Jason Irwin: Witness to History
My Experience at the Trump Rally, July 13, 2024, Butler, PA
Jason Irwin: Blaze of Glory
I remember sitting on the floor watching my parents dance to Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” their bodies bending and gyrating as Checker called out: “Round and round and up and down we go” like a shaman, beckoning them to partake in this ritual of body and soul…
Jason Irwin: A Slice of the American Dream
After my parents’ divorce was made official and my mother was forced to return to the workforce, we suddenly were labeled low-income.
Jason Irwin: On the Road to Bushmills
Because of a parade, the road to Bushmills is closed.
It’s the only road that leads to Portrush, a town
less than nine miles away, where we’ve been told
there’s a laundromat.
Jason Irwin: Afterwards
One a.m., the two of us holding hands, naked
in bed, in a second-floor room in Galway.
Jason Irwin: Ouija Board
I asked When? And How?
I was thirteen. My cousin, twelve.
It said I would be 41.
The same age my mother was that Christmas.
Elvis was 42 when he died. Jesus, 33.
Jason Irwin: A Stillness Nearly Mineral | The poetry of Robert Gibb
A stillness which is very nearly mineral
Keeps insisting upon the essential
Loneliness with which this light is filled.
Jason Irwin: Sickness Will Surely Take the Mind
Maybe it all started with the murder of John Lennon, or the books my mother bought me on JFK and MLK. Whatever the reason, by the time I was thirteen I was a hardened news junkie always looking for a fix.
Jason Irwin: Giuseppe the Shoe-Maker
Giuseppe, a simple shoe-maker,
who never learned English, stood
banging his head against the wall,
cursing God in his native tongue
Jason Irwin: Their Hands
All I remember were their hands holding me down: my mother’s father’s, a young nurse who gripped my left arm, and the doctor, who, before each prick into my skin, assured me it wasn’t a needle, just his finger.
Jason Irwin: Cucumbers
“I still can’t bring myself to buy cucumbers. He loved them.” she says, but never mentions the car accident, or how she had blamed me for your drinking again…
Jason Irwin: We Watched the Lights
You hardly touched your food.
Down to fifty-eight pounds
at your last check-up.
Yet, your hair was still beautiful…
Jason Irwin: Landscape
See the men break through the early morning mistlike phantoms from a dream; their hat brims
pulled low, shirt sleeves rolled above elbows,
boots caked with last week’s mud.
Jason Irwin: Smoke Rising
Back then to see dark clouds of smoke
rising above the housetops meant that God, in his wisdom and mercy,
was still on our side.
