To celebrate International Women’s Week, The New Theatre is presenting ‘Feathers for Rosa’ by Noël O’Callaghan and Douglas Henderson—an unusual tribute to Rosa Luxemburg. Centring on the poem ‘Du liegst | You lie’ by German-Jewish poet Paul Celan, it consists of a thirty-minute performance interspersed by three original songs. There is also an exhibition of … Read more
Year of The Restless at the kitchen table, year of our Lord twenty twenty-four, year my words marched backward into my mouth and forward only when forgotten, year of the idiotic Stanley tumbler, year of the subtle but far reaching machinations of neo-Marxism depending on who you ask, year of our lady of fuck around … Read more
TEL AVIV – SEPTEMBER – 2023 Noah Artowski, by now a six-year veteran of the Israeli Defence Forces, looked out towards the azure, glimmering sea. He imagined it melting like water colour into the blueness of the sky. He stood on the balcony of his aunt Sarah’s apartment in Tel Aviv, where she lived alone … Read more
HYMN XI Yeshua, O Yeshua, legions of demons are dying to drive the Holy Spirit from many of us living in this wilderness. The more we turn our lives to your desires, the more the legions try to snuff our fires. We pray the Holy Trinity Bermuda Triangulates the Adversary’s fiends, even for one day and … Read more
Take me to Éire Please take me to Erin For I am twenty-seven; Reassurance I am in my prime Dwindle in the idle time. So take me to Erin when I am ready, When the everywhere that I have been Weighs like waves upon me. Let me meet her in the pause of night, When … Read more
My formative years were spent growing up on a pretty amazing cul-de-sac called Verbena Grove in the north Dublin suburb of Bayside, a 1960s/1970s sprawl of low-rise semis that borders the coast road between the city centre and Howth Head. My Dad, Mick O’Brien was a schoolteacher and is one of Ireland’s leading uilleann pipers. … Read more
The Leap Down, down the stairs to the five pillars of pronounced architecture, Five entrances into the forgotten yore, a bridge gutter, the rippling gore. 4. 3. 8. 3. 0. days passed, wind hushed, sins unconfessed, ‘Tis bridge’s structure. There, there the Plaintive Cuckoo lamented immortal spirit marred and impaired; Walked forward, stepped towards a … Read more
Summer was winding to its natural end but the evenings were still warm in London as Michael Maybrick made his way on foot through a crowded Covent Garden on his way to Long Acre. He was immaculately dressed, wearing a black evening suit with a velvet bow tie, polished to the shine black shoes and … Read more
The Only Time Our Adult Hands Touched I was 29, he was 72 We were building up a stone wall That a Hereford bullock knocked When trying to leap over Our hands went for the same stone Then both pulled back I was embarrassed That’s how he raised me He said after 7 hours ‘Ah … Read more
Fragments of a Litany Gaza, 2023-24 Grieve with the butchered gods of love for Layan al-Baz, the young, the strong, her soft arms cut by shrapnel, her wounded leg a stump. May the world record unquietly the wordless eyes of Abdul, of Kenza, and Karam – who buried their mothers in a barren yard. And … Read more