the oak seedling i was given for our f uture garden is wilting on my balcony
head hurts chest hurts mind hurts belly hurts clit hurts / heart hurtles through hurdles now slowed to low-life support surges of hills on monitors / you used to race it up and down croagh patrick
donned superwoman straitjacket, exercise diet, but there’s no supplement to take for the deficiency of noses buried in necks / sunday mornings when the routine had become a lung cancer corset / breath baited but the line never catches
choke chuck it all out there’s a piece of steak stuck in my chest in my throat and it’s you / but the metaphor floors me and always runs out before the heimlich maneuver / your abdominal thrusts now a secret to me
just hadn’t a clue you were so fucking – what – entrenched / all those walks and those hugs and those fucks an army of thugs that refuse to be benched / wake up every day to a breakfast revenge a dish best served retched
the wretched are not always those that you think / there might be a pimp in this girl or a pump a moronic re-flushing of turds until thoughts turn to / dull baby turtles mistaking city lights for horizons scientists call it
disorientation
audio poem Claire Kieffer
“oak seedling ” Claire-Lise Kieffer is an emerging poet and short story writer. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Poethead, Abridged, 14 magazine, and more, and was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize; her short stories have appeared in literary journals Banshee, Crossways and Bending Genres. She lives in Galway in the West of Ireland, where she is completing an MA in Creative Writing. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/clairelise_poet
vispo
“mask with music” Michelle Moloney King; experimental poet, asemic poet and editor of Beir Bua Journal and Beir Bua Press.Academics in computer science and teaching, & Hypnotherapy. Work in 3AM, M58, Streetcake, Pamenar, Babel Tower, Mercurious, Strukturriss, among others. Visual Artists Ireland member.
Audio poem shaped into a video poem by Michelle Moloney King
Beir Bua Press 