Suffer the little children
The last star climbed the still-black night
Sha/dows creep/ing, he app:eared
lam/b/ent shaft by her side
unholy wailing un/leashed under eaves
The first star crossed the coming-night
Shadows rose:as he declared
Take her now be/fore it’s light
Spit(e) searing smoke- filled air
No bright-star came to guide
Shadows scat/tered, no shep/herd
on that long and winding ride
Through stinging sleet un/heard
All the stars had hid their light
In shadowed gather/ing he emerged
Bring-him-away-quick devil’s blight
looming ha/bits, great black birds
Not-a-star climbed the heap/ed night
Shadows fall/ing she slipt-away
Child-mother night-visited only-son sacrificed
Secret burdens she would bear to the clay
A lone star skirred the cloven night
under- sha/dow he was dis: appeared
Swaddled tight stones piled high
Alone to hold him through the years
until the last star breached the darkling brume
Between gasps came their cries
Shadows passing through-the-tomb
From which
He’d rise
This selection comes from the book, out of emptied cups, available from Salmon Poetry. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.
Originally from the west of Ireland and living in Sydney, Australia, Anne Casey is author of two poetry collections— ‘out of emptied cups’ (Salmon Poetry 2019) and ‘where the lost things go’ (Salmon Poetry 2017). Her poetry is widely published internationally— The Irish Poetry Reading Archive (James Joyce Library, University College Dublin), The Irish Times, The Canberra Times, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Quiddity, Entropy, apt, The Murmur House, Barzakh (State University of New York), DASH (California State University), The Stony Thursday Book, FourXFour, Westerly Magazine, Cordite, Verity La and Plumwood Mountain Review among many others. A journalist, magazine editor, legal author and media communications director for 30 years, her work is widely published internationally, ranking in leading national daily newspaper, The Irish Times’ Most Read. Anne’s poetry has won/shortlisted for awards in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the USA, the UK, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.
Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney.
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