Joyce Butler is from Waterford, Ireland and a working class background. She’s been writing for the last fifteen years. Since 2021 she’s had several articles on writers and writing published by The Irish Times. She’s just completed her second historical fiction/fantasy novel. In November 2025, she participated in four online workshops with poet Grace Wilentz, through The Gallery Press. In 2024, she participated in four online poetry workshops with poet, John Fitzgerald, also through The Gallery Press. Her poem ‘From a Register of Sick Calls – attended to by the Clergy in July and August, 1922 during the Siege of Waterford’ was accepted by Poetry as Commemoration for their Dublin City Centre Poetry Jukebox, installed in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art from November 2023 – April 24.

Skinny Dipping

Slow moonlight hurt my eyes
Near the surface of the night
Pushed my face through wet so cold
Made me long to shut my eyes

The ice air slapped my skin
For the big mess I was in
The only one left for the dare
He always loved to wet my hair

I was the first one in
All hot, fessed up and giddy
As we stripped down to our skin

Giggling from the cold
We were drunk n brave n bold

No shouts, our laughs were lost
Water threw us first then tossed

We had no time to think it through
Skinny dipping for a screw
I called, he never heard
I felt silly and so scared

What is Inspiration?

You see a leaf
I see its skin
You see a door
I see within
You see a chair
I see its shadow
You see a field
I see a meadow
You see the clouds
I see heaven’s mountains
You see the rain
I see heaven’s fountains

Cardoon

You shouldn’t grow to ten feet tall
of purple psychedelia.
You should be small, like buttercups.
Polite like daisies.
I don’t believe you were meant to reach
the sky, like me
And topple as the sun sleeps.
Who is the tallest in your family?
The other thistles wolf whistle – they
are not jealous, like me.
I am only air, blowing about your spikey hair
I’ve tried to knock you down
But you are far too rooted
in
Your Scottish brogue
An electric guitar could flatten if you
grew on stage
Your purple spikes
Your smiling rage
A purple haze
Too pure for me
I am just weak air
You are infinity

Daffodil on Waking

A light rain kissed my face
Even though my head was bowed
Low at the nape
I could not look up
My sisters neither
We still had yet to greet each other
A cold, frightening winter of strange winds
Had blown us about
Determined to shake us through our roots
Leaving us dying of a stabbing frost.
But March brought a more forgiving sun
So we held hands again
Raising our heads out of worry and fear
Now, we look into the suns ranging eyes again.