ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Featuring the works of.Aisling Keogh, Amy Louise Wyatt, Will Daunt, Nigel Ford, Ken W. Simpson, Claire Sawtell, Glenn Donald Hubbard, Tom Cud, John Doyle, Hiram Larew, Jenny Methven, Noel King and Robert Mc Dowell Hard copies can be purchased from our website.
Issue 73 October 2018
A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Editorial Aisling Keogh;
1. D.S.H. Deliberate Self Harm Amy Louise Wyatt; 1. Macondo Blowout 2. King of the Castle 3. A Count of Beats 4. Our Northern Hearts Will Daunt; 1. An Empty Harbour Nigel Ford; 1. Wader und Bader Ken W. Simpson; 1. The Myth of God 2. A Trio of Traitors 3. An American Nazi Claire Sawtell; 1. By the sea 2. Nice To See The Rain 3. The Hope 4. Yesterday Evening Glenn Donald Hubbard; 1. Get Out To The Fen 2. Christ’s Visit to a Food and Clothing Bank 3. Market Scene on a Quay 4. Trains to Treblinka 5. The Temple Desecrated Tom Cuddihy; 1. Amor
John Doyle; 1. We Never Go To Galway Anymore 2. Sundown: Alicante Province 3. I Think of Roland Barthes 4. Rook 5. Robert Mitchum Spent a Little Too Long on the Ground After Falling Off his Horse 6. People I’Ve Observed Recently Hiram Larew; 1. PATIO 2. OR NOT 3. MUDDY Jenny Methven; 1. Knowing Noel King; 1. Three Legged Dog 2. Cage 3. Soaps 4. The Killer 5. Unearthing The Plans Robert Mc Dowell; 1. Rebecca’s Shadow On The Wall Message from the Alleycats Round the Back
Poetry, prose, art work and letters to be sent to: Submissions Editor A New Ulster 23 High Street, Ballyhalbert BT22 1BL Alternatively e-mail: g.greig3@gmail.com See page 50 for further details and guidelines regarding submissions. Hard copy distribution is available c/o Lapwing Publications, 1 Ballysillan Drive, Belfast BT14 8HQ Or via PEECHO Digital distribution is via links on our website: https://anuanewulster.wixsite.com/anewulster Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman Produced in Belfast & Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland. All rights reserved The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 To be identified as the authors of their work. ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online) Cover Image “Ilyrria� by Amos Greig
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ” Aristotle Onassis. Editorial This has been a period of celebrations as well as a period of hardships worse of course is the continued health issues which has plagued our family especially my father. On a brighter note this issue represents the birthday issue of A New Ulster we originally started on National Poetry Day in 2012 and have continued to produce monthly editions ever since. This year of course saw us miss several deadlines but we did manage to eventually over come those problems and get the issue out. It makes you realise how much time has passed once you sit and reflect on the journey you have taken. Who would have though it that the child who was taken to poetry workshops, launches and discussions would one day provide a platform for new and established artists? I’ll not lie up until 2012 the idea hadn’t come into my mind. I’m glad I did though and I’m pleased that we can continue to do so I’ve seen several magazines and online journals disappear which is a shame. I try to read as many online journals as I can and will buy the hardcopies were possible it isn’t always an option though. Lapwing Publications is 30 years old that’s something of a pleasant thought especially as I was responsible for designing several covers as well as the logo itself. I apologise if this editorial has been all doom and gloom but there’s a silver lining pages and pages of prose, poetry and even an essay we hope you enjoy the work contained within and as always, the work remains the Intellectual property of the artists who produced it...
Onward to creativity!! Amos Greig Editor.
Biographical Note: Aisling Keogh
Aisling is a mother a physiotherapist and a writer.
D.S.H. (Deliberate Self Harm) (Aisling Keogh)
There's always a moment you keep going back to. A moment that replays in your head, insists its inherent pain has release. And once you've given in and committed to the act of hurting yourself, relief washes over you in the kind of waves that crashed off Dun Laoghaire pier during Storm Clodagh, or Desmond, or Eva or Frank. . For me, that moment was in a festival tent in the arse-end of Laois. End of the night encore, the crowd were screeching, and the band's drummer was going wild, working some blast beats that drove the night to the edge of insanity. Speakers crackled feedback, ready to explode, and a figure in a blue hoodie crashed into my line of vision, stopped and stared. Blonde, blue eyed, all teeth and smiles. I noticed all of that first, because I wasn't used to being looked at or smiled upon by anything so god-like. Only then did I recognise her. Two thoughts -Fuck, and -What the hell is she doing here? But she was smiling, and kissing my cheek hello as if she was really, actually glad to see me. Two minutes of fraught conversation, us awkward as a couple of teens, fumbling over our words and not each other. Festivals and free love my arse. Then she plodded off through swampy fields, and the drums - the drums beat -beat a perfect rhythm for banging my head off a wall, a would-be cure for the pain of seeing her walk away, again. And I'm used to it now, as much as I'll ever be, but it has to go somewhere -else all that I can hear -see -touch -gets crazy whipped up together and I can't function because I'm so freaking overloaded. There's blood rushing in my ears, and my skin can't tell if it's hot or cold - I'm goosebumps and burning up. I'm panic buying and pulling down the shades, and I have to find a way out, before I get locked in at the close of business. So, I go, to what I know works. Tap a screen a few times. Hit play. Feel the drum beat -my heart beat, the gnawing inside my soul, and crest the wave of a melody. And the cold white fear and the red edge of pain mix, blend, become a soft pink love song that I bleed for three minutes and forty seconds in a deliberate ritual exorcism of that pain. And I play it, over and over.
Biographical Note: Amy Louise Wyatt Amy Louise Wyatt is an lecturer, poet and artist from Bangor, County Down. She is the editor of The Bangor Literary Journal. She has work published in a range of established journals and magazines including The Blue Nib, FourxFour, Lagan Online and CAP Poetry Anthology. Amy has read at festivals throughout Ireland. She was a finalist in The National Funeral Services Poetry Competition 2016; The Aspects Poetry Slam 2017 and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2018. Amy is currently working on her first collection of poems.
Macondo Blowout (Amy Louise Wyatt) I am at the Gulf of Mexico, that April afternoon 2010, when Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig blew black riches into the sea. The explosion accidental. Just like burning toast or forgetting to turn the tap off, these things happen. Blackened bread, or black mould mutating the ceiling of the laundry room where the tap had dripped for 6 and a half hours, or the oil that flowed for 87 days, uncapped, unstoppable. For 600 miles the shoreline drank oil, shrank back, repulsed by the slick, globulant mass that brought forth a lifetime of impact. You did burn outs, took out onto tarmac a skimming boat; threw floating booms into vast expanse of water mixed with oil to contain, contain, contain what cannot be contained. Even Louisiana sand turns black, more soot than grain. Self-fulfilling prophecies are born in mind when man’s skin is too slick for oil to stick, but I brown pelican am tarred. My heart skips, eyes blinded by the darkness of your gold, I preen poison in. Ingest your shadows at dusk to keep me buoyant. My feathers absorb everything but air. I am black from lung to quill.
King of the Castle (Amy Louise Wyatt) In the playground nook beside the burn my cousin once again, the king he was, of that damn castle. High upon the mound he’d call me out, yet again, a dirty rascal. The title was not one to want, but that last child upon the mound always was, regardless. His legs were thicker and stronger than mine and so was his will. An unforgiving tyrant, he would order me to-and-fro all day. Then young, play was a reality I obeyed. By twenty-four, I found myself again below a looming moundthis time in a rough-neck school with now a rough- neck boss. I almost broke my neck again, as I looked up to see her call me those same names that he had fifteen years before. Nonetheless, today my legs are thick and strong. I can race flat footed to the top. I no longer scare myself of heights: not his, not hers, nor yours.
A Count of Beats (Amy Louise Wyatt) I have been spooked by the thinness of life: I am but a count of beats; I am a sum of breaths; a course of veins. Take a knife this can end me- even if you say it - I will die inside. Raise a glass, I will raise one too. Sláinte. Now drink it and I will watch you wash your sorrows past my aching eyes, my aching heart. Taste itit must be time to call upon the ghosts; the gods have long been dead, the goddess too has rest her head upon my beating chest. But we are breathing, bleeding. Say it’s true that God still counts the beats of hearts now gone and uses them in life’s eternal song.
Our Northern Hearts (Amy Louise Wyatt) Connolly Station: a surge of passengers ready to forge their southern paths. As we worked ourselves loose from the frenzied threads on a free street map we misplaced our bearings. Dublin had us tangled in her knot of streets, four feet teetering on convulsing cobbled paths, St Patrick’s snakes borne us on their patchy backs. Youths with legs outstretched played social in some skulking alley; hidden from the outstretched arms of the bustling maiden and her heady throng deeply drunk on black. Men in bags with cups and heaven-pointed eyes, brought forth that blessed are the poor for they will inherit the kingdom, and we are all at once consoled. We spilt into a bar. Fell under the spell of a fiery fiddler with a stamping foot, a sense of fun and an upturned hat for half-cut tippers with clinking change. Met Ballymena man, who border crossed to greener grass, shared stories into the early hours and hankered for a northern bond. At three a.m. we laid our heads in attic bed. We clambered through a laddered window in the roof to find our rest. Awoke next morning to the clip clop of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones of a hectic day, and streamed Irish light through the curtain crack charging our northern hearts.
Biographical Note: Will Daunt Will Daunt lives in Ormskirk, and his sixth collection, Landed was published by Lapwing in 2013. He has reviewed for New Hope International and Envoi, adjudicating poetry competitions for Sentinel.
AN EMPTY HARBOUR
August 1966
We arrived in Schull by accident, and found a B & B above a hardware shop. I remember the cabbages and bike pumps. Our stay was curtailed, perhaps because of the questions we children put to our landlady’s visitors, men who’d wait patiently on the chair outside her bedroom. Business was as vigorous as our departure was speedy, although the latter only led us a mile or two up Roaringwater Bay. We found a flaking country house, protected by gravelly coves, low cliffs and woodland. There was enough of the tussocky grounds for a fortnight of Kick The Can, and guided by Mrs. Guinness and Mr. Paddy - our parents retreated to the old living room.
Thirty-seven years later, we drive in three cars past the roofless gatehouse. But it’s only when we stop at the end of the drive that one day begins to return to me. It must be the collage of what I think I can remember, and what the family has made up, which reshapes that route from quay to porch and back again. Stepping out onto the loose chippings, more than half of us are in-laws and offspring who’ve never seen the house. They must be wondering when they signed up to the pilgrimage. Meanwhile, I imagine others’ surviving memories. There’s an awkwardness, and we start to return to the cars. What’s the recollection we presume we’ve been brought to see? The ghost of a country house, more decayed than ever? Little whitewash remains, and some windows are frameless. A few families are camping indoors under gas lamps – as we had – and they’re probably wondering if the water will run out. But the place seems more raw, even hostile, and a pair of collies have heard enough. Under that drab and widening sky, childhood freedoms were an easy fantasy. There’s the rhododendron and fuchsia wilderness where we hid; beyond, the cowrie beaches where mackerel smacks would land. Two loops of barbed wire still trail needlessly around the trees that they first enclosed, as saplings. Nearby, the gap to whatever remains of the farmyard recalls those rattling tractor trips: we’d cling on to churns all the way to the creamery. This time, there’s no welcome. Spilling from those familiar rooms, the tenants seem to urge their dogs upon us. Someone finds the farmer, now holed out at the back of the ground floor. He was the affable, younger son, allowing his prodigal sibling to move out and make
good. Now it’s as if he’d become his terrifying grandmother, whose room was said to overlook the byre. Perhaps she didn’t exist beyond our dreams, but we kept a distance. Now her grandson keeps his. And a blog tells me that the older brother is somewhere in those back rooms, having returned to the fold, empty-handed. We leave, harangued by howls that follow us to the cattle grid.
Then I recognise the concrete slab of the harbour. Its shape and aspect are as compact and enticing as they were that morning when Chris and I went boating, dads looking on. Chris was older and bigger and louder than I was, and was the first to try on his life jacket. He announced from the edge: ‘Look at me! I can’t sink. Just push me in...’ And I had. It was low tide, and he fell several feet into a pool of limpets and anemones. There was quite a row. Chris shot back up the steps and everyone looked at me, but didn’t speak. We glanced down at the rocks that he’d managed to fall between. The place is called Nice Pier, apparently. But it’s quite a drop at low tide.
Will Daunt
Biographical Note: Nigel Ford
Nigel Ford is English and works as a translator, dramatist, writer, poet and visual artist. His stories have appeared in the Penniless Press anthology, Howling Brits, (designed the cover) and a collection entitled One Dog Barking, (designed the cover) published by Worldscribe Press. His artwork, poems, short plays and stories have been featured in a number of literary magazines this year, most recently in Duende, Orbis and The Fortnightly Review.
Wader und Bader (1740 words)
The sun glared through its sad blue flimsy at the tanned, cancer pitted skulls of two bald men who cavorted upon the beach on which one man wriggled his toes was pure white. The other man swam and splashed in the Ocean, which stretched unhindered to all points of the compass and glittered as if made of diamond chips from the great gem of the heavens. ”Hi there Wader!” shouted Bader, "Come on in, the water’s fine.” "Please?” ”I said come on in, the water’s fine.” "To you maybe. Me, I don’t care to wallow and bask in my own shit!” "The sand!” shouted Bader, "Those pure white particles in which you are wriggling your toes. That is your own shit, Wader. Not to mention the remains of your ancestors.” ”What you got in there you creep, a hot-wired submarine?” wondered Wader. ”Please?” said Bader. ”What have you got hidden beneath the surface?” asked Wader, suspicious. ”Only me, my kind gentleman! Bollock-naked I promise,” insisted Bader. ”You and your mechanical toys,” Wader is lugubrious in his mistrust; there is a doleful slump to his shoulder line.
“If you come in now,” said Bader, sensing that Wader’s resistance was crumbling, “I will buy you an ice-cream.” Wader tentatively placed a foot in the water. “Ugh!” he exclaimed and withdrew it swiftly. The water beneath Bader’s belly was contrarily blue, as if he was not bollock-naked, as if he was a liar! But there were no crabs to bite his toes in admonition. The sea beyond Bader planed out into a sheet of turquoise metal while the sky hooped over their heads in ultra-marine, faded down to the horizon in burnished silver. There was an unplanetary stillness in the air as if Death had long vacated this dull and tranquil place and zoomed off into space in search of more worthy playmates. ”You are a coward Wader!” shouted Bader. ”You are a liar Bader,” retorted Wader. ”You are not at all bollock-naked. You are wearing awful blue glistening polyester bathing trunks. Over the top of which your horrible and disgusting white belly slops!” ”Why should we play this game of howling insults at each other?” shouted Bader, "What’s the point?” ”What else is there?” wondered Wader. “You could come in for a swim,” said Bader. ”The water’s lovely I assure you.” “Don’t believe in assurances,” Wader said. “Look what happened last time! Anyway,” continued Wader, “it doesn’t look particularly appetizing does it?” “Got my own segment,” Bader said. “Join me!” “What do you do,” taunted Wader, "make fart bubbles in the interest of development?”
“You could borrow as many ice creams as you want,” offered Bader, “Your credit’s good. I’ll send you a delayed invoice.” “At two points below,” insisted Wader. “You’re a hard man to please Wader,” said Bader, “but alright.” Wader wondered if there was life out there where Bader was. He was afraid of life. Life made him tremulous. Life was unpredictable and dangerous. Wader and his ancestors made a point of killing all the life they could find as they went along. Things were not one hundred percent satisfactory, but you could walk the streets of San Sebastian without treading on a lethal snake. Or those of Nairobi without being trampled to death by a myopic rhinoceros. The future, thought Wader, seemed promising. A huge expanse of nothing at all, in which man could play God. What monsters, wondered Wader in a moment of weakness, will we create? But then he pushed such disloyal thoughts from his mind. The world would be full of delightfully civilised creatures. With a perfect and logical ecological balance. “I want one free ice-cream,” said Wader, “to come in and wade a little. After which I want an option on 20 more at 2 points below.” “Are you coming for a bathe Wader?” asked Bader. ”Are you ever going to stop beating about the bush?” “I have not agreed to bathing,” said Wader, ”Wading only.” “You’ve got brass balls Wader,” Bader said, “but alright.”
Wader felt good about having brass balls. The water, he felt, didn’t look too shitty perhaps really. The sun warmed agreeably. Although the top of his head he noticed, itched. As did the tips of his elbows these days. The water was alternating layers of emerald and turquoise emphasized and sparkled by chips off the sky. Wader did not care for bathing. It was not the fear of sharks nibbling off a leg. There had been none around for years. Nor was the sea, as Bader had pointed out, any shittier than the land or the air. No, it was the total commitment to bathing at which Wader jibbed. “After all,” called Bader, approaching cautiously as he might some timid wild animal. “We all live amongst small piles of excreta and huge mounds of dead bodies. Both animal and vegetable. Not to mention myriad mineral dung heaps. It is the rotting process or as we now say, the biodegradable process which is of vital importance. You and I Mr Wader between us could produce a unique solution to this problem.” Initiative raises its hoary head admitted Wader to himself. Mentally he raised his arms palm out in horror and yelled go away, leave me alone! I love the smell of sun lotion. I don’t want to go in there and wash it all off. “Come on in you fat cowardly slob,” called Bader. “Wader’s a yellow chicken jelly-o,” he taunted. Stung, Wader entered the water carefully. His hairy legs prickled. Perhaps it did not feel so slimy after all. And it certainly seemed to wash more easily around his legs than it had done
in his childhood. He stood in water up to his knees. Not liking to think what stuff on the bottom of his toes were curling into. “We remember things as we want them to be Wader,” Bader said, as if he could read his mind. ”But they never were and up until now they never are.” “Is this business in the theoretical stages?” wondered Wader. He washed some water over his body. Turning the hairs on his chest and arms into mucky grey streaks. It was warm the water. Squeaky clean and clear. He splashed merrily about and had a time. “Or do you have some practical proof of your pudding?” “Here is your ice-cream Wader,” said Bader, “and this you see is the sea which is not as dirtful as it used to be.” “Nice and clean and dead, ” Wader agreed as he took his ice-cream. ”Ideal for windsurfing.” “You eat that,” Bader said. ”Enjoy and I’ll tell you all about the scheme of things.” ”But Bader,” Wader protested munching on the cornet. “I am no animal you know. I disappeared into my mind a long time ago.” “That’s exactly it!” cried Bader in triumph. “You have hit the very spot. We shall have to go right over the top!” “What spot you creep?” Wader asked, gaily splashing water over Bader. “Man is not part of nature!” Bader cried, swimming off powerfully. ”Man has always loathed nature. Man has always regarded nature as uncomfortable.” “I see what you mean,” said Wader standing lonely in the shallows. ”Flies and things.”
“Wasps and stings,” yelled Bader merrily. ”Heffalumps and such. Snakes and tigers, things that suck.” “Sharks and piranha and unmentionable horrors that go pop in the night,” Wader called. “Mosquitoes and bugs and other thugs.” “Spooky forests with trolls. Dangerous monsters of the deep. Nasty mountains that get in the way. Man and nature in general strife,” Bader trumpeted. P’raps they don’t like us much either,” Wader said now prepared to go liberal since Bader has voiced similar thoughts. ‘P’raps we’re the biggest pests of all,” said Wader. “Exactly what we are,” Bader said treading water and purring, “the biggest pests of all. And the thing is we can win! After all, what other animal can fly and swim and run and walk,” Bader brayed. Wader whinnied: ”And there’s not an awful lot of them that talk.” “No one’s going to miss them Wader,” Bader said, “those green freaks won’t be here. Longlive the three piece suit!” “Nor for that matter,” Wader said thoughtfully, ”is there much stiff competition in space.” “Oh Lord!” Bader pealed, “behold the human race!” “Over the top I see,” Wader stood stock still in the water and sucked at his thumb. He looked pensive. “Extermination.” “Right on,” Bader said. ”Extermination, genocide, liquidation, purification. Wipe the buggers out!” “And let there be no more wilderness to go into,” Wader said.
“You’re a perceptive man Wader,” Bader said. ”The planet becomes our garden. Filled with tame animals and cultivated plants.” “Just think,” said Wader with a giggle. ”I can sit on the grass without getting my bottom pinched.” “Just a pinch and a punch for the first of the month,” said Bader laughing. “We could abolish that too,” said Wader with a chortle. ”But what about evolution. The balance of nature. All that?” “That’s the beauty of such a plan,” Bader said turning onto his back and swimming lazily, facing the sky wearing a beatific expression. ”If we abolish nature as such we won’t need a balance will we.” “You mean if we provide our own nature instead,” Wader said, “then that will naturally balance itself?” “Well put Wader,” Bader said. “Well put and well met.” “Well I don’t know,” Wader said doubtfully. “If we do that what on Earth can we expect?” “That’s the charm of this strategy old chap,” Bader said. “It creates its own laws and balances. Just like any other nature, it is to us completely unpredictable.” Wader’s face cleared. “You mean we won’t have a clue what’s going on. Just like before?” “That’s it exactly old chap,” snickered Bader. “Our sublime ignorance will remain totally undisturbed.” “In that case,” said Wader, all doubts swept away. “I’m with you all the way.”
“Life will become business class,” Bader said. ”The snap of briefcase fasteners will be heard everywhere.” “I shall have a black leather briefcase with a tender lining,” said Wader. “Oh God it turns me on!” groaned Bader. “The end of spontaneity!” Wader cried with glee. “Not a ferocious bug to blight my sight!” “Bees without stings,” agreed Bader, “and absolutely no wasps or hornets.” “Life,” Wader said dreamily and biting into his, “becomes a great big round of ice-cream cornets.” THE END
Biographical Note: Ken W Simpson Ken’s poetry can be read online at https://ken7w.wordpress.com/
The Myth of God (Ken W Simpson) Love exists in Hollywood and spirits live inside crystal balls telling lies or as sermons about Jesus walking on water and dying for our sins ludicrously according to the word of God dictated to a worthy scribe about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden somewhere in Utah instead of when life began after the big bang as green algae on a pond before man appeared and created a world of intolerance and strife controlled today by Christian barbarians who assassinate and slaughter with impunity to profit from the misery of others.
A Trio of Traitors (Ken W Simpson)
Prescott Bush with Allen Dulles financed Hitler’s war machine from their Union Bank while John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State Allen Dulles headed the CIA and Prescott Bush was elected Senator.
An American Nazi (Ken W Simpson)
Averell Harriman was rewarded for his Nazi sympathies’ and promotion of eugenics by being appointed US Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Biographical Note: Clare Sawtell . Clare Sawtell lives near Kinvara, Co Galway. In 2014 her collection The Next Dance was published by Wordsonthestreet. Her most recent collection, Soft Notes and Departures (Lapwing) was published in December 2017. Her poems have been published in Crannog, THE SHOp, The Stony Thursday Book, Earthlines and The Clare Champion.
By the sea (Clare Sawtell) We don’t know what’s come over usstanding next to perfect strangers in our togs, chatting staring out at it poking about at the shoreline looking at jellyfish deciding not to go in sitting in the car with the door wide open should be getting back but lingering
Nice To See The Rain (Clare Sawtell)
The green summer is back. For moments we lost our familiar grasses our trees withered in front of us our birds’ songs dried up. We saw the pictures of fires across Greece, Sweden, Lancashire. We started to joke fondly about rain, how many days it would take us to complain and yesterday at the fish counter in Supervalu the man saw my raincoat and in answer to his question I said yes, it was nice. ('Don’t use the word nice', they said at school, 'it’s lazy and bland'). But it’s nice to see the rain, nice to feel it on my face, nice to walk about in it.
The Hope (Clare Sawtell) Red sky over the harbour the long wall shoulders out Sky’s diffuse - an invitation.... Boat pulls out, starts early, another day of life
Yesterday evening (Clare Sawtell Getting out of the car yesterday evening a flock of geese were passing behind the house it was a warm still evening not dark yet and there was something about it a feeling that maybe it wasn’t all lost they were heading south calling to each other in a line I think
Biographical Note: Glenn Donald Hubbard
Glenn was born in London but, afters some years in Belfast, moved to live in Madrid in 1987. He started writing poetry in 2012 and hasn’t stopped since. Glenn’s ability to write has been a revelation to him. He feels blessed.
Go Out To The Fen (Glenn Hubbard) Go out to the Fen where the sedge is angry under the whip of the wind; where the water in the drain stands in thick ridges; where the rain rattles on the wooden footbridge from which you look down at the ruffled plumage of the swans scudding by in the gale. Go out to the Fen where the dark clouds vie for space as they race across the vast sky; where the rooks making for their roost must yield to the sway of the wind; where the tall trees bend and groan in the blast, branches snapping, leaves enraged, last year’s nests taking flight. Go out to the Fen. See just how little you add up to. And once you know, turn back to the house that hunkers on the horizon with its one light in the kitchen window and the love that will help you to be reconciled.
Christ’s Visit to a Food and Clothing Bank (Glenn Hubbard) Jesus came into St. Cuthberts. We were sorting stuff at the time. Baked beans, some moth-eaten gloves, one or two nice scarves. Creature comforts. He’d left the donkey out on the pavement. Was shivering. Joan got him a wooly. He looked a bit sheepish, self-conscious. Like some first time benefit claimant. With those daft open-toed sandals he’d obviously come unprepared. He looked around, visibly shocked. I suppose he thought he’d covered all the angles. That day on the Mount, I mean. I mean, he couldn’t have been any clearer. And there we all were. A right sorry lot. Was it something he should have foreseen? I heard the word Peter and then safe hands. I didn’t like to mention the Borgias, or the Reformation or the Thirty Years’ War. Barry said best laid plans. He perked up a bit when we introduced Bridget, who replaced the Reverend Smith, and she told him what St Cuths had been doing. But when someone put the news on, that put the tin hat on it. He was absent for a while. Still there, but thinking to himself. Then he seemed to reach a decision, the frown replaced by a smile. He said he was willing to have another go. We said we were all for it. He could count on us for whatever needed doing. And all at once, there was this nice glow.
Market Scene on a Quay (Glenn Hubbard) Market Scene on a Quay, Frans Snyders, c. 1635-1640 Immodest, sensual abandon. Swan, mallard, deer and curlew could be sleeping off a debauch, there where they fell exhausted. But then we see the dark slits where a hand slipped in, experienced fingers finding the spot to hook out the guts. And off left a pile of dead fish onto which more are tumbling, slithering down the scarp of bodies until, at all angles, they come to rest. Now other scenes of disordered death come to mind. There too an obscenity of splayed limbs. There too an indignity of heaped forms in alien posture, a final settling of spilling bodies. But no vivid colours. No painter’s palette could make this scene yet more memorable.
Trains to Treblinka (Glenn Hubbard) On trains to Treblinka children under four travelled free. German railway employees had no idea, blinker being a seven-letter anagram of Treblinka. All that Treblinka branch line clinker compounded the problem of residue disposal. Barnlike being an eight-letter anagram of Treblinka, there was always room for one more if passengers budged up. Trains to Treblinka lacked an emergency chord, in extremis the basic premise. Notwithstanding evident overcrowding, the Treblinka line remained popular. Howls of complaint from travellers to Treblinka appeared to fall on deaf ears.
The Temple Desecrated (Glenn Hubbard) Thousands of children in Pennsylvania were sexually abused over decades by more than 300 priests... How many have been able to grant the shining gift of trust, to separate the gentle touch of a lover from the fumblings of base lust? Priests that warned us of our natures, you are yourselves the proof. What you told us was the truth.
Biographical Note: Tomรกs Cuddihy Tomรกs is a 48 year old recovering chocolate addict.
Amor (Tomás Cuddihy) Your lies made me despise you The chance to dance was lost In the twisted cowardice of that tongue And you’re not young. Deceptions that we peel Not a kiss, a word is real Sell a soul to seal the deal And you’re not young. There’s nothing you can say or do That makes me want to trust in you. Prevaricate and peel Not an utterance is real Those lies I still despise from the tongue of one not young. There’s nothing to communicate You’ve ruined now what once was great. Prevaricate and peel The tongue of one once young.
Biographical Note: John Doyle
John Doyle, from County Kildare, returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of over 6 years. Since then he has released two collections "A Stirring at Dusk (2017) and "Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez (2018), both on the PSKI's Porch label.
We Never Go To Galway Anymore (John Doyle) Mortgages, kids, "sorry, I'd love to, but..." mantras as common as a rolling knoll-grasped Westmeath road once was. I had a fishing rod stored away for years that reached past Shop Street, English girls with forgotten faces to be cast in the glass-flat waters of Recess it lies buried, in bicycle wheels, electrical cords, rusted in mortgages, kids, mantras of "sorry, I'd love to, but..."
Sundown : Alicante Province (John Doyle) Two day stubble and sombrero soil under orange-tree sunsets, the hanging drift of day's cache of light Orito, Montforte; the adolescent olive trees near the blurred red car are stalked by sunlight between swollen glands of soil, a few groves, whitewash ranches, men in fields idle near JCBs and the highway's lemon-housed posse; Novelda's church dares mountain to dislodge it from its perch, the fields are an elegy of browns, of electric railway poles, gorse fire smoke yet to be - perhaps enamoured
23/2/2018
I Think of Roland Barthes For Sean Ruane (John Doyle) As traffic haunts the ups and downs of the stomach of the well-fed city, curled like sleeping pythons around signs, signals, pizza-bar neon lights, there is this old man - ripe for an engine's growling inquisitions I think of Roland Barthes, and I put language in its cage, where it fends for itself, lives off wildflowers, weeds that poke through, learn to be itself. I will lay a wreath in Cherbourg, a name flavoured by the sweet flowers of northern France, climate mild, the chariot-crash of Rome’s indulgence, unrecorded, a cage unlocked. Perhaps the cage has an engine, the chariot has four wheels, and the ribs from the body that housed the words of the absent mind - were too deep in thought, too in love with the language of neon lights - to translate the silence of the muted-brutal wheels; Perhaps?
Rook (John Doyle) Rook is clever; a bird of seasons, every four he clambers clouds' tattered-bloodless rain, every four between he carries the crux and solutions of every death. Rook, you are my ally, sometimes I believe; I feed it, watch my garden prowl around its supple-darkened roots, its foreign shapes of daybreak, its homegrown dash of bitter night; I am rook, I believe; my chimney's its cor anglais, its heart a piece of mine; music, soot, the muffled machinery encored in flight, and the flight-charts mapped in the flash of feather, I gather from my emptied yard
Robert Mitchum Spent a Little Too Long on the Ground After Falling Off His Horse (John Doyle) Light falls at first in ribbons, like those split between leaf and withered branch, like Eve's cuttings, as Adam gathers round flags near shorelines, on gurgling dreams, on times of clinking glass to come and then a sudden roar of exile where moon licked its broken beads on sea, and yachts glowed in bubbled shards of light, their days and sins could no longer afford.
The movie I watched last night was called The Wonderful Country, in it I felt Robert Mitchum stayed down far too long, even though his leg was broke, his steed detached from the furlongs of life; and I thought of Mitchum softened by sea, in DĂşn Laoghaire, with Adam and Eve, and the Lutheran theology of Ben Sterner, to get them back on the straight and the narrow, like a splint down Robert Mitchum's leg, like that path near DĂşn Laoghaire harbour, once a railway siding, I think horse clopping its water-baby sins behind. Stay down Bob - grimace, there are no more trains coming, barren since 1980
People I've Observed Recently (John Doyle) (1) A chew n’ spit pair of Cuban heels stare me down; scuffed, muddied John Wayne takes on Ronnie Corbett Alicante station, tourist info desk; otherwise the shoes look good, Mod's approval, mid 1960s cut. English is their Lingua Franca, Sergio's knuckles knead decades from his teak-stressed desk, and Carl, (though perhaps Karl, explaining he's Czech most certainly not German). I wait - 25 more seconds, I'm gone, a bus appears, it looks unwilling to gather the city's rising dust.
(2)
Management and Cost Accounting by Colin Drury is like a baby kangaroo squeezed between her breast and oxter; A studious type, weekend scars do not appear like a mistimed yawn, a carnal celebration smiling through the pressing rays of light, the grace of windows, untested. Some friends appear, they approach their seats directly, four teas and a cool-gripped clutch of Coke scrutinise her digits, numbers accounted for, the mind primed for sums of Sunday's temperance
(3)
Sergio León re-joined Real Betis last summer; I've never been to Seville. I remember Sergio León one Spring Sunday, like a magnet, the grass dipped around him, five guys swarmed like dive-bombers, I turned and faced the bar, sipping brandy, I returned, he was gone, shadows and the silent fate of steadied groans mourned his disappearance, me, stiff upper-lipped, chilled, him, a shuffled morning closely held to an airport runway; Sundays are the days we should meet the economists and the tourists, the footballers and the Flâneur, in cantinas in Seville
Biographical Note: Hiram Larew
Larew's fourth collection of poems, Undone, is forthcoming from Foothills Press. On Facebook at Hiram Larew, Poet and at Poetry X Hunger
PATIO (Hiram Larew)
As they look down into the swaddled bundle the parents and grandparents must be deeply realizing that time is beyond them and will outlast them to become a vine.
Probably nothing is said just then and won’t need to be. They each know especially the grandparents that such perfect air will melt away. That what’s wiggling now will some day wave. That those gurgling hands are the most wondrous gift of all. And that how the patio seems just now -the petunias, the paper plates, the distant train even the purple martins above -Will somehow stay put even as edges pull away.
OR NOT (Hiram Larew)
What was it like for you with blight nearby on the next hill over When within a few months you’d be upended?
Was a signal sent Did squirrels squint Was there a tempest below when drifts of spores were looming and just couldn’t wait when every leaf tried to call out but simply didn’t know how to as your wither enlarged and brown edges got closer?
What was it like to be full-standing while knowing otherwise Did anything help Did rain wind make things worse Were days better than nights What did you do and Where could you go?
MUDDY (Hiram Larew)
I wish I could tell which of my friends will be friends forever and who will just walk off whistling into the woods. Which ones will chance pick? Which will outlast all of the randoms?
So many slip away only a few stay -some drop off when I throw a fit while others turn sour over time and go.
Walls that become as steep as sixty also make it hard to keep in touch.
All the starts but stops of friendship are muddy mysteries.
So I guess there’s no way of knowing who will end up being there after all waving the checkered flag and grinning.
Biographical Note: Jenny Methven Jenny Methven lives in Fermanagh where, following a career in teaching and social work she has returned to her first love, the arts. Jenny writes poetry focused on the natural world and recently published a collection of poems illustrated by her own art work. She has an MA in Education and an MSc in Peace and Conflict Studies. She is particularly interested in the power of the natural world and gardens in assisting with peace building.
Knowing Digging deep, Sifting the earth with hands that feel the soil and ask the questions. Cold, damp and heavy clay, light and granular sand. Peat, dark and fibrous from a different time. You cannot build on ground you do not know, do not understand, shaky ground, ground that will swallow up all your attempts and stare back defiantly at you. Know the soil. Know the weeds that congregate there, hear their conversations and their arguments as the brambles reach out, thorny arms inviting the unwary to taste their fruit and then scratch and pull you in. The delicate pale pink herb robert remains quietly stubborn, flowering throughout it all. Notice the world from their position. See where the old sheep died many years ago and where the thistles now stand proud and tall, The clover and the creeping buttercup where the cattle walked to graze the poor grass. Watch the cat move across the surface, and follow its path as it follows the sun. Remember the spot where it lies and relaxes, warm and watchful for the small rodents and or the wrens in their nests beneath the overgrown hawthorns. Feel the space where the air changes, where the sounds lessen and the land warms up. Where the scent of the unseen fox tracks the way through the hazel. Understand the sound of the bees and the watchful gaze of the birds their flight paths in the flow of the wind.
Š Jenny Methven
Biographical Note: Noel King Noel King was born and lives in Tralee, Co Kerry. His poetry collections are published by Salmon: Prophesying the Past, (2010), The Stern Wave (2013) and Sons (2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others (Doghouse Books, 2003 – 2013) and was poetry editor of Revival Literary Journal (Limerick Writers’ Centre) in 2012/13. A short story collection, The Key Signature & Other Stories was published by Liberties Press in 2017.www.noelking.ie
Three-Legged Dog (Noel King) On the platform exiting the Jubilee line he looks like any other dog owner, nonchalantly holding the lead, headphones in his ears. But look down, dear onlooker, and see that his dog sets the walking pace as it cocks its left hip up and hops, left down as right hip ups and hops, right down, left hip up and hops and so on. As the owner scans his Oyster card the lead tangles in the turnstile, he curses and the dog cowers, taking the blame. I wonder, onlooker, if this dog always takes the blame? Did he take it the day he got rolled-over by the truck or whatever it was that caused the loss of the left side hind leg. I wonder, dear onlooker, what happens when he tries to get the leg over on some bitch in the park? What he does all day when the owner is out at work in I.T. or in a kitchen, perhaps, or scrubbing hospital floors or whatever he does to make a living?
Cage (Noel King) Soaring into love two bodies become one, fleeing respective nests, to make a new hollow. But clipped wings can never fly again -in a frustrated cage union dictating the stand.
Soaps (Noel King) Like my mother I piece together a soap opera having missed one episode. I figure what happened last night; who slept with whom, who got caught doing what, who was dishonest in the shop; all the ins and outs of life in a fake northern town.
The Killer (Noel King) turning the other ear I listen to find nothing from the dead batteries it was my life they were discussing my life dissected on this fuckin’ morning programme national station and me supposedly getting out in the New Year well Fuck Me here I am in this cell with this crap Radio and no batteries no fuckin’ batteries
Unearthing the Plans (Noel King) you were as a child; a secret map, treasure: an East wing planned a hundred years before you. They’d stopped building, made-do with half a house, paving way for your family: to uncover earth, open wounds, dig big, rich, ground slices, fill with mortar, burst seams and the reasons for incompletion; pulling, pushing, parting, side slicing into rich fertility, mixing with two hundred years of stone, grate merging into transient heat of walls, building easily, fluidly, smoothly where those before had sweated. You carry the blocks too, a break from your desk; satisfying, making your house real. Complete, it sits on the hill: two wings wide-arming your family. Humdrum, a housemartin splits; she, who used to enjoy your eaves as her forefathers’ had done finds new roost in a downtown soffit.
Biographical Note: Robert Mc Dowell
Robert Mc Dowell was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is a poet, actor and playwright. As a poet, his work has been published extensively in Irish and British magazines – Poetry Monthly, Eclipse, Awen, Snoring Cat and Gentle Reader, among others. He was also shortlisted for The Hennessy New Irish Writing award. As a playwright, his previous plays include, The Land of Opportunity, The Battle for Laura Joyce, Stay Together or Break Up Forever and Tiger Deli which received a full production at The New Theatre in 2015. His most recent play is called Hibernia.
Word Count 1653
REBECCA'S SHADOW Today is the day I commit suicide. It has to be today. It's Rebecca's anniversary. I have to top hers. 'Alone...sleeping pills...overdose'. She died as she'd lived, a clichÊ. Her romance novels were proof of that. English, made barren. Yet, millions still bought them. Proof, if needed, that popularity is rarely a barometer of good taste. I have good taste, yet remain a shadow to the world. Rebecca's shadow. Art...wine...opera, my Henry Higgins was wasted on her. She was happy the way she was - A Disney princess. It was as if Walt had drawn her himself, all light and no shade. Rebecca's so-called fans saw her death as a tragedy. My tragedy will be greater. Mine will be Shakespearean. I planned it with religious zeal, not that I'm a man of faith. The only leap I'm willing to take is the 299 feet...to the bottom of this waterfall. August 1st - Bank holiday weekend. Tourists and press swarmed below, cameras at the ready. My suicide is going viral. I started early, to garner enough sympathy to wash Rebecca's away. Our wedding video, posted on Facebook in the wee small hours. Best comment...'Look how happy he is!' And I have to confess, I was happy. I wasn't faking it, not then. When I saw Rebecca walking down the aisle, her ballgown swished to perfection, all angles were straightened. No bends in the road. It's windier than I thought. I don't want to be blown off course, crash into the rocks. An X-rating is not what I'm after, more...G. A suicide that appeals to all the family. First stop - The T.V. studio. And Rebecca's parents. We were all there to discuss our 'feelings', one year on. My reception was decidedly mixed. Batting with Rebecca's parents was very much hit-and-miss. All my runs were scored with her mother, Olivia. Batting with her father, Donal, however, was a permanent duck. From day one, he'd always viewed me with great suspicion. Rebecca was already a successful writer when I met her and Donal thought I was just inviting myself to the party. Fathers and their princesses. Olivia was a different animal altogether – A big, friendly, cuddly one. The source of Rebecca's goodness, she used to surround me with tea, more tea, homemade fruit cake and an army of fresh, finger sandwiches. I always surrendered and ate everything. 'I have a present for both of you.' I looked intently at Donal. His face remained impassive, but I knew his curiosity had been piqued. I unwrapped it as if it were a delicate flower, which in many ways, it was. Their delicate flower. Rebecca, framed in all her glory. I had painted it myself. Olivia started to cry. Donal tried not to. 'It's beautiful. You've really captured her. Hasn't he, Donal?' Donal nodded, reluctantly. It was time for a ratings winner, the group hug. Olivia was game, but any type of hug was a Rubicon too far for Donal. He stopped me on the way out, whispered in my ear. 'I know'. A helicopter! They've sent a helicopter for me. I wave to it, but all I get is something about 'stepping back'. Why would I do that? My entire marriage was about stepping back - Beauty and the Beast. Instead, I take a step forward and feel the cool spray, gently wetting my face. It's a spotlight moment and I perform it well. My arms outstretched, an acknowledgement to my fans, my flock. I am their celebrity. I am their God. The helicopter retreats. 1
The condemned man's last meal - Only one place would do. The Seagull, our favourite restaurant, named after the Chekhov play. Rebecca had never heard of Chekhov, not even the one in Star Trek. Lawrence is the Maitre D'. The high-end of Medieval, he's the type that shines his armour every night. He always gave Rebecca his best seat and his best lines. 'I love your books. Like you, they're works of art.' While it was all I could do to keep my food down, Rebecca took it in her stride. Drank it like a cup of entitlement. I was an afterthought. A p.s. - Mr. Rebecca. So, when I turned up for lunch earlier, the only view on offer was Lawrence's. A single table beside the toilets. I could smell the disdain off him - Rancid. He blamed me. I had somehow taken his princess and soiled her - Prince Baddy, waiting in the woods! I asked him to set a place for Rebecca. It was her anniversary and I wanted her with me. With us. That threw him. I had given him the chance to play Sir Walter Raleigh one more time. He grabbed it, or rather, he grabbed me, and moved me to our old table, where I had sautèed black sole, washed down with a crisp pinot grigio. Rebecca had her usual. Outside, Dublin Bay framed me like an actor, pining for my lost love - A David Gates soundtrack, rising to a crescendo. Lawrence took a picture on my phone which I posted straight away. Lots of 'likes'. The sympathy pool was getting bigger. The rocks are slippier here, closer to the edge. Nature, turning up the volume, marking my dance card one last time. Honeysuckle, pink-flushed and sweet. Irises, royal in purple. And of course, the waterfall, a flowing white curtain, tinged with gold by the haze of Summer sun. I put out my hands, as if to scoop it all up in a goodbye hug. I left a note - To have the last word. My inability to cope without Rebecca, screaming like headlines from every page. Not that it was needed. One look around the house was proof enough. Bed unmade, clothes unwashed, empty bottles of fine wine, strewn everywhere. A part of me, I suppose, did miss her. Rebecca, leaving no cushion unfluffed. Rebecca, rebuking me for leaving the fridge door open for more than five seconds. Rebecca the everyday, coated now with hindsight. Last port of call – Her grave. A shrine to mediocrity. I had thrown the last clump of earth on her coffin. A farewell, some found hard to swallow. I could've sworn I heard a boo. Hard to believe she lies beneath me, lifeless. Rebecca had been the very essence of life. She embraced it like a lover. In her colourful world, Rebecca was the Aurora Borealis. Black and white were never invited. She's buried under a yew tree. To ward off evil spirits? To ward off me? Or perhaps, to begin her rebirth. Rebecca from the ashes. I took a selfie, red roses in hand, making sure to get in Rebecca's headstone.'Together again', across all social media. My funeral will be a lavish affair, disguised as simplicity. Tickets for the church will be on a first come, first served basis. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, moving everyone to tears. For those disappointed, the route to the cemetery has been chosen with every vantage point in mind. You'll be allowed throw flowers at the hearse, preferably lillies, though be careful not to obscure the driver's view. I don't want any accidents that could possibly detract from what's important. Me! I'll be buried, of course, beside Rebecca. Death, the great leveller. Family and friends will huddle graveside while a piper floats 'The Lonesome Boatman' on a sea of grief. The sympathy dam will burst wide open. They've lost patience. Police, moving in. I glance down, the chasm below rushing up at me like a hungry child. My head spins. What if I'm looked upon, despite all my efforts, as Moriarty and not Holmes? Still the villain of the piece. The sponger, who said on national television...'I've never read any of my wife's books.' (If only!) And of course, the adulterer. Yes, I cheated on my wife. With Zoe. 2
Zoe was Maleficent to Rebecca's Snow White, wiry and off-kilter. Her face was exotic, unknown. Her hair, brushed through with temptation. She could bore a want in your groin with one look. We tried everything. A to Z, all capitals. I was blinded, but somehow saw. Moving at the speed of light, we bent time, back and forth, back and forth... We didn't snack, we gorged, till we were full with satisfaction. I never loved her. She wasn't the type. You wanted Zoe, you never needed her. What do you do with your last moments on earth? Certainly not think about Rebecca. Though, she's doing her best to make me think about her. Hovering there, smiling at me through the torrent. Death suits her. It's preserved her, kept her a cailín álainn. She offers me her hand, a mermaid calming the waters. 'I love you'. I dive like an Olympian, a perfect ten, and reach for Rebecca's hand, but it dissolves like sugar. I'm falling now, all poise gone, when I hear her laugh - A vengeful laugh. It swirls around me like a watery wall of death, louder and louder. I killed Rebecca. Not in the conventional sense of the word, but I killed her all the same. Death by neglect. I sullied her perfect world, left her drowning in a rip tide of despair. The more she tried to save herself, the more she found she couldn't. She wasn't equipped. The tools of life were all missing. They always had been. I was just the one who pointed it out. I hear only lonely sounds now. The cry of a mallard on a far away lake. The wind chimes from yachts moored in a distant harbor. The sound of clichés, screaming. Apparently, my pool of sympathy quickly evaporated after my death. My suicide, crashing into the rocks, was seen as a pathetic grab at fame. I was forgotten, consigned to an overgrown history. As for Rebecca, she had finally learned to write the dark novel.
THE END
3
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October 2018’s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:
We Alleycats cannot believe that it has been 6 years since we started this journey. Several of us have crossed the Rainbow bridge since then. Thanks again to all of the artists who submitted their work to be presented “On the Wall”. As ever, if you didn’t make it into this edition, don’t despair! Chances are that your submission arrived just too late to be included this time. Check out future editions of “A New Ulster” to see your work showcased “On the Wall”.
We continue to provide a platform for poets and artists around the world we want to offer our thanks to the following for their financial support Richard Halperin, John Grady, P.W. Bridgman, Bridie Breen, John Byrne, Arthur Broomfield, Silva Merjanin, Orla McAlinden, Michael Whelan, Sharon Donnell, Damien Smyth, Arthur Harrier, Maire Morrissey Cummins, Alistair Graham, Strider Marcus Jones Our anthologies https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_present_voices_for_peace https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_poetry_anthology_-april https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_women_s_anthology_2017