Email from a Provincial Magistrate, Lucilius, to His Friend the Commissioner

by Greg Crowley -

What news, you ask, from this rim of Empire?

There is none. We hum and drum through the day.

At night we sleep.

The weather remains bright,

if damp. We have saved the hay and barley.

Mould is an issue in the public baths.

I received mail from Karl yesterday. It was smug.

I will not respond.

I am taking notes

on the local tongue: jen deffer (be quick!);

err un bweente (now!); slaante (have an ale).

You might let it slip to the Chancellor –

commitment to the post etc.

Thank you for the Glock. It has fine balance.

Gratitude from Vita for the Steyr.

Gratitude in abundance from Helen

for the oryx – though she would not say it.

We are enduring the age of disdain:

all adults are fools, all others less so.

“I am becoming a goth,” she announced

at breakfast. Vita gagged on her muesli.

I looked up from my tablet, smiled, and said,

“Visi? Ostro?” Her glare was petrific.

Contagion in the east is concerning.

Should we cancel all flights? Restrict commerce?

Strengthen the garrisons on the Marches?

And what of the Orange Throne of the West?

Can it survive the cost of its hairstyles?

Perhaps its citizens will remove it.

I cannot but ponder such matters

though they are now beyond my competence.

There is rumour the Deisi may raid

Dolaucathi. I have advised Gerald.

I am reading Seneca and Musil.

I will end with a local novelty.

Six herons are witnessed on the seashore,

imperturbably alert on the rocks.

The priests declare them messengers from God,

the druids guardians of the underworld

(storms had revealed an unknown sea cave),

while the scientists, dissecting two,

announce that they are nothing but birds.

The priests are building a row of crosses,

the druids surrounding the henge with pyres,

the scientists are shivering in dread.

The urban cohort maintains a calm eye.

Remember me to my colleagues and friends

at Broekzele and Argentoratum.

I should not ask – tell none – but is there word

or hint of my rehabilitation?

First published in Irish Literary Supplement in 2021

Homecoming

by Sinéad McClure -

My great grandfather left Victoria at seven years of age, the

outback faded to orange on the horizon. The wave-gradient shifted

from turquoise to navy blue; the wildness of Australia never lost its

hue. My aunt left for Victoria aboard her fifties passage to a new

world, hugs faded from the platform—out of reach—marooned in

her heart.

My mother named distance a street of goodbyes. They were

always leaving, always waving into empty spaces. When news

came of my aunt's death the gulf grew even larger for there was no

good way to travel there. My sister left London, a swaddled toddler

held in the arms of the Irish Sea. We are children of the returned

and we know to be devoid of homeland is to be forever lost;

it's in the ripping out, the detachment. It's in the map of

vacant eyes and darkened hearts. It’s in the name of our fada and

the raven tumbling in from cirrus clouds, and it is westwards and it

is never coming home.

---

Sinéad McClure is a writer, radio producer and illustrator. Her work has been published in anthologies, print and online journals, including; Crossways Literary Magazine, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Live Encounters, Poethead, Drawn to the Light Press, The Cormorant, Dodging the Rain, A New Ulster, StepAway Magazine, Sonder Magazine, Tiny Spoon, Vox Galvia, The Poetry Bus, Ink Sweat &Tears and the Ekphrastic Review.

In 2021, Sinéad won the O Bhéal Five Words International Poetry Prize, first prize in The Wingless Dreamer Spring Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the MONO "Sanity" Prize.

Sinéad is influenced by nature, place and how the passage of time manifests in her work.

Séance

by Callum McGuire -

morning melts,

thawed by leaves alight

with mortality.

colourful cadavers crunched underfoot,

their brittle bones

bear consensus

on the beauty of death.

gatecrashers to demise’s debutante,

behind Autumn doors we find respite

from

a thousand

hammering

fists.

our slow swoon wards off

the urgency to live.

October recalls

all we are not,

a conspiracy of ghosts

decry your fate

in childhood’s refrain:

“what are you

supposed to be?”

that empty, eye-holed sheet

propped by a stubborn

unpresence,

I see no convincing evidence

for my existence.

persistent still,

I try to commune with the other side.

they aren’t in right now

but if I leave a message,

they might get back to me.

I know where all the bodies are buried

having pressed the fresh earth down myself.

tonight,

I awaken them

I need the company.

---

Cal is an adventurer in the land of post-college life. Their interests include anthropology, playing music and screaming into an apathetic void. They have been published in UCC's Quarryman, The Same Page Anthology, Revisiting Inspiration, and many other journals that are just too secret to talk about.