Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Six
November- December 2025
Clematis, poems by Rachael Stanley.
Clematis
Each April they flowered
sprouting into pink magnificence
trailing the old wooden fence
till the wind rose and pushed
with gale force strength.
Little by little, the fence kept tilting
till it collapsed under its weight
like a beast burdened with a heavy load.
Admitting defeat in the face of continual storms,
we dismantled the fence
and cast the flowers aside.
Farewell Clematis dressed to your
best in glorious pink and hiding the oil tank
now fully visible in its urban ugliness.
Yet, years later at a different spot
Clematis has sprung up once again
leaning over in abundance from a
neighbouring garden, as if these
harbingers of spring insist on returning.
Distractions
Go full Lidl this summer
the ad blasts out from my tv screen
and the words this summer
catch me off guard
prompt the question
how many more summers do I have?
What day of the week will it be?
What year?
Will I be calm or fearful?
Will I feel ready or unprepared?
Avoiding these questions
I revert back to the fleeting ad,
as I get side tracked
by Facebook, by Instagram
by people shouting abuse
at each other on X
as I go full throttle into an abyss of
twenty-first century
d i s t r a c t i o n s!
The Dream Catcher
Rachael Stanley is from Dublin. She has been published previously in Live Encounters and in many journals and anthologies, most recently in Drawn to the Light Press, issue 15 and Flare 25. Her first collection Back to Infinity was published by Revival Press in May 2024 and received favourable reviews.