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.
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.
Jones Irwin teaches Philosophy and Education in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has published poetry most recently in Espacio Fronterizo (Borderland / Espace Frontière), Moonstone Press, and Tofu Ink Arts Press. He is resident Poetry Critic and Columnist with Red Ogre Review, where he publishes a series of short texts on poetics. His first chapbook of poems, entitled GHOST TOWN, was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in later Summer 2022. His second chapbook of poems, entitled American Haikus, was published in Summer 2024, also with Moonstone Press. His first full-length book of poetry and prose, entitled Deep Image, was published by Tofu Ink Arts Press, San Francisco, in October 2025. His second full length book of poetry and prose, entitled More American Haikus, is forthcoming from Moonstone Arts Press in later 2026. This is a triptych of three new and original chapbooks written between 2025 and 2026, including More American Haikus, Aegean Poems, and Passionate Poems from the Margins of the Alt-Left.