FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF Ledia Dushi, Terry Brinkman, DJ Tyrer, Berni Dwan, Michelle Mangan, John Doyle, Andrew Houlihan, Iulia Enkelana and Mark Kavanagh. EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.
A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 100 February 2021
UPATREE PRESS A New Ulster
Copyright Š 2021 A New Ulster – All Rights Reserved.
The artists featured in this publication 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) Edited by Amos Greig Cover Design by Amos Greig Prepared for Publication by Amos Greig
CONTRIBUTORS
FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF Ledia Dushi, Terry Brinkman, DJ Tyrer, Berni Dwan, Michelle Mangan, John Doyle, Andrew Houlihan, Iulia Enkelana and Mark Kavanagh. EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.
CONTENTS Poetry Ledia Dushi Poetry Terry Brinkman Poetry DJ Tyrer Poetry Berni Dwan Poetry Michelle Mangan Poetry John Doyle Poetry Andrew Houlihan Poetry Lulia Enkelana Poetry Mark Kavanagh Editor’s Note
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Ledia Dushi Ledia Dushi was born in 1978 in the northern Albanian town of Shkodra. She studied Albanian language and literature and she continued and finished her master’s and doctoral studies in ethnology-folklore. She is a researcher at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies in Tirana, Albania. She is also a translator. Her well-received verse is written primarily in the dialect of Shkodra, gegë. It has been published in the volumes: Ave Maria bahet lot (Ave Maria Turns to Tears), Tirana 1997; Seancë dimnash (Winter’s Session), Shkodra 1999; Me mujt me fjet me kthimin e shpendve (If I could sleep with the bird’s return…), Tirana 2009 and a volume of her verse has also appeared in Italian, Tempo di pioggia (Rainy Weather), Prishtina 2000, Rain in the dark, Transcendent Zero Press, USA 2019, N`nji fije t`thellë gjaku (In a deep thread of blood), Onufri Publishings, Tirana, Albania 2019, Femna s`asht njeri (Woman is not human), BardBooks, Prishtina, Kosovo 2020.In the 1998 she was awarded with "The Silver Pen for First Book" from the Ministry of Culture. Her poems are published in Lichtungen – Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und Zeitkritik, Nr.103, XXVI. Jahrgang, Graz 2005, and Orte. Schweizerische Literaturzeitschrift n°186 : Lyrik aus Albanien, 2016. She also participated with readings in Leipzig Book Fair 2011 and Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006. She was invited in Literariches Colloquium in Berlin, Germany (2004) and in Internationales Haus der Autorinnen und Autoren, Graz, Austria 2005. Her poems are translated into German, Polish, French, Macedonian, Greek, Serbian, Italian, Chinese etc.
1
… who knows what’s of the water smitten house ‘neath the stones a musky dusk drowned the eyes cold dead watery things the anguishing coast the wailing seagulls an unbroken moon yet to shuck itself, solely in blood sprinkles of liquefied words within the mouth the smell of grape, when trampled on a body smashed in heat every drop of it drains into women a vein snatching breath falls down to the womb and it wastes into giggles of women into bird crumbs water colliding into the cliffs past the waves there a breath chirm or a noise chirm the pond is clumsy don’t chirm a word for islands, the pain we unleash surrounds it by land
Translated in English by Genta Hodo (Ledia Dushi)
… 2
...it’s the foggy sound of the lake in dawn echoing on the things headed to the sun floating floating floating entangled entangled colliding it’s the ions bonding into one against the fog getting in every hollow every skull all the mornings in the world happening without me the whole world’s now a foggy lonesome lake of branches and nests and birds on it’s harness taking your eyes and mind and heart and gloomily sounding a morning to the world Translated in English by Genta Hodo
(Ledia Dushi)
3
… wooden houses distorted by the night doors girded with rain falling into one thought the night’s the zenith of the stars named after shadows clenched into one thought the shadows penetrate the bodies a discreet disease on the hunt this is the moon of longing bullet to the butterflies weaving around the ground returning from a certain death pulled the head out of hair for they can vow amid purple Translated in English by Genta Hodo
(Ledia Dushi)
… 4
canto... been dreaming of me holding onto two falcon feathers nearly falling nearly in ramble nearly in the white of a nightly moon covering my head i sing a few songs sing a few songs that sprout of a place deeper than the inside dreamily i hold on to names women names and to sung women women ill with a dark illness wet illness falling off the tree and the moistened invite her to languish circling in flare been dreaming of myself hanging onto two floating feathers in the air eye to eye with a falcon Translated in English by Genta Hodo
(Ledia Dushi)
5
… the language is dead and useless to what the Soul since the beginning of time keeps locked, since immense eternity the sky’s no secret, he’s undisclosed everyone’s a temple of themselves standing under You who spring from above their ears ought to hear you, their Souls ought to shine drawn in delirium and essences enlightened by each and every cosmic blast and you hang on you hang on you hang on nearly falling you hang on to a thread of blood in the air in the air staring at the sky of talking stars aloft you stand in the air on a deep thread of blood
Translated in English by Genta Hodo
(Ledia Dushi)
6
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Terry Brinkman Terry Has been painting for over forty five years. He started creating Poems. Five Amazon E- Books. Poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed, Jute Milieu Lit and Utah Life Magazine. Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, Adelaide Magazine, Variant, Tide and UN/Tethered Anthology, the Writing Disorder, Ink Pantry, Parentheses, and in Ariel Chart.
7
Sidewalks of Denver
Rain dripping on my face woke me from my sleep Under the stars on a Denver sidewalk Drying with her Irish face cloth, I spy a Rainbow The sun flung Rainbow so close I can walk to the end That’s pushing against the Honey Bucket Outhouse As I get there, the Ghost Woman- Molly Brown Wearing only a Brown Derby carrying a Pot of Gold Throws open the outhouse door knocking me to my ass She drops a Gold Nugget flying off towards the Brown Derby Hotel Another man might be afraid another man might be shocked They aren’t sleeping on a Denver sidewalk I pick it up and put it in my trouser pocket
(Terry Brinkman)
8
Dark Eyes of Abby
Agony dark thinking eyes of Abby First stiff drank dark Cabot Youngster arcane before the blue rabbit Mass with the Irish Church Cabbie Moussing with her yellow Tabby Penny Diamonds Skull habit Don’t leave the stationary line behind her Jackrabbit Her armful Troy measure shabby
(Terry Brinkman)
9
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DJ Tyrer DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing, and has been published in issues of Amulet, California Quarterly, Carillon, The Dawntreader, Haiku Journal, The Pen, and Tigershark, and online at Atlas Poetica, Bindweed, Poetry Pacific, and Scarlet Leaf Review, as well as releasing several chapbooks, including the critically acclaimed Our Story. The echapbook One Vision is available from Tigershark Publishing’s website. SuperTrump and A Wuhan Whodunnit are available to download from the Atlantean Publishing website. DJ Tyrer's website is at https://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/ The Atlantean Publishing website is at https://atlanteanpublishing.wordpress.com/
10
Dots By DJ Tyrer
The mind’s wonderful mechanism To bring order out of chaos Discerning patterns, creating pictures Allowing nothing more than a myriad dots To form seemingly-solid images Daubed on canvas or painted with light upon a screen
11
Step Over By DJ Tyrer
Although it seems hard Stepping over the dividing line Friendship is always easier Than the effort to hate Building up barriers Stoking divisions. Although it seems hard All it takes is a single step Almost no effort at all.
12
To A Friend By DJ Tyrer
A brief note is all Breaking a year-long silence Warming winter’s chill A reminder of this void Your absence is cold as ice
13
Wish You Were Here By DJ Tyrer
The weather’s great here on our vacation I’m sure it’s much better than your staycation The hotel really is most wonderful Even if it is a little overfull And, while you’re stuck in your house We’ve got a pool that is marvellous The stay here is really great Staying up to party late And, we’ve been out shopping every day Wish you were here, so you could pay
14
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Berni Dwan Berni Dwan broadcasts about literature and history on Near FM 90.3. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Crånnog, Irish Times New Irish Writing, The Blue Nib, The Galway Review, Southword, Crossways and Stepaway among others. Her Smock Alley Theatre shows Unrhymed Dublin (2016) and The Seven Ages; Like It or Not (2020) are observational. Her first poetry collection, Frankly Baby, was published by Lapwing Press in 2018. Berni came second in the Johnathan Swift Awards and was shortlisted for the Anthony Cronin International Poetry Award. She is the recipient of two grants from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland – one for a collaborative radio drama and one for an eight-part series on the coming of age novel.
15
Car Wash Lear’s “cataracts and hurricanoes” are howling, yowling, smashing in my ears, the slosh awash with dread and fed with my daydreaming scheming to be on adventures wild; a child again engrossed in bookish tales of solo missions, near-death escapades between the hardback covers – my eyes widening with each page turned. Today I close those eyes in muddy car, lost in suds of spiffing derring do. Spinning rollers come at me like roaring thunder clouds. I feel the booming freefall crash of spilling, chilling tons. I’m on a raft with Huckleberry Finn, high riding whirling eddies, dodging crocodiles and poison arrows. We reckon, me and Huck, that death by poison arrow beats death by crocodile. We hunker down, chew tobacco and ride out that storm. Becalmed, the rollers fall like new dead shaggy beasts. The sign says FORWARD. I obey, start the engine and drive away with dripping, gleaming car and reignited heart. (Berni Dwan)
16
Wedded Bliss Wedded to the son of your father God who made your world, hurled the elements in perfect order over six days in ways no scientist can fathom, and rested on the seventh to give you a blessed day. And your heaven assuredly awaits you, baits you, with the prize for all right-thinking brides of paradise. You confide in me a pious tale of seeking safety behind tall gate, high wall, lured by the call of benediction chimes and holy rhymes – bells, books, candles – handles of religious reliquary. Your covenant with convent brought you pure celestial joy, boundless bridal nights and dawns. Angelically coy, you carry your groom to the tabernacle room as the sun rises in the east, your immaculate soul hungry for the morning feast of transubstantiated bread, the sacramental appetiser that starts your every day. Each night, you take Him home across the failing light and dusky air down highly polished wooden floors – you revel in this blissful task, the din of outside traffic drowned by your seraphic trip of beating heart. Your clasped hands whiten and your child’s eyes brighten as you regale me with the rolling late and early shifts, the daily grind for which you signed. I envy your certitude, your unconditional love. One day He will keep your soul and heap on you the everlasting blessings you deserve. Your veiled unworldly beauty longs for that day. (Berni Dwan)
17
Tricksy Cyclists The boys on bikes are edgy and sharpy, jittery and nervy - checking smart phones, gathering to go a hunting in hunting party tracksuits. Riding in packs, rearing on hind wheels, defying oncoming traffic with braggadocio. They are hungry for adventure, desperate to feel alive by narrowly escaping death on coal-black nights with no front lights, no helmets, no sense. They live only in the present tense. Hoarse laughs and high-pitched hollers meant only for them. They mean no harm. They will disarm you with a smile as they pass by, hands-free like a tornado-driven cast of unhinged mannequins, such is their haste in pedalling towards the holy grail-like corner of some park or field holding mysteries of unimaginable sport. (Berni Dwan)
18
Discovering Metaphysical Love in a University Library Sittin’ in the concrete block I’m bitten by that metaphysical bug, smitten by that amatory Flea and John Donne’s plea to hug His would be love, to make love to His would be love. Haven’t they already done it Platonically, facilitated by that Flea? It sucked the blood from Her and He and mixed it to the remedy for love-sick guys - a potion of entitlement - but She is more ambivalent. That first blood, His passport to consuming Her - He more a parasite than any blood-filled Flea, She in the zone of His erogeneity. With upper hand She slays the Flea. Her newly purpled fingernail has coffined His conceit. Maid intact, man forestalled, Flea dead a love triangle put to bed. (Berni Dwan)
19
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Michelle Kelleher Michelle Kelleher spent 10 years working in marketing, before taking time out to parent her children. She currently writes poetry and personal essays for pleasure, in between her parenting duties.
20
Pressure
Every ml counts, they say, demanding liquid gold, three-hourly. They hand me the unknown alien; how does it work?
I learn quickly. Soon, sitting in a parlour of sorts, one of five maids in a row, I unwrap plastic parts with sterile hands.
Attaching each part to me, I feel more bovine than breeder. The mammary machine is loud; it tugs at tender places.
Six minutes of despair, until a drop falls on the left: two, three, four, the ducts open with a restrained orchestral force, then reaching a crescendo, the liquid gold squirts out wildly, 21
Vivaldi in full flow.
(stanza break)
The understudy on the right gives a pitiful performance; the harmony is unsupportive of the melody.
They swarm in and out, like fruit flies in August, too many to swat away. But I must remember, my manna is not for them. It is for mine who cannot feed themselves.
22
The Cuckoo
I will never be you, a shameless brood parasite. While others lift us up, you drag us down.
A fair-weather fowl, migratory in times of need, laying your eggs where they do not belong, while an unsuspecting reed warbler nurtures your hatchlings.
We are all broken eggshells now, scattered and undone, with no nest to lay our feathered heads; the cuckoo continues her subterfuge.
(Michelle Kellehar)
23
I, Captive
I feel your illness in my nightmares; the place where happiness decays, and the rot settles in; a lengthy amble, well into middle age. In your dotage, bedpans and little blue pills punctuate my days, as I grieve for a life on hold. Operator, please connect me. Sympathetic looks as we go into town; busy-bodies scurry up to us, laying their traps, while hoping for a crumb; these parochial rodents, walling us in. I think the things I cannot say out loud. I am selfish and full of self-pity; all I feel is numb. And I wait. And I wait. And I wait. But the coffin is a long way off.
(Michelle Kellehar)
24
Otherhood
The reflection in the mirror is familiar, but unknowable. The purple shadows that linger under iris betray a broken slumber; the little furrows that lit up a brow, give way to deep wells, where moisture never seeps.
The glossy tresses are hibernating, as the sticky signature hun-bun settles in for dark evenings ahead. Winter is here, and it is not kind.
This cruel inception, this otherhood, has taken the head: swiftly, suddenly, sullenly. The body waits for its demise, a slow descent, to the caverns below.
This body, this biological wonder, this production line; manufacturing parts when needed, 25
and tossing them out when done.
(stanza break)
But parts break down: parts decay, parts rust, and parts rot. Greasing and oiling are quick fixes, but there is no technician to treat what nature intended.
She is a cruel and spiteful teacher, gifting new life, while forcefully taking a life once lived. There is no summer reprieve, only this final reality, this state of otherhood.
(Michelle Kellehar)
26
Division
You have 20 tiny fingers, and 20 tiny toes. All perfectly formed, despite your birth. The glass divides us. I see splayed pink flesh, fused to two tennis balls, bobbing under the blue lights, lest the jaundice set in. I cannot see your faces. Two peep holes blink open under your masks, looking up at me. You are two diminutive dolls, fragile, ahead of your time. I do not know what lies ahead for you. For now, I ache to hold you in my arms.
(Michelle Kellehar)
27
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: John Doyle
John Doyle, from County Kildare, has had four collections released to date - "A Stirring at Dusk" in 2017, "Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez" and "The Buildings Are Red Like Electricity" in 2018, and "Nova Lumina" in 2019. He is at present studying to be a librarian after his previous career as Charles Hawtrey's stunt-double proved to less fiscally rewarding than he had hoped.
28
The Month of April Sings Like a Hummingbird An equinox of Gretsch guitars reverb - rain is falling. You could drive-off horizons, take your foot from the brakes, no dust rising; all the choices the colour grey gives you take your pick, be generous, make this sacrifice. We must offer back for what the earth has given us lead us Lord to the promised land of shot-glass sun, trains like knives through the night Gretsch guitars - reverb the notes and scales rumbling like stomachs where trains stop on request, where old men with one-arm missing lay-down laws of farmers, corporals, and women serving short-order breakfasts. A fine stretch these past few evenings. The first car I bought, I would take on Summerhill Road out by the TV mast, Indian-Head test-patterns spread on fields like blankets covering new-born babies. I took Henry's finest for a spin, checked the corn, nine-feet high, I swear to God, the month of April singing like a hummingbird. Phone calls I made on Wednesday went swell, I heard Nancy’s kid in the sitting room tuning that guitar I bought him the week before thanksgiving (John Doyle)
29
Of Course Of course you're not as sweet as you were last week playing the ukulele, sitting on my knee calling me cousin Johnny, looking like something from the chorus line in Annie. Of course we'll load up the van, get rid of the microwave, find BBC Radio Ulster on the dial, somehow, of course; it's nice to hear children in Dungannon playing the ukulele tonight in school pageants. Of course it would be nice to have a microwave after Christmas, stop burning my fingers on the grill reheating my life story, events across the border lacking the fatality and drama they used to have. Of course it would make my hair stand on end, then I would pretend to be a child again, just like you, pestering uncles and aunts and cousins pretending I didn't like them. Of course I did. Do you? (John Doyle)
30
It's Ok It's ok to fuse your lonely streets with city-sparkled shoes, it's ok let a dog in from the storm, shaking mud and rain like the delta flooded and the houses disappeared. Yesterday, he held the off-licence door open for you, you dragged his ashes like broken limbs down the road, until you reached the railroad crossing, waited, said a few prayers, kept it simple. There was a convoy of mourners who followed, stopped-short of entering the graveyard. 9am was too soon for burials, said the holy man, standing alone at the altar. Yeah, it was okay to shoot him down, I guess, finish-off that quart of scotch his December hands let slip. There was so much glass all across your kitchen floor that morning, I asked to sweep it up, maybe piece him back together. No, it's ok, you said (John Doyle)
31
David Ruffin You were somewhere near dry-land when ships ran ashore, it was calamitous, a tragedy, something rarely seen in our times our times were of course, dependent on circumstance, a wrist-watch, flasks ebbing tea like sea bullies harbor in the mold of wild-child and the pigeons in the park. Our days ran shorter as Summer grew, That was a tragedy, too, how much love came through our windows in the morning, breathtaking blues of fading faces in cafes, in Montmartre, Summer like that old man face-first on the pavement, ambulance neatly tucked in behind him. You gave a good impression, quite literally, on the sun so heavy it could never rise again with any meaning, question-mark holes in its stomach buried by the dirge of evening. The excuse for an ambulance drags you away, leaves sunken ships miles ahead out to sea on the critical list. Oh, how you sang for me that night, David. (John Doyle)
32
Mexilhoeira Grande What do I remember? Feudal skins on dried-out land, simple stream, complicated river, a sneering glint from summer that whispers rumors of farmers brought down from the north like rain sneaking around, while young men sit in bars leave tractors lonely, to die, the empty swimming pool a post-office hint of blue, Pompeii-chic tiles all the rage in 1975, German Shepherd's song on the circumstance of post-office blue. Summer dies early, in April where does that song then begin? What do I remember? 33
Two things return they're shaped like humans, deadlock in the stink of carriages to Faro monsters they are, monsters be damned. I'll slay them by sunrise, then it will be summer, rivers whispering different rumors No matter. I am king now; O novo rei.
(John Doyle)
34
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: ANDREW HOULIHAN
Andrew Houlihan has had poems published in Boyne Berries. He has been a winner of the Irish Independent 6 word story. Andrew is originally from Dublin but now lives in Stradbally, County Laois.
35
THE ROOM
The room is L shaped, on the top floor, it looks down into the courtyard. Wide doors, wheelchair accessible. Its short corridor, pale non slip floors, the walls light blue, eggshell ceiling. The mounted flat screen tv, family photos, Grandchildren’s drawings under rainbow clouds. Our Lord's picture, I spy to see if he blinks, the white clock ticks to a different week, In the corner a metal framed bed, who’s sheets are getting on, over the bed, a row of sockets, a panic button. Its window, south facing, tremendously big, when the sun swings up glare blinds force of light. This room, changing from a room to a home.
(Andrew Houlihan)
36
DARKENED CITY
When I look out the window I see the young chickens in the courtyard. They rummage around the coop, there are a dozen wooden boxes, underpaid actors, they perform for a crowd, dancing on the earth. By midafternoon, every afternoon, a commotion. In twos and threes the young Philippine nurses, rest by the chicken coop, smoke cigarettes. Do they talk about Covid 19? I look down at my hands, twice, their lives are different to mine. It’s evening now and I am alone. The nurses change shifts, rush past my door, under that blinking fluorescent light, I feel the cool breeze on my ankles, they head for the darkened city. My room is filled with today's news, I pray to our Lady. Please let me live and protect me I see death as no evil. (Andrew Houlihan)
37
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Iulia Enkelana
Iulia Enkelana (the pseudonym of Iulia-Maria Kyçyku, born in 1999 in Bucharest, in a Romanian and Albanian family) is the author of a several short films (officially selected in international film festivals, such as Ridgefield Independent Film Festival, Tirana International Film Festival, Lift-Off Global Network, Retrospective of Jupiter or SIMULTAN Festival), short stories (published in Romanian and Albanian cultural magazines, such as Neuma, Viața Românească, Haemus or Poeteka), plays, essays and two online albums: 'eyeland' (drawings) and 'do you remember your first loneliness?' (photographs). She is currently studying theater studies in Cluj-Napoca.
38
Iulia Enkelana internal photographs 1. The day starts in desire, Continues in grief, Ends in desire. 2. Thick fog in the adoptive city I almost lost my way home. 3. I am the product of the love story Between my memory and my oblivion 4. Somewhere between longing And silently crying because the world is beautiful. 5. loneliness I will never adapt 6. maybe, without our bodies we’ll be complete 7. I love this city whenever I leave it 8. That winter My loneliness was interrupted 9. I was like an 80s love song 10. next time I meet him in a dream I’ll tell him to fuck off. 11. I wrote love poems to shadows
39
12. and the comfort of thinking of what you have lost or not what you have lost, but what was taken away from you. 13. To look back and think: God, it is so strange 14. Desire: one thousand open eyes inside your body waiting to see something. 15. A happy life of sad poems 16. Why have I become your memory? 17. On the street: Half of the time praying not to meet you. 18. But I live here now, In my almost enjoyable solitude 19. Through dreams, I learned to forgive. 20. To find love almost felt like a mission. 21. the desire to express 22. he still has the keys to my loneliness 23. 40
my keyboard heart 24. It scares me a bit That I might love you forever 25. My anonymous walks and bitter coffee 26. His eyes didn’t reflect light Light green, like raw crystals They’re my only reference To our mutual shadows 27. But I live here now, In my almost bearable solitude. 28. And once again Silence was fatal. 29. She loved him with a love as certain as death. 30. But desire is not optional 31. Slightly shameless in a pure way 32. I would have said it back But it all became poetry before it could be dialogue. 33. He makes me want to be loved 34. 4 tonight in bed, watching nostalgia take her last breath
41
35. But I live here now, In my ever solitary freedom 36. Saturday night revelation
42
Bitterness To swallow loneliness again and again While nature goes to sleep for a while And my body is bitter, unable to despair. Unable to speak or express itself Loneliness goes to sleep and wakes up in me Always the same and a bit transformed It feels like my only believable memory. I hardly remember touching the ashes The wind blew away some time ago. The dream of a fire in the empty forest My cold hands now touch the still body again My eyes shut, afraid of desire I swallow loneliness tonight, again. (Iulia Enkelana)
43
g/love In another life You held my hand during the cold Luminous winter. In another life I didn’t need gloves And I slept well, carelessly A sleep of love A defeat of loneliness A break from loneliness A sleep of a fragile, unknowingly fragile Safety. In another life I never hated you And never forgave you. *** And now I’m asking you: who knew That I’d be writing poems about your hometown When hesitant flashbacks fill the gray streets Not with images, but with the warmth of your hand. (Iulia Enkelana)
44
Dark flash It is now dreadful to me that one distant day many solitudes ago I looked in the mirror and thought of him. Enclosed Thirsty for a Mouth pouring love into mine For a hand that delivers tenderness For a body that opens its gates to me. I need to enter, I need to open myself. From anguish to anguish and Wave to wave From this hope to the next one From loneliness to loneliness I begin to forget the usefulness of patience. Is it a punishment? Is it a mistake? (Is it mine?) Isolated from love Foreign Cold Tender Loving Hopeful Isolated Patient Isolated Waiting Isolated Silent I am a part of the river. Like a statue burning on its empty inside I crave and struggle to break The stone I live in.
45
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MARK KAVANAUGH Mark has written poetry since a teenager and while living in London has read his work at the Poetry CafĂŠ and the London Irish Centre. Mark moved back to Belfast two years ago with the intention of becoming more involved in the Irish poetry scene. He works 7 predominantly as a playwright and has written and produced many plays in London and Belfast. He has also worked and written for the BBC.
46
Binman The streets pull back their lips From the footpaths grip Snarling with blackened teeth of filth. The Fulham streets Dawes Road to the Broadway Lie open and spread Every rib of lane and ley Oozes its juices. Dawn breaks Peeking through tenement. Slate throwing shadows carelessly On pillar boxes Telegraph poles Every looping wire in the skyward stream. Don’t burn too bright. The smell reeks through my nostrils It’s thick and lucid Malignantly leering Rancidly clambering Onto soapy skin Extermination of cleanliness. Our helm is mightily tended Every man’s sinews taunt. The years have inoculated skin Grimes merely the grease of labour They scoff at bags of festering flesh Wade in putrid infestation Where the maggot is a pet. Our droning beast waits. Jaws wide and hungry Beckoning the crushing snap. (Mark Kavanaugh)
47
Birch A birch, crumpled, it weeps Dew drenched in January frost. Lost now your abundant frivolity Gone now your boastful stance. I join you, close by, this hills two sentries Both barren, stark to the grey sky Both weeping. Two symbionts absorbent to each other’s pain. A gradient connect of concentrated woes. A year gone, pillaged and broke Best left by the roadside to rot Dissolve, decay and be forgot. Yet this crescent provides no forgiveness It holds us crushed, vice-held with little care For the brittle nature of a loving touch. The question cries in constant echo Coursing since this fresh discovered pain How, how, how? Arrogance the booming answer Spat back in rancorous rebuke. For I launched this vessel of certified parchment Into a squall of my own making Only to witlessly wonder at the wreckage. On this ordained birch-held ground My offering moulded in a tear Pacification and praise to the man I now become This empty, vassal thing In the servitude of every lonely thing. (Mark Kavanaugh)
48
Creggandevesky Arms of rock Thrown to a stark sky Begging forgiveness From baneful gods And your pillaged dead. I see the ashen heads Leering in the distance Through the grumbling whin. Quandary struck Waiting in a cramped stance Here in your nether realm I’m bared by brutal nature. Lacerating barbs to my back Knee deep in gorse ground Pondering continuation. You, a false siren Beckoning my extinction To smother and dissolve In a sunken bog hole. A sacrificial appeasement. Beaten I turn In search of more compacted footing. In the car to Carrickmore An enraged sky ruptures Throwing scorn on the headstoned hill Upon the civilized dead. (Mark Kavanaugh)
49
Florescent Lie They pass in packs Each car and truck and motor bike. Onwards to pull up at pavement For pickups and drop offs. Supply to the system Slapping sound to the city scape. The light falls Splintered and diffracted and jagged. Determined yet strangely fluid This machine of piston and force. Bustle of it all! I would have dreaded once And clambered the mind for serenity. Take me now to your heart! To the mire and the muck and the grease. Envelope me in the poison of your guttural clasp. It beats this florescent lie This tangle of cable The heart skips irregular here My nerve is shredded Unsheathed Pierced to the veneer with a staple. (Mark Kavanaugh)
50
Headless Boy To learn the trade At Twenty-Three Through baffled eyes Seemed and impossibility. Yet others of a greater ilk Filled reams with boastful glee. Frantic formulations upon the page But I lost my way to debauchery. Why the need to scratch and besmudge? My scrap-scattered floor I spread forlornly. For a doll of clay no fire glazed So the task at hand was my heart to empty That headless boy At Twenty-Three Holds a sorrowful place In the heart of me. (Mark Kavanaugh)
51
Lesson The clock had not struck A sociable hour of day When you danced the Titians Of an age before me. It seems a dream now Even at the time Silhouetted through soakage Of my brain in spirits Deep and potent. Through fumes of whisky I asked. You quizzed me. Not in condescension But with a gentle smile. You drew meaning from me Like a thorn from flesh Setting up the dealings In every stanza Every a and e and I like some youthful Homer. The sun burned the room alight Dazzling me with indifference. These brandished words May seem more honest Yet Dare I, quill-fisted Scratch the page? It’s slowing down now Coming to a comfortable Point of closure. Slowing down now Sparks cascading less. Slumber now By your side In rapturous envy Of the great. (Mark Kavanaugh)
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Light A pointed strip Not a centimetre thick Direct, obtrusive, unapologetic Cuts its way into the darkness Finds you there Spread on the bed Lost in worlds of wonder Fashioned in colours of lucid splendour. Searching still This spectrum cannot find me For I am surrounded In torrential darkness. Viewing you now Radiant in this newfound light Skin of alabaster Within an outreached palm Yet chasms divide Colossal and certified. My need for you Was misconstrued. I spoke in a cruel snap Snarling rabid fangs To utter love laments. Once time was forgiving When touch was a nothingness As trivial as a breath A heartbeat Trivial yet elemental things. Time now informs my fallacy For I blissfully felt Though failed to see This balm that did allay Was sparse and reliant Upon my ungainly care. Can I twist the hour hand To find your dark hair Stretched across my chest And shatter the face? 53
Light comes tumbling The room now resplendent Fire-filled in the flames Of a new day resurrected And questions still unanswered (Mark Kavanaugh) Words My tongue is a dead thing. A flapping muscle of mumbles. Audible incoherence Tumbling forth from my throat Deep and open. Daily dumbshows and prattle Delivered on a deliberate wind Of pacific gentleness. I have words. Cut from Tyrian cloth Steeped in honeyed alchemy To send a tremor through a still heart. They will remain Twisted deep within me Self-shacked and bared. For dearly fought was your resolve A triumph I dare not topple with talk. Old words may seem forged anew In an unintended falsehood Stirring waters that were swayed to calmness. While new words only expire with age. I know this now Coming late to the lesson Flustered and with empty satchel. There is a kind of clarity A deep love In the unspoken. (Mark Kavanaugh)
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EDITOR’S NOTE Brexit and Pandemics may sound like a book cover but for us all the reality is that this has affected nearly every aspect of our lives and limited the arts as well as potential educational development. Hopefully the work in the February issue will go some way to limiting the frustration that this current situation has caused for all of us. This marks our 100th issue although the reality is with Special Anthologies and ANU presents the number is a lot more than that. I hope to continue to provide this platform for as long as is humanly possible I am aware though that with the current EU/ UK issue there may be issues getting hardcopies shipped into the UK online issues however will not be affected and will remain free at the point of access. Happy reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor) BA Hons Ancient History and English recipient of the Artists Emergency Grant provided by the Arts Council Northern Ireland.
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