Jones Irwin teaches Philosophy and Education in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has published original monographs on philosophy and aesthetics. He has published poetry most recently in Poetry London, Showbear Family Circus, Passengers Journal, Plainsongs, The Dewdrop and Cathexis Northwest Press.
His work has been previously featured on In Parentheses’ blog.
Artwork: Photography by Strixx Slade
Joanne and Aurèle Making Out
After a Nan Goldin photograph
Criss-crossing strapped high-heels
what a pair of prolonged legs
then her thighs to literally die for
stripped down to a pair of
black panties and a purple top.
Aurèle’s strong masculinist hand
with glistening silver bracelet
is lodged firmly in between
Joanne’s privates and his heavy
tongue is pushed in her delicate mouth.
I wonder right just now
what they are both
thinking about. Possibly
the time her husband gets back.
A Safe Word
She told me she paid
like other women of
her class and stature
for a wild man to
come to her house
break in and take her
aggressively several times
over until she was
completely satiated. There
was a safe word both
agreed previously.
I asked her what
the safe word was.
She said it was ‘rape’.
The Librarian
The librarian
from Wroclaw
sent me a photo
of herself semi-
nude lying on a
recliner. I told her
she reminded me
of a fille de joie
from one of Bataille’s
inter-war novels. She
responded by saying
that she found dissident
Surrealism a bit of a
storm in a tea-cup.
The Coach and Horses
I used to sit there up
at the barstool looking
at the photographs of
Jeffrey Bernard in mirror
reflection. Every so often
Francis Bacon would arrive
usually Tuesday evenings
which felt incongruous
as you’d be sitting there
with the 20th Century’s
greatest artist and literally
the place would be empty.
He would wax lyrical then silence.
Also, he’d been dead for years.
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Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
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By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7
32 pages, published 1/15/2022

By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7
32 pages, published 1/15/2022
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