape artist Carolyn Coles. Katy is a member of Wednesday Wordship workshops in Yorkshire, and she has a poem being published in the inaugural edition of Dublin-based The Liminal Review later this year. 

Martin Mc Carthy was born in Co. Waterford, Ireland, He now lives in Cork, and is a graduate of UCC, where he studied English. He is at present working on his first full-length collection, titled Lockdown., which is due to be published by Three Spires Press in 2021.

Sinéad McClure is a writer, radio producer, and illustrator. Her poetry has been published on Poethead, Live Encounters ~ Poetry & Writing, Crossways Literary Journal, The Cabinet of Heed, Dodging the Rain, StepAway Magazine and The Ekphrastic Review. Sinéad has also written 15 dramas for the National Radio Children's Service, RTEjr Radio on the themes of conservation and Ireland’s natural heritage.  She often revisits these themes in her work and has a particular interest in wildlife conservation. In March 2021 Sinéad won the Ó Bhéal International Five Words Poetry Competition. Sinéad lives in rural County Sligo, with her husband and their two border collies.

Avril McDonnell lives in Douglas, Cork. She has a great interest in nature and animal welfare. New to painting she has been exploring styles over the last ten months.  She dapples in all areas of art and crafts but favours painting with acrylics. Her style is loose, abstract, and drawn to painting wildflowers. Her other interests include gardening, writing (poetry and short stories) and singing.

Linda McKenna’s debut poetry collection, In the Museum of Misremembered Things, was published by Doire Press in 2020. The title poem won the An Post/Irish Book Awards, Irish Poem of the Year. In 2018 she won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing and the Red Line Festival Award. She has had poems published in a variety of publications including, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The North, The Honest Ulsterman, Crannóg.

Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet from Co. Donegal, Ireland. She has a MA in Creative Writing and is a creative writing facilitator. Her poems have been published in The Honest Ulsterman, The Ekphrastic Review, Quince magazine, The Poetry Village, Bealtaine magazine and Drawn to the Light Press. Twitter: @siobhan347.

Polly Richardson Munnelly currently lives and writes in Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Co-host & MC for Impspired lit mag poetry nights, she continues to run groups the Bulls Arse Writers & Worldly Worders remotely. She has been published both nationally and internationally. Her collection Winter’s Breath is available on Amazon.

Alan Murphy is the Waterford-based writer and illustrator of four collections of poetry for children and teenagers. He has been featured in books of the year articles in the Irish Times and twice shortlisted for the CAP awards for independent authors. He has also contributed poetry and visual art to numerous outlets and anthologies and writes for Inis magazine.

53

John Noonan is a member of Dundalk Writers. His work has been published in magazines and journals in Ireland and the U.S. He has been shortlisted in many competitions and is a winner of the Goldsmith Poetry Award. 

Jamie O’Halloran is an American poet who lives in the West of Ireland. Her poems appear most recently in Crannóg, One Hand Clapping, The Honest Ulsterman, The Night Heron Barks and The Galway Review. Her poetry reviews are in Lit Pub and Tupelo Quarterly. 

Maeve O'Sullivan works in further education in Dublin. Her poetry and haikai have been widely published and anthologized. She is the author of four collections from Alba Publishing, with a fifth forthcoming in June 2021. Maeve is a member of the Hibernian Poetry Group, leads haiku workshops, and reviews for various journals. Twitter @writefromwithin.

Eugene Platt lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife Judith, corgi Bess, and cats Finnegan and Maeve. He holds a Diploma in Anglo-Irish Literature from Trinity College Dublin. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Boyne Berries, Capella, etc. Revival Press published his collection Nuda Veritas in 2020.

Tamasine Plowman is a 44 years young mum & multi- instrumentalist musician, based in Limerick. She has run a music school in Castletroy for 6 years and is currently part of the NCH female conductors programme. She has written poetry throughout her life starting back as a teenager, whilst studying at Chethams school of music Manchester. She has always found words, like music, a powerful tool to express life and its journey.

David Ratcliffe is a poet, playwright, short story writer from the north west of England. He has been published in a number of magazines both on-line and in print. In 2016 his poem ‘Home Straight’ featured at the Fermoy International Festival. The stage play ‘Intervention’ was produced for World Peace Day. His poem ‘He Crawled’ was placed third for the Pushcart Prize in the Blue Nib magazine in 2018. In 2018 his poem ‘Pour me a Vision’ featured in VatsalaRadhakeesoon.wordpress.com for Dylan Thomas Day.

Originally from Clare, Fionn Rogan is a senior researcher in climate and energy policy and modelling in University College Cork. 

Breda Wall Ryan lives in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Internationally published, her awards include The Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize, and Dermot Healy International Poetry Award. A founder member of Hibernian Poetry, her collections, both from Doire Press, are In a Hare’s Eye (Shine/Strong Award 2016), and Raven Mothers (2018).

Maresa Sheehan's writing has/will appear in The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, BlackBough Poetry, Dodging the Rain, Boyne Berries, Dreich Poetry. Winner Goldsmith Poetry Competition, second Westival Poetry Competition 2020, HC: Bridport, Over The Edge, Hungry Hill, Fool for Poetry Competitions. Shortlisted: Fish Lockdown Prize, Cuirt Poetry Prize, Allingham Competition.

Chaelio Thomas is a writer from Dublin, Ireland who teaches at second level and enjoys vintage fashion. She has been published on Headstuff.org, Tales From the Forest, Visual Verse, The Honest Ulsterman, The Mondegreen and the Olentangy Review. She is mainly focussing on poetry at the moment despite writing short stories and radio plays in the past. She tweets @Jenanifur.

Carolyne Van Der Meer lives and writes in Montreal, Canada. She has three published books, Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience Journeywoman and Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bourgeoys in 30 Poems. Another collection, Sensorial, is forthcoming from Inanna in 2021. Her poetry has been published internationally.

54

Neal Whitman lives with his wife, Elaine, a mile from Monterey Bay where they watch the tide go out and see what remains. In the debris, he finds images and ideas for his poems. He took up the profession of poetry when he retired from the profession of teaching. Publications and awards have exceeded his expectations.

55

https://drawntothelightpress.com

Twitter: @DrawnPress

Instagram: @drawntothelightpress

Drawn to the Light Press is edited, designed and produced by Orla Fay.

Cover design Morris Island Lighthouse by Mickey Bell

The works included in this issue are copyright of the poets ©2021 and may not be reproduced or changed in any way without the permission of the individual author.

Drawn to the Light Press is ©2021 of the editor. All rights reserved.

56