Seven Haiku Poems by R.J. Breathnach

 

Manhattan 

 

Jagged tooth skyline 

Crocodile jawbone sinking 

Bleeding gum island.

 

 

 

 

Insomniac Empire 

 

City that never 

Sleeps, filching dreams, nemesis 

Of winged Morpheus.

 

 

 

 

80th and Amsterdam 

 

Menthol cigarettes. 

Stout pretends to taste like home.  

Whiskey runs too deep.

 

 

 

 

F-Train Blues 

 

Pizza-loving rats 

Ride the tracks, vomit scent and 

Song of “Watch the gap”.

 

 

 

 

Vocal Chords 

 

Twisted rope fibres  

Embracing breath, vocal chords  

Ruining nothing more. 

 

 

 

 

Apis Mellifera 

 

Brave little soldier.  

Raindrop ordinance falls, 

You tend your garden.

 

 

 

 

Ferric Oxide 

 

Garnet rust disease  

Corroding, acid-like, through  

Beryl hawthorn leaves.

R.J. Breathnach (he/him/sé/é) is an award winning Irish writer, Wexford-born and Meath-based. His work has been published in ROPES Literary Journal, The Wexford Bohemian, and The Honest Ulsterman, among others. His debut poetry chapbook, I Grew Tired of Being a Zombie, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021. He can be found on twitter @RJBreathnach and bluesky @rjbreathnach.bsky.social.

 

 

Four Poems by Nancy Kennedy

 

Purple Crush

Because I wear my desires  

so close to the skin

are they no less holy 

than crushed lavender in the illicit bed.

The colorful iris perfumed like a grape would be as effervescent in shades of gray.

We can't smell our sins anymore than the lilacs across the way can smell their fragrance.

strip me

strip me of my thin veneer of righteousness 

and you will find me on a good day, a smear of red paint on a canvas, 

strained at every corner, speaking out loud while saying nothing, 

staring across the field humbled by a rush of purple.

Letter From Vincent

You are my woman 

of the moonless night

my child wife

my only sister

my better brother

my knife

my courage and my innocence

my eyes in the darkness

You are the music 

playing through my wall

amid the white powder

my angel fish glowing in the tank.

You are my starry, starry night.

Perpetua 

It was the late freeze that killed 

my flowers, the shrubs turned 

brown and died, 

the camellia and the gardenia—

my jasmine is sanguine 

and doomed on the vine.

An old cane of the Cecile Brunner 

rose—the finial of the garden

is pinioned to the ground.

I don't think it will ever bloom again. 

I hope it doesn't.

I want all green things to suffer

as I have from my perennial winter.

Anniversary

Stay home with me on this chilly day.

We will celebrate the sun and its mysteries.

We will huddle together in the corner of our dwelling and wait for the night's insistence.

We will shutter the moon as it tries to intrude,

while I sit at your feet 

the whole night through 

and kiss you with my sugared breath.

Nancy Kennedy's work has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Best of Choeofpleirn, Miserere Review, Highland Park Poetry, Thimble, and is upcoming in Gargoyle. She currently lives in Alabama.