A New Ulster issue 91 by Amos Greig

FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF BETHANY ASCOTT, THORVALD BERTHELSEN, KATHERINE NOONE, COREY MATHERS, KEVIN GRIFFIN, CONOR Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SULLIVAN, KELLA COLTON, GORDON FERRIS, DAVID MCVEY, AND KATE ENNALS AND EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.

A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 91 MAY 2020

UPATREE PRESS

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 Upatree Press Prepared for Publication by Upatree Press

CONTRIBUTORS

This edition features work by Bethany Ascott, Thorvald Berthelsen, Katherine Noone, Corey Mathers, Kevin Griffin, Conor Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sullivan, Kella Colton, Gordon Ferris, David McVey, and Kate Ennals.

CONTENTS Poetry Bethany Ascott

Page 1

Poetry Thorvald Berthelsen Page 6 Poetry Katherine Noone

Page 12

Poetry Corey Mathers

Page 15

Poetry Kevin Griffin

Page 17

Prose Conor O’Sullivan

Page 23

Poetry Kella Colton

Page 36

Poetry Gordon Ferris

Page 38

Prose David McVey

Page 41

Poetry Kate Ennals Editor’s Note

Page 47 Page 49

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: BETHANY ASCOTT Bethany studied Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire, specialising in poetry and dramatic writing. Her work has appeared in the University’s New Writing Anthology and The Cannon’s Mouth. She’s also performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, showcasing her work. When she’s not writing, she works fulltime as a photographer.

PAGE BURNER After Gerald Gardiner, “The Artist’s Wife, Evelyn, Seated, Reading” Lazy embers stir in the grate, quieter than a whisper, collapsing and shifting themselves as they relax into their slumber. They cast a low glow across the lady’s feet, warming her through laddered tights. The bulb in her lamp drops light onto her book, words have moved from their places and are jumbled in her wake-sleep. Her thoughts sliding to how warm a few more pages would feel in the fire at the end of her toes. (Bethany Ascott)

INNOCENCE Young hands grip the string of a blue balloon, helium straining the string heavenwards, wanting to drift amongst the coasting birds where the clouds melt into the afternoon. With every tug of wind, the boy refused to give up and let it travel onwards, forever carrying the voiceless words of a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s delight cradled in that cocoon. Mother grappled with wet wipes and her sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands; clammy from sweat and dirty from play. He batted her wipes away, shook his head, let go in panic and damage was done. Small fingers clasped at air after string fray, teary eyes transfixed by blue on sky red. (Bethany Ascott)

DRESSING GOWN Silk wings spread wider than a plane and the clouds beyond an acrylic sky. The gownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insides fatten with natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breath, the white belt reflecting breezy ripples. Clothes pegs pinch at frail shoulders, impeding plans of escape and stunting visions of having no owner, free from the secrets it has to cover. Instead, the high sun bakes sweat and tears deep into the fabric, drying out another attempt to rid invisible stains bound in its threads. It can only make wishes on clouds that rip away from one another and the planes that run from vapor, to cover a surface less scratched than the sky. (Bethany Ascott)

NOT ALL WINGS HAVE FEATHERS Lonely Lucy listens to the sea’s sound. She hears the shh shh of waves wafting on top of each other. A gull glides above her head, its shadow gigantic on the grainy beach. She’d like to fly with it, but hasn’t any feathers to fly with. A boy runs by with the breeze, gallivanting after the gull. He kicks sand in her eyes and stops to apologise. His hands hide string that hitchhike to the sky. The gull glides on his command. The gull is his guise. The boy lends Lucy the strings, she seals them in her hand. Buoyant between the clouds, the bird mimics her mischief. She is the bird and its shadow on the ground.

(Bethany Ascott)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: THORVALD BERTHELSEN Thorvald is a widely published Danish writer, poet and artist, with six current collections of poems in Danish, one in German and one in Bosnian. His work is available in Swedish, English, Arabic, Kurdish, Bosnian, Serbian, Hungarian and German. Since 2012, he has edited Danish Haiku Today, presenting Danish haiku poets. This is the first time that the microcosmic poems featured in this issue of A New Ulster appear in English.

NEAR PROXIMITY When did you grasp that you loved me? I've always known it when I lost you When did you understand you couldn't do without me? When I did not realize I lost you All love letters are overdue, 'Confirming by renewed statements without any idea that the Best before date expired long ago' * otherwise they wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been sent We sneak through everyday life roaming close to indifference some days Others strike our tangled body against the hairs Suddenly your mouth forms all the words so they come out with common resonance and are yet the embryo of the future long after they have fallen to the ground and become a deposit between death on the fourth flour and The Towering Inferno From the edge, the light is sharply defined 'In the middle' flows all over the place closer it becomes noticeably invisible Gets around the corner and there you go into yourself or where ever you are now while the bus runs It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter and evaporates everything held between the meshes of the net The wild thought is stretched out completely still with its trillions of trembling drops at all ends of the love of earthworms which is so finely masked that any law of nature escapes Seen up close infinity is 7

a drop in the beginning and the end If you dot it two hearts is seen almost touching each other * By the Slovenian poet Lucija Stupica

(Thorvald Berthelsen)

PRICKLING When we turn off TV, the sparkly glimpses remain, which expands into to blind spots of the map for fear of the vanishing point, just before we turn on the universe again. We do not doubt the doubt as little as we are sure that there is something to doubt while star formations expand the black holes of Mรถbius strips that turns on the galaxy penetrating quasar light of our endless skin (Thorvald Berthelsen)

SHINING BLACK The anger of maple at syrup that flows away anger at the roots which fetters us without holding tight the anger of the wind which does not stray in the swarm of love and acid rain while the hole in the ozone layer redefines life and the desert orchids sway for the impassive efforts of diggers Landscapes of concrete and glass breaks up in the aortasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; incessant expansion of the skin where the stars move apart from each other in this curvature of time sinking into itself shining black everywhere

(Thorvald Berthelsen)

DREAM CATCHER IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Spider stones on the leap over the gas tail of hollyhocks before the comet impact of childhood In fact it was lupins is a memory correction without roadside ditches howling as my run over dog on the wheelbarrow through the sunken roads of the years A seagull dreams its future in a sea of stiffened wave foam By the recoil of a sudden gust of silence the moment goes out of joint

(Thorvald Berthelsen)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KATHERINE NOONE

Katherineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first poetry collection Keeping Watch was published 2017 by Lapwing Publications, Belfast, and her second collection, Out Here, in 2019. Her poetry appears in magazines and journals in Ireland, U.K., Canada, and U.S.A.

ODE TO THINGS OF SUBSTANCE Unsavoury news was diluted somewhat, when featured on our Pye radio. The Korean war was mentioned, otherwise the price of livestock was main topic. Much time was spent on conversation music and storytelling. Housewives were busy sewing and knitting, bequeathing a lasting legacy. Today we are bombarded viruses here, war there hunger elsewhere. Is this our offering? I draw back the drapes. March wind, is chasing a flower pot Daffodils bend and rebound, a robust camellia holds on to its head. The worm moon meanders through tree tops, so much to live for. Lord, give us this day.

(Katherine Noone)

DECLINE Down at the local there are less than a dozen most nights. Those present sip on their Guinness with an aura of sadness about them. The musicians are gone took with them their banjos and fiddles the groups of set dancers and laughter. But Nellie is there not only adept at pouring the drinks, she converses, mingles and sings with the grace of a geisha. The crowds may dwindle. But the lights will stay on at Dannyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

(Katherine Noone)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: COREY MATHERS Corey is an English teacher and musician, originally from Omagh, Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He has travelled widely, having lived in Spain and Italy, and has written about many of his experiences in his poetry and prose, though he also maintains focus on home and commitment to his semi-rural roots.

THE STOLEN LOAF From under the nuns’ noses – a swipe. Shipped off for her penance, she held her tongue, Underage and interred, her eyes seeing The smuggler shifting out the sacred gates. Up from foreign Dublin, tortured miles, Bus by bus battling the road-bumps, Closer to sanctuary town by town, His hushed package, the capricious lump Underarm and cosily cloistered like a furled loaf – Bread being the word on the border crossing. Christmas Eve, we listened to the stolen good, Greying Lancelot preaching his start, our start: ‘Can you imagine mum, my empty cot, In that stern hell-house, dad sweating The whole way up the road’ – far from smart, Heart-driven as always, stealing back the family. And soon we sat, widespread clan, bereft of The chieftain himself, fresh from his funeral – Uncle Paddy, eldest son, retelling the touching tale, Chief escapee from our stale convent clutch.

(Corey Mathers)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KEVIN GRIFFIN Kevin has had poems published in many magazines in Ireland, England, Austria, Canada and the U.S.A. He reads at various venues in Ireland, and on local radio. New Binary Press published his debut poetry collection, Holding Salamanders, in December 2019.

HARDLY REFUGEES Ye shouldn't be here, I thought, here on the lee side of the dunes, away from the saline anger of the bay, miles from their cliff home, a dyad of choughs, carrying their identity in the startling orange of their beaks and legs, the sheen of their feathers, the easy waddle, as they foraged, sociable and happy, on the short grass of this little paradise. They stayed for two weeks in this early spring, then they were gone, repatriated themselves. Amnestied, no need, deported, no, who would, they, who were happy to share this world. (Kevin Griffin)

CONCOURSE A sepia photo from another interval in an unhappy room the man stands behind a hand on the shoulder of the seated woman unsmiling faces stare beyond the interval at a fitful future. (Kevin Griffin)

HAPPINESS MERELY A stream

with brown water and a fallen tree that made a bridge with moss that said step sparingly.

She on the tree trunk too, bridge, remember, turning, eyes brown too, your kiss, sir. Light

Now

on the other side after the gentler shingle and a kinder slipping brown stream resumes keeping its images short steps still shy shudders

(Kevin Griffin)

MISKNOW Another misread, no real excuse, the window unmisted, the dust jacket seemed to read, “How to be an Anarchist”. Well, anything once, a charge in, Hold everything, for anarchist , read “Antichrist”, maybe a venture too far for one of seventy and more. Days later and still the intrigue, the wonder of being unsure. Can’t wait until the next time, and the chance to choose. (Kevin Griffin)

A MERE VISIT As soon as I had taken my septic skepticism into the narthex of his holy of holies, the cicerone set about proselytising me, to assume me, soul and all, into his circumscribed mythology. My hackles rose, native obduracy to the fore, when he decried my suddenly dear mythos, instead of a panegyric for his own. My raiment glowed, that and my innate cussedness raised their radiant heads, powered by my tumescent empiricism. I inhaled suitably deep allowing my instant angst to exit into his little fiefdom, and of lunch with perhaps a glass of wine, or Efes or even a grey raki.

(Kevin Griffin)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: CONOR O’SULLIVAN Conor’s short fiction has appeared in literary journals from Ireland, the UK and United States, and in chapbook form by TSS Publishing. He lives in London where he works as a sports journalist for The Times.

EWR I tracked down Julie Enriquez on a drive home from Newark Airport. My mother had visited Manhattan a few weeks before I moved back to California and served dinner when I came home from work. We ambled through the pleasant early May weather on my days off including a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into Dumbo one Sunday afternoon where we waited almost an hour for an overpriced pizza. The Saturday morning of her departure possessed a quality of the fleeting spring. I took a taxi up to 176th Street and signed my Toyota Corolla out of the Hudson View garage. She was making breakfast when I returned to my fourth-floor apartment located in a brownstone on West 91st Street. “That was quick,” she said and shifted her blue eyes from the frying pan. Dark veins diverged across her hands with straight tawny hair covering the back of her wrinkled neck and a few freckles on her pointed nose. Forty-three years of living in Pacific Palisades had yielded no tan for her Midwestern skin. “Yes,” I said, “and we’ll get out to Queens in under an hour.” “My flight is from Newark, dear.” “I thought you said J.F.K.” “No - your father booked me into J.F.K. and out of Newark,” she said and handed me her printed itinerary with a faint smile on her thin lips. “I thought engineers were masters of detail.” “Only the good ones.” I carried her suitcase to the car after breakfast and put on my Wayfarer sunglasses that I kept in the glove compartment. My mother rolled down her window as I drove towards the Hudson Parkway, and then cruised downtown in the middle lane. “Have you any plans for tonight?” she asked. “Not really,” I replied. “Samuel Ritter – you spend too much time alone for a young man.” “I’m thirty-one, Mom.” We entered the Lincoln Tunnel behind an interstate bus, and I stretched my legs past the pedals inching us back into sunlight. Manhattan’s towers lay beneath the turnpike once I had steered the car up a spiralling road.

“What’s your hurry?” she asked when I raised my speed to 80 miles per hour approaching the airport exit. “Too many years on the East Coast.” “Smell the roses, son,” she said after I parked outside the Delta Airlines terminal. She kissed my left cheek and pulled her suitcase through the revolving doors. I tuned in the New York Mets game, steering the car under the shuttle track, and heard the announcer raise his voice to Curtis Granderson’s double off Atlanta’s starting pitcher for the opening run. The warm air smacked my face, and I saw Montclair signposted with the Garden Parkway townships beside a left arrow. Traffic had been filtered into a single lane near Weehawken following an accident. I cut off a station wagon and sped past the Meadowlands towards the cirrus clouds high over Montclair, Essex County. The driveway was empty, and I walked behind two women pushing their strollers after parking on the corner of Brookdale Avenue. I tapped on the screen door and rang the doorbell three times. My wrist was damp sitting on the porch’s top step in the bright afternoon. I removed the analogue watch she gave me for my 25th birthday, wiping the lens on my T-shirt, and clasped my trembling hands watching golfers search for lost balls in the beech trees. Julie arrived ten minutes later with a Justin Timberlake song playing on the car’s stereo. I tracked her brown eyes, my mouth dry hearing the door open and shut. She was in a white halter-top, denim shorts and Birkenstock sandals. Her slender figure had flourished since our last meeting. I stood up as she walked across the lawn, her wavy black locks shining over her tanned shoulders and one foot planted on the grass meeting my gaze. Her fragrance invaded my nostrils when she strode up the porch carrying two grocery bags that concealed her firm, round breasts. “You need to go home right now, Sam.” “I’m leaving in a few weeks,” I said and removed my sunglasses with one hand resting on the pillar. “I bought a place in Marin County like we talked about.” “It’s been two years...” “We were together for seven in case you forgot,” I said. “Did you sleep with Mawson?” “Who I date is none of your concern.” “I know you always liked him,” I said. “You realise I’m leaving for good.” “That makes no difference,” she said and turned her key in the lock. “Do you ever think about the lei necklaces?” 25

“Never,” she said, “and you shouldn’t either.” She gave me a hug, the pulse of her warm skin crushing my chest until I was back in the car. I tapped the steering wheel with my knuckles listening to the fifth inning and ducked when her parents drove by. My temples throbbed waiting to exit the Lincoln Tunnel. A glare reflected off the buildings along Eleventh Avenue up to the garage in Washington Heights. I took a taxi back to the apartment, changed clothes and jogged straight to Riverside Park where I ran five miles at a decent pace into the breeze. Afterwards, I sat on a bench watching tugboats drift on the sunlit Hudson River. I took a cold shower at home and held my fists against the ceramic tiles with water pellets flattening my short, fair hair. Grey flecks had crept into the tips over the past year, and I examined them frequently to track their progression. Pigeons swooped over the rooftops as I put on beige slacks and a short-sleeved denim shirt. I turned on the television and saw the Mets had won by six runs. My one-bedroom corner apartment was indistinguishable from the day Julie and I moved in a month after graduation apart from some L.A. Dodgers memorabilia covering the white walls we had painted together. I purchased the house in Muir Beach after my parents covered the deposit, and the bank granted me a loan. It was dark when I finished reading the newspaper. I sat on the couch for ten minutes hearing voices rise from the sidewalk, then put on Tom Waits. An expanse of light beamed from the opposite living rooms as I ate leftover pizza. Jersey Girl had ended and I rested a beer on the cistern to shave, the blade exposing my freckled cheeks. The building’s superintendent was carrying trash bags to the sidewalk with an unlit cigarillo dangling from his mouth. I bought a packet of Parliaments in a bodega on Amsterdam Avenue and sparked at the crossing facing a wall of headlights. Men in cotton shirts and light trousers marched the pavements behind girls wearing sundresses. I took fast drags before tossing the butt outside Jake’s Dilemma on 80th Street. “A Sam Adams and Jameson on the rocks,” I said after perching myself on a stool. “That’ll be 14,” the bartender said, a pretty brunette who always ignored my attempts to flirt with her. “Keep it open.” I gulped the whiskey and knocked back some beer for my searing gums when a slim girl with long brown hair stood beside me. There were small freckles on the nape of her neck and an inch of space between her caramel arm and red blouse’s cotton sleeve. “Two vodka cranberries, please,” she said. “Are you from Jersey?” I asked. “Excuse me?” 26

“You have a Jersey accent,” I said and turned to her holding my beer. “Nice line, creep.” The room softened as I sat alone drinking doubles. There was a whiskey stain on my shirt walking home, and I threw the half-full cigarette packet in a trash can. I rummaged through the bedside drawer for an Advil after a blaze of sunlight woke me at seven am and turned over on the creased sheets. At ten o’clock, I jogged beside the river with blurred vision. I walked back to 96th Street through a grove of cherry blossoms, and my condition had improved by the time I made my weekly trip to Metro Diner on Broadway. The stout manager, Susan, led me to a window booth then took my order of bacon, scrambled eggs and French fries. Spinning fans beneath the mustard-panelled ceiling cooled the large room and my moist skin. I read the sports pages during the meal and drank four cups of coffee. “How was your flight?” I asked my mother while unlocking the apartment door. “Fine,” she replied. “Your father did a poor job watering my plants.” “Well, no one meets your high standards,” I said. “Can you put Dad on?” “Good afternoon, Sam,” he said. “Did you play yesterday?” “Yes, I had a decent back nine,” he replied, “but my putting keeps letting me down.” “That seems to be a family trait.” I read a Journal of Structural Engineering essay afterwards about American bridge decline, then walked around in the milky twilight when my headache returned. “Can I get a Reese’s Cup?” I asked the clerk with grey stubble and bloodshot eyes who scanned my Peach Snapple and Doritos at the cash register. “Sure, boss.” I sat in my armchair and drank the Snapple with the chips packet wedged between my thighs. Matt Harvey’s fastball was carving up Atlanta’s offense, and I went to bed after six innings with the Mets coasting to a series sweep. My eyelids fluttered in the darkness and I saw Julie sitting beside me in Sheep Meadow three years ago to the day, a glaze of vanilla ice cream on her lips. The next morning, I ran around Central Park’s reservoir twice. Joggers crunched gravel beneath their feet with overhanging branches reflected on the water. I overtook girls in tight shorts on the final lap and watched them in the distance while leaning my arms on a black steel railing surrounding the reservoir after I had finished a sprint. 27

There was a crush on the express train, and a circle of sweat formed on my Oxford shirt when I was pressed against the window during a long delay at Columbus Circle. I stepped off at Times Square and walked across the neon plaza towards 45th Street. Haze rose between the Sixth Avenue buildings, settling on columns of tinted windows, and I avoided my colleague Dev Arya by waiting at reception until he squeezed onto an elevator. The Lepsen & Hook office was located on the 34th floor of 1185 Avenue of the Americas between a law firm and reinsurance company. They hired me straight out of college and paid for my master’s degree in civil and structural engineering at Columbia University. My boss, Steve Peterson, arrived from Tuckahoe at nine am wearing a tweed jacket over his fitted white shirt and brown wool slacks. His grey curls masked a receding hairline, and there was a layer of tan on his thick arms. We were an expanding firm with multiple offices on both coasts and Chicago, the New York branch dealing in commercial properties. My workload had been reduced since Peterson confirmed the transfer to San Francisco a few months previously on a sunless February morning when ice from winter’s final blizzard seeped into the pavements and northern winds shrieked down Manhattan’s avenues. I became a civil engineer after a natural aptitude for mathematics and science was nurtured by my father, who had spent forty-five years at the same accounting firm and told me that besides a respectable profession success was measured by earning a low golf handicap, owning season tickets to the Dodgers and winning the heart of a nice girl. “Let’s start with the defector,” Peterson said once the ten heads of department assembled in the conference room. “He caught some sun this weekend,” said Ted Mawson, my replacement in waiting. He was a tall, rugged Bostonian with flowing brown locks who had attracted glances from Julie at office functions. “The fog will be good for me,” I said and felt my cheeks turn crimson. “There’s some issue with the ceiling vents at the Douglas site but the foreman has assured me...” “Just make sure to keep Ted in the loop,” Peterson said. I went to the Public Library after work where a few elderly regulars sat at the north end of the Rose Main Reading Room. There was an orange hue on the arched windows, and I took my usual desk underneath a chandelier. Julie’s steps on the Bobst Library’s ruby carpet had registered a faint sound in my ear. It was a crisp Friday afternoon in November, and the buildings ranked lights flickered outside the tenth floor windows. “A few of us are going to happy hour in Greenwich Treehouse,” she said while standing over my desk, her hair braided like a crown. “You should come.” “Are you in my psychology elective?”

“Yes, Sam Ritter,” she answered. “I’ve been trying to catch your eye for weeks.” She drank too many vodka cranberries, standing inches from my chest, and placed her slim fingers on my forearm. Her eyes sparkled as she pulled me up for a dance on the sticky floor and told me I moved like her dad. “Call me,” she said when I was leaving and kissed my cheek. I met her after an evening lecture in Alphabet City five days later for our first date. She insisted on splitting the drinks, and her gentle laughter raised the cluster of freckles dotting her cheeks when the bartender gave us a free shot of tequila at closing time. “Have you even heard of Montclair?” “It’s somewhere in Jersey,” I answered and raised my glass to hers. We kissed at a bus stop on Avenue A, her heels tilted as I clenched the back of her coat. I asked her to be my girlfriend a month later in front of Washington Square Arch with snow powdering the marble roof. We hid from a blizzard in my room the next day, and she kept her eyes closed when we made love and only rose from the tartan duvet to kiss my cheek. “You’ll have to become a Dodgers fan if you keep wearing my sweatshirt,” I said. Our shadows beamed onto the ceiling and my knuckles caressed her silken thigh. “It’s a deal, Sam Ritter.” On Thursdays, our office team played in a baseball league at East River Park on a synthetic field built beneath the Williamsburg Bridge where the outfielders’ calls were drowned out by trains. I was starting pitcher with Mawson coming in as reliever from shortstop. We had a losing record, and I had spent the entire season watching opponents crush my fastballs. It was a still night, and I threw some practice pitches with Dev who played catcher in his late Nineties Mets jersey. He had a strong arm and decent swing despite his slight physique. Julie and I used to meet him with his ex-girlfriend at colleagues’ parties and made promises of double dates after swilling red wine. Lindsay, who was petite and volatile, left him less than a year after Julie was gone. I had gone to Rudy’s Bar with him on midweek evenings for a few months to watch a game and dissect our failed relationships. The balding, middle-aged umpire turned on the floodlights and bent his knees behind home plate. I saw cars passing on the F.D.R. Drive and put on my Dodgers cap before opening with a fastball. Their second hitter belted my change-up over the chain-link fence. “It could be a long night,” Dev said on the bench and wiped his dark brow with a towel, his blue cap pulled backwards to cover his crew cut. “You guys need a new pitcher,” I said. Mawson replaced me after three innings when we were 8-0 down. We salvaged two runs and lost 12-2. The team trudged to Ace Bar on Fifth Street with stiff limbs and steam rising from our uniforms. 29

“How long do you have left here?” Dev asked after filling my glass from the pitcher. “Two weeks,” I replied. “You can always crash in my place when you come back to visit.” “Sure, man,” I said and refilled the glass. We all made our way out at midnight, and I walked with Dev to Chrystie Street. “We should catch a Mets game before you leave,” he said. “That sounds fun.” Peterson was out of town the next day securing an account for a road development in Syracuse. We drank beers with our lunch, and people left early for the weekend. I went to the library at five pm to research the firm’s highway and dam projects in the Bay Area. A Hispanic girl who I had noticed a few times over the past month was sitting in the row of desks across from me, her face illuminated by a laptop screen. The top buttons of her flannel shirt were open and exposed the curve of her chest. Her light brown hair was tied up with a pink scrunchie, and our eyes met when she was packing up her belongings. My heart pounded as I flanked her through the lobby. “Hey,” I called out by the revolving doors before she turned to face me with her large brown eyes. “Yes?” “Sorry, I wasn’t following you.” “I know,” she said and pulled on the strap of her tote bag. “Look, I see you in here a lot and think about approaching you but...well I’m just shy,” I said, a clammy palm on the back my neck. “I was wondering if you wanted to get a drink with me?” “That is sweet,” she said, “but I have a boyfriend.” “Oh,” I said. “Sorry for bothering you.” “You didn’t.” The train was full of young souls riding a wave of alcohol and I heard Julie’s laughter all the way up to 176th Street. I saw Jersey through the pillars while unlocking my car and put on a mixed CD driving east across the Harlem River. Drab high-rises loomed over the highway, and I followed the Throgs Neck Bridge into Queens. I stopped at a Long Island gas station where teenagers raced to the pumps calling shotgun. Stars glittered above drooping power lines, and the album was on its third cycle by the time I reached the North Fork.

The cold coffee dripped onto the polyester seat after I parked in a clearing at Orient Beach State Park. I punched the steering wheel staring at the moonlit horizon until the Toyota emblem was stained with blood, then switched hands and bellowed into the windscreen. My heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm after a few minutes of listening to the breaking waves. I dried the blood with a tissue, tuning in a West Coast ballgame with my swollen thumb, and drove home under a dark blue sky. The city twinkled over interwoven highways with nobody waiting on the other side. The next day, I pulled shoeboxes filled with souvenirs from my closet and threw them in a trash bag until I found the Polaroid photograph taken at a Key West tiki bar on our fiveyear anniversary. We had both worn lei necklaces with the right strap of Julie’s blue sundress dangling from her shoulder. “There’s a town in Marin County,” I slurred on the hotel’s white steel staircase and reached for her hand on the banister. “We’ll buy a house that looks over the ocean and put the world behind us.” “You’re drunk, Sam Ritter,” she said and stroked my cheek. The team took the subway together for the season’s final game on Thursday with bats protruding from our duffel bags. I shared a Miller Lite with Dev in the bleachers and readjusted my Dodgers cap as a violet sky faded into darkness. “Maybe the beers will loosen us all up,” he said. “We can’t get any worse.” My fastball was sharp, and the opposition blamed each other for striking out. We led 4-3 in the final inning with a runner on third. I threw a slider that bounced off the hitter’s bat and stood rooted to the mound as he began a sprint. Dev threw an arrow to first before catching a reverse at home plate for the double play. I let out an exultant cheer and told him he was drinking for free on the walk to Ace. “That was some play, Dev,” I shouted. We had finished our second whiskey and fresh pitchers had been served. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I have a spare ticket to the Mets game on Sunday if you want it.” “Sure, I owe them one last visit.” I was smoking a cigarette on the pavement when Mawson came outside. His bronzed arms were tensed, and he returned the glance of a slim brunette. “We need to visit the Douglas site tomorrow.” “Peterson gave me the day off,” I replied and exhaled. “Well, I guess it’s my show now,” he said. “Does your ex know you’re leaving?” 31

“Yes.” “She called me last week,” he said. “I slept with her a couple of times if you must know.” He held the right side of his mouth in a smirk and walked past me towards Avenue A. I ordered a shot at the bar then hailed a taxi, my throat clogged with whiskey travelling up a gilded avenue. The Dodgers were winning in Phoenix, and I drank beer and smoked in my bedroom listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on repeat. A college kid called Peter with blond curls met me outside the Hudson View garage the next day and paid two grand for the Toyota. Peter told me that himself and his girlfriend were driving to Mexico for summer vacation before I handed over the keys. There was whiskey on my breath while renting a bike on East 102nd Street. I pedalled hard out of the city and through the bowels of south Brooklyn past fast food chains and supermarkets and car washes until I reached Jamaica Bay. The ocean came into view as I pumped my legs over the Marine Parkway Bridge past a tailback. I locked the bike against a railing and walked towards the dark sand. Shirtless men playing touch football lifted their sons into the water, and I rubbed sunscreen over my body beside a slim, pale girl with chestnut hair who flashed her green eyes at me. She wore a red bikini and had a gold bracelet on her right ankle. “Sorry, would you mind watching my stuff?” I asked. “Of course,” she said. I treaded past couples holding hands across their towels before wading through the shallows. Planes glided above the sparkling waves, and I floated beyond my depth staring at the white sun. “How was it?” she asked when I returned, the salt water and glare burning my eyes. “Refreshing,” I answered. “I’m Sam by the way.” “Michelle,” she said, and extended her hand to mine. “Did you cycle from the city?” “The Upper West Side to be precise,” I said, then glanced at her pierced bellybutton. “Well, you’ve earned a drink,” she said. We went to an outdoor bar beside the communal showers, and I ordered four beers from the dreadlocked bartender. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked after removing a pack of Parliaments from her tote bag. “They’re on sale,” I replied and followed her to a stainless-steel table. We sucked down cigarettes and beer as the crowds began to disperse at sunset. She bought shots and we clinked glasses, the whiskey trickling down our knuckles with her shoulders swaying to a house band playing Roy Orbison covers. 32

“You’re such a city boy,” she said and swung her bracelet against my shin. “I’m from the beach, too.” She took me to a nearby dive bar and we kissed in a booth after drinking more whiskey with her eager tongue prodding my gums. “This is fun,” I said and ran a palm over her spine. “You’re sweet.” She lived in a raised condo five blocks from the beach on a street of twelve houses. I locked my bike on the porch and saw the risen moon lighting up a black sea. She twirled into my arms after opening the front door, and I lifted her against the wall. “My bedroom’s in the basement,” she whispered, my lips planted on her neck. We went downstairs to her wood-panelled bedroom containing a shell lamp, French dresser and an unmade single bed. She turned on the light, and we dropped our clothes to the beige rug. The act was brief, awkward and unsatisfying with my hips buried in her flesh. “I’m sorry.” “That’s okay,” she said and put her arms around my shoulders. “We have all night.” The hands of my watch were blurred, and I felt a headache begin while she was in the shower. She returned wearing red lace underwear, standing over the bed, and ran her fingers through my flat, damp hair. “I need to get home.” “You already missed the last train,” she said and stepped back. “Did you just use me?” “Sorry.” “You’re an asshole.” She put on a kimono dressing gown and lit a cigarette, her eyes lowered as I walked out of the bedroom. I cycled back to the station and argued with two different taxi drivers about taking the bike. A cabbie named Eric accepted my fare and strapped a Bungee cord inside the parted trunk with his thick, brown hands. He spoke Spanish into a headset crossing the Marina Bridge. I rubbed grains of sand from my chest and muttered belligerent notions to Eric who continued speaking into his mouthpiece speeding past neighbourhoods on the cusp of summer. I felt like a man, the kind that Julie always wanted. We made it back to the city at around midnight, and I gave him a twenty-dollar tip before carrying the bike upstairs. I showered, changed and drank whiskey in Jake’s Dilemma until the world turned to black. “Hello, son,” my mother said the next day. It was approaching two pm, and I had spent the last hour vomiting. 33

“Just in time for my last East Coast transmission.” “You sound tired,” she said. “Are the boxes packed?” “Since Friday.” “Your father wants to know if you’re going to the game.” “I am.” Mets fans filled the subway’s carriages at Times Square, and I clung to the railing listening to their conversations about the struggling offense. The ballpark’s redbrick exterior was visible through the fogged windows when the train pulled in at Willets Point. “Dev,” I shouted after seeing him by the ticket booths in his Mets jersey. “You’re taking a risk wearing that Dodgers cap out here,” he said with a smile. I bought four Miller Lites in the concourse and saw the championship pennant flap in a swirling gust. “Are these seats okay?” Dev asked after we took our places in the right field stands. I drank the tepid beer, and then some whiskey from my flask watching the outfielders play catch. “They’re great,” I said. “Do you want some whiskey?” “Sure, we’ll need it to keep warm!” Clayton Kershaw threw a slider with his first pitch and was flawless throughout the opening innings before a rain delay was announced in the fifth. “How many games have you seen here?” “Around fifty,” I answered. “I used to drag Julie out here.” “I did the same with Lindsay.” “Do you ever wish you were an asshole?” “There’s no point, man,” he said. “You’ll always be a nice guy.” The Mets were 2-0 down in the eighth with no runners on base when Kershaw was pulled and the taps were shut off. I was drunk in the half-empty ballpark with drizzle falling over the floodlights. We walked back to the subway hearing fans curse the Mets’ offense. “Twenty bucks says you’ll have a new girl on your arm by the time I visit you,” Dev said as the coasting train left Queens behind. “Maybe we both will.” “The Dodgers always choke in October,” he said at Grand Central and gave me a hug. 34

The leaves were dripping when I ran around the reservoir in the fresh, cloudless morning. There were no girls to overtake during my two laps. I took a train downtown afterwards and sat in Washington Square looking up at the library’s tinted windows. We came here eight years ago after I had finished my final exam with sunspots catching the fountain’s spray. Julie wore a blue sundress, and my arm was placed around her shoulder. “How do you feel about being roommates?” “You’ll have to do whatever I say, Sam Ritter,” she said and interlocked our fingers. “At your service, madam.” I reached my apartment building at four pm, called a car and said goodbye to a few neighbours who were bringing their dogs out for a walk. The driver cruised his sedan out of New York through the Lincoln Tunnel. I ate a Wendy’s cheeseburger meal in the departures lounge and purchased a copy of Sports Illustrated before the gate opened. An air hostess with blond highlights and heavy blush wished me a safe flight when I handed over my ticket. I had a window seat in the back row and opened the magazine to a feature on the MLB draft. The pilot predicted clear skies across America as the cabin lights dimmed. I looked down on the Jersey twilight after the plane levelled off and pointed my knuckles against the cabin window towards Montclair. Muir Beach was a haven that forced me to give up liquor and become serious about my work on highways, dams and bridges to pay off the mortgage. I went on a few dates with nice, lonely girls and drove them across the bay. They asked about my past lying in bed with our shadows beamed onto the ceiling. After they left, I looked up at the star-studded sky from the balcony and heard her voice, still, collapsing from my heart into the ocean.

(Conor O’Sullivan)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KELLA COLTON Kella is a freelance writer who grew up in Omagh, in the Northwest of Ireland. She has written for online webzines like Dead Press and Lady Fuzz. She is an expressive character that fiercely believes in animal rights and mental health equality. When she isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t writing, Kella is usually found studying, relaxing with her dog or dancing around her living room.

OUTCRY Heavy heads hang in sorrow as opinions drown any hope for the future. Change and warning collapse on deaf ears ignoring altruistic intention, And the grieving tears of our children create the very rivers devasting the country— More terrorising than any natural disaster. Flashes of peaceful moments tease the masses as our leaders quarrel over power. Painfully evident solutions punch our guts as tiny grits of sand Race to the bottom of the cracking glass, Urging action to move imminently before the burning ball of light fizzles, And weighted regrets are a mere vacuum of past despair lost in the atmosphere. Feelings of rejection swirl in and around the soul’s chambers as we scramble for Dignity and respect. In a society that shames and creates taboo from normal consciousness, Where our people snub out their inner light in anguish—fight for peace of mind. There is strength in admittance, so it must be welcomed that all existence is needy, There is not a body exempt from the acceptance we crave. Labels cover our skin, suppressing our truths causing us to question worth and identity. The greenery fades, animals perish, and our elders get sick, feeding the neglect that Swallows our dreams. The planet is crying for the very aid we advertise yet resist. We want unity but refuse the anxious outstretched hands seeking compassion; Following a system churning with rusty coils that dismisses desperation and calls it law. Minds all around the world are being fed rubbish, the addicting saccharine taste that Dulls the very senses they fear. Like stretched out roots, we must spread our hearts spilling raw kindness That crumbles obstruction. The resolution will never run peaceful; but in tenacious pursuit, it will be all inclusive. When all colours and shapes blend in unison like captivating surrealism, Carefully crafting a lifeforce thirsty to see another sunset bloom From the dawn we need to survive. (Kella Colton)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: GORDON FERRIS Gordon is a sixty-two year Dublin writer living in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal for the past thirty-six years. He is a member of the Dublin Writers Forum and has had poetry and short stories published in A New Ulster, The Galway Review, and poetry in Hidden Channel.

REGRESS the trail of tears shames the innocent and the already sinned against back to ancient times, we're sent when gods were created to explain the things we did not understand and those with all the wealth kept ordinary people ignorant “what do they need to read for what do they need leisure for why would they need more food they can't move freely on full bellies they don't work if they can’t move” yes the trail of tears it’s here again the innocent are shamed do we allow them to walk on us again let the freedom trial begin. (Gordon Ferris)

SCATTERED WISHES the voice that speaks to us when we are alone lays scattered on train edge gorse like Mediterranean drifting boats looking for a home you see a stranger’s face stoop your head to gaze then run to cut your hair to try and hide your ego you want to be with familiar spending many silence’s together be in each other's world live each other’s dreams the odd knowing glance sharing the world of the internal where you listen to the voice the voice that speaks to us when we are alone (Gordon Ferris)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DAVID MCVEY David lectures in Communication at New College Lanarkshire. He has published over 120 short stories and a great deal of non-fiction that focuses on history and the outdoors. He enjoys hillwalking, visiting historic sites, reading, watching telly, and supporting his home-town football team, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC.

TOWN AND GOWN I hate public speaking. No, not doing it. I’m actually fine with that. I’m pretty good, too. Well, I hope I am. I’m a university lecturer; if I’m no good at public speaking, a lot of students have been bored stupid by me. No, I mean listening to someone else doing public speaking. If you’re lucky, you’ll just be bored; if you’re unlucky it can be torture. And if you’re the chairman, however bored you get, you mustn’t look bored. You’re sitting next to the speaker, in full view of the audience and duty bound to look intelligent and enthusiastic and to laugh at even really rubbish jokes. Anyway, my wife Jane and I had been invited to dinner by our Vice-Principal, Professor Anton Roughkind. Long ago he was an ordinary sociology lecturer who came to the University of South Glasgow from an English redbrick, but he was ambitious. He soon rose above actual student contact for senior management and the arduous labour of chairing conferences, visiting partner institutions in Dubai and China and holding drinks receptions. If he did any substantive work, it didn’t show in his large office where there was no litter of paper, no pile of half-read textbooks and no heap of marking. No, he just had shelves of pristine box files (which I suspected were empty) lined up like guardsmen on parade. The only other thing in his office was a PC that was occasionally asked to display a spreadsheet. There were no books. You’re right. I didn’t like him. The evening was pretty much like all the previous evenings we’d spent there. He and his wife (sorry, partner) Meaghan served us some light brown, nutty vegan meal and brayed on and on about the art on their walls, last year’s holiday (no, not ‘holiday’ - travelling) to Laos, and the latest Netflix ‘boxset’ they’d ‘binge-watched’ together. It was like someone reading to you from an anthology of the worst Guardian articles of the past twenty years. ‘No, really, Malky,’ said Meaghan, ‘The Wire is just phenomenal.’ ‘But be careful how you watch it,’ broke in Roughkind, ‘because it’s really a different kind of television.’ ‘I’m really more of a New Tricks kind of guy,’ I said, because it was true and because it would enable them to feel effortlessly superior. That was why they’d asked us over, after all. I was just helping them to feel good about themselves though I suspect they always did, anyway. ‘Meaghan - would you take Jane to see the new peace display in the back garden? I have 42

something I want to ask Malky.’ Jane suppressed an amused smile and Meaghan, indeed, obediently led her off on command like a mousey Victorian wife. He poured us drinks (he had some pretty good single malts, I was pleased to see, and Jane was driving) and said, ‘Look, Malky, it’s about next month’s Town and Gown Lecture.’ Oh, yes. The Town and Gown Lectures; not a venerable tradition but Roughkind’s own innovation. Actually, at South Glasgow Uni we only ever wear gowns at graduations, and sometimes not even then. Roughkind was keen to make a reputation for himself but the events, even when the speakers were good, had been poorly attended. The next speaker, I knew, was Professor Mary Collinson, a ho-hum zoologist but a dazzlingly good speaker who had gained some fame through strident anti-religious views. She was revered by some (including Roughkind) for those views. She had been signed up as a crowd-puller. ‘Naturally, I was going to chair the meeting but unfortunately I have to be in Bahrain all that week.’ Oh good, I thought, the lecture will have to be cancelled. Why is he telling me this? ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I suggested to the organising committee that they wouldn’t find a better replacement chair than Professor Malcolm Kennedy, Head of the Faculty of Biological Sciences.’ Hang on, I thought, that’s me. I ransacked what remained of my memory after the single malts. Of course I was free on the date of the talk, because I had kept it free so that I could go. However, I had intended to be dozing gently at the back of the hall, not stuck on the platform trying to look interested. I said, of course, I’d be honoured, it’ll be a pleasure, while the voices in my head cursed the Town and Gown series, Professor Collinson and Professor Roughkind, the latter as vehemently as if he were a corrupt referee who’d given England a late penalty against Scotland. Roughkind put on a serious face. ‘I do hope you can persuade your friend Mr Knox to stay away. Of course, we don’t have question sessions at the Town and Gown series, but I feel he would probably try to approach Professor Collinson after the meeting. There might be a scene.’ Ah - that’s the plan, I thought, you hope that Knox will turn up and that there will be a scene. A bit of controversy, a bit of notoriety, some newspaper headlines and social media storms will work wonders for a lecture series currently dying on its arse. And with me as chair, Knox’s friend (for my sins, probably quite literally), Knox would be more likely to turn up and cause a rammy. I met Knox soon afterwards. He was in the University lecturing to the Divinity students, 43

something he occasionally did (on ‘Missiology’, whatever that is). We had met years before when we were studying in the same department and had become friends through our shared but contrasting involvement in criminal investigation (forensic science v theology). Knox was, if you like, a fundamentalist’s fundamentalist. This day, as always, he was wearing a severe black suit, a black shirt, clerical collar, a wide-brimmed black hat and was carrying his thick black woollen coat over his arm. He looked like someone trying to sell you a funeral. ‘I expect I shall see you at the Professor Collinson lecture, Malky?’ ‘Oh, no, don’t come, Knox, please, you’ll just start a riot. I’m chairing the thing. Have mercy on a poor sinner!’ ‘Oh, I have no doubt it will prove an interesting evening, Malky. There may be drama, but it will not come from me.’ And off he went. I didn’t see him again before the meeting. I texted him several times asking him to explain this gnomic parting shot but he never replied. Professor Collinson turned out to be a small, energetic woman with spiky grey hair and a jolly manner. I had dinner with her and the rest of the organising committee (minus Roughkind) before the event and she was good fun, full of entertaining stories and laughter. She was much more conciliatory about religion than I expected. ‘Oh yes, the media portray me as a hard-line secular fundamentalist,’ she said, ‘but I’m not really. There are religious believers in my research team. I have a laugh with them about faith, of course, but I’m happy to have them if they’re good at their jobs.’ We took our places. The hall was full, hot and airless, the huge turnout hoping for an intemperate, Dawkins-style outburst. What they got was an entertaining, lively, fascinating talk about Mechanisms of Evolution. I had no difficulty looking interested and I even learned stuff. Knox was in the audience, seated near the back and attired as usual, but seeming oddly distracted, looking about himself every now and again, looking more interested in the exits and the audience than in the speaker. The talk ended and there was an eruption of applause. There was to be a drinks reception for the great and the good in the lesser hall afterwards. The platform party descended the steps at the side of the stage and headed for the connecting door. Suddenly there was a cry from among the milling audience in the main hall. We turned and saw a ripple in the mass of people as someone fought his way through. A short, pudgy man emerged and began to stride vigorously towards us, or, really, towards Professor Collinson. He was shoving people aside like Donald Trump trying to get to the front of a photoopportunity. 44

A look of fear came into the professor’s face. She looked right at the man and I suppose their eyes must have met. He had a small, squashed-up face and a couple of days’ growth of beard. He was perhaps three paces away when a uniformed police officer appeared on either side of him, grabbed an arm each, and immobilised him. They seemed to have ghosted in from nowhere. As they hoicked the man out of the hall, they were joined by none other than Revd Melville Knox. We all expressed relief in our different ways, and I waved the select few through for the drinkies. There was some chat about the incident but it had been so localised and over so quickly that not everyone had even noticed it. Twenty minutes on, Knox appeared in the room and acquired a glass of orange juice. He wasn’t on the guest list, but that was never likely to stop him. I introduced him to Professor Collinson and he was both courteous and even grimly smiling. ‘Come on, Knox, tell us about the little pudgy bloke. We know you want to or you wouldn’t have crashed the party.’ ‘Pudgy, Malky?’ he sniffed. ‘Have you weighed yourself lately?’ He settled down and told us the man’s story. He wouldn’t give us his real name, just referred to him as Mr X. ‘Hugely original, Knox,’ I said. Mr X had started coming to Knox’s church. He had seemed a genuine convert but had a history of minor crime and mental health issues. He’d often collared Knox after services, especially if his sermon had touched on issues of unbelief. ‘He saw himself as having a mission against the militant public atheists - Dawkins and the like, amongst whom Professor Collinson is sometimes unfairly categorised. He wrote letters to newspapers, contributed to online forums, tweeted regularly.’ Knox had become increasingly concerned about his behaviour, especially when Mr X had stated his intention of attending the Town and Gown Lecture and confronting Professor Collinson. ‘I feared he would attempt violence against the professor and so I approached my contacts in the police, but no actual crime had been committed and there was insufficient evidence that he intended harm. However, my experience in dealing with troubled souls told me otherwise. I persuaded the police to attend the lecture and his aggressive approach towards the professor was sufficient to persuade them to act. 45

Professor Collinson looked pale. ‘What was he going to do to me, Mr Knox?’ Knox said something very unusual for him. He said nothing. ‘Knox?’ the professor urged. He gave a minimal, ministerial shrug. ‘It is certainly true that he was carrying a knife…’ The professor didn’t get any less pale. Later, as the last attendees of the first and last Town and Gown Lecture I would ever agree to chair were drifting away, Knox said to me, ‘You know, Malky, tomorrow the papers will be proclaiming “Crazed Fundamentalist Attacks Atheist Professor”.’ ‘Why shouldn’t they, Knox? It is true.’ ‘Yes, but it is equally true that “Fundamentalist Minister Foils Attack on Atheist Professor.” But that is not an angle that will be pursued.’ ‘Aw, diddums, Knox. You’re feeling unloved and unappreciated.’ ‘Only by the World, Malky,’ said Knox, and strode off like a black galleon in full sail, into the night. I suppose that’s the main difference between Knox and me - whether or not we see that the World is all there is. (David McVey)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KATE ENNALS Kate is involved with Freedom to Write. She lives in Ireland, and at the time of this issue, has published two poetry collections.

THE SURPRISE TEXT (FOR UNA) The text you sent did not make sense The words, though bold, hid in full view. My white blood cells threw up silver-plated armour around my heart. My head screeched, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What the fuckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; weeks later I felt the angled body blow. It was a Saturday. I was lounging in my suede recliner with the paper, half watching the starlings kaleidescope the sky, circle and swoop the red tiled roofs outside. Out of the blue, I wept a blind roiling river Spooled in my gut, lying in wait. (Kate Ennals)

EDITOR’S NOTE Welcome to the May edition of A New Ulster. We have an amazing range of poetry and prose this issue. I’ve enjoyed reading all of it, and I am hopeful that you will as well. Lockdown has forced many to change their daily routines, uncertainty and financial concerns go hand in hand with health concerns. Thankfully, there are outlets such as A New Ulster in which people can share their work and which can bring something other than fear and chaos into their lives. I won’t dwell on the pandemic. Instead, I will continue to promote poetry, prose and artwork to the best of my abilities and I hope you will all join us in our next issue. Happy reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor)