Poem of the week: Deansgrange Similes

Like my mother's gravity and drift
so many years after her last
rainfall of roses and dirt;

like the others time-leased in this
undulant stone wave;
like the singular trees

(in particular that warped birch
swaying in a sudden cold shower,
trailing its skirts

in time with the shaggy old cypress
framed in the arched window
of her last address);

Fintan Drury: Brian Cowen put country first, party second

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Disappearing Act: Wrong medium for a method actor

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New poetry reviewed: earthy worlds and family histories

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Book review: Glenn Patterson’s new work is marred by superficiality

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like the visitors observing dates
on private calendars; like the words
and the lost for words: the late

departed, remembered, prayed for,
dearly beloved, missed,
survived by, always, forever;

like the suburb's expanded brawl
of busyness; the old cottages
opposite the cemetery wall

endlessly buffeted
by lorries on the main road,
their window-frames flushed

with evening sun – like the occasion
and the thought's inadequacy,
its attraction

to the outer reaches, fled
and ever-fixed, adrift
with our space-faring dead.

Mark Granier’s poems have appeared in the New Statesman, Poetry Review and Carol Ann Duffy’s online pandemic project/archive, Write Where We Are Now. His latest collection, Ghostlight: New & Selected Poems, was published by Salmon in 2017.