A Losing Battle

The clouds are losing their battle with the sun.

Soon, they will disperse.

The sky, violent with light,

Forcing through chainmail clouds.

I am fighting a losing battle.

With everything I know I should do –

But don’t want to.

I should follow up on emails,

I should make lists and

do all the things

on those lists.

I should read but

my eyes are tired

I should run but

my body aches

I should I should I should.

Am I the sun, battling through

the stubborn tiredness?

Or am I the clouds, standing ground

against the weight of my obligation?

When really, I wish to be the cat

Perched at the window netting,

Flowing with the breeze,

Fascinated, entertained,

Not at all concerned about her existence

and with that her obligation to consider it.

News in May 2025

Fifty percent of something real,

a Hozier track peeled down to its bones,

half the heart handed over

to forests whose names we forgot.

A Cork hotel is on the hunt

for four tradesmen

after note from 1969

found in lobby walls.

Leo climbs halfway up a mountain

before he breathes like a man,

before Lyra gets him to admit

that silence feels safer

than talking to a nation

with its mouth full of blame.

Sinn Féin members fear their own party

will backtrack on trans rights.

Monaghan weeps behind headlights.

The sentence lands like gravel—

seven years to pay for lost girls,

as if grief could ever be served in time.

Cannes film festival 2025 red carpet looks:

no nudity or voluminous gowns allowed.

In Basel, silence becomes sound.

A protest in stillness

is a scream held under the tongue.

The jockey who showed excellence

knows no gender

where gates once stood.

Rachael Blackmore

proves glory doesn’t wear a label.

Liam Gallagher set to become a grandad

as daughter Molly announces pregnancy.

Another American chain, Popeye’s

sets sights on Westmoreland St.

Dublin gets to keep its only public toilet

for the foreseeable future.

Disastrous Mind

Dream-drenched, cloud-cloaked

Ink-stained, Sleep-starved

Disastrous mind

Star-scattered, ash-streaked,

Frost-kissed, moon-pulled

Disastrous mind

Light-splintered, wind-whipped

Storm-bruised, mirror-cracked

Disastrous mind

Rust-gathered, dust-laden

Thistle-tangled, soot-smudged

Disastrous mind

Bone-deep, fog-bound

Scar-mapped, shadow-fed

My disastrous mind