Literary Vegan

like a liminal Cinderella, between two masks; keeping one hand on the shoe  in my pocket and one on a flask of tea — those who don't watch the clock  could read me in seconds.  C. LJ Ireton, 2026

Used plates clink bright above, below; ceramic notes of a Xylophone  we are all playing. C. LJ Ireton, 2026.

A song is a skipping stone on a bone-still lake, roads deep dropping into the stomach  of the found. One hundred times a water kiss — the head tilt familiar naming something  for the city sunset hungry. Then the submerge — playing fish-scales  down as lonely bubbles and calling bells meet  in new and old voices.  LJ Ireton, March 2026.

The sun had harboured  the eminent red  of the moorhen emerging now through the weed of winter — war paint ready to a tentative  spring lake.  C. LJ Ireton, 2026

What words can I use to express my gratitude  for the sun returning? I cross the room and my cat is claw to claw basking in the slant lines of Spring light gilt through the window like she's been given jewellery.  She's saying it for me.  C. LJ Ireton 2026

Every time you let your head rest in my hand, trust tucked against my palm, I remember the first night you did that, much smaller. The unchanging dimension is love. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

I started to write about The Divine, using a garden — but it all came out a classic style; similes and seedlings, hymn-like, something about Eden and growing. What I really meant to say was:  the God of everything  knows my favourite flowers. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

There's a settling  and a thirst  when inside you find your focus; child's button simple your surroundings slow in your heart's haste: every thing but this seems to get in the way you hold up frayed notebooks  to this umbrella of suspended rain; snow, dust, pollen, days floating outside of your path, a falling acorn ache because you know the thing you're  running for under this  mind willow drape — pulse barking loose apple blossoms line your feet; you could make a dress out of them you feel so root beautiful in want, in meeting. LJ Ireton, 2026 *quoting Mary Shelly

The mustard thrush picks at ivy — speckled sun in the brown wood damp. My fingers are numb looking for narrative out here; none of them wondering if they're doing enough of the thing that makes them feel connected to themselves. The squirrel with her cheeks full of leaves could be carrying the universe so sure is she of the nested Spring to come. I scratch my skin in frustration  and fill my cheeks with words.  C. LJ Ireton, 2026

I hear the wind, open-mouthed, rounding the side of iron buildings; a pantomime ghost. I wish endlessly for a gust of butterflies, a spray of ladybirds returning; the burning breath of the living. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

Roses roam the streets in plastic coats shielding them from February rain. They could do this every day — the petal-flooding of hearts, freely. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

There is a moorhen on the grass  as the sky's shadow falls, forward and exploring brave away from the black water. My mind is trapped, ever-tumble-turning weed words not managing one yellow foot out onto the reasoned bank. Until I think of him, later curious in the dark looking for food in rising places.  C. LJ Ireton, 2026

Black steam trails over the snow moon. February rains on, but with glowing cheeks.  Pale hyacinth, an old Wuthering Heights and brushed cardigans frame the bed. I pull the blanket over from January's side and say,  I've waited .  C. LJ Ireton 

The empty trees were a cacophony  of little lungs, blaring  birds; black, speckled, sparrow. Not for the first time I see February leaves are feathers — barren branches space for bodies round in the empty white 'v's but the sound —  I could sit in that sound over a million city crowds loud thin beaks nestled in my head I am me and I am me they sing — no pushing  just diagonal words,  twigs on twigs. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

The pupil of the sun was a watery, diluted, lemon but it was there and a sudden flock of pigeons lifted something in me; like they had flown collectively  under my lungs. more time like this is coming. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

A sleeping cat, smiling and spiralled into serenity, stillness, wrapped around a tea cup,  warm after waking. fragrance, like hovering fairies vanilla, lavender, melted sugar any sparkle on skin, iridescent anything, actually  diamonds dotted around a platinum ring, pendants that could have belonged to old queens, what the birds say, especially robins, a reading book and thinking of your face. C. LJ Ireton, 2025

The grey part of the dreaming is peering through sheer gap  after sheer gap: jagged ovals between drops of the rain thrum continual on your window, day after day, for a hint of that neon-shaded sun — tangerine letters you recognise  as your own.  C. LJ Ireton, 2025 

In the ever-growing, ever-giving  green pearl butterfly buds  on leaves after the snow, in the rose burst through the night-line; the white-black frost-hold about to be painted bloom-bee yellow, in the hop-sing of the dawn birds — a morning wing wake-up pink melody prayer that filters through the forest,  sifts into sea bubbles, and rustles into a lullaby to be lifted from water wind, is the always-song. Gaze upon the milk-flower in the pebbles grown one, little one. Listen to thin blush drum of each standing petal.  LJ Ireton, 2025

I saw a seagull flying through the snow — a poem sounded,  soft bellied,  ready to land. C. LJ Ireton, 2025