Ian Irwin

ready to eat

I dress how I’m told to

smoke in car parks

with pigeons but life

skews everything is ready

to eat I’m nodding off

on the 73 before I left

home the city had rushed

to paint me gaudy with noise

a force I hit the corners

never a moment to stop

the nights held the streets

all around in a bunch

of streets a code for copper

admission a silver crisp

folding into rain we herd

night bus light across voices

falling out from the ceiling

Ian Irwin was selected as an Out-Spoken Press Emerging Poet in 2022. His poetry has been published in Poetry Review, Propel, berlin lit, Carmen et Error, The Alchemy Spoon, Full House, Outcrop and Trasna among others. Ian’s work appears in the Poetry Pulpit and Propel anthologies and is soon to appear in Acid Bath’s Night Terrors anthology. He is currently on the Word Space writers' programme with Literature Works. Ian lives and works in Bristol.