A New Ulster

ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of Vin McCullagh, Mary Lee, Johannes S. H. Berg, Richard Halperin, Poul Lynggaard Damgaar, Sam Murphy, Khaled Chalabi, Todd Mercer, Gerald Duggan, Marie Mac Sweeney and Alisa Velaj,.

Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue 80 May 2019

A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website

Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents

Editorial Vin McCullagh

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Blackpeace Road Compromised Ballinarry Magherinture Irish Kings

Mary Lee 1. Things I Didn’t Know I Loved 2. Matins 3. Leftovers 4. Regard Johannes S. H. Berg; 1. 72 Simile Richard Halperin; 1. Waiting in Malta 2. A Letter, Unwritten, to My Father 3. At the Boulangerie des Invalides Poul Lynggaard Damgaar; 1. The breathe of the pictures 2. My sandal foot 3. Minimal dictation 4. Distance of hope 5. Unseen Truths Arsalan Chalabi trans Khaled Chalabi; 1. Lorca 2. The Last Tango in Kopenhagen 3. Oh, my love 4. A coffins in the sky Todd Mercer; 1. Poison Man Can’t Shake the Chill 2. Where I’m at ‘til Medicare Kicks In 3. Uncovered 4. Evelyn Mulwray, Alkaline

5. Lt. Lou Escobar’s Chinatown Apologia Gerald Duggan; 1. A Fine Mess 2. Dark Clouds 3. Let Them Pay 4. Phones Marie Mac Sweeney; 1. Lost Fields 2. In Townley Woods 3. The Green Door 4. October Oldbridge Alisa Velaj; 1.

Mad Amber On The Wall Message from the Alleycats Round the Back

Sam Murphy; 1. Often Too Loud 2. Can I Buy All Your Oranges Please?

3. Libarian

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 “Sheltered� 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 producing A New Ulster the challenges of bringing coherent thought onto the page so to speak. Its been rough what with medical complications, computer issues we had to buy new components and increased cost of living things just seem to be designed to squeeze us dry.

In saying that though there’s always the means of escaping into other worlds through poetry, prose and art be it photography or painting and drawing. We should always take the time to step away from the hardships of life and indulge in art.

It is important for us to walk through fields of grass, along a beach or under a tree, bring a book, sit and let yourself unwind, take an hour where possible to relax. I’ve been using meditation and the above techniques they can and do help.

Life is challenging for us and let’s be honest school does not prepare us for the shock and hardships of adulthood. Studies have shown that adults need play and music just as much as children do. This issue represents some amazing work I’ve enjoyed reading them and I hope you do just as much as I did.

Amos Greig Editor.

Biographical Note: Vin Mc Cullagh

Vin Mc Cullagh, is a retired mental health nurse. Vin wrote and performed a monologue after he retired. It was about his experiences with manic depression, you can see an excerpt at https://vimeo.com/196294560

Blackpeace Road (Vin Mc Cullagh)

High up on Blackpeace road A ceaseless wind cries through the high bog Irregular rhythms of scythed air Pulsed from lonely hilltops As shadows rotate about the bladed turbines

Lost and alone stands the old National school Silent now, the drone of educational hum, gone, Innocent unlocked laughter echoes In fear of the master’s whims

Soft sounds as the chuckling river Ribbons in from the peaty bog Laughing along relentless to the town lights Where people no longer listen Or hear the sounds of the night

High up on Blackpeace road my soul slips into The wakening dark My breathing mind seeks out the night, crooked sentry trees Protect the way as air ghosts from the gone Haunt the empty lichened cottages along the way

Out here in

unfettered darkness

The inky contours of the nowhere hills Hide an eggy pale moon,birthed slowly From behind still ominous clouds Whole and near it crowns a vast firmament Above, lost beyond infinity ,unknowable

A silence of darkness enshrouds me Standing here amidst the well clothed sheep In this galaxied starry desert of unendingness Absorbing the sound of the stone burbled water High up on Blackpeace road .

COMPROMISED (Vin Mc Cullagh)

Perceptual usualness ,no ,it’s not here Empty faces,emotionally bereft Endless rocking soothes the being

Quickly, a high pitched scream Rips frustrations apart Intensity of cerebral rage

Compromised chromosomally Young inheritors of hopelessness and helplessness Trapped within a raw and intermittent fear

Where escape creeps away in the early dawn As day heralds the hospital noises The return of the living sentence

Wait, in a moment of tranquillity A beautiful child stops nearby me This woman child stricken and hurt

Fleetingly serene and peaceful With breathtakingly beautiful smile She touches my hand with child innocence

Quickly she runs again Crying the pain and hurt once more Of the human who cannot say .

BALLINARRY (Vin Mc Cullagh)

Eastern light mingles with melting dark Swift morning seabirds ripple Placid Swilly waters With tiny touching skimming toes

Cross’ the stretching peppery Stragill strand Where wavy water lines kiss

the dampening sand

From an ancient murmuring peaceful sea That carried the Earls to safer shores

On Ballynarry’s braes among whins and thistles Cobwebbed spider cities glistening in soft dew Intricate patterned, beguiles my mind and I Walk by nights invisible traps on a beauteous morn .

Magherinture (Vin Mc Cullagh)

Invisibly , out of the dark at Magherinture Unrelenting pearly demons of beaded driven Rain crash noisily, clattering across the window Pane ,safety cosies me as I sit by the Turf fire listening to the ire of the night

There is a crossness about the storm Where angry nature’s called this fight Cat’s eyes shine out from the turf-shed Sheep stand quietly sheltering along hedges ,the dog’s eyes say a’m glad to be in out of that

Above the stone ditch and across the lane Flummoxed trees wildly protesting Up in arms branches ,swirling,shaking Maybe arguing about things that Happened last week before this stormy night Now fighting on the catalyst wind

I hear furiously swelled burns racing headlong over jagged and slippery rocks surging,spitting ,froth tongued,galloping endlessly downwards to meet the ominous ponderous swelling river below

IRISH KINGS (Vin Mc Cullagh)

Salty , harsh Atlantic rain

Sheet driven ,relentless

In darkening November skies

Below,the stone fort

Rocky remnants remain

Tumble down abodes

Isolated forgotten

And icy winds whip past As ever

Above rounded stone Grianan stands

In sentry mode

Since Ptolemy’s time a high camp

For Irish kings

Where Norsemen and horsemen

And Englishmen rode , now

Traipsing curious tourists talk Over silent cries of the vanquished .

Biographical Note: Mary Lee

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved (Mary Lee)

after Nazim Hikmet I always knew I loved silent moments when wonder creeps up beside me with a nudge – a cup of coffee – the steam warming my face like the scent of a lavender candle.

I always knew I hated qualms clanging in the background that rob me of the luxury to exhale; flimsy deceptions of resistance, habits of distraction when I care too much what others countenance me to be.

I always knew I loved tiny theophanies: hues in eyes, transformative smiles; the sound of rain on window panes; bare trees; a warm bedspread; the wonder of hot water on leaves and ground beans; the smell of baking bread.

I always thought I wouldn’t like wine until my initiation. I always knew I didn’t like jostling crowds, embodied smells and loud bells during gathered worship until I realised these are harbingers

of transcendence to alert attention’s dimness.

Words can only hint at my heart’s dance when I yield to immersion in grace’s grandeur – everything I always knew and didn’t know, dissolves in the beauty hidden in a moment’s variety.

Matins (Mary Lee)

This too is prayer: bare branches allowing the sun to stream lighthouse beams; the woodpecker on her oak tree; swans and four cygnets; stillness; first stirrings: a snail, reaches the grass verge; robins from branch to branch; fog over rolling hills; lanes shimmer; fragrance of rain; beads on wire fencing; the embrace of air; blue meadows of morning sky; waves warmed in ochre orange.

Buttery blooms on agile stems gush exuberance. I imbibe nature’s matins, daily in my paradise.

Leftovers (Mary Lee) On my table steaming soup: a bowl of truth from minced meat, vegetables, purēes.

The world of commerce requires me to believe this is just soup, commodity to be consumed.

I know farmers who grow and harvest produce – the sacrifice my nourishment signifies. I am indebted to them.

Unjustly treated garners of kidney beans and corn visit my conscience when I look into a saucer of this salad.

My hunch is my lunch shares in the structures that keep others hungry – workers whose children can’t afford a meal today, keep their pangs to themselves. In this moment of full and plenty, nourished by leftovers, I savour all life, from soup to succour with gratitude.

Regard (Mary Lee) So then assemble me – tell me your favourite memories of our sojourn. Build from fragments maps that guide us forward to each other.

What new outlooks will we summon?

What collages will we create of the way it could have been, had our love known its depth; had we had courage to push the frontiers of honesty?

Let us assemble each other; hear compassion’s call with tenderness, savour tastes of tolerance, welcome discord with regard. Convert crises to contriteness; strike our own note; release even respectable self-agendas; tether escapist tendencies; be buoyed by each other’s abundance; thrive in the garden of kindness.

Biographical Note: Johannes S. H. Bjerg

Johannes S. H. Bjerg: Danish writer and artist who writes in Danish and English simultaneously and mainly haiku and haiku related forms. 1 of 3 of the editors of Bones - “Journal for contemporary haiku” (http://www.bonesjournal.com), and sole editor of “the other bunny - for the other kind of haibun” (http://theotherbunny.wordpress.com) and “One Link Chain” - a blog for solo linked verse and haiku sequences (http://onelinkchain.blogspot.dk/) Has published several books: http://megaga.dk/?page_id=530

Recent releases:

“your shadow of birds – 22 haiku sequences and their aftersounds / din skygge af fugle – 222 haiky sekvenser og deres efterlyde”, Otata Library (www.otata.wordpress.com) 2019

19 Gestures and Their Corresponding Words - Timglaset / Timglaset.com (limited edition; pdf version on www.timglaset.com)), 2018 6 Palimpsests / 6 palimpsester (ebook) 2018 Litanies / Litanier (ebook) 2017 Apple / Æble - a poem / et digt, ebook 2018, Amazon 2019 The Ear / Øret - a poem / et digt -Amazon 2019 and ebook 2018

72 Simile (Johannes S. H. Bjerg)

like the core of an apple floating in zero gravity and someone says: Morning

like the arm that cannot reach what you desire: the beach, world peace, Mount Meru, the offswitch on the mechanised kangaroo

like the table filling itself with things and papers that’ll help you remember that you’re not stranded in a storm in Antarctica

like a door in the middle of the room with nothing behind it and a jar of eyes

like a rubber band that never worked as a substitute for a guitar string

like the tiny screw that probably fell off some electronic gadget hibernating in your shoe

like trying to find another word for cucumber because it’s such a wrong sound

like the shadow on your table that calls you Amundsen for no apparent reason

*

like a hollow screaming for fullness and a spoonful of strawberry jam

like a needle hanging just above your iris in a thread of light waiting for darkness

like the birds on the wires running through you Pieta-gland you’re a handless glove

like your repeated falling (naturally) with the rain of January and the lockless key in your hand

like a puddle just deep enough to hold the moon, a crushed beer can and a twig

like the spirit animal you never found but the other that digs out planetary systems from an ear

like a single note (D) echoing in a thimble full of whales and crumbling cities

like the cross-eyed archer you are shooting your arrows at The Pear of Doom

*

like the hand that shakes your eyes for rain

like the vague figure with a presence of a hovering rock of light

like your absentminded walking in crosses and horses

like when you refrain from commenting on the fly on the hero’s bald head

like something-something swaying and cutting something-something: sulk!

like the dizziness when another’s horizon goes through you

like a glass holding its own perpetual vortex

like the wing you lost in a dream about cardboard humans

*

like when you believed the stories Castaneda spun in his brain cocoon

like Victoria’s requiem while the rain falls and falls and falls

like you were someone else that did this to you: spoke without expecting an answer

like the stairs in your knee leading to a hall of tongues and tremors

like a mercury butterfly patiently waiting for its needle

like the stale chocolate passed down from your ancestral oak

like when space takes over your mouth and your chair becomes empty

like the offence you can make yourself feel attacked by pollen

*

like a thorn in the word elbow you set out to sea

like a leaf in the wind the leaf in the wind

like you wanted to say something but an apple got in the way

like the silence after your argument with the mirror

like a parrot machine your left knee insists on turning towards Betelgeuse

like the dismantling of the Put One Thing on Top of Another Thing Society and coins under table legs

like the wishing well in Pandora’s eyes

like the simile that never made you think of swallows

*

like life was a party where everyone got drunk too fast

like the allegory that scratched your corneas during an untimely moth storm

like looking out on the ocean is a second head spinning on a stick

like F. was a pianist growing Hasidic dreadlocks to get a sharper F#

like the creaking doors in your house when you’re out

like the tiny shark in your shadow is an entrance to a bigger volcano

like the Evening Land’s Evening Land that cannot hide from itself

like when the years of pilgrimage ended up in turning a chickpea this way and that way

*

like not being able to remember a dream you cannot wake up from

like the scarecrow you once new when he was a rake

like living inside a bubble in a fish’s ear full of the consonants of waves

like when during a migraine you can hear the clouds scratch against the sky

like the elderly men who say that in reality there is no reality and pay their bills

like the elderly men who say reality don’t exist to any fly that’ll listen

like when your artistic source dries up and you begin to knit pets from barbed wire

like the needle in your eye becomes a gate for camels

*

like in poetry where everything is like something else like a penguin chainsaw

like squeezing a tear and calling it The Tree of Beginning

like not being able to swim across the calendar of pauses

like losing yourself in swans

like coming out of the earth amongst silent crocuses dreamless

like when having cold feet just means you’ll have to put on socks

like being envious of a blackbird and its direct connection with St. Francis

like acknowledging the train in you and write your own tickets

*

like stretching your skin to catch the light from Betelgeuse

like not being a radio yet full of songs you don’t know

like when you really want to be but you slip through your own cracks

like coming out saying: “I really don’t fancy Bob Dylan” yet you buy a yo-yo without string

like when the Germanic wars play out in your knee at knight and you’ve forgotten your Latin

like when you realise that the Aurora is just another attempt of trying to get your attention

like the word “skin hunger” cannot cover the slice of prosciutto nailed to table

like letting the night in because your lamps need something to do

..

Biographical Note: Richard Halperin Richard W. Halperin holds Irish-U.S. dual nationality and lives in Paris.

His collections are published by Salmon and by Lapwing. His work is part of the University College Dublin's Irish Poetry Reading Collection Archive. These two ANU poems are from a short collection-in-progress entitled All That Russia.

Waiting in Malta

Acts 28: 1-10

It was a nice visit. I forget How many days. We accomplished Some good things. Our hosts were Good to us. Then we left, sailed off.

Did they know what we were about, Really? Did we know what they Were about, really? I think not.

The warm feeling of it remains To this day. Of all I have written About our travels, the little Malta piece Remains my favourite: the lovely Incomprehension of something Entirely pleasant. I have a feeling, Sometimes, that such experiences May outlast the universe.

(Richard Halperin)

A Letter, Unwritten, to My Father

A letter, unwritten, to my father.

I am often in the middle of one.

I do not remember how I began it.

I’ve no idea how I’ll end it.

I am not very old in the middle of the letter.

And I am too shy to write much.

I shall make the middle Brahms.

My discovery tonight of the Intermezzo in E flat major.

He loves Brahms and may not know this Intermezzo.

He could use the solace of it Although I dare not use the word solace Or he will know I know.

He will be happy for me That I like Brahms.

Except for the worst, Brahms is always there.

It is easier to be in the middle Of a letter to one’s father Than near the end.

And how to begin it Is always awkward.

(Richard Halperin)

At the Boulangerie des Invalides

The psyche is infinite, Which gives one hope.

I have just reread ‘Byzantium.’

I never understand it

And I always understand it.

A poet sometimes sees

Where in the kaleidoscope His chip is. Or hers.

Or every star Which exists in the blood.

As I write – outdoors – Pigeons descend to attack

And devour every crumb Left by a customer.

Very Tennessee Williams.

Thank God for him.

I hold my notebook In my hand.

A hand is as odd As a notebook.

(Richard Halperin)

Biographical Note: Poul Lynggaard Damgaard

Poul Lynggaard is a Danish poet, author living in Aarhus, Denmark and since 2012 has been connected to the Aarhus Centre for Literature, Denmark and Hald Hovedgaard, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators. Poul has had experience for several years with residency writing. he is a member of the Danish Author´s Society.

In 2018 he took part in the international event ”LiteratureXchange”in their hometown Aarhus, symposium," Ny lyrik fra Bosnien-Hercegovina" Poul has been invited and took part in the International Poetry Festival ” Ditët e Naimit”, Edition XXI, 2017, Tetovë, Macedonia. The director of the Festival: Shaip Emërllahu. Some of their poems were translated into Albanian in the festival anthology ” Vallëzim Refugjati”.

Poul also took part in ” Orpheus”, 2018 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, invited by project manager Elka Dimitrova and coordinator Anton Baev. International Festival of Poetry of Orpheus, Plovdiv, Edition I, 2018, where some of his poems were published in the festival antology, and he wrote an article for the festival and received a prize " The Lyre of Orpheus" for the poem ” Dear City”.

His poems are printed in several Scandinavian antologies and Danish poetry collections ( 4 books) His poems are also translated to other languages as Catalan, Slovenian and Bosnian for publication in antologies.

Poul Lynggaard Damgaard, 6 poems

Photo: Lars Gundersen Dear city I want to tell about the gap between houses and the way the windows are beyond everything.

Do you know anything about that? Do you know the way neighbourhoods have been pulled on a string through your consciousness, and the groups of people emerge on the fringe of an area? I am not sure you do. Sometimes the zip of your coat is a downhill highway and you turn your back, you throw your coat off, jump into the water and swim away. The shining of your long wet hair is the light of the night´s illuminated space. On the corner of the main road where the neglected house without windows used to be, a booth has been placed, where the gaps and the building´s memories are being sold to visitors. Was it really your unknown brother, or was it just you, I looked into the eyes right there?

Best regards a house

The breath of the pictures The walking opposite the bridge in my view.

I finish my incidents. Now the clock has started to remind the river about the stagnation of the walking.

The water pushes on to be a moment right now.

The storm is my mystery.

Everything is important.

The animals´ contact.

A blackbird stands just in front of me without singing. The knee´s writing before the river, where the statue is lying down.

Over the antique theater flies a drone in the observation of the rows of seats.

My sandal foot Deep inside the jungle an operation is improving the insight. I'm reading that on a poster turned up in an oak tree.

The plant has left the flower jar, my foot pushes to.

Cigarette butts fall out and I sense the smoke like annihilated light. Every single small piece like broken glass I will not step on. Balloons pushed aside in a concert that stays on. Unsafe condition for the road users in the darkness of the plaza. It's my little part of the world which expands electrically. I thought for a moment, that the bridge would be shorter if I continued to avoid it. The fever has left you far out in the landscape where I thought I could not recognize you.

Four bathers leaving an open jeep on a narrow path in the woods.

They read up engraved names in a tree for each other.

You return in a dotted line in 39 degrees of an understanding.

Climbing plants by a river, where even words grow wild in a sentence.

You are talking about the three rivers of your city. You are a significant impression.

Minimal dictation A can opener removes the lid to logic. That´s enough for now.

A wall´s removed windows.

My secret look towards the city´s edge circulates as interruptiveness in an abandonded park.

I would like to talk about my absence as a diverse forest where there are, after all, birch trees.

I get a sunset thrown at the back of my head.

You may call me nature.

Distance of hope Always far apart, the voices are out of town.

An island before I wake up like a stretch. A drop is falling down. A blind color in a lightning.

The deputy of the storm. Leaves of the flower there rises to the neck to fall against the knee.

My cry without summer is not wine

Unseen truths I look like myself in a letter. A location is changing identity.

You slide past my window along a coastline.

A heart faraway and the birds shadow for the thought.

The houses of the sunset embrace each other.

My street's gate in infinite answer.

It's in the middle of the wall, that I find an opening to the seasons.

Biographical Note: Arsalan Chalabi trans Khaled Chalabi Khaled Chalabi is from Kurdistan of Iran. They are a Kurdish translator and translate and publish some poems from Kurdish to English. They have translated 4 famous poems from Kurdish to English.

4 Poems by Arsalan Chalabi Translator From Kurdish to English: Khaled Chalabi 3/28/2019

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LORCA At 5 in the morning Lorca Smiles in the hug of sunrise At 5 in the morning Lorca heals the wound of stars.

At 5 in the morning Lorca sings for fog At 5 in the morning Lorca reads poems for all the birds.

At 5 in the morning At 5 At……!

Lorca is daily magazine Every day At 5 in the morning is published on the skin of sunrise, stars hair, foggy spirit and the eyes of the birds!

*Federico Garcia Lorca, the famous Spanish writer and was born in 1898 and was killed in 1936*

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THE LAST TANGO IN KOPENHAGEN The mass of butterflies die in public toilet The flight of birds dance in cemeteries The dogs are getting in love in the subway You and I standing in front of police office, talking about the hot ass of trump’s daughter!

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Oh, my love Give me your hand Let’s sing for devil in public toilet let’s Dance with the fumes of the factories and call God in train station that the America has wiped out the dance of wheat flowers, has burst stars, hanged the forest and the light, raped the Snow and crucified the rain!

Oh, my love Let’s go to post office because the America is in bughouse and his letters can’t reach his mother!

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A coffins in the sky We were born with native language We cried with native language We smiled with native language We were Toddling with native language We have been growing up with native language!

We have being slaughtered because of native language We have being executed because of native language We have being prisoned because of native language We were displaced because of native language!

Now my mother is bloody dove in Middle East Has no sky to fly no land to make nesting!

Now my mother neither cry nor smile, her eyes are two winged coffins buried between the sky and the earth!

Biographical Note: Todd Mercer Todd Mercer of Grand Rapids, Michigan was nominated for Best of the Net by in 2018. Mercer won 1st, 2nd & 3rd place of the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. Recent work appears in: The Lake, The Magnolia Review, Praxis and Softblow.

Poison Man Can’t Shake the Chill [from the Lago Centrál Cycle] The corn’s maturing late if at all at the end of the summer of no summer.

No one can talk weather longer than a clutch of older farmers whose furnaces kick on nights in July.

Cherries weigh down secondary branches, but the red is slow in coming. Anxious harvest crews stand ready to bring the fruit in, they idle around Lago Centrál.

Ole Poison Man must have a personal pipeline from the tree-spray manufacturer. Bugs be gone and birds away, little else to do but roll the rows, on the tractor in unseasonable cold, fog above his sprayer tank like a cartoon’s speech balloon.

The sun seems semi-retired. Who knows if it plans to do more than go through the motions next summer.

Every crop’s behind, the natives restless.

(Todd Mercer)

Where I’m at ‘Til Medicare Kicks In I don’t care whatsoever if you would like fries with that, but I’m obligated to ask those who order through that crackling speaker and pull up to the window of time where my life is at rock-bottom and I’m sixty in a drive-thru gig.

I am sixty taking orders from children and customers who are always right, kow-towing to Kevin, who is twenty-three and has a couple C.C. classes already knocked off. He’s our manager.

I accept it, don’t like it much in my secret heart of hearts.

Take the fries, pass on the fries.

Even Kevin can’t care deeply.

The request is an up-sell technique.

Marketing experts know about the guests who arrive planning just a burger, or a burger and a soft drink. They have me ask because of wide-spread weakness out there for more fat, more salt. Invites to gluttony from a disembodied voice. Friendly-Gramps tones from a safe distance convince most to cave.

Would go ahead and do what you would truly like to do? Either way is no skin off of me.

(Todd Mercer)

Uncovered I’m not covered under Blue Cross / Blue Shield, Humana for Humans or any other major medical that’s real and Permanente. I like it here, on Earth, but wasn’t aiming for a way to live forever.

Note to those who have faith that their insurance can save them from disappearing like the rest of us: best of luck with those efforts, my fellow mortal friends. I don’t merit office visit co-pays, Medicare or Medicaid.

No I didn’t make an appointment with my Primary. What exactly IS a Primary? The lingo. There will not be follow-up or maintenance from medicos. No general physical.

Others ask Doc for prescriptions, whereas whatever I’ve taken fell off the back of a truck, if anyone’s asking. Glad to have a shot at living nearly long as the insured do, without help from Allied Health, without a boost from the Good Hands folks.

(Todd Mercer)

Evelyn Mulwray, Alkaline

Drives South, as if Mexico lacked extradition.

Saline water’s in the fish pond.

If the devil’s real he’ll have little legal trouble from drowning the Water Man there.

Widow knows to flee the country.

Old Salt’s girl streaks.

(Todd Mercer)

Lt. Lou Escobar, Chinatown Apologia

We enforce the law, when wise.

The police don’t make the rules.

We don’t write the lists of who gets passes, skates free and who has the hammer fall hard.

Why fight the world’s ways?

You’re in to your neck, or out in the high weeds, blind to what’s real. Grow up. Forget the civics class crap. That’s that.

(Todd Mercer)

Biographical Note: Gerald Duggan

A Fine Mess

The lights are on but no one’s home at the office on the hill, but the people who don’t work there are getting paid still. We need to pay them for their experience on how to bring things down. To keep the fear of the other side winning so well keep them around. So, they can tell us nothing of what’s going on and keep us in the dark, just feeding us bits and pieces about their secret talks.

So, they tell us they can’t tell us what’s been going on, it would jeopardise what they’ve been trying to achieve for us for so long. I still often wonder how when they speak they don’t laugh when the tell us they can’t tell us because it’s all for our behalf.

They are doing this because of all that’s come and been and it’s for all who they represent not just orange and green. This is for everyone whether we let them marry or not, they should be thankful we give our time to this and that we are all they’ve got. LGBT to MINORITY each will be treated the same way but don’t go against us because we have the final say.

There’s always a silver lining for us and we call it DIRECT RULE, that’s simply being told no ones listening by a different type of fool. I’m trying to be positive and not sound sinister but what good has ever come to us from the rightest WESTMINISTER. Were still waiting for the money we got to help us stay afloat, but it seems they’ve removed the life jackets as we struggle to stay afloat.

So, it doesn’t matter that the NHS is in crisis and the EDUCATION systems failed because the MPs and MLAs for doing nothing still get paid. But we can’t put all the blame on them because they don’t care.

BECAUSE THEY KNOW WELL VOTE THE SAME AGAIN AND KEEP THEM ALL UP THERE.

G, DUGGAN

Dark Clouds

So, the dark clouds are gathering now, and I know we will get through this But I just don’t know how, and the dark clouds are gathering now.

And we have all got our places to fill, most at the bottom looking up at the hill.

Wondering if the people in power way up there, have our interests at heart, And believing they still care, and the dark clouds are gathering now.

They say they want to leave no-one behind, and that you will find your place If you just toe the line. They say the dreams their dreaming can be yours and mine, Just keeps us up here happy because it’s going to take time.

But the dark clouds are gathering now.

So, the man at the top has told me to tell, the man at the bottom that things aren’t going well.

And the man at the bottom should make do with less, so the man at the top can still have the best.

And they are only doing it in our best interests; it must be done to get out of this mess.

And the dark clouds are gathering now.

This can’t be right I heard someone say, just then they came and took them away.

In case the words they were speaking might have any sway, and the people would think that they owned the day, where did they take them will that’s all hearsay.

We gave them the power so it’s our price to pay, and the dark clouds are gathering now.

Now I know that this darkness can’t last, we’ll have hope for the future by the lessons of the past.

If you picture the light you can still see it still.

And I know you may think it only shines on the hill, but that could all be part of god’s will.

When the winds of change come and we feel a new flow, the ones on the hill and the clouds will all go.

What’s left behind is the futures were owed, not one that from them we all have barrowed.

But a future that everyone as equals has a say and the ones on the hill cannot take away.

GERALD DUGGAN.

Let Them Pay The only light the youth of today must look forward to, Is from there phones onto their faces.

No future in their own land any more so they leave for other nations.

They will leave these shores to get away from the Brexit and coloured labels, To get a better chance at eating from a fuller feasting table.

To leave behind the cries for the union, Irish language and a future they have lost, That’s being pushed upon them with no thought given for the cost.

Decisions being made for them by people who don’t share their needs, Who’ll push ahead with their views to fill their lust for greed.

Who say they care for everyone and all must have their say, But your voice will only be listened to if it means they get their way.

So, for the sake of keeping Britain Great they’ll just let all the nurses leave, They’ll open up more food banks because that’s exactly what we need.

Cut funding in vital services such as Mental Health and care, And tell us its needed somewhere else but it was never there.

Put more pressure on our schools and put the teachers under strain, And when they can take no more and strike say the unions are to blame.

Then charge the parents to make up the difference for their children’s education, So, once they finish school, they can get a job in another nation.

All this so we can say we made our own decisions and Govan or own land,

No more will we be told what to do or pay by a foreign hand.

All will be equal in Wales, Scotland and England too, BUT if you live in Northern Ireland this doesn’t apply to YOU.

GERALD DUGGAN

Phones

Lets all go out together, and sit together but alone, Because nobody is speaking but just staring at their phones No time for idle chit chat, conversation or just a look, The only way to reach each other across the table is Facebook.

Just pings and message alerts are the only sounds you’ll hear, Or the click from a photo for posting so more likes will appear.

All heads down with lite up faces are the only things you’ll see, Then popping up for another photo on the count of three.

Then the food comes out just in time because someone nearly spoke, But someone’s quick and gets another pic before the silences is broke.

That’s a good one says someone can you share that pic with me, So, I can put it on my timeline so all the world can see.

Now dinners over its time to relax with some YouTube videos of cats, Then the embarrassing moment when someone’s called out by the phrase of WHAT PHONES THAT. Then your all told to be quite because someone’s got a call to take, And we must sit there quite as their voice becomes more fake.

So were all sitting but not listening and trying not to breath, But why doesn’t the person taking the call say excuse me and the table leave.

So, we can get back to or phones and not listen while not speaking, And check what we checked to seconds ago in case there’s something I might be missing, And then you have the bit I love, and I find so funny,

Everyone wants to pay with their phones because they don’t have any money.

So, it takes another fifteen minutes to do transfers from phone to phone, And then we leave a thankyou for tonight and ill call you when we get home.

GERALD DUGGAN

Brexit

Don’t worry about this Brexit thing, it all will be ok.

How could it not look who’s in charge the Tories and Tereasa May. They know exactly what they’re doing, they knew this from the start Of course, they knew how the vote would go and pull the country apart.

They’ll make sure the Brexit is soft you just wait and see And if anything is wrong with it, they’ll be told by the DUP.

Europe is not for us, they won’t save the NHS, Let us make our own mistakes for we can do that best.

Let us decide where to put the Irish border, on land or in the sea, So, one side still thinks their important to the union and the other will think their free.

We just need to get out of it with promises we can’t keep Tell the farmers there will be plenty of money for their cows, pigs and sheep.

Tell business owners we’ve got their backs and interests at heart They’ll reap the rewards of jumping in blind; it will be like a fresh start.

So, the winds of change are coming and that’s nothing they say to be feared Do they mean that the ones that started this by the end will have disappeared?

Will LADOUR lead us towards the light away from all the pain?

Or is the light at the end of the tunnel an approaching European train.

Let’s not be all down hearted and maybe sinister, Let’s have some faith in our leaders doing all they can in WESTMINISTER. The vote was cast and that was to leave and that is at all cost The vote wasn’t about what we might gain but about what we have lost.

At the end we will have a parliament that will make its own decisions, If they ask Nigel Dodd and the DUP for their permission.

It’s all going to be fun and games before it reaches the end, BUT THE ONE THING WE ALL WANT IS FOR US AND EUROPE TO STILL BE FRIENDS.

Gerald Duggan

Because You

Because you’re not supposed to is the reason, so it was, That I decided to start this poem with the word because.

And I know there’s people out there who’ll say that’s just not what one does, But if you ask why this is they just say well because.

They’ll say that’s this is the way it is because that’s how it always was, Because this is the way it’s always been done and can’t be changed by pressing pause Because it’s always been this way form days that are now bygone, Because if you start a sentence with because then that sentence is started wrong.

But because I don’t conform to this because it’s not my form, Because I don’t usually stand in line and follow with the norm.

Because I decide on how I speak and say it in my own way Because nobody corrects you now a days like you’re in a shakesphere play.

Because I decide on how I start my sentences because this is my own choice, BECAUSE THIS IS HOW I COME ACROSS THROUGH MY WORDS AND through MY VOICE.

GERALD DUGGAN.

Biographical Note: Marie Mac Sweeney

Marie MacSweeney has been in love with words from an early age but came relatively late to submitting and publishing. She writes poetry and short stories and has contributed to the historical journals of counties Meath and Kerry. She had two radio plays produced by R.T.E. Published in several anthologies, she is a winner of many awards including the Francis MacManus Short Story for Radio Award, Bookwise Award, the Phizzfest Poetry Award, Kells Poetry Award and the David Burland Award. Also published in numerous poetry publications throughout Ireland, including Boyne Berries, The Stony Thursday Book, STET and Fortnight and shortlisted and placed or commended in competitions such as Over the Edge, Listowel Writer’s Week, Goldsmith, Edgeworth, Golden Pen and Bailieborough.

She won the Books Ireland Short Story Award for 2017, and was published in the New Irish Writing Poetry section of the Irish Times during 2018. Published also in Irish Short Stories (Ed. David Marcus), ‘Here’s me Bus’ (New York) and The Sunday Tribune. She had two poetry chapbooks published by Lapwing, Belfast and also featured on Sunday Miscellany on numerous occasions.

Lost Fields

An árd réimse, réimse Molly, (1) potato field; folly of that poorly drained flat field, and other

grassy shapes offering no neat tag but only humps and hollows and countless gaps

in hedges where cattle crush through, agus na réimsi lom eile, (2) clustered in the crinkles

and creases of the hills.

And we made a litany of how we tuned the land

and played it, punctuating each plea with notes urged into the soil until it settled, until

our sons needed to defend it, until our grandsons had it torn from them.

Agus sin é díreach mar a bhi sé, (3) and ourselves today, no longer “farmers of ye soil” (4) where the planted forests swell. _______________

(1) (2) (3) (4)

The High field, Molly’s field and the other bare fields And that is exactly as it was quoted in Marc Caball’s “Kerry 1600 – 1730”, the emergence of a British Atlantic county’, Chapter 7, ‘Law & disorder in early 18th century Kerry’

In Townley Woods

Snow scurrying among trees blistering the skin of the sky,

each speck stroking my face felt kiss-wet when the melt came,

stream too swift to notice so trivial an arrangement of water,

pine leaves impassive, shed cones safe with my gathered firewood before the snow fell,

the height of it, the length and breath of it

nothing other

than a revelation a mile away from my kitchen table until William’s soldiers came thumping

through the valley so that I had to lie low here or die‌ _____

The Green Door

No matter how high the black knocker on the green door

it produces a thud which rumbles through the house of the man

who once lived here by riverside gardens, with fuchsia and lavender,

all manner of roses scenting the air where he strolled with his wife

until time poured in to the hallway and drawing room, the elegant bedrooms,

to the maple floor where they danced with their friends, as history sighed

in the streets of the town,

sobbed in its cold, dark lanes, seeped into stones,

misery exploding in mayhem and grief while hubris

lingered still behind the green door.

I see that smoke drifts from the chimneys today.

Someone is setting new fires, is blissfully fanning the flames.

October Oldbridge

Oldbridge, abscission, autumn leaves and ready apples, crunchy walkways between mowed grasses, river to the north, southwards that crumpled ridge and all horses crazily astray but we know they were here, and the scattered men as memories and the dead men ghosts.

Air is heavy, a storm brewing that is ours alone, thunder beyond the claims of history, and lightening so we plainly see how much has been pinched through the idiom of ideology, and that we might yet try something out

in real words, see what fits today. _________

Š Marie MacSweeney, Drogheda.

Biographical Note: Alisa Velaj

Alisa Velaj’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and magazines, including . Poetry Space Showcase, The Curlew, The Seventh Quarry, The Poetry Village, The Stockholm Review of Literature etc etc She has been shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. Velaj’s poetry book “With No Sweat At All” (trans by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj) will be published by Cervena Barva Press in 2019.

MAD AMBER Mad people are usually needed in sunny days.

- Listen, Amber commands me. When dusk starts to set in, take a string of pearly beads and leave them in the garden. Throw upon them a kerchief and put some pebbles around as a mark off. At the earliest shine of moonlight, start singing like a cricket. This way, his soul will enter inside you, the pebbles will fly away, and the beads will remain uncovered under the moonlight. As if from underground, he will pop up in your front, pick up the beads, and hang them around your neck. Finally, you will be dancing under moonlight.

- Amber, you must have been watching me, I tell her. You know that, when he brought me the beads that night, we danced under moonlight. You must have been watching me, Amber.

She breaks into tears. Minutes pass and she is still crying.

- I don't remember watching you, she starts her confession. I don't remember. Noooooo...

- Worse even, dear cousin, you stole my beads when you came with your mother to congratulate me on getting engaged. In the baptizing ceremony of little Noah, you were wearing my beads.

Amber won't stop sobbing.

- I was given the beads by your fiancĂŠ, she says. Your lover, to be more exact. For you claimed you got engaged, but I never saw him visit your home. He has dumped you. He has, because he loves me. That's why he gifted me beads like yours. As I love you more than him, I wanted to cast on you both a good spell and see you together as a couple. I used the beads for the spell, so that he'd come back to you.

- Ooooooooh, oooh, growls Amber. You, ugly face, who don't care about him, but about his gifts. You, lowly woman, who never speaks of love, but only of precious jewelry. Oooooh...

I let her cry and turn around to take a walk by the seaside.

- Farewell, Mario! Farewell! Farewell, o you mad man! I hear Amber screaming behind my back, calling me by my fiancĂŠ's name.

INSANITY Perhaps, this is one more insanity that will come to be forgotten. These nights, on the shore of the glacial pond, the silhouette of a man appears in my dreams.

The snow is so amazing, so dreamy are the mountains that I cannot realize why this silhouette should even occur. The man first displays his smile, then his head and body. Suddenly, his body turns foggy, while the head and his meaningless smile remain pending in the air.

I want this foggy-framed man to leave me and never return. Same as there is no return for a traveler's footprints on snow, once the next snowflake rules in...

(Alisa Velaj)

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May 2019’s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

May has been a difficult month but we have somehow managed to make it through I’m afraid there has been some delays due to Amos’ asthma the doctor has had to change his medication.

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: Sam Murphy

Sam Murphy is the Poetry Editor for Dublin based website HeadStuff.org.

He is based in Birmingham and graduated from the University of Birmingham with a BA and MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing. He is currently working towards a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey. His poems have been published in Ink Sweat and Tears, Trashed Organ, Mutability Lit and was commended in the Verve Poetry Festival competition 2018. He writes about podcasts at haphazardreview.com, tweets infrequently @Sam_Murphy00.

A New Ulster Submission Often Too Loud Car horns circled the round-a-bout as if they were loud enough that the top floor of the high-rise could hear them. The tenants bewildering look from inside the living room never went away like the early morning surprise of a gift or a handshake. My friend would never use his phone on Tuesdays because his credit would have run out and he wanted to buy a burger with a voucher on the back of his bus ticket. Let the situation develop over a few years and the let signs on row upon row of houses were pulled down and loaded onto a loud 4x4, all stacked in the back seat. The image of the drivers bewildering face never left my friend, it imprinted on his mind which was a surprise as he only saw him once. He lost his phone down the canal sleeping next to a discarded burger van with the words ‘Birmingham’s tastiest, monumental Burger 2018’ scrawled in hipster font over the side. He let his annoyance at the font pass, only to see the loud colours of the canal paraphernalia: brick, crisp packets and the bewildering eyes of geese, chuckling to each other. He always left that place with surprise that they were not put off by his presence. The phone booth next to him didn’t get any dirtier or greyer each time he went back to the spot. The phone cord had been cut for years. He kind of fancied a burger but let that pass, after three days of eating only them. Instead he went to a café called Let down the road where the owner wore a loud sheepskin trench coat like Del Boy, it was a bewildering sight for his customers who would tip out of surprise, at the cheap prices of coffee, tea and their speciality ‘A Surprise Meringue Pie.’ No one knew what the surprise was. It was described, over the phone, to me by a critic as the best pie since he ate a burger from a van in Birmingham. He had forgotten the name of the van. My friend would let my other friend stay on his couch for a couple of days but his loud snoring left them all, to be honest, in a bewildering state. What they described to each other over breakfast was a particular bewildering sight. A grown man snoring like his breathing was a surprise to himself. It would wake him up in his sleep like a phone call in the middle of the night from an angry burger

van owner who had had his business closed down when the environment agency had let
 his hygiene rating be downgraded to an endless drown of humming that was too loud.

Can I Buy All Your Oranges Please?

We ate everything, pips and all. We knelt by the fire like in prayer, licking our fingers for every last taste of orange. I’d never forget that day. That day repeats in my mind like a slideshow carrousel. My memory can flicker and fade now like an old VHS but most of the time it’s clean and clear.

My sister found three oranges that day. We hadn’t seen or tasted an orange in months. The very feel of them on my finger tips was enough to imagine the citrus on my tongue. I never really liked oranges but I would have killed for them back then. Maybe my sister did but I never asked. We didn’t even peel them. We sunk our teeth into every part of the fruit like wild dogs on a turkey leg.

It was years before I could ask questions again. Even asking what the time was, or sitting in a restaurant and asking for their wine list gave me a weird kind of euphoria. It took even longer for questions to reappear in my house. The removal of questions helped us though. Helped the country. Helped me. The curve and accusation of the question mark needed to be taken care of. We are better now since we had a pause on questions.

Every morning I open the fridge and all that is there are row after row of oranges. I hoard them. A day rarely goes by when I don’t eat three or four. Every day I go to a different grocery store and ask one question: can I buy all your oranges please?

Librarian I found an old pack of cigarettes in the desk draw. Three were left. I lit one with a burning torn page from an atlas. The smoke rose to the ceiling of the room, dissipating in the corner. I coughed from years of being a non-smoker. I thought these must have belonged to the librarian before he left. I imagined him holding his cigarette in one hand and stamping book after book in the other. Even after all this time I had that feeling that it was wrong to smoke indoors. The storm had started several years ago but those engrained rules never go away. Maybe smoking indoors is one of them. I dropped the cigarette on the floor and stamped it out.

I’ve been trapped in the library for days. I’ve burnt most of the books. I used the desks, and bookcases as kindling. I pushed over the large bookcase to block the perspex front door. The roamers were out looting again. It looked liked an art installation I saw once. When I first came here I just sat in the children’s section for hours. I stared at the dusty books and wondered who was the last person to borrow a book before the storm. Last week, I got lucky, I found a full vending machine. Since then I’ve lived off skittles, and Wotsits. I’ll move on when they are all eaten. I’ll keep the last two cigarettes for later. For now, I’ll memorise every capital city’s name from the atlas.