Category: Poetry
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Dirty Dublin
See, I do come from a dirty Dublin. I come from a 2-for-15, “fuck the Queen” for any apparent reason type Dublin. A tricolour with Silk Cut burn marks on a sleeve hanging out a window of D15 for a whole family to see, or a family that went off tenement housing on Queen Street…
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To Chaadaev
Love, hope, and quiet gloryDid not warm us for long with their deceit,Our youthful amusements have vanished,Like a dream, like morning mist; But in us still burns the desire,With a soul impatient under the yoke of fate,We heed the call of our homeland. We await with longing and hopeThe moment of sacred freedom,As a young…
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Algo in the Genocide
Poem by Omar Sakr Okay I won’t use the word JewishAnd I won’t use the word ZionistAnd I won’t use the word genocideAnd I won’t use the word apartheidAnd I won’t use the word settlerAnd I won’t use the word colonyAnd I won’t use the word killedAnd I won’t use the word watermelonAnd I won’t…
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Street Parties
Across the streets, garlands of bunting flutter like prayer flags, brimming bowls of biscuits, crisps, bright custards and jellies, cakes and cucumber butties, sausage rolls and cheesetriangle sarnies, doilies and paper plates, plastic cups and tackycardboard hats but everyone’s smiling and laughing, and yer ma carries trays of French fancies and fondants, and there’s glasses…
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A Fray at May Day
I stood beside my comrades, and held my banner proud,While my good comrade Nina, standing straight ahead, flew the Iranian flag. In less than a moment, and more than an instant, We were beset, by an unexpected threat, people upset by our support of Iran, there was no plan, no method to the madness,as these…
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The Internationale
Arise! ye workers, from your slumbers;Arise! ye prisoners of want.For reason in revolt now thundersAnd ends at last the age of “can’t”.Away with all your superstitionsServile masses, arise! arise!We’ll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]And spurn the dust to win the prize. So comrades, come rallyAnd the last fight let us faceThe InternationaleUnites the…
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The Darkling Thrush
Poem by Thomas Hardy I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey,And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres,And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land’s sharp features seemed to be The Century’s corpse outleant,His crypt…
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The Song of the Shirt
By Thomas Hood WITH fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the “Song of the Shirt.” “Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof!…