ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Featuring the works of Eilish Mulholland, Sadik Bejko, Michael Boyle, Gerard Furey, Lynn Strongin, Frank Golden, Joanna Bell, Mel Waldman, Fiona Sinclair and Tak Erzinger. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.
Issue 88 2020
A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Editorial Eilish Muholland;
1. Requiem for the Kitchen 2. Tumescent 3. Mouldings Sadik Bejko;
1. 2. 3. 4.
The Cloud on mountain The damned hunger Two fingers wind Cherries
Michael Boyle; 1. Gathering Potatoes 2. Oh how quickly I forgot you were there 3. The Man Who Killed Pigs 4. Bringing the sheep to Slatabogie 5. How I couldn’t understand you Peter Lynn Strongin; 1. Unfolding as it should and others Frank Golden; 1. The Advantage of Time 2. On the Outskirts of Pitgliano Annie Bell; 1. Ode To A Star Mel Waldman; 1. Waiting for Xes and 8 others Fiona Sinclair 1. Card 2. Gypsies 3. Still 4. Inshallah 5. The Last Hurrah
Tak Erzinger; 1. 2. 3. 4.
Clothe Me Irreplaceable Code Sol Reflection
On The Wall
Message from the Alleycats Round the Back
Gerard Furey; 1. Student Guide to Seamus Heaney 2. Famine Grave Near Bellmullet 3. Harbor Wall at NewCastle - September
Poetry, prose, art work and letters to be sent to: Submissions Editor A New Ulster 23 High Street, Ballyhalbert BT22 1BL Alternatively e-mail: g.greig3@gmail.com See page 50 for further details and guidelines regarding submissions. Hard copy distribution is available c/o Lapwing Publications, 1 Ballysillan Drive, Belfast BT14 8HQ Or via PEECHO Digital distribution is via links on our website: https://anuanewulster.wixsite.com/anewulster Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman Produced in Belfast & Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland. All rights reserved The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 To be identified as the authors of their work. ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online) Cover Image “Wylding� by Amos Greig
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ” Aristotle Onassis. Editorial For some reason the editorial is always the hardest part of these issues and I don’t know why, I mean there’s a lot going on in the world right now, war in Syria, political and economic instability worldwide, Brexit and of course the Coronavirus outbreak, It is nearly all doom and gloom, or is it? For very disaster there’s a tale of heroism or human charity which lifts the light out of chaos. Then there is the work of poets, writers, artists and photographers who show the world the human face and share their words of hope such as the poems within this issue. We’ve had a fair few glitch along the way and last year especially was a really difficult one. While 2020 has gotten off to a rocky start thing do appear to be righting themselves. .. .
Amos Greig Editor.
Biographical Note: Eilish Muholland
Eilish Mulholland is student currently studying English at QUB. An avid reader, writer and consumer of poetry her work takes inspiration from a variety of sources including religiosity, Irish History, culture and personal experience.
Requiem for the Kitchen (Eilish Muholland) I let her talk of things that Are past and present. In moonlight this evening We bow our heads In little ceremony To the tune of the dripping tap, The soapsuds that slide slowly-Mixing into the freckles of your Wrinkled summers and buttermilk palms The knot of your wedding ring It is unopened and singing to me Working round your fingers as honey in its zenith. Sugaring the source Of childish delicacies-For your heart Is a queer plum An appellation to smile upon And proclaim That it'll be alright. Easily spread into the harsh lines, On upturned edges this Thin enamel is unbearably hot While the sugar bowl Runs its sluggish rivulets In a mess of easy placation. Rounding the horizon up, The china begins to whiten sickenly And clucks its tongue knowingly. It's 3am now mother, And you're still Not going to bed. Tumescent (Eilish Muholland)
I should be aware of it presently The acidic Whiteness of your sheets Will irritate my eyeballs While I squint And squeeze my hands Into far reaching fat fists To buckle under your hips And he'll not know you're coming. We are messy in this situation, Playful Your lips are my lips Panting a hot breath in the ear Warm. That cinched shell Is a cliche that I'd lick With lollipop strokes Letting me know By the squirm of your neck And he'll not know you're coming. Stand under the shower with me A little frivolity in hot water So I can spit at you In a guise of fishy frustration Looking at your saintly glow Under the whirl of the fan belt I will let you go With only a damp towel in the kitchen-And he'll not know you're coming.
Mouldings (Eilish Muholland)
Melt into it Starting for diazepam in the palm Stickiness, the slow churn To clottedness Solidarity In solidifying Indelible delicacies These moistened mouthfuls Stucktothestone Of picking molars Rubbery A sort of wondering In the globbed flecks Of the fruit bowl Plum for petting Palming-A washed stocking For preservation of phallicies That hum sweetly To him Under the funk Of forgetting fruitfall
Biographical Note: Sadik Bejko
Sadik Bejko is one of the most prominent poets of contemporary Albanian Literature. He was born in the village of Komar Tepelena in 1943. He was a lecturer in Albanian Literature and the History of Civilization. As a poet he has received national awards (Silver Pen, 1998) and other regional awards. His poems have been translated into English, Japanese, Greek, Romanian, Serbian-Croatian, Macedonian and Swedish.
The cloud on mountain (Sadik Bejko) Beyond a cloud on the mountain I am On the mountain and down Thrown away by those winds That don’t know what to do with. The winter has gone. It runs as horse ahead It vents frosts, ice and snow It grazes with those glacial teeth villages and cities Shakes and shakes terror with its crests. I don’t feel any more those disasters Of the horse in the frozen world I am thrown away since the first ray of the down Over the cloud in the Dajti mountain Numbed I am in the abysses of the matinee To the moons that are falling endlessly To the suns that are breaking into darkness To those pathless nights that are whispering As Bedouins in desserts Cloudy eyes I am Cloudy face Cloudy limb The Moon somnambulist Weathered into the sky In foggy soils The darkness takes mine sky inside my being Takes that flash body, the breathing and it fights Ripping my bone and flash, carving my eyes Granulating over every single cloud Throwing me endlessly away in every single path I am that cloud as a cup of coffee Remained not swallowing Not warmed by fingers and lips In the icy disk of downs A cloud that seduces with darkness A key has gone wrongly through this world Those tremendous winds upside down A glacial horse Eating the whole world deeply into clay
I walk every day , I work, I talk I sit with others , all merely a routine And beyond a cloud's shrub in the Dajti mountain A foggy scarp A cloud Perhaps Planted by my brain. Translated into English by Entela KASI
The damned hunger The river's monologue (Sadik Bejko) I have had a damned hunger that eats stone's morsels A hunger- as grapes smut for my sane and youth. Only for the tree breathing by watering lungs My ribs got distorted pierced, got opening cracked. Have you got hunger? – I was asked. Eat rocks with your mouth and ribs Eat icy birds to get frozen underneath your blankets and bed. None can predict the ending, so the river says. With lips dried on stone, with frozen or thirsty cracking So I was kept with softy tides shoulders every single day Until lied with salty water a sea table raised. Here by force we would smile to each other We the rivers that grinded ices and rocks. What should I do now? To beg your pardon that I closed my mouth And I kept the smiling of hunger within the stones on my shoulders ? Translated into English by Entela KASI
Two fingers wind (Sadik Bejko) Eaten by the darkness, scoured Within the joy of pains That are rumoring his carving speleaning Fallen into abyss opened wings My heart, I kiss you wherever You maybe kissed by many others But, higher, two fingers higher in the wind There were the axes are heard pruning the branches Those soaring of mine above skies Instead of falling to earth. Between the evening and the ax Only your soft honey kiss I dare
Translated into English by Entela KASI
Cherries (Sadik Bejko) Your lips, two red stony cherries Tough, sweet, the red earthly Squeezed and clotting into two red juicy cherries. In my Homeland there’s the land of cherries In those ancient trees As to have been made of the saint Adam ribs Into your lips the cherries of season In your garden, into your body, so sweetie juice of yours As to have been a waterfall falling endlessly from rocks A sleeping harshly river I will never know how beautifully is the blossoms of those cherries flowers Deeply reddish those fruits under the Sun of season Wandering of that innocent lured I do still love Those cherries Hanged into your lips There where you are In your land Into my mind the cherries of the whole world are living amongst tough slopes In distant valleys and mountains Reddish and juicy As today and the coming year In eternity of years coming season after season Red cherries of your trees of your body Into your red lips This night to forget you I am drinking with my friends watching the finals Of world football championship And tomorrow? Tomorrow the lightning cherries in your garden Dewed with this reddish of the sun rising Stucked n the eternal sky beyond the dreaming awaken So through centuries from this love for cherries We the men are made From women lips Into the red seed of embryonic child In our blessed day In the day of creation. Your lips Red cherries painted with the reddish of the stone and sunrising dwelling Translated into English by Entela KASI
Biographical Note: Michael Boyle Michael Boyle graduated from St Joseph’s College of Education Belfast. His poems have appeared in ‘The Antigonish Review” and “New Ulster Writing.” He lives in St John’s Newfoundland
Michael Boyle came from Ireland to be principal of a three school a remote island on the NE coast of Newfoundland. His poems have previously appeared in ”The Antigonish Review” and ‘New Ulster Writing”. Today Michael lives in St John’s and he operates a historical walking tour there.
GATHERING POTATOES AT KILN FIELD. Circa 1957
We didn’t call it tatti hooking. It was our school holidays. But during frosty cold mornings, our sore backs and blistered hands -made us wish for a second we were back by the hearth fire of Dreenan school. During October this was our time of freedom. guldering, gyping anf gatching. Shouting, clowning and carrying on. Rackets over people not gathering their share. Potatoes were thrown into light wire baskets Heavy wooden crates stuck to the damp soil. Then that day the world changed We looked to see Sputnik One move across the sky. But we had to finish this hilly kiln field. The drills at the foot of the field were water logged. We emptied countless baskets to the triangular pits which would be covered first with rushes and later with ten inches of black soil We collected withered potato taps, which looked like heaps of bones. And on Samhain Eve we lit these fires to worship our ancient Celtic Gods. Just over a century after the Great potato famine. And today no potatoes are gathered anymore.
Drumghlessa
Oh how quickly I forgot you were there? Oh how quickly I forgot you were there? The forlorn cry of the curlew still frightens me. The forlorn cry of the curlew still frightens me. Oh you were there cry frightens me. Quickly I forgot the still forlorn curlew.
I could see the breeze blow over bog cotton I could see the breeze blow over bog cotton. Mountain fog descended into the valley Mountain fog descended into the valley. Over bog cotton the mountain breeze descended. I see fog could blow into the valley.
Time for me to walk the moss path alone. Time for me to walk the moss path alone. Never forget to count calves at Drumghlessa Never forget to count calves at Drumghlessa. To count alone calves at the moss walk path. Drumghlessa time for me never forget.
Never forget Oh I forgot you were still there Mountain bog cotton moss path at Drumghlessa
How quickly the fog descended over bog valley? The forlorn cry of the calves frightens me I could see the breeze blow into the curlew Still time for me to count to walk alone?
THE MAN WHO KILLED PIGS.
At late Mass in Lavey chapel he always roostered himself on the men’s side at the end of the front pew. So that -he would be closer to God. His elbow wings saluted high when anyone wanted him to move inside. Once Brian Hamill from Dreenan tried to shoulder him from his perch. but our butcher was an Army veteran. And knew to hold his trench against all enemies. Every November our porkers were market ready At the chapel gate I heard my father saying to the executioner. “I have a wee job for you next Monday week”
His high Nelly turned the bend in the lane by the gentry bush and he rushed into the yard - jumped off in a rageand let his bicycle run on and fall awkwardly against the gable. He unfastened his bicycle clips and unhitched his pocket watch and put them both in to his black overcoat. He took his short tether noose from carrier basket and with his sharping stone gave an extra shine to his gulley blade. All the time he barked orders for his supporting troops
Hot water, a door for a washing table, straw and the sledge hammer. And for God Sakes men –Hurry up. I can’t wait all day .Now. Today. A roaring screaming war dance commences with cursing ,shouting swearing and blood. In the four foot high cro pen. A pig captured and the tether attached to the ring on its nose. And our butcher grabs the sledgehammer.
We dare not watch and hide under the table and plug our ears. Some of us ran to the moss or the far back hill. We cried and prayed and we were on the side of the pig. ……..And now and at the hour of his death. Even in America murders on death row have lethal injections. Our pigs died ignoble deaths at the hands of the butcher. Shaved stretched out and chopped up on the byre door. Devoured for liver, lard, heart, guts and intestines. The only thing not used was the squeal , which I can still hear. Hung up on cross beams of bog oak and next morning They were cold, straight, stiff and loaded on a cart and covered with a white shroud.
For all this work our butcher got a half a Crown.
BAPTISM AT SLATABOGIE
“All sheep in this jurisdiction are to be chemically treated for the serious infestation of the blow–fly maggot.” declared the Ministry of Agriculture. Shepherds gathered their flocks in Murray’s the big field. Sheep from Carrick, Curidain, Drummuck and lower Mayogall. came for this roll call.
All raddled, tagged, notched and earmarked. More like Duffy’s circus or a rodeo. The cloth cap brigade had short tempers and long alder sticks. bitching, barking and bellowing orders to everyone.
Owners whistling, cursing, shouting and waving to Flash, Power and Rover. Runners got ahead and manned sheughs ,slaps and gaps. The woolly cavalcade moved
around Arthur’s corner up Gulladuff brae and out on the white cemented Bellaghy- Maghera road.
The farmers had no protective masks or goggles. Ministry men like astronauts with white sterilized plastic gloves poured cans of pinkish chemicals into the water at Slatabogie dipping pool. Shorn sheep and lambs trembled bleating in pens waiting their turn to be baptized. A summer’s day of guldering and gatching was not over.
On the return home the adult herders set up camp at Gulladuff. Youngsters were given a half crown to bring the drowned sheep home again to Murray’s field. Meanwhile all the elders in smelly clothes dipped themselves with a bottle of stout or two in Josie Donnelly’s public house.
I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND YOU PETER?
The hill farmers of Termoneeney spoke swift staccato and sounded all their “r’s. Gave a shake of the head to any strange folk. Then. Questions .Who? What? Where? Don’t stir.
At Bellaghy carnival a man threshed with a flail. Sweeter than lint dam reek at the end of the lane And Mayogall men sold plants to Faughanvale Bluestone sprayed on the rigs. Don’t complain.
Country wakes well attended and funerals too On busy hay days each house had folks like me Useless on the farm so I stood in for Paddy Joe. Went to the funeral Mass for Mickey Mac Elwee
I rode my bicycle and got off at the Chapel lane. I paid my two half crowns to Father Mac Glynn Five Shillings offering and he called my father’s name After last shovel thrown I gave my bicycle a spin
At Mac Grann’s Hill and I took a break by the stable Peter swung the scythe and donkey stopped braying. He shouted. ”How much did he make on the table?” Only many years later I knew what he was saying.
Biographical Note: Lynn Strongin Lynn Strongin isan American poet, with twelve books published, living in Canada. recently nominated for the Pulitzer prize
UNFOLDING AS IT SHOULD
Yehuda, I want your clarity— to love you, not close the gates of my heart like a nation trying to make itself a home but winding up with a state. Psalmist, you spoke so tenderly “My Heart like a Nation” Phillip Metre
© Lynn Strongin 2019
UNFOLDING AS IT SHOULD The universe So I plant a kiss on your lips It grows Thru day In passion As I pour water for the carrots, Give the garden attention Our garden such as it is two ladies’ Growing a storey above the library A maple tree, Yuko, with little Buddha under it Bigger Buddha, still small, in the corner Water flowing
All around its shape. I wish I could catch that water Like a hoop Like clay, and reshape it For the universe is not unfolding as it should: so lie with me on pillows of steel & ice: The nails are rusting The windows wavy like wax
or water: a
pine siskin gazed on the sad carnival, the puppets we are moving Blinks from his branch:
The moss is soft
on Gary oaks, a buegreen fungus: Single-glazed letting cold in
a throwback
to the war, Warner Pathe news showing all the carnage. You do not, furthermore, want me to stew the pears with small cloves, sticks of cinnamon Making it grow Our passion Which has in our seventies become A baby with blue finger nails rocked in the cradle in the corner. Although a good girl-child There is something wrong, askew, something one is afraid to mention Like leukaemia which runs in the family, like the ivy digging its ugly tiny fists into the wood
protecting our garden as it should And like the dry rot one dare not mention in parental & marital relations.
BECAUSE I WAS NOT WEARING MY MASK & you were not there as I fell, Icarian Thru a hole I the sky. When does water become wave? Touch turn to love? Behave, my passions Lie down like good Labrador retrievers, golden ones.
FOR THE Restoration of your soul Said the Lord I restore. intact? Nearly. Joined. Joisted. Long aware of the poverty of prayer close to pleading as rosebushes are to old firebrick wall, For whose name’s sake? Now the wind drives up whipping sheep along walls
Till blindout storm Of night comes.
HEAVY DARK RAIN & dark skies shine grail Who we really are remains to be seen: I put down the notebook it takes a shine: Nothing, nothing takes the place of the divine. Voices of the saints: mystics & miracles. I’m not in the tower pacing skinny light coming in No Anne Bolyn; But what opens hands, small as the rain, In place of the divine?
ALL THE APPLE-CHEEKED DOLLIES All the apple-cheeked dollies are lend up in a row. Nothing shines in place of the divine Its locus ubiquitous My right shoulder Your boythin wristbone.
I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. (Denise Levertov)
I thought now is the time to stop When my lover told me I tossed like a little pony, a filly in my sleep Practically throwing sparks Shaking Feverish Then almost stopping; How alarming Were not all life Amazing: Had I developing a strange sort of epilepsy late in life In the noble Golden years Throwing off a nimbus perhaps Holy like the saints? A Cyrillic alphabet floated above my head my lover might have caught like a hoop:
Spiking in all directions Like those who wear a statue of liberty hairdo Punk yet poignant: strange, yet natural to come with the loss of all my lovely ones.?
WHATEVER FLOWERS I fold into the bin it should have been the others.
In the pooled light we gander, fight I keep you up an hour in the night You tell me an hour later I’ve been twitching every five minutes. Nothing replaces the divine But is this not unfolding as it should Lanky, restless girl I was Tall woman you in the braided hope, like streams, like light We battle forward Until brightness shatters At our feet. O duck, my bird, my sweet Things are not as they should be But our souls will be re-stored Like wheat in bins By the Lord For his name sake.
As for ours? The kettle in the north wind howls What a pleasure to open the door to a stranger Anyone but you but you whom I love most of all: The squall: The light :
More than anything I want to be close to revelation: kneel closer Slow sugar you are rising to the point Where bees turn silent The crisis is so keen & we are the smoke when the bees disappear. Lean near.
Biographical Note: Frank Golden Frank Golden’s last book of poems was gotta get a message to you (Salmon Poetry). His last novel was The Night Game (Salmon Fiction). He lives in the Oughtmama Valley, Clare, in the West of Ireland. www.frankgolden7.com
THE ADVANTAGE OF TIME
At seven minutes past
3
in the afternoon
the sky overcast though lightening to the east
off
Ourdian bay on the Greek island of Skythios of this morning evaporating in the
the torrent heat.
Outside the Blue Infinity restaurant I unpack a
squid
stuffed with
olives
marinated in Ouzo for a week
then mascerated to a pulp
with dill.
A man in a
cobalt
mauve
and
stripped shirt
comes up to me and says in a thick Belfast accent; “You look like
John Malkovitch!”
“John Malkovich! It’s odd you say that, I say. Our paths crossed once and I took a
selfie.
Here, let me show you.” I show him the photograph and it is obvious that John Malkovich and I bear little or no resemblance to each other, though clearly there was warmth between us, evidenced by the slight lemon rind uplift of our lips. “You’re from the Republic, right?” I nod in affirmation. “Some of my best friends and all that…….You know it’s true what they say, isn’t it?” I am distracted momentarily by a ragged cat mounting an orange female, clamping his teeth on her neck.
“You know it’s true what they say….the only thing a Paddy is worried about is whether a pint of plain is pulled properly or not, isn’t that the truth?” Where do you begin? “Nice to meet you buddy,” he says, holding out his hand, “my name’s William.” I figure he’s pissing on me, like he’s been pissing on me from the get go. “This country, this fucking country, he says, up shit’s creek it is, up shit’s creek…and we’re paying for the fuck ups, but not for long more….least we can do is get a cheap fucking holiday.” He leaves and my waiter comes over. He looks at my incompletely eaten
squid.
“If you want …….to take away.” He makes a wrapping gesture, enfolding an abstract globe with his perfect hands. I nod. The thought of the leftover squid in a bright aluminium package lifts my heart. The waiter tells me he graduated last year in speech and language pathology and got a job at €400 a month and wants to do a Masters in Volos, “So I will endure this for four months more!” He gestures in an actorly fashion fanning his right arm towards an array of tables pronouncing ‘endure’ as azure , like the blue depths above the urchin banks near the cove on the other side of the fortress. Four months of Williams and Franks and Mabels and Marias and curt directions to the WC and the best bars to score girls or score boys and score Greek grass or Lebanese hash or pills that make the cold contract of flesh the claw and thrust of pale and bronzed bodies in a shaded room on a quiet sunlit afternoon
overlooking Ourdian bay sometime after 3 all the sweeter.
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PITIGLIANO My mother and I are here in Pitigliano burnishing our lives, outcasts both of us. I think I can say we feel it the contempt in which we are held. But, we have the ballast of our mutual regard, we are at ease living though we do outside the grace of normative rules.
On the outskirts of Pitigliano volcanic stone falls sheer from a high escarpment the valley below surging with sunflowers and pasture and long rectangles of splay-armed sangiovese grapes. I pass a rough playground dirt mostly and a man watching his son play kickabout. I salute them and the man turns more one feels in response to his son stopping the ball with his foot and looking in my direction than from any desire to acknowledge me. But he says something, which might be, “a good day for roses but not for onions”, or some standard like “siamo al mondo per essere veri, non perfectti”. I move closer and he explains that he is partially deaf -
A footballing accident, Genoa, first division, the compensation package unlikely to be substantial -
His son continues to play in the dirt
curling the ball into the top right hand corner of a goal painted onto the side of a partly dilapidated building – the ball comes back and hops over a low wall into a ravine below. I glance over but the ball is irretrievable. The line from Milton’s Paradise Lost Book 1 “to the bottomless perdition” occurs to me.
Pietro, the father, tells me he has written a play, I imagine it is a version of his present difficulty and of little interest to anyone, except perhaps the son at some imaginable future point when he will choose to make sense of things, or not. I tell Pietro I will go and see the play when it is produced and give him my contact details.
Returning to the villa I share with my mother when we come to Pitigliano, which we do and have done regularly now for over a decade, I speculate briefly on how she will have spent her afternoon. Perhaps, I hope, in making cherry compote from the fruit she bought earlier this morning and which will go nicely with the lamb marinating in the cold room to the rear of the ground floor. “Mama!” I call. “Mama!” in an Italian accent. This is an affectation, I know. The lower ground floor rooms are empty, the upstairs too. Of the two bathrooms, one up, one down,
the doors to which she insists on keeping shut at all times, I open the upstairs one and find her watch lying on the counter above the sink. I go to the kitchen off which lies the balcony overlooking the Plain of Casualta. The shutters on the far side of the French doors are closed. I pour myself a glass of Cantina di Pitigliano Sangiovese Superiore, open the French doors and push out the olive green shutters. A whiff of odour and sunlight causes me to step back and in the adjustment I see her. She has used the blue rope she insisted on buying two weeks ago, ’ for no good reason’, as I said at the time. This detail has an immediate and overwhelming impact on me. Something to do with betrayal and accusation. She is naked. This is less of a surprise and less of a shock, all things being relative.
.
Biographical Note: Joanna Bell
Annie Bell A poet, novelist and cat lover, Annie Bell writes on a broad selection of subjects, ranging from death and the afterlife to bullying and mental health; fantastical vampires and lots of local history, to the occasional exploding eyeball. She has recently relocated from Essex in England to County Waterford. Annie loves to research local history and to dabble in the dark art of black humour, while addressing serious issues in a sometimes heartbreaking way. Knowing that her literary heroes are Wilfred Owen, Emily Bronte, Roald Dahl and Terry Pratchett might go a long way to explaining this. ..
Ode to a Star (Annie Bell)
I wandered, lonely, down the road that led me here, to pen this ode to roads and where so many roads have led me.
Last week, I drove the road to Youghal: investigating East Cork's jewel a seaside town that proved to be delightful.
There was a shop I drove right by. I don't know what they had to buy but up above, I saw something that pleased me.
A flag was flying, straight and true; its ring of golden stars on blue, quite unremarkable to you, I'm thinking.
Not so, for me. I will not lie. I wiped a tear out of my eye and smiled to see that flag flying so freely.
I've waved that flag myself, you see. I've placed it on my Facebook feed and carried it through roads, throughout my nation.
I've worn it as a flowing cloak. I've hung it from a mighty oak. I've even worn it as a sequinned one-piece.
I dressed my cat in it – it's true. I even dyed my hair bright blue and topped it with a gold star-spangled trilby.
I've sung of it in many songs, in my attempt to right the wrongs: the awful wrongs occurring in my country.
Back there, it's really quite perverse. I've been called treasonous and worse, for daring to display that flag in public.
See, on that flag, there is a star that's fading to a bitter scar. It's our star and we've tried so hard to save it.
We've filled the streets, two million deep. We've struggled for three years to keep our star from being evermore forgotten.
And now, all we can do is pray and protest, right past Brexit Day and Brexit Day
and Brexit Day and maybe, we can bring this road full circle.
Biographical Note: Mel Waldman
WAITING
FOR
XES
By Dr. Mel Waldman
(on reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem I Am Waiting)
Waiting for XES
perched on a dream
swirling in sweet phantasmagoria
floating rushing
& dancing
on rolling brainwaves
whirling & waiting for the unfathomable
Waiting for the succulent secret of Existence
the holy voice
plucked from the Tree of Life the holy voice
plummeting to luscious earth
& pirouetting
across the sacred Garden
into a metaphysical hole
& vanishing
waiting for the holy voice
to utter Revelations
& the Word
& XES
Waiting for the death of Death
with a chocolate pill
or a vanilla milkshake
for a young old man
plays a parlor game
of Heaven & Hell
& with a potent Lilliputian pinky
pushes 4 puny plastic Horsemen
over a makeshift paper cliff
giving birth to yesterday’s child
waiting for peace of mind
& peace on earth
in the wilds of the universe
Waiting to hear the cosmic song of XES
& the rhapsody of Old Brooklyn
the jazzy juicy serenade
the seething seascape
& the soothing cacophony of Coney Island
the dreamer returns to Dreamland
finds soul-boy
inside
his shattered skin
beautiful phantom
laughing in Luna Park
dancing on the Boardwalk
sailing on the Cyclone
whirling on the Wonder Wheel
& plummeting down the Parachute Jump
into Inner Space
& oblivion
Waiting
for the Unfathomable
as the womb of the universe opens up
I rush slowly
to the glorious dream of XES
on my otherworldly voyage
& sit on the Coney Island pier
by the sacred sea
in search of a blessing & prophecy
& gaze at the eerie ethereal jetty
drifting into the dazzling delirious Atlantic Ocean
a kaleidoscope of chimerical enchantment
& ponder the resurrection
swallow celestial visions
taste the rebirth
devour trauma
& hear the music of transcendence
as it envelopes & engulfs
the tempest of human consciousness
& the swirl of agony
the haunting horrific shroud of pain
the bestial shrieks within the symphony of sin
& I am
bathed in an opalescent ocean
of metaphysical rhapsody
in my Coney Island haven
waiting for redemption and salvation
atonement & forgiveness
perched on the Tree of Life
in the glittering Garden of the Unknowable
burgeoning & blossoming
& swirling around the 10 holy spheres
tasting the celestial notes of rebirth
& waiting for XES
POEM
EX NIHILO
By Dr. Mel Waldman
(on reading Mark Irwin’s poemSometimes, an ars poetica)
Before Creation
Poem Ex Nihilo
sleeps in the cradle
of celestial non-being
beautiful baby
phantom child
rocking back & forth
& whirling
in the wilds of the womb
waiting to be born
hungry thirsty
for the WORD
Some time ago
inside the cornucopia
of cosmic visions
& prophetic dreams
within the vastness
of sweet phantasmagoria
our Lady of Illumination
deep within the dark delirious
Freudian Id
hidden from holy consciousness
Poem Ex Nihilo
flows furiously
on otherworldly waves
rising through the seething sultry
Unconscious
into fantastic Awareness
& the Bizarro mirror
of the bestial mind
Before Creation
I traveled to selcouth places
to taste the cool opalescent sea
& the turquoise sky
& inhale the dazzling white light
of divinity
& seek the mystical scent of
& discover
the metaphysical beauty
& touch the sacred secret
non-organisms of
my magical blank books
kaleidoscopic kinetic non-creatures
beckoning & blessing me
with the sensuous seductive smell
of lascivious black leather
or seething sultry red leather
evoking earthy memories
carnal secrets
saturated with phantom sin
& crimson redemption
& anointing me
with the phantasmagoric scent
of celestial brown leather
or beatific purple leather
pointing to the Heavens
Before Creation
I traveled far
to find & touch
my magical blank books
& taste juicy
Jungian archetypes
stubbornly stuck to human DNA
like primordial bubble gum
dangling from a burning bush
in the holy Garden
& inhale hallucinatory visions
of
the Tree of Life
with the 10 sacred sefirot
10 divine spheres
of unbearable light
& smell the phantasmal Tree & the soothing hypnotic aroma
of hazelnut coffee
wafting around me
& in my brown whip-stitched journal
Medieval Italian masterpiece
of potentiality
& watch the holy sounds of the Kabbalistic
Book of Formation
the Sefer Yetzirah
dance the delirious dance of divinity
& reveal Creation
& now I rush slowly through the invisible universe
of my mind
where Poem Ex Nihilo
sleeps in the sea of nothingness
& suddenly I caress my precious Tree of Life journal
enter its eerie emptiness
plummet into the vastness
& vanish in the ivory landscape
& drink its preternatural light
& dream fantastic dreams
& scribble sacred letter/words
giving
birth to my beautiful unfathomable
Poem, Ex Nihilo
but mourning the unbearable loss/death of part of me
the celestial stranger
from beyond
SWEET PHANTASMAGORIA
FLOWER
OF
METAMORPHOSIS
&
THE FANTASTIC VOYAGE
INTO
KAFKA’S MAGICAL MIRROR
By Dr. Mel Waldman
Inside the circular night
a celestial dream grows
on a turquoise windowsill
& blossoms into a mammoth multicolored flower of metamorphosis
named Sweet Phantasmagoria Our Holy Lady of Dreams & Otherworldly Visions
flowing freely
within the Lilliputian Room of Eternity & there
in a corner
of the phantom room
Kafka’s magical mirror swirls & spirals toward Our Sacred Lady
& mid-air
in nowhere
Sweet Phantasmagoria
whirls into K’s galaxy
gallops into Un-Reality on a Spanish Mustang gorgeous palomino
& swallows the concave universe
with eerie eyes on fire
exploding
with desire
as She gazes into the mirrored abyss
& this is the luminous moment the metaphysical scent of metamorphosis
the unfathomable taste of the opalescent flower
plummeting into otherworldly nothingness
eating barren truth
with the preternatural power
of
Sweet Phantasmagoria’s eerie eyes sailing into Kafka’s magical mirror
discovering identity in metamorphosis
& fulfilling destiny
in the apocalyptic solitude of Hell
or the blessings of divinity
BIZARRO NIGHTS
ON
MALLORY SQUARE
By Dr. Mel Waldman
Bizarro nights on Mallory Square
the bestial beauty
& the fantastic fury
of the otherworldly gathering
of strangers in search of Un-Reality
& phantom visitors
coming forth from everywhere & nowhere
craving the unfathomable
& an eerie everlasting moment of ecstasy
& haunted souls
hungry for the taste of sweet phantasmagoria
&
a sensuous divinity with tongues swirling
& swishing in the celestial opalescence of a dream
& voluptuous lips
& oval chasms of the Apocalypse
devouring a beautiful madness
biting & chewing the ineffable
drinking a kaleidoscope of illusions
& swallowing the mystical light by the Gulf of Mexico
while the invisible universe rushes slowly across the teeming docks
Bizarro nights on Mallory Square
& lost beings & non-beings & creatures of obscurity
bathed in divine luminescence watch the metaphysical Show of Un-Reality
& wait for a glorious sunset
& revelations from beyond or within
I
AM
ENOLA
By Dr. Mel Waldman
I am Enola
after dark below the Coney Island Boardwalk bloated with emptiness & bereft of old blessings-the celestial visions of a child gold eyes gazing at a cosmic panorama creatures of obscure beauty grinning wisely at the lost boy & a kaleidoscope of turquoise skies & red sunsets & gorgeous rainbows in the wet season painting beauty on the phantom soul
I am Enola
a non-existential conundrum surrounded by a cornucopia of everlasting unreality by the sea in bestial Brooklyn an unholy sphere of broken atoms bereft of light spiraling & swirling into the ineffable & crashing into the chaos of the unfathomable
I am Enola
& the boiling sand burns my non-being a floating phantom ponders the New World Order & the Parachute Jump looms in the blackness of the unbearable August night
& now I dream of Old Brooklyn & remember enchanting things I never saw & eerie events that never happened in sweet phantasmagoria a pristine vastness where chimerical peacocks & butterflies sing & sway in phantom skies & I see a parade of Monarch butterflies & white & blue peacocks & peacock feathers adorned with eye markings of gold, red, and blue flow across unreality & faraway into a vanishing view & the eyes of destiny
I am Enola
covered with the shattering shroud of invisibility shadow of a shadow of a forsaken ghost forbidden phantom pariah in the fire of oblivion here in nowhere below the Coney Island Boardwalk & floating too across the burning sand the bestial way of the wounded wolf forever rushing slowly toward the pier & jetty in futile search of sacred identity & home for I can’t come back shall never return nor shall I discover why or who I am-not even the dead know Brooklyn or who they are
I am Enola
nothing more
DREAMLAND
By Dr. Mel Waldman
Dancing across the deep of nowhere
around the rim of Dreamland
I vanish
into the swirl of the dust devil & the fantastic desert
a phantasmagoria
of exquisite chaos galloping through the miasma
& phantom mustangs
tasting
the music of trauma
& I sing the Blues Apocalypse
while the requiem shrieks & shatters the ruins of Un-Reality
& I vanish
inside the Blues Apocalypse my nowhere blues
in Dreamland’s dystopia
where my dissolving self
seeks the Hidden Holy Haven of Ineffable Nothingness
a.k.a. my immortal soul
Dreamland’s blessing &
phantom gift glittering in evanescence & everlasting in the perennial dream of Dreamland
OGUNQUIT RHAPSODY
By Dr. Mel Waldman
& dancing to the music of rebirth
the Ogunquit Rhapsody
in the swirl of the dreamer’s dream
the sweet phantasmagoria of Delirium Ecstasy
flowing fantastically to the eerie enchantment
of the Ogunquit Rhapsody
I
taste the oceanic bliss of the Beautiful Place by the Sea
& return to our late summer retreat & the sultry August sun
Perkins Cove & a luscious lunch at Jackie’s Too
you & I on the terrace by the rocks seagulls resting there & sailing above
& after we meander along the beautiful breathtaking Marginal Way
by the glorious rocks & granite cliffs & grand Atlantic Ocean the 1 ¼ - mile – long celestial cliff walk that blesses us with beauteous panoramic visions
& we, my beloved wife,
oblivious of the approaching storm the tempest within rushing across your lovely body,
see but the Beautiful Place by the Sea
& hear the haunting Ogunquit Rhapsody
before Death stalks you but dies in the winter of despair
& we dance to the music of rebirth
the Ogunquit Rhapsody
OGUNQUIT MEDITATION
By Dr. Mel Waldman
Away from the crackling cacophony
mad city chaos
Away from the raw ruins of bestial time
I retreat to Ogunquit
the Beautiful Place by the Sea
Away from Manhattan mayhem
& Brooklyn bedlam
I merge with the mellifluous flow of the Source
chant OM
& vanish on a celestial bench on the Marginal Way
nestled in a womb chair in the chimerical castle of my mind
Away from the shattering sins of the city
on the otherworldly cliff-walk
I gaze at the glorious glittering ocean below
rushing slowly
through waves of consciousness
wild waves of oceanic serenity
& I AM
ONE
with
the Source
the Ultimate Nothingness
the Without End
I AM
ONE
EERIE
EVERLASTING
NIGHT
OF
THE STORM
By Dr. Mel Waldman
(on reading Billy Collins’s poem-The Night of the Fallen Limb)
In the summer of ’65,
the shattering arrived
in the sprawling light
& the long barren silence followed
drifting into the deep of nowhere-
the blackness of the eerie everlasting night of the storm
& even now
the tempest rushes through my bestial brain
explodes with unbearable grief & trauma
& smashes the broken mirror of my celestial other-ness-
the holy sphere of whirling invisibility within
for the shattering arrived
& I watched you
gasp for air
plummet &
sink into the Queen-sized bed
like a gold-eyed angel
falling from the Tree of Life
shriveled up
into a cocoon of frozen non-being
in the Room of Infinity
in the way station
of your human home
as I rocked back & forth
in the cradle of prayer
until you returned & rose again
& looked up at us
wearing a foreign traveler’s eerie everlasting mask
& shrieked, “I thought I was dying”
& like a gold-eyed angel
you fell, Mother, from the Tree of Life
into the House of the Dead
but magically I resurrect you each time I tell your story of love
& inhale your holy presence
each time I reveal who you were-who you are now in the mystical universe
you rise again
& so do I
Biographical Note: Fiona Sinclair
Fiona Sinclair
Card (Fiona Sinclair) I hesitate before buying the card; unsure if it Is still etiquette for baby boomers. A simple text might suffice now; but somehow that seems more suited to sexting, invites for coffee, I’m running late. Of course, her sisters may be instructed to head off these well- meaning words, that do not in fact bring comfort but land on door mats like life’s final demands, and, will shove in drawers, until the grief has down- graded from acute to chronic. In Clintons, I scan banks of birthday, weddings, Christmas cards. Finally find ‘Bereavement’ tucked away like a pauper’s grave. Shake my head at brash designs, with condolences bold as neon signs, finally find one card, a hint of pastel flower with ‘In Sympathy’ whispered in lower case. At home, the card lies on the table waiting for the right words, until, I sit with pen in hand, mentally writing then scratching, Thinking of you , So sorry for your loss, Sad to hear, Instead a brief tribute to her husband; easy to talk to, edge of his seat enthusiasm for books, art, films… and to her, an acknowledgement of our friendship going back some 50 years to the day we were shooed away to play in the garden, whilst our mothers gossiped over Darjeeling and Disque Bleu. Later I slow the car, mute the radio, whilst trying to recall a red or yellow front door, to their fresh start house; thrust the card in cursing the tell- tale letter box, scurry back down the drive before I am caught door stepping her grief.
Gypsies. (Fiona Sinclair) They must have bought the ground from a farmer with rolls of readies and a handshake; the rest of us baring mortgages like overburdened donkeys or just managing to scrape together robber baron rents. A bit of spent land discarded like some fly tipped old carpet, partially tucked away beneath the dual carriageway’s overhang, nevertheless, I spot them from the passenger seat; their caravans circled against the old bill, tax man, planning officers, smoke puffing from chimneys, suspended in the dank atmosphere like tiny grey clouds; some nights the red rag of a bonfire waved, environmental protection limiting us to November 5th. Fridays, they overrun Tesco’s, voices at full volume, laughing in the faces of our dirty looks, their blood line, in fact, pure as British aristocracy. In spring a digger claws at the earth to plant another van, a wedding gift for engaged offspring, or to keep an eye on aging grandparents, no word I think for ‘lonely’ in the Romany lexis. Of course, I realise; only a smattering of literacy, not on the mains, and Victorian attitudes to a woman’s place, yet still grin when they shake their heads at council semis, refusing to be domesticated.
Still (Fiona Sinclair) At the Suleymaniye Mosque’ our eyes widen like camera lens, as the voila view unveils itself; a cinemascope of Istanbul, east and west married by suspension bridges that cross the busy Bosporus, as it meets the sea of Marmara, where boats back up to the horizon like a waiting armada. Suddenly the mosque’s adham rings out, triggering hundreds of others that peal across both banks of the city like human bells. The sound taps on my soul’s shoulder, and tears openly dribble down my face. We embrace like a couple on an anniversary card, and given the choice, I would edit down the rest of my life to live in the still of this moment.
Inshallah (Fiona Sinclair) suffixes some sentences here, its soft consonants and vowels caressing like a zephyr. So, I interpret it as a blessing that sanctions the ducking and weaving that will bring us back next year. Instead I find it translates as a provisional If God Wills; An acceptance that he must rubber stamp such plans, that turns the word sour in my mouth. Because I would rather put my trust in that spiritual junk mail posted on Facebook which offers at least an illusion of free will, or take my chances with fate’s roll of the dice than put my faith again in a God I found to be a partial parent taking against certain children he cannot love-
The Last Hurrah (Fiona Sinclair) Age scored faces and long grey hair, bandeau swathed, gives The Eagles the look of Sioux elders. But their sound still reaches the same sweet spot. Joe Walsh’s virtuoso guitar playing invokes Hendrix, Santayana… I notice you wipe away tears as if in a winter wind, These are the last; we’ll never see the like again. The music scratches your memory too, specifically, the end- less summer of 76 spent on Whitstable beach, crate of beer and mates. Your long, soft hair petted by girlies; top off to get package holiday tan; Jean legs amputated to make shorts. Transistor playing non-stop; Cream, The Who, Deep Purple. We both shrug at today’s bands that are sensible as school prefects, leave hotel rooms as they found them, do not wear motely but beige that serves to camouflage on stage No Freddy Mercury flamboyance or Mick Jagger antics in performance, and music that seems to lament all the best songs have already been taken. Original baby-faced bands reckoned ‘Rock’ would only last ‘a couple of years’. True, some did only manage mayfly careers before Joining the 27 club, but others almost tagged their seventies until that hit man year that took out so many. So, we have streamed up Wembley way, old tour T-shirts straining over paunches, for a chance to see this band, who like clever gamblers knew when to fold their Rock and Roll life style. Now arms around waists, heads on shoulders, we accompany the band: Desperado, Tequila Sunrise, Best of my love, songs that like musical snap shots Jog memories of lost friends, lovers - in this, Rock and Roll’s last hurrah.
Biographical Note: Tak Erzinger
TAK Erzinger is an American/Swiss poet and artist with a Colombian background. Her poetry and personal essays have been featured in Mojave He[art] Review, Cirrus Poetry Review, The Beautiful Space Journal, The Curlew, The Rising Phoenix Review, I-70 Review, The Avocet, The Woolf Magazine and more. Her debut poetry collection entitled, “Found: Between the Trees� (Grey Borders Books 2019) is currently available at http://www.greybordersbooks.jigsy.com/TAK-Erzinger. She lives in a Swiss valley with her husband and cats.
Clothe Me
(TAK Erzinger)
Clothe me, all those lost thingscuckoo eggs left in spring nests, homeless migrating hopes and dreams fish attempting to eat indigestible things Clothe me, all those lost thingslips cracked from silence time crashing in like a storm on a shore disposable hours, disposable things, disposable nature, disposable truths don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me: it has escaped like a bird from a cage, free or hunted but without remorse.
Irreplaceable Code (TAK Erzinger)
Genes aren’t substituted. Sugar is substituted, and its traces linger on wanting lips. Meat is substituted. Hunger substituted by strangers— the satiation of their substitution, and its false sense of fullness, can leave you starved. What is substituted is something being replaced, something needing to be filled, to top off that glass— an action that says there’s no need to be empty. The skin and its landscape chart an area that genes have formed, genes demarcate neither a home nor a guarantee of love— genes are a road map, a link, navigating the distance from where we once began.
Sol
(TAK Erzinger)
Oftentimes the sun freshly awoken hangs as if a ripe fruit, like it’s an orangeor maybe a gold coin unearthed; egg yolk spilt between cracked peaks. It rolls out this morning glowing on the valley, past the emerging hills where I tread by bare trees, recalling matchsticks. Vertebrae aligned with smooth stones, bearing each step, then disappearing in leaves. It’s there, I recognise that I’m alight, am ready to burst, the matured fruit. It’s me who has arisen, deciding to follow the country road, up early, sliding the hill down, illuminating, I find that child dancing across the cackling creek the brightest light: now loved, now free.
Reflection (TAK Erzinger)
What lies we see Based on public image Stories filtered Cropping out sorrow, If we could return to our origins. What makes us human? What if we could access that place together? Unafraid of deeper instincts Embracing our Earth’s call for help, finally living in truth.
What, be? imagine fake happiness forgotten. Conscience, outside ourselves wild, nature healing in peace.
If you fancy submitting something but haven’t done so yet, or if you would like to send us some further examples of your work, here are our submission guidelines: SUBMISSIONS NB – All artwork must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Indecent and/or offensive images will not be published, and anyone found to be in breach of this will be reported to the police. Images must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Please include your name, contact details, and a short biography. You are welcome to include a photograph of yourself – this may be in colour or black and white. We cannot be responsible for the loss of or damage to any material that is sent to us, so please send copies as opposed to originals. Images may be resized in order to fit “On the Wall”. This is purely for practicality. E-mail all submissions to: g.greig3@gmail.com and title your message as follows: (Type of work here) submitted to “A New Ulster” (name of writer/artist here); or for younger contributors: “Letters to the Alley Cats” (name of contributor/parent or guardian here). Letters, reviews and other communications such as Tweets will be published in “Round the Back”. Please note that submissions may be edited. All copyright remains with the original author/artist, and no infringement is intended. These guidelines make sorting through all of our submissions a much simpler task, allowing us to spend more of our time working on getting each new edition out!
MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:
We had to take down the issue twice health issues caused delays and then one of the Alleycats wiped the file typical really. Where does the time fly? It seems like it was only last week when we were busy making the January issue meow!!. Well, that’s just about it from us for this edition everyone. Thanks again to all of the artists who submitted their work to be presented “On the Wall”. As ever, if you didn’t make it into this edition, don’t despair! Chances are that your submission arrived just too late to be included this time. Check out future editions of “A New Ulster” to see your work showcased “On the Wall”.
We continue to provide a platform for poets and artists around the world we want to offer our thanks to the following for their financial support Richard Halperin, John Grady, P.W. Bridgman, Bridie Breen, John Byrne, Arthur Broomfield, Silva Merjanin, Orla McAlinden, Michael Whelan, Sharon Donnell, Damien Smyth, Arthur Harrier, Maire Morrissey Cummins, Alistair Graham, Strider Marcus Jones Our anthologies https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_present_voices_for_peace https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_poetry_anthology_-april
Biographical Note: Gerard Furey
GERARD FUREY was born in Scranton, PA, when everyone there sounded like people from Mayo, Ireland. He was raised in Pittsburgh and had a standard ‘50s - 60’s upbringing (cigarettes at 11, after school and summer work at 13, high school expulsion. Gerard taught high school Literature classes for 40 years.
STUDENT GUIDE TO SEAMUS HEANEY The last student comes forth, finally, and says, “My paper's on St. Kevin and the Blackbird and it’s good because the poet, Heaney, makes a parable within which . . .” and then he reads, slowly, his blurry printout, eyes downcast, in atone as toneless as First Friday rosary. The suffering class senses reprieve will come. Ruffling starts, then shuffles, and with only the last image left to edify, the bell rings. He moves piteously from blackboard outward, stretching arms outward as to contain us, we, the class, the nestlings now abandoning him. * He stomps a foot, “For Christ’s sake! This Kevin’s life comes from an earth only poets imagine; from those ancient days and antiquate ways where older words give our talk new meaning and dreams are realized in intangible lies!” He only wrings silence. Class has dismissed him. The cross of his arms comes down, and he packs up that gallarus mind from where he implored small birds to his sheepish fingers’ shaking. Near dawn, in light rain, on grass behind Mary’s grotto he knelt, hours, to earn Kevin’s place in God’s grace. Failing, he found sense in sharply honest pain.
FAMINE GRAVE NEAR BELMULLET This place was once the only known land when no place was easy to get to. Nothing is easy to understand. When a Baron’s cold and absent hand wrote the Hanging Gale he then called due, this place was once the only known land. Then hunger then fear forced all on hand to wander, to waste, to wait Death’s cue, nothing is easy to understand. Numberless bodies ease the demand of suffering, suffering’s not new. This place was once the only known land where kin are quick rendered into clay; a truth now none can misconstrue. Nothing is easy to understand. Fallen stones still frame this orphaned strand; homes, like these bones, all abandoned too. This place was once the only known land. Nothing is easy to understand.
Harbor Wall at Newcastle - September It was low tide and what water there was, was shirred and nearly still, queerly calm, comforting though not quite the sense of comfort one finds in Mozart or seeks in hot tea. The air itself was clammy. Not muggy, it’s Ireland; redolent of the greengray mudclay mauled by the dredge barge bucket biting up the seafloor before the old seawall; tinged with odor from the crane; not gray heron, but Komatsu diesel crane on shore toting huge stone bales and lowering them to the dredged floor, all to reface the long, old, chiseled seawall slabs, now cracked, losing point and out of kilter. On the footbridge, as far in as the sea can come along the path where the tip of the bight starts its turn toward the riverrun the tide flow starts and down below I see a man down there; he’s manhandling a stone bale, managing it to the bed scrooped by the dredge, and, while waving the barge away, conducts the crane, Bring down more, quick! The tide’s tacking in to test his feet, to tackle him, and he, calm, stoves bales at an upstep angle and, wet now to his knees, he makes the grade and knows next tide he’ll wrap the job. Had Louis MacNåeice only seen, this would become poetic symphony. I know this scene and other dreams rife with meaning can be fleshed full out by craft and tonal symmetry. That is, if I could figure how to use his cuffed corduroys, flannel sleeves; his facing danger; perhaps himself against machine; perhaps himself against the tide, the bales. But my mind’s image is constrained by thought of the granite slabs, the seawall hewn who knows how long ago for holding fast against such tides; fronted now, still out of kilter, yet holding, holding, evermore unseen and holding.