My Box of Lies

Simon Kew

It was like I kept them on a shelf in a rusty and unremarkable tin box,

positioning them between a case of old screws and some lino off-cuts.

I quickly learnt to let a nest of mature deceits rest, settle themselves

into the murk with maybe an occasional tweak. Later, I’d contemplate

adding the curled lead of another: yeah, made it to Frome in two hours.

A new fiction gathers clammily around the fingers because the hidden

Lloyd’s account is itself a snaky item. It takes a dextrous hand to shake

a writhing whopper into a tin of wriggling fibs; lies don’t like each other –

black or white. A new one’s an especially conscious thing; it sneaks for

wriggle-room, explaining why I was in John Lewis (where Trish works)

and on Thursday and why do I need two mobiles – the second-guessing

what a wife might think, burrowing myself into imagined conversations,

the question which hasn’t yet emerged, feeding up the larval lies, cobbling

connections for the ask. And what does a lying hound look like anyway?

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 120:

Edited by Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke's final issue as editor is packed with new poems from leading contemporary poets, including Simon Armitage, Sinéad Morrissey, Colette Bryce, Paul Muldoon, Sean O'Brien and Caitríona O'Reilly. Books reviewed include new work from Derek Mahon, Bernard O'Donoghue, Rita Ann Higgins, Martina Evans, Denise Riley and the 2016 Forward Prize winner Vahni Capildeo. The centrepiece of the issue is an interview with Paul Muldoon in which the Armagh maestro shares his thoughts on subjects as diverse as public surveillance, the economic down-turn, and the exclamation mark. The cover image is by photographer Justyna Kielbowicz, and the issue also contains award-winning artwork from Sven Sandberg, Aoife Dunne, Jane Rainey, and Michelle Hall. Instead of an editorial, Vona herself answers the questionnaire she put to the contributors of Poetry Ireland Review Issue 118: The Rising Generation.