Poem of the week: The Now Slice

Breakfast is over, you’ve gone to the hard world.

Ulysses struggles from a speaker, nearly dead.

He flails in the waves, a towering headland

staring him down. Where’s help here?

A 10-step guide to being an Irish writer

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This Mortal Boy: An immigrant from Belfast finds himself on a murder charge

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A Twentieth-Century Crusade review: Eye-opening look at the Catholic Church and fascism

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Home. Why Public Housing Is the Answer – a fluent, serious book by Eoin Ó Broin

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The floor turns stone, the kitchen Mycenaean.

The dog sprawls on the couch, lost in a dream

of toast and cats. A fruit fly climbs a jar

to dangerous honey. I lift my cup and a star

explodes, a meteor crashes into the moon.

A blue alien looks out along his slice of time.

He’s going to school, maybe. When he comes back

the future will already be over. Only Ulysses

will still be here. He’s found a riverbank now

and friendly leaves. Athena rains down sleep on his eyes.

Peter Sirr has published several collections, including The Rooms, Nonetheless and Bring Everything. Today’s poem is from his new collection, The Gravity Wave (Gallery Press)