| Lady of Title | Lunatic |

(From the 1871 Census entry for Harriet Mordaunt
at Manor Farm House Private Lunatic Asylum, Chiswick.)

Who shall come to see me shrouded?
If I am coffined before death
who shall hear my muffled cry?
My mind is my memento mori.
It paces out the walled-up day.
1 2 3 4 5 6 and turn.

Yesterday the ash lost its leaves.
Its branches pitchfork a purple storm
which has forsaken widow’s weeds.
The birds are glittering scissors.
Clouds tear. All gone. The sky is calm.
1 2 3 4 5 6 move on.

Chiswick lies beyond my window,
denied to me. My charcoal world
is drawn by shadows in this room.
At night I see old lives unfurl.
Shot white ponies on the lawn,
like alabaster. 1 2 3

1 2 3 – – 123
123456 Turn! Turn!

© Karen J. McDonnell

November Rohira

Title: November Rohira; Medium: Oils on canvas; Price: €1,500.

Karen J McDonnell‘s poetry has been published most recently in The Stony Thursday Book edited by Peter Sirr. Forthcoming is flash fiction in poeticdiversity and a contribution to Rubicon – an anthology in response to Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis –  published by the Sybaritic Press in Los Angeles.

Brian McMahon qualified from LSAD in 1979 with a Degree in Fine Art and since then has exhibited extensively. His work in held in National and International Collections.