Tinteán

Winter is coming by David M Reid

Acrylics on canvas

A Homeless Ghost

by David M Reid                   

28 October 2025

In ’68 I left my troubled Belfast homeland.
Friends, with only a hint of friendly malice,
slyly suggested,
‘You’re not emigrating.
You’re deserting.’

In that divided city,
one must pick a side.
But I felt
neither Irish nor British,
neither Protestant nor Catholic.
The only available choices.

Now, half a century in this new vast country
I still can’t claim as home.
My accent flicks between  
Ulster and here.
Then and now.
Yesterday, two tourists needed
directions to a bank.
I pointed down the road
and unhelpfully replied
‘It’s fernenst the grocery.’
I had to translate.

When travelling, I am often asked
‘Where’s your home?’
An uncomfortable question.
My birthplace, now a faded mental sepia image
of people I no longer relate to.
My adopted land, beautiful but still alien.

A hybrid itinerant wraith,
entitled to three passports.
I flit between different realities.
Belonging to none.

We all have Ancestors                            

28 October 2025

Midnight, minus 30 C in the Rockies.
Snugly bundled in multiple layers.
I admire the heavens’ slow pulsating
backdrop of Northern Lights.
A shifting green proscenium curtain of cosmic power.
A show the Cree have admired for millennia
and still enjoyed by their Siberian relatives. 

Two weeks later, midnight, plus 30,
camped atop the Flinders Range.
I crawl naked from the tent,
No sky curtain of undulating green lights,
instead, a glittering of unfamiliar stars,
adorning the infinitely black velvet stage set.

A brilliant Moon casts my black shadow.
Shoeless feet sink into deliciously warm sand.
No city lights, nothing manufactured.
Sans shoes or clothes,
I’m back 55,000 years,
in the role of an immigrant
from the Asian islands.

David M Reid is from Belfast and studied at Queen’s University. He was a Botany Professor at Calgary University, teaching and researching plant survival in rugged environments. 

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Rose Malone

Liath has first appeared in Howl New Irish Writing 2024

Aistríthe ag an údar/Translated by the author

Scríobhnóir Éireannach is í Rose Malone, a thagann ó Co. Cill Dara. Chaith sí beagnach 40 bliain sa chóras oideachais in Éirinn mar mhúinteoir, mar léachtóir agus mar thaighdeoir i gceard cumann. Ó d’éirigh sí as in 2012, bíonn sí ag scríobh i nGaeilge agus i mBéarla. Gearrscéalta agus dánta, ach go h-áirithe. Tá a saothar foilsithe in New Square, Drawn to the Light Press, Channel agus Howl.

Rose Malone is an Irish writer from Co. Kildare. She has spent almost 40 years in the Irish education system, as a teacher, as a lecturer, and as a researcher in an education union. Since she retired in 2012, she has been writing in Irish and English – short stories and poems. Her work has been published in New Square, Drawn to the Light Press, Channel and Howl.

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Uiscí Beo

le Réaltán Ni Leannáin

Tá aibhneacha baininscneach.
Farraigí? Mná uaisle.
Aigéin? Bándeithe maorga móra.
Iad uilig ag suaitheadh,
Ag síorathrú,
An saol mór ag tarraingt orthu.
Páistí ar a dtránna agus ar a mbruacha,
Foghlaithe ar bharr a dtonnta,
Ollphéisteanna i bhfolach sna duibheagáin thíos.
Caithníní siocaithe sneachta sa Gheimhreadh, deora beaga crua.
Ag cur de dhíon is de dheora san earrach, deora beaga mánla.
Gach braon ag titim ar an gcré,
Ag sileadh is ag tochailt síos
Chuig uiscí eile, ag triall ar
A mbealach féin
Sa saol.

Waters of Life

Rivers are feminine.
Seas? Noble women.
Oceans? Great awesome goddesses.
And all in motion,
Everchanging,
The world absorbing from them,
Children on their beaches and shores,
Pirates riding the waves atop,
Serpents concealed in their depths below.
Flakes of frozen snow in the winter, tiny hard teardrops
Showering down in spring, soft, spreading sobs.
Each drop falling on the clay,
Draining downwards, digging down
To other waters, pursuing
Their own path
In the world.

Uiscí Beo has first appeared in Howl New Irish Writing 2023.

Is Scríbhneoir Cónaitheach le hOllscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath í Réaltán Ní Leannáin. Tá prós, drámaí raidió agus filíocht foilsithe/craolta aici. Bhí sí ina heagarthóir ar an díolaim ‘Blath na dTulach’ a ghnóthaigh Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin sa bhliain 2022 agus cuireann sí an podchraoladh bunaithe ar an díolaim sin i láthair ag https://blath-na-dtulach.com/  

Réaltán Ní Leannán is writer in residence at Dublin City University. She has published and has broadcast prose, drama for radio and poetry. She was editor for the collection ‘Bláth na dTulach’ which later went on to win Gradam Uí Shuilleabháin in 2022 and she presents a podcast based on that collection which is available at the link above.

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Colin Ryan

Is scríbhneoir gaeilge, as an Astráil, é Colin Ryan. Tá dhá chnuasach gearrscéalta agus dhá chnuasach filíochta foilsíthe aige i ngaeilge, chomh maith le cnuasach filíochta dátheangach.

Colin Ryan is an Australian Irish language writer. He has published two collections of short stories and two collections of poetry in the Irish language as well as a bilingual collection of poetry. His recent interview with Tinteán can be read here.

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Backward Looking

by Hugh Curran

Reeling back through all the lifetimes of my life, I heard again
ancestral voices, the massive form of my father’s mother
snoring next to me as I clung to the edge of mattress fright;

Creeping out on tiptoes past morning’s toothless mouth, her
blind eyes watching me as I crept down the steep ladder from
the attic bedroom; ‘Yes, t’was a lovely night,’ I lied, as auntie 

let me lift the plunger for the wooden churn, rewarding me with
a scoop of creamy butter, ‘three pounds if it’s an ounce,’ 
said auntie, who seemed as old as Tory’s tower; And then Granny
descended to sit by the hearth, her body encased in black 

petticoats and a shawl, her blind hands feeling for the brass kettle
on the mantel, giving me a silver coin for ice cream; In the hollow
borders of my palate the lingering memories of her kindnesses and

four year old fears of suffocation; from America I returned, a young
man, to find her still sitting at the hearth, hands extended to the turf
fire, and my auntie bustling from the tiny kitchen with sandwiches and
biscuits and a cup of tea; granny holding tight my hands, tracing fingers

on my face: ‘Anois, mo ghrá, haven’t you grown’ as tears seeped down
the creased channels of her cheeks; back in America, my life stood 
still in grief at the Mass card and letter: ‘Granny dead, aged ninety-six, 
Wake well attended’: Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.’

Hugh Curran (Aedh Seosamh O’Currain) was born in Killybegs, Donegal and immigrated with his family to Canada. He now teaches in Peace Studies, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA.

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