“The Kitchen Couch at 20 Inis Fáil” by Rebecca Myers

While other couches gazed at TV screens,
this one had alternative vocations.
It slouched beneath the weight of strays and teens,
bore the brunt of heavy conversations.
Firm enough so that we wouldn’t wallow,
Yet soft enough to cushion love’s first blows.
Gossip dropped between the seats was swallowed
whole, before Frank’s morning weather show.
Hash brown crumbs and hairballs from the pets
were hoovered up by Mary on the hour
and as the sun went down a stage was set,
with backing tracks of humming Triton shower
and scratched CDs frozen back to perfection,
for dancers doubled in glass door reflections.




Rebecca Myers is an Irish poet and performer originally from Dublin, currently living in Nelson, New Zealand. She makes up one half of the duo ‘A Pair of Poets’, who were awarded Best Script in the Nelson Fringe: Virtual Festival 2020. She has had her poetry published online on The Blue NibThe Lake Review and Wine Cellar Press as well as in print in Popshot Magazine. For Rebecca, poetry provides a welcome creative outlet from her day job as a lab technician. You can find some more of her work on her Instagram @beccy.myers.

“Blackened State” by Patricia Walsh

This has got to stop, this holy affection,
breaking the plates with a golden will,
agonizing over a phase, try to enjoy
the formative giving out, a singular shot,
stacked full the pockets leaving nothing to chance.

fighting unfit, nothing really matters now,
eschewing identity for the first time,
wiping the good slate clean, back to ignominy
the mocking fear catches the info twice,
the unknown casting aspersions on a common ground.

this burgeoning temperance goes as it comes,
no longer good, the happy excoriation pays off,
taunting full measures by the unknowns,
print itself darkly, watching with intent,
associative terror did everyone a favour.

watching through the dirtied door, elected
to roll with the punches forever blacklisted,
weaving in an entity casting its down spell,
putting paid to a career in the good books,
wrapped up in a scream in getting too close.

the crooked lipstick, hastily applied,
descending on the typical like mother knows how,
wanting to be good, shattered in deleterious
blowing away for passion the coveted life skills,
the better for the quiet, an execution premature.

 

 

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals.  These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo.