These Fitful Hours

Oisín Breen

The bow is loosed.

And fragments of time,

Instantiated, leave pockets

Of air to stave off death.


And, as we feed on the blood

Of our ancestors, to make sense

Of the future, we come to know

Even the nettles will burst

Into chalices of human hair

As life swallows life, as it must.

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A poet, part-time academic in narratological complexity, and financial journalist, Dublin born Oisín Breen's widely reviewed debut collection, ‘Flowers, all sorts in blossom, figs, berries, and fruits, forgotten’ was released Mar. 2020.

Breen has been published in a number of journals, including About Place, the Blue Nib, Books Ireland, the Seattle Star, Modern Literature, La Piccioletta Barca, the Bosphorus Review of Books, the Kleksograph, In Parentheses, the Madrigal, and Dreich.

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