Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Three
November- December 2025
Later Now, poems by Marie Studer.
Later Now
My grandson is pushing a train
on the kitchen floor and, with a smile
as sunny as the Lego’s primary colours,
he angles for a Paw Patrol cartoon on T.V.
To my promise of later,
he rises inch by inch to reply:
I want later now!
I bend to his pout bolstering our to-dos:
snack, playground, a stop at George’s shop.
His stomp softens. I carry him to the clock
throbbing its slow steady beats,
and in seconds he agrees
to let the hands go unseen to four-fifteen.
Sucking biscuit crumbs off his lips,
he snaps a sleeper from the line of carriages
then thrusts the express on, unaware,
that his words are like the screech of a whistle
to a time, when all I wanted was later.
Now, that it is later,
all I want is Now.
Killing Time
His welcome was the flip of a switch
on a yellow gas bottle,
his smile, in sync with the whoosh of the flame
as he inhaled the buttery aroma
wafting from Mother’s basket of bakes.
They bartered news to the clink of cutlery
on blue willow ware
as I sipped orange from a frosted glass
coloured with pendulums of foreign fruit.
Later, in a tweed fireside chair,
he told tales-I still recall,
then lapsed beyond fading flames
as clocks ticked flares on mantle and walls.
I scuttled to the back porch,
picked sprigs of heather from a tea chest of turf
until the cadence of words streamed earthy
as the scent of clover and myrtle in the armful
of sods, I offered to the hearth.
And, as I dipped into his proffered bag
of fruit jellies, Mother was struck by the hour.
Bone-by-bone, he rose from the hollowed cushions
to lead our slow march to the door,
tap-tapping his cane on the stone floor,
like all his timepieces repeating
the killing of hours.
Last Dance
When we were all done for,
they dressed in Sunday best
to quickstep and waltz
in Kennedy’s Lounge Bar.
A few rounds of light-footed
old favourites on scuffed boards,
enough for time’s worn bones
to sit it out with a dark-creamy pint
and a snifter with a dash of red
for herself, as young ones jived
to Tony river-dancing keys
and buttons on the accordion.
When the last dance was called,
they took the floor,
round-and-round rewinding the dial
to the Collins Hall
as if under the mirror ball
when, with the utmost decorum
they first waltzed to Mick Del’s,
sit-down, brass orchestra.
© Marie Studer
Marie Studer is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her debut collection, Real Words was published by Revival Press, 2023. She is a past winter of the Trócaire/Poetry Ireland Competition and the Bangor Ekphrastic Challenge. In 2025 she was shortlisted in the RTE Radio’s, The Prompt and in 2024 was highly commended in both The Francis Ledwidge and The Denis O’Grady International competitions.