Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2026
The Brutal, poems by Anne Donnellan.
The Brutal
My stomach in my throat
I watch faith heads stroke your cloak
lay hands on your greasy frame
invoke heaven’s help for the fury campaign
your handlers boast of sheer destruction
a precision hunt to torch the culpable
this spiel fake as the orange of your follicles
lines of dead school children testify to the brutal
I ask who in heaven could guide this horror
direct the febrile head of a deluded dealer
as rockets ignite middle eastern skies
and frantic knots the guts of the innocent
I need to interview God
Testimony
I can barely hold my balance
trekking the Portuguese Fisherman’s Trail
face a lid lowered to the crumbling earth
ochre clay deadens my step
hazard placards
testify to collapsed cliffs
plead attention
bizarre shapes of sea stacks
grab my gaze in the depths
preaching on the jade
of a cunning ocean that always
wins this pitiless battle for land
blocks of centuries back
Columbus sailed from this place
to seize what was not his to take
I rest my case
Kill Chain
this mind battery combat
at the battle hub console
when everything seems possible
and nothing looks real
fury fills the screen
makes it sizzle
with menacing messages
artificial drives the deadly
in the sky-conflict path
swarms of shooting missiles
dispatch destruction at the front
only the bleeding resistance
of dead school children
pinches the pulse
this kill chain is not a game
© Anne Donnellan
Anne Donnellan has published two collections of poetry with Revival Press Limerick. Her second collection If Only We Could Bottle It was published in December 2025. Anne’s work has appeared in several poetry journals including Crannóg and Skylight 47. She was the 2023 winner of the Allingham Poetry Competition. In 2025 she was a recipient of the John Hewitt International summer school bursary. She is the curator and host of the Galway Poetry Lobby.