Spitting Out Night by Colin Dardis

I want a goddess to come

arch her golden compress around my feet

so that I may jilt her with highfalutin disinterest;

feel the bitterness of my empowerment,

beauty cast in the eye of the rejecter,

the gilded critic, the holder of the scales,

IAO

the broken competitor

now raggled as a hag, a dog

lapping up retirement from a chipped bowl

spat into by passing pedigree suitors

deeming her unfit and useless,

IAO

unworthy of speculation or contemplation,

the cherry orchard fallen,

a drift of Autumn on the branches of life,

the corrupted Eden, long lost and dead

to the mouths of the Olympians.

IAO 

I understand the lust

in taking beauty’s hand

and burying scornful nails

into her still lake of flesh,

the perpetual virgin publicly deflowered

for there is no satisfaction found behind closed doors;

let the birds sing out in the open,

let the deer come laugh by the riverside

fleshly carved from her tears,

trickling with proffered blood extended

to the slick mountainside of her coveted lover.

She will find no foothold waiting

for her daintily-clad steps,

her talons find no purchase on the rock,

unforgiving as a summer nettle.

IAO 

I have turned cheek and back

to her supplications,

feeling almost sorrow

to the echoes of her want.

IAO

Born at the tail end of the seventies in Northern Ireland, Colin Dardis is poet, artist, and sometimes musician. He edits FourXFour, an online journal focusing on poetry from the North of Ireland. He is also the founder of Purely Poetry, an open mic poetry night in Belfast, and a member of Voica Versa performance group. Colin’s work has been previously published in numerous anthologies, journals and zines in Ireland, the UK and the USA. His poem ‘Perhaps’, won the EdiyRed.com 006 Writer’s Choice Award for Poetry. Notable appearances include the Belfast Book Festival, Sunflower Fest, and the Belly Laughs Comedy Festival.

Man Walks Into Pantomime by Ben Thonett

Iv’e never written a poem to someone.

Maybe For whom it may concern,

concerned with readerly, with

friends, in mind. Iv’e always

written in red and write

before typed, buying red

typewriters, sending poetry

through wires and Dad

will complain that he can’t

see red. Red said the letters,

but black seen the words.

Red said that ”you’ve made

your point” and black

was shown visibly on television.

IAO

For example;

Take our hands, these hands

feel, read on a regularly basis. Bias

to the expense of hours spent

staring sleepily at slender

fingers, he’s always right.

He’s never lost,

he’s by our side. He’s always busy

and he always washes the

other hand with songs of hope before

meals. He couldn’t stop eating

if he tried. In addition, in addition,

in addition.

IAO

Ben Thonett is 21 years old and lives in Dublin.

Exquisite Cadaver by Alan Garvey

Alan Garvey is 37 and lives in Carlow.  Recent work has been published in The American Dissident, The Applicant, Census 3 and Wordlegs.  He is the author of three collections of poetry published by Lapwing, the most recent of which is Terror Haza.

Fractal Screensaver by Caspian Hedberg

In the darkness of waking life
My eyes strain to see,
Faces seem blurred, lines unclear,
And the sweet smell of rotting
Vegetation fills my nose.
Fractal images made up by the
Confused calculations of cultural consciousness,
Project across the screen that blocks my vision.
The biocomputer needs an upgrade,
But a screensaver is all it gets.

Caspian Hedberg is a young poet living in Dublin.