Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Three
November- December 2025
Shifting Focus, poems by Mari Maxwell.
Shifting Focus
By the time I returned,
the swallows had fled rafters
and rooftops.
No more swooping or dive bombing
at our two cats
who hardly shuddered at feathered breezes.
No more chasing sideways through the bubbles I freed into
the sky.
By then autumn was setting in.
Conkers lining the paths,
half chewed acorns lost before hoarding.
Leaves crêped, curled, and
branches almost naked.
And what of the spindle berries?
The foal in the field now almost as high as the mare.
Chestnut girth nuzzling white belly.
Over the slate tiles sheep grazed upfield
and the crows had taken over the chimneys,
masts, even the church tower.
Murders of them cawing, flapping at our bedroom
windows. Swarming in dusky skies.
And I?
I was back to dreaming.
Soaking up music, nature walks and the cats.
All of us gathering to hibernate.
The Witch’s Cottage
A kid’s dart you skip past vines and hedges
gashing from the cottage,
weaving things through a black iron gate.
You could hardly discern a path
dark, cold, damp shafts of sunlight escaping
through bulbous briars.
And sometimes there she stooped.
Shssssh. Not a word.
Hair long grey wires, seaweed petals abuzz
with what was it? sorcery?
You didn’t tarry for fear her tiger gaze
would freeze you there in her slitted sight.
You’d pray and pray, implore
you wouldn’t disappear in a whisper of smoke.
And oh it was dark and cluttery
There where the cats roamed and wove through her thick
woollen tights and wide, extra wide, shoe flaps.
Slap slap slapping tattered flat on the ground.
Toes cracked, curled yellow nails turning this way and that
Out. Out. Away.
So you ran and ran and ran.
© Mari Maxwell
Mari Maxwell is a writer based in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Her work features online and in print in Ireland, USA, UK, Brazil, and elsewhere. She is working on her debut poetry collection and a hybrid novel.