For years, I was buff confident with not a whit
of a reason in the world. Today, my self-doubts
are like the heron’s prey in the long wavy grass
by the lake’s edge at Malahide. The swan looks on
with zero compassion as the hunter picks my weaknesses
off and scoffs them whole in its ruthless beak, one by one.
Jones Irwin
With a Telescope Rod on Cowiche Creek
After Raymond Carver
Condoms at the Dog Park
Wet slippery foliage Sunday morning
boom-box middle age get back in
shape hairy legs gyrate to Ride On
Time but obviously they should have
been here last night between the soccer
kit storage container with the sex wall graffiti
Daddy harder please and the goalposts which
divide life like a cross between the haves and the have
nots. My big-balled Lothario sniffs at the used
Durex wrapper as if he too in his own animal fashion
can see the whole Biblical scene repeat ad nauseam just
like his owner can.
About the Author
Jones Irwin has taught philosophy and education in Dublin since 2001. Jones has published with Poetry London, Espacio Fronterizo (Borderland / Espace Frontière), The Festival Review, Passengers Journal, Plainsongs, Cathexsis North West, The Dewdrop, Hare’s Paw, In Parentheses and with Moonstone Arts Press and Tofu Ink Press. The Female Rimbaud was nominated by Tofu Ink Press for a Pushcart Award in Autumn 2021. His fiction was also most recently published in The Decadent Review, Kairos Magazine, Critical Read, Into The Void, Mignolo Arts and Wild Roof. Mignolo have also recently developed a dance performance translation of his metafiction text Not All Priests Are On The Side Of The Good. He is also currently preparing a book on existential themes to be published with Routledge in Winter 2022. His first chapbook of poems, GHOST TOWN, will be published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in late Summer.