ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Featuring the works of Mark Young, Oonah V Joslin, Hiram Larew, Steve Klepetar, Chad Norman, Alan Murphy, Margarita Serafimova , Alan Hill, Joe Corry, Linda Imbler, Liam O'Neill and Karen Petersen. Hard copies can be
purchased from our website.
Issue 78 March 2019
A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Editorial Mark Young;
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Five minutes of throwaway lines Spendthrift A little poem for alex gildzen Don’t fret Chimera Riding the rails The modeling of mice Enter stage left
Oonah V Joslin; 1. The Sweet Life 2. Sculpting Light Hiram Larew; 1. Achill Sound Steve Klepetar; 1. Mingling 2. Over and Over 3. White River 4. The Woman Who Sat on a Stone 5. Unborn Chad Norman; 1. Without A Home 2. A Ride into Town 3. Screen Binge 4. Making A Home Your Own 5. The Black Rum 6. The Roosts of Winter Alan Murphy; 1. The Other Guy 2. The Truth About Moonlight Margarita Serafimova ; 1. A Selection of Poems
Alan Hill; 1. The Houseplant 2. Its Not Easy 3. Dog Walking 4. How I Learnt About Concrete 5. My Father and His People 6. An Introduction to Physics Joe Corry; 1. Among the soliloquy of an olive garden Linda Imbler; 1. Footsteps That Have Long Faded 2. Permutations of Being Wet 3. A Confederacy of Loners Liam O’Neill; 1. Snowflakes And Stars 2. Liberating Peacocks 3. Undying Things 4. I Should Have Known On The Wall Artwork By Alan Murphy Message from the Alleycats Round the Back
Karen Petersen; 1. The Long Night’s Moon Has Come 2. In Memory of Seamus Heaney 3. A Wilderness Pantoum 4. Diary of the Floating World
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 “Verdi� by Amos Greig
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ” Aristotle Onassis. Editorial March is an interesting month poetry and other social competitions seem to come to life along with the landscape. The past couple of days I’ve been woken in the early morning by a pheasant calling in the backgarden it is both chilling and fascinating in equal measures. We live in a no shoot zone so the bird is perfectly safe within the village limits. For some reason in all of that time writing the editorial for each issue still remains the hardest part for myself. I’m not sure if it’s because I worry about taking away from the rest of the content, may come across political or just the difficulty of putting thoughts down coherently. The latter is a recent concern I’ve started a new medication and one of the side effects is memory problems, confusion and increased anxiety. Still apart from that it does help with my health issues. A New Ulster was built upon the concept that we are all equal we try to treat all the people we engage with respect and dignity surprisingly though I’ve seen a rise in what I would call racially motivated or hate based work being submitted to us. Our guide lines are fairly clear we cannot and will not publish anything which constitutes the speech or promotes sectarianism in any form. At the same time we recognise free speech which makes sending rejections challenging at times. I still hope that this magazine and those like it continue to reach a larger audience not just those who move within the venn diagram of artists and art enthusiasts but everyone no matter their experience with art and literature. We hope you enjoy reading this anniversary issue and here’s hoping to many more issues to come. Amos Greig Editor.
Biographical Note: Mark Young
Mark Young's most recent books are les échiquiers effrontés, a collection of surrealist visual poems laid out on chessboard grids, published by Luna Bisonte Prods, & The Word Factory: a miscellany, from gradient books of Finland. Due for publication are Residual sonnets from Ma Books, The Perfume of The Abyss from Moria Books, & an e-book, A Vicarious Life — the backing tracks, from otata.
five minutes of throwaway lines (Mark Young)
The light corrupts the color of the leaves.
*
He walked down the stairs. Oncology followed him.
*
Looking for the underlying pattern of the dance.
*
The constants of my life are constantly changing.
*
Before words & after words —
what was never said in between.
Four short pieces (Mark Young)
Spendthrift
He spent the morning creating anagrams of ennui
& watching drivers make illegal righthand turns.
a little pome for Alex Gildzen
Was James Dean's death
a car/actor assassination?
don't fret
I write myself notes:
B♭, D, F—
they strike a chord.
Chimera
I have always found imaginary landscapes more real than the real. The paintings of Magritte & de Chirico, the novels of LeGuin & Delany — I am comfortable in these even though I may occasionally find them disturbing. Perhaps it's because I live my life vicariously, or perhaps it's because I have never found, though I've lived in quite a few of them, a city that felt like home.
riding the rails (Mark Young)
A train hasn't run along this line for at least ten years but I can still make the
journey because the rails & stations remain in place.
the modeling of mice (Mark Young)
In a meta-analysis of the global war on terror, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, hypothesizes
that the introduction of fermented capsicum by some severely phallocentric nomadic quantum Markov
semi-groups was the major factor in the rise of the internecine conflicts that beset the first world today.
enter stage left (Mark Young)
The weeping fig that now obscures the entrance to the amenities block was planted to commemorate
a centenary of curator-led limited edition culture projects that allowed old
gold prospectors — even when bonsaied — to still find the role of their dreams in a candidate tight market.
Biographical Note: Oonah V Joslin Oonah V Joslin is poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. Her poetry chapbook, Three Pounds of Cells is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Pounds-Cells-OonahJoslin/dp/0993049370 https://www.amazon.com/Three-Pounds-Cells-OonahJoslin/dp/0993049370 and you can see Oonah reading Almost on Brantwood Jetty for the National Trust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXkca9vcUyQ You can follow Oonah on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Oonahsbooks/?ref=bookmarks or on her blog at Parallel Oonahverse https://oovj.blog/ She’d love you to visit and browse. Oonah lives in Northumberland, England.
The Sweet Life (Oonah V Joslin) The Sunday table groaned with food and conversation. There were rules to both but not too many. Just enough to learn by. And at tea, the three tiered cake stand stood proudly full of sandwiches, scones and mammy’s buns; ‘cupcakes’ these days but to us they were just wee buns I’d helped decorate the with jam and coconut, Hundreds & thousands, coffee butter icing and walnuts. Butterflies my speciality. But you had to eat your salad first. Life can’t be always sweet. So the Sunday table was a treat that gave way to that Monday feeling. Beyond the buns loomed school and that went on for days, weeks, years and decades. Now I’m retired and life fells always sweet but I could wish sometimes for just one more wee bun.
Sculpting Light (Oonah V Joslin) A bed of tulips, laughter and forget-me-nots shine their brightest in the long twilight of the mind. The Memorial Park. Mingled milling smells of dusty wheat, jute sacks, hot chocolate, Old Spice aftershave. Shades shift shape and escape. Childhood memories voices long cold recaptured warm as a fresh bannock. The poet wakes. uses the infrared of words to illuminate what you can never see. The sleeping mind hooded in dark where all her world exists.
https://youtu.be/FXkca9vcUyQ
Biographical Note: Hiram Larew Larew's poems have popped up in Viator, Honest Ulsterman and Contemporary American Voices. On Facebook at Hiram Larew, Poet and at Poetry X Hunger.
Achill Sound
When the roads curve like sound and dip as if lifting to bow Whenever all thoughts round or cluster or when hearts call down is Ireland
And as rich when poor was or as wise as bare heads in snow seemed and as twigs so frail broke into song and as true as any blight or potato could be was Ireland
So when sand laps the senses or salt drips the edges as dreams Whenever hope streams through such heavens and moss comes home or hearts beam down is Ireland.
- HGL This poem first appeared in Words for the Wild
Biographical Note: Steve Klepetar Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Chiron, Deep Water, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Muse: India, Night Garden, Poppy Road Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Klepetar is the author of fourteen poetry collections and chapbooks, the most recent of which include How Fascism Comes to America (Locofo Chaps), Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps), and o filho da bebedora de cafÊ (The Coffee Drinker’s Son), translated into Portuguese by Francisco Jose de Carvalho.
Mingling (Steve Klepetar) “In the mingling of ourselves, you and I, Lovely is the world� Yehuda Amichai How cold the wind from the north, how horrid the news. Everywhere fires burn. Icebergs tower above our village and the butterflies are gone. And the bees, and now coyotes creep along the edges of the neighborhood. Another painting has sold for millions, a record number. Another raft has overturned offshore and many have drowned. Here it is summer. The mountains have turned many shades of green. A blue heron floats above the pond, lovely on its stream of air. We walk together in the wet grass. All around music plays, Mozart sonatas filtering through the leaves.
Over and Over (Steve Klepetar) You are fire on the mountain, smoke trailing up to clouds. I have followed you here, a fish swimming against the tide, a giant tortoise dragging its body over sand. Your hair shines in the sun, your voice a song filling the meadow with joy. Everywhere you walk, the earth spills flowers past your ankles and knees. You reach the coast. Over and over I watch you glide into the sea, a Nereid riding green waves toward a distant shore.
White River (Steve Klepetar) the river turned white before you were born W. S. Merwin Locked in ice long ago, the river turned white, granular and hard, glittering in winter sun. It turned white when snow fell in early spring, and fell and fell with the wet weight of an ocean transformed by light waves merging on its breast – wine-dark, aqua, green-black where petrels soar. Then it turned white as dust, white as dandelions gone to wretched seed. I have seen rivers flaking, white as chalk, and rivers like a campfire burned to ash. I woke in the desert once, where I slept on the hard ground, dreaming of magpies and doves and a river long and white, a woman’s hair tightly bound in a careful braid.
The Woman Who Sat on a Stone (Steve Klepetar) She sat on a stone, and wasn’t afraid. When the brook bubbled past her feet, calling and calling her name with a mouth foamy and round, calling her down into darkness while sun braided her hair, even then she showed no fear. Calm when the maple bowed, when the magpie spoke to her of nests and sky, she turned, stepped from her body onto grass. Though the bird knew her mind, which raced through a crown of leaves, though it knew that of her, how she hovered between realms, one foot on the meadow, one in the caverns of night, she held nearly still as visions burned her to ash.
Unborn (Steve Klepetar) “Here comes the shadow not looking where it is going…” W. S. Merwin Grandfather, I never knew you. What patterns did you draw on your palms? Could you see your sons, how each fell into a strange land? One carried diamonds sewn into his shirt. One held a green book dappled with light. Your shadow stumbles, and I see you against the wall, tumbling, embarrassed, your fedora loose on the ground. Maybe your trousers are torn, you may have skinned your knee. Here, let me help you up, don’t struggle in my arms. I am still far away and unborn.
Biographical Note: Chad Norman
WITHOUT A HOME (Chad Norman) 1. Cardboard Between you and the sidewalk a piece found somewhere, a thickness near nonexistent is to be a mattress, what I see walking by or from a taxi, during a brief stay in Montreal. But if I know anything because of my travels, I know you are not warm, you are surrounded by what the state of your mind says is a home, a lie I will not believe, or allow to say you are not without a home.
2. Concrete
Seeing you in there, another doorway I wonder if it is your favourite, the one where I could come and lay down too, and know my body is is a body now taught by
without a home,
other than placing a finger or a cheek against a wall inside my home, a wall strangely cold, a wall of the home I pay to own, don't always believe I really own. I see you under what appears to be blankets, huge types of blurry coats, perhaps I don't really see you, really get the feeling of concrete when it is truly unknowable, how you feel it, each day, each night, when the body craves any type of heat, or better yet, any type of human acceptance, to the point of me wanting to stop the cab I am in, and join you to provide at least that warmth two bodies can share. 3. CLOTH
Watching the meter rapidly add up seated in the front I take the sleeve of my sweater sticking out of the winter coat I wear between my fingers none of them cold or without a home, and think of the cloth close to you, the cloth hopefully causing warmth,
close to your skin where you also find yourself, the skin you were born into, covered with what the cloth is, a tee-shirt, an outer shirt you consider an old-time favourite, the cloth of another shirt being another layer, and even though it is a distance from your skin, your self, I feel my hope taking on a voice, a voice saying out loud, may there be the cloth of a sweater like I am holding also helping to allow you a belief in at least one thought, one decision causing the doorway, your home for now, to be empty before night brings what little it always has.
BEING ALONE (Chad Norman)
I often think God is watching me-yes, the one from the Bible, the one up there-when I approach anything from the Wild, what some refer to as Nature-other than any Human trespass-kind of like when the crows allow me to stand beneath them.
SCREEN BINGE (Chad Norman) Too much television can end up amounting to the mind scenes or sights one probably wouldn't see, or in this case shouldn't have seen, in a lifetime such as the Pope (not the real one) in a white robe seated on a certain Vatican throne.
filling with
MAKING A HOME YOUR OWN (Chad Norman) Our house-coats make love under the green glow of new curtains.
THE BLACK RUM for the Goslings family (Chad Norman) No one knows it like I do-the crow on the top of a tree-my veins busy, so much of the planet is in me-I stand in the street full of it, the black rum, what leads, what guides, what translates into more than being drunk; it is a type of transport away from the bills, the household grind, the abduction of money, a type of being led into that room of mine where all the walls are covered with words, and the good air there is filled with voices, all of them mine unchosen as of yet trying to find the page, the reliable route back to the world.
THE ROOSTS OF WINTER (Chad Norman) And now the many roosts of the past winter are seen as successful: skies near spring are filled with crows in joyous pairs, the mates ready to build nests and enter and protect a chosen territory one to become their home.
Biographical Note: Alan Murphy
Alan Murphy is the writer and illustrator of four collections of poetry for young readers. Dublin-born, he currently lives in Lismore, county Waterford. In recent years two of his books have been shortlisted for the CAP awards for independent authors. He has been featured in children’s poetry anthologies in the UK and America, and has also published poetry and visual art for adults with a number of journals. His latest book is All Gums Blazing.
Website: www.avantcardpublications.com Twitter: @psychosilly Facebook: www.facebook.com/alan.murphy.1213
THE OTHER GUY (Alan Murphy) He waited stoically in space As Armstrong loped and pranced, And Aldrin, testing the feeble gravity, Playfully hopped and danced. Spare a thought for Michael Collins Who got so close to the moon, But, as Neil and Buzz moonwalked enthralled, Stayed on the command module. Lunar orbit’s a lonely place When your buddies hog the moonlight; All the history books opened and closed On those first two men in white. So here’s to whatsisface, Michael thingy, Man C and his sort of fame; The other guy, shame we wonder why We don’t recognise his name.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MOONLIGHT (Alan Murphy) Can I let you in on a secret? The Moon has no light of its own; It piggybacks on the Sun’s brilliance; All of its bling is on loan. A gazillion photons hurtle madly From the vast body of Herr Sol, And this space-leaping eight minute thrill ride At the end of the trip has a ball. Namely old roundy, the lounging Moon, It lolls in this sunlight all day And at night shines it down on us humans In its own sneaky, second hand way.
© Alan Murphy
Biographical Note: Margarita Serafimova Margarita Serafimova was shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2017, Summer Literary Seminars 2018 Poetry Contest, and the University Centre Grimsby International Literary Prize 2018; long-listed for the Erbacce Press Poetry Prize 2018 and the Red Wheelbarrow 2018 Prize, and nominated for Best of the Net 2018. She has three collections in Bulgarian. Her work appears in Agenda Poetry, London Grip, Trafika Europe, European Literature Network, The Journal, A-Minor, Waxwing, Poetry South, Great Weather for Media, Orbis, Nixes Mate, StepAway, Ink, Sweat and Tears, HeadStuff, Minor Literatures, Writing Disorder, Birds We Piled Loosely, Orbis, Chronogram, Noble/ Gas, Origins, miller’s pond, Obra/ Artifact, Blue Mountain Review, Califragile, TAYO, Opiate, Pure Slush, Harbinger Asylum, Punch, Tuck, Ginosko, etc. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/MargaritaISerafimova/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel.
Half Past Eight P.M. in January
In the night-made snow fields, moving was the greater than matter force.
(Margarita Serafimova)
The beauty of existence astonished me. All windows of the night and of vision were open.
(Margarita Serafimova)
The clean dunes, their own wind – in the palm shade, I glimpsed, from the corner of my eye, sand ecstasy.
(Margarita Serafimova)
Biographical Note: Alan Hill
Alan Hill is the Poet Laureate of the City of New Westminster, Canada. He has been published in over forty literary magazines and periodicals across Europe and North America. He originates form the west of England. He came to live in Canada after meeting his Vietnamese-Canadian wife while working in Botswana.
The Houseplant for Christopher (Alan Hill) The garden centre, tucked into the filthy pocket of highway edges scrubland between a whole lot of nothing, where a hive of bored drivers broke down journeys into digestible chunks, where small children wailed for ice-cream amongst wilted houseplants the promise of immediate suburban bliss that very few ever prized open their wallets to obtain. This was his only job, besides years later to sweep leaves in the mental hospital patch exhausted mailbags. This was where his illness caught him, grew roots. The manager would find him in the hot house tunnels staring at plants, cataract colored plastic sheeting. It would be bullshit if I pretended to know what he was thinking. I do know what he wasn’t the car in the drive, the impending wife, the wage in the pocket. When he had grown, flowered there would be nowhere for him to go, just that shelf where he was to be left, where he occasionally got watered, sometimes noticed.
Its Not Easy (Alan Hill) There is that darkness, there for everyone. Not as simple as death, not that sort of easy let off. It is there at the end of laneways, sentences, dessert courses in the drop of a spoon, turn of a corner at one am. It is there, in what lies outside the certainty of search, logic in the pull towards faith, the drift away from comfort, family from firelight, cave mouth into night, in the push of photograph, online post into the ether. As I dip my hand in, see it disappear, as I shimmy my bones out of site, whisk away the history of my people, my being: It is not easy, just what it must be if we are to find it some species of meaning.
Dog Walking (Alan Hill) Without your dog, without you. You, who are two weeks dead. I stagger down behind the clump of red brick, timber cottages that litter the ridge into the sunless dark green of late winter. The river has risen, covered my route, this pathway that wonders where you are.
How I Learnt About Concrete (Alan Hill) It was the winter of my brother’s breakdown that the police, a squad of social workers took him that my dad exiled himself in the backyard to build pathways, walls, a greenhouse base. His hands dissolved in dust fingernails softened in martyrdom body, heart of his own machine He covered all greenery in flatness, logic, angles of the geometric dream of his unmixed being. What I learnt then, I still use. I know the perfect mix how much powder, water, sand to pad, strengthen the correct percentages, ideal textures. I will always see it, the fire of his tiny lamps in the darkened garden on those December evenings that allowed his work into the night, merge with it whilst his wife, my sister and I watched set ourselves firmly in the Kitchen window wished him to finish, come back to us, from wherever he had been.
My Father and His People (Alan Hill) The night of the Queens Silver Jubilee our procession by torchlight, a poor mans Nuremburg feudal Disneyland of colliding light, cut price spectacle We climbed the mountain track dad, up front, led the pack, this balm of sensible haircuts, regiment of loyalist drip dry nylons walked this wire of fire, inch by inch, up beyond the treeline above the valley cut open below us illuminated in its obedient streetlight of faded empire mathematic shadow of knife edged meadows split lung suburbia exposed bone of red brick village, terraces, corner shops laid in hemorrhage by a twisted river. At the top we found the larger flame, the bonfire, muscled, uniformed, the medal of its perfection pinned on the dark a forty -foot fist of red white and blue to colonise the sky exile the moon, stars. There we were. Mouthy, feral. factory boys Weasel eyed, obsequious, that loaded on broken pallets amputated timber watched by our wobbly legged old, rich, poor, self appointed well tussled in bunting, embalmed in nostalgia. Boy Scouts loaded burgers into white fleshed rolls, in a heavy artillery of lips, arseholes. A door of a pit latrine slammed itself shut in a one-gun salute.
An Introduction to Physics 1972 (Alan Hill) Inside, the power plant Christmas party at my father’s work young blue-collar guys truck drivers, mechanics, warehouse staff clear the dance floor by just being. Messengers of messianic blue denim in the certitude of black leather boots in synchronised, formation, rock n roll thumbs fused in their pockets. They skitter their bodies forward, then back into stars, squares, new connections beginnings. Outside, the reactor’s fat stump the bleached skull of itself scientific bringer of division a bloodless growth on the winter riverbank the moan of water being pushed through the heart.
Biographical Note: Joe Corry
Joseph Corry attended the University of Huddersfield as a mature student and completed a BA(hons) in English with linguistics. He has worked in the youth rehabilitation sector of teaching and reintegration projects for pupils with special educational needs. He was formerly one of the editors for the university's English department's student's magazine, 'Writer's Block'. At present he volunteers at various projects that provide essential writing skills for adults.
Among the soliloquy of an olive garden.
I am long listening to my reminder hands Usurped by this most imperial of patina, The rust of liver spots. Strange aren't they On the whole, hanging marks, lentigo Destined within the chaotic youth Of younger skin that takes little heed From any less life to come? Thus far, like the dew leaves, I am still A thousand incidents waiting to happen underwritten by the insecurity of wild belief. Bartering rumours shall ripen beautifully On whispering voiles of morning fumes As no longer I recall that threatening thicket From Friday's thoughts for dried Jerusalem tombs.
(Joe Corry)
Hemp
Wood gallowed and waiting is strong within this tree it shall never support you its staid sap being not bloodred to petition one way redemption.
Its bark, the burl reflection of this present you the coined struggle calls to the experience of all your tempting seasons
Hemp, tight and turning stretches tough over and around coil-cooked in the growling sun shall refuse siffles swollen in you.
Forfeit Pass Over
You have taken earth's sphere shaped silver that's warm and still in your hands. Light follows falling from the above far hillside gripping fear inked warrants growing in glow and confidence as they encroach our earmarked kiss exchanged and not betrying our need to find funding to feed this movment.
We don't potter about this field to confront brighteyed darkness we shift so night unites with us until we reach safety and the lee openness and the soft washed morning where ambering red deadens the leaden cover of the sea with an early feeling of great change.
(Joe Corry)
Biographical Note: Linda Imbler
Linda Imbler is an internationally published poet. Her poetry collections include “Big Questions, Little Sleep,” “Lost and Found,” and “The Sea’s Secret Song.” Her newest e-book “Pairings” is due out soon. She is a Kansas-based Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee. Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.
Footsteps That Have Long Faded The sounds of quick pace, long marching faded, Specters of those who fought for peace grown pale, Soldiers' visages evaporated, Keepers and protectors who did not fail. We, attuned to whispered gait in their wake, Where those who fought the monsters disappeared, Under vast sandy shores beside fruited plains, Bugle’s wake-up call dim in their ears. Brothers in arms, peers with resolute tread, No more torment beneath the stars above, Our heroic champions now long dead, Unvexed by blast or salvo, life’s work done. Echoes of booted feet going through paces. We who honor them, still listen for traces. (Linda Imbler)
Permutations of Being Wet Rain and fate intertwined In the storms some get wet and never dry Submerged in guilt, it amplifies Causing them to die. The wily hidden by deep fog It dampens them and only blurs And makes the truth seem dim Their crimes and sins obscured. Splashing through puddles of enmity While saturated with pelting rain A sun shower quickly forms Bathed in sunshine, they dry again. These survive a spate and torrent They turn deluge into drizzle Then apply the clouds to form Mist as soft as dew does fizzle. The coldest disdain of those in sleet Ice crystals freeze their hearts They care not for others’ pleas They choose to live apart. Through hail and snow and pouring rain We walk the earth and live our lives Through haze and spray we must The continued existence of all these types.
(Linda Imbler)
A Confederacy of Loners Beyond just verse is their condition Brave and honest, showing beauty beyond the fog Fitly placed words that will forever heal and never harm Gentle phrases are their only ammunition. Brave and honest, showing beauty beyond the fog Alone with their own thoughts and never defined by others Gentle phrases are their only ammunition Of these who don’t belong, their heads so full of mental clutter. Alone with their own thoughts and never defined by others These writers write for themselves and shape words of their own design Of these who don’t belong, their heads so full of mental clutter They’ll decide the depth of their own lives or suffer. These writers write for themselves and shape words of their own design Fitly placed words that will forever heal and never harm They’ll decide the depth of their own lives or suffer Beyond just verse is their condition.
(Linda Imbler)
Biographical Note: Liam O’Neill Liam O'Neill is a poet, living in Galway City. He has been published in Poetry Ireland and The Irish Times and has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Award 2018.
SNOWFLAKES AND STARS
remember the snows of that winter, almost ten thousand years ago? remember sliding and engraving the ice and the mirth of honest laughter pouring forth from honest smiles? shivering embrace, head to lace, arms entwined, snow-white-blind, we stared deep in to each other’s eyes and saw our own, pounding, greedy-eager hearts. ice-cold hands, a warm heart, where before cold stone, sweetheart. longing no longer threads the stairs, for once, I was given a hero’s kiss, and then I fastened to the stars.
(Liam O’Neill)
LIBERATING PEACOCKS
We had cravings in those days though not the names for them, impulses too; to do, to be a part of something, anything bigger than school kids in our final year. Neighbours, on the edge of town, kept two peacocks in a pen. Peacocks produce nothing of merit so what good were they to farmers locked up like that ? We plotted and planned for days - like a military expedition, if we didn’t help them escape, they were doomed to a life of eternal incarceration. One dark, part-moonlit night, drunk on exhilaration and the excitement of law-breaking, we tiptoed into camp and secretly set the birds of paradise free. We rallied all the way home, wallowing in our victory; four school-kids who stood firm, and saved something precious from the cloying, grasping world. Early the next morning, we plodded along with our bags, the revelry of the night before, being a long and almost forgotten memory – until, we stumbled upon clumps of beautiful luminous plumage strewn the length of the muddy laneway, that ended at the gates, of our on-going education.
(Liam O’Neill)
UNDYING THINGS
There is lead left there; a dark blue spot on my hand where a pencil pierced my skin. It broke in the face and force of a bullies viscous intent. He left school, joined the army appeasing his need for more accurate forms of weaponry. Being the right sort and type he was stamped and striped and rose higher in the ranks than his intelligence testified. Preference is to pretend these scars don’t really exist. Preference is to forget the torturer, the act, and the implement. Stitches and scars, pock marked arms, hideous reminders of the grinning face of the inflictor. Memories could be no-more than corrupted dreams, except for the presence of these - undying things.
(Liam O’Neill)
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN (A poem on being second best)
You were always faster than me at everything brother. Physically stronger; quick witted; a winner at sports, you danced longer, better. You climbed, you fought, you swam and formed more life-long bonds than me. You drank and smoked more and lived and loved in vaster quantities than I could ever muster. You were always better than me at everything brother, and I should have known, that in the end, you’d beat me to the grave.
(Liam O’Neill)
Biographical Note: John Doyle
John Doyle, 39, from County Kildare has recently returned to writing poetry after a considerable absence. He was educated at N.U.I. Maynooth, and is influenced by a diverse range of writers, many of whom do not adhere to canonical peccadilloes.
Sligo Landscape, January
By glut of bulbous stone sunk in haggard land,
by ceaseless fist in stiffened militia wall -
these stoic regiments mark where time and rank begins;
Their discs are blistered on clockwork disc, backbone entwined in flesh, their hands tense as corpse in icy-soil,
and the daring conclaves of thistle are drizzle-pierced mast hoarding virgin’s stone.
A caustic cut of sea washes remnants, kernels, on Ben Bulben's
withered shaft there is a living-spirit within,
a sandwort-healed aeon raised-up for bidding;
up from the thaws of moistened soil, fingertips untangled,
handprint framing mordant sea, the arriving folds of crystal-white beach
John Doyle
It's Van Morrison O'Clock
From jazz-breathing Volkswagen vans I see police inspectors dance with their well-educated daughters, Tupelo Honey tinting glens-misted scotch, a few cows chewing through tufts of June’s chilled and tempted navel. These statues come to life in hieroglyphs of spatial change like a brambling abject to winter's slips of stone. I could carve their figures in voracious ore, in sentries who gaze on French chateaus, icy, blue, like the sudden dim of day as father, and daughter, sip their drizzled dram and a dance re-awakens; I cross and bless my key with baptised ignition there is wheat that sings the songs of harvest, corn whispering to be cut, I'll keep these migrations scored in psalm, bramblings and strangers cool as Armagh hands who push in motion, the blue patchworked sky the light-kissed train-tracks crooning Hewitt’s transcending tones
John Doyle
Nacimiento Del Rio Cabra, Asturias
A cottage soaks Llanes in its devoted Latin stone, a dawn looms in communions of light, through a glanced yawning sun; we host daybreak’s tender rites, as one - as the same;
And the realness of trees from which hidden waters appear
make real too this gravid arch, this sudden dreggy ruffle -
on water sifting muck, on faces virile
from the green blackened shadow of drooping leaf, of parceled foot; The realness
in Sunday quotes Exodus where water shows its fears for the first - and the only time -
its mother and father a pair of chattering shadows
whispered on frosted Latin stone.
La Borbolla will tear daybreak from its moorings the skipper's telescope gurgling lens on passing hooves in splattered mud,
the blueness of Atlantic almost endless, the gelding’s chassis surging from sea
John Doyle
Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin
To live by a large river is to be kept in the heart of things John Haines
(1) Lixnaw, Clogherinkoe, Eastern Harps -
a shake of muck-caked boot silhouettes fluorescent glare; antlers brushing themselves clean of battle, sharp-suits ironed for long-wave’s evening call.
(2) Man-O-War, Shelmaliers, Ramor United -
winds pulsate in Sunday tenor tones, mud-squish field, scything westerly rain,
and boys harnessed on Atlas' shoulder - their faces willingly marooned on squelching turf.
(3) Brick Rangers, Mount Sion, Postal Celtic -
a final whistle's silver bullet punctures callous throbbing cold, the metaphysical seer chips names on Sunday-glinted stone, a typewriter’s font set in Ogham
John Doyle
Biographical Note: Gary Beck Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 2 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction(Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines & Tremors (Winter Goose Publishing). Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance(Dreaming Big Publications). Virtual Living (Thurston Howl Publications). Blossoms of Decay, Blunt Force and Expectationswill be published by Wordcatcher Publishing. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Flawed Connections(Black Rose Writing), Call to Valor (Gnome on Pigs Productions) and Sudden Conflicts (Lillicat Publishers). State of Ragewill be published by Rainy Day Reads Publishing , Crumbling Ramparts by Gnome on Pigs Productions and Flare Up by Michael Terrence Publishing (MTP. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications) and. Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
The Lost (Gary Beck)
Winter comes closer. The homeless shuffle faster on unkind streets, some still sane struggling to survive in a harsh land. Others mumble to themselves, twitchy, staring sightlessly at distant demons brought closer by lack of medication. The ravaged specters pass unnoticed, unless eruption inflicts them on passersby, desperation mounting as it gets colder.
Affair of State (Gary Beck)
Heads of state gather for civilized discussions of barbaric crimes that ravage the world. Then they return home, nothing resolved, as the glib media builds the delusion of hope, while unbenevolent rulers torment their people.
Repeated Warnings (Gary Beck)
I wish to sing a song of awakening to our somnolent people lulled by our leaders into negligence of preparations for survival. The volcano of our nation already erupting, spewing lava of destruction devastating the land, citizens no longer resilient, crumbling under the threats of constant terror, dissolving from disasters, unendurable demands leaving us helpless as we approach finality.
Appetite (Gary Beck)
Power and wealth have always been the guiding forces deciding the future, with or without consent of the people, ambition triumphing over decency, the fate of a nation, as the people suffer, the few revel.
Viewing Pleasure (Gary Beck) I watched a late night movie on my big screen tv with commercial breaks offering Iphones, Ipads, Ipods, just about affordable on my clerk's salary. Then they showed a slick car ad, a sleek German convertible, a powerful machine so far beyond my income I could only fantasize racing along an open highway, top down, wind blowing, a beautiful blonde next to me thrilled by the ride, occasional looks promising delight when we arrive at a posh resort, but I came back to reality, bitterly accepting I'd never have the money to purchase such delight and could only imagine what I was missing.
If you fancy submitting something but haven’t done so yet, or if you would like to send us some further examples of your work, here are our submission guidelines: SUBMISSIONS NB – All artwork must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Indecent and/or offensive images will not be published, and anyone found to be in breach of this will be reported to the police. Images must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Please include your name, contact details, and a short biography. You are welcome to include a photograph of yourself – this may be in colour or black and white. We cannot be responsible for the loss of or damage to any material that is sent to us, so please send copies as opposed to originals. Images may be resized in order to fit “On the Wall”. This is purely for practicality. E-mail all submissions to: g.greig3@gmail.com and title your message as follows: (Type of work here) submitted to “A New Ulster” (name of writer/artist here); or for younger contributors: “Letters to the Alley Cats” (name of contributor/parent or guardian here). Letters, reviews and other communications such as Tweets will be published in “Round the Back”. Please note that submissions may be edited. All copyright remains with the original author/artist, and no infringement is intended. These guidelines make sorting through all of our submissions a much simpler task, allowing us to spend more of our time working on getting each new edition out!
Biographical Note: Alan Murphy
Alan Murphy is the writer and illustrator of four collections of poetry for young readers. Dublin-born, he currently lives in Lismore, county Waterford. In recent years two of his books have been shortlisted for the CAP awards for independent authors. He has been featured in children’s poetry anthologies in the UK and America, and has also published poetry and visual art for adults with a number of journals. His latest book is All Gums Blazing.
Website: www.avantcardpublications.com Twitter: @psychosilly Facebook: www.facebook.com/alan.murphy.1213
Postcard Moonscape by Alan Murphy
Moonwalker Collage by Alan Murphy
March 2019’s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:
Health issues have been plaguing the Greig household lately Amos has had several surgeries and Dennis from Lapwing needs regular blood transfusions. Where does the time fly? It seems like it was only last week when we were busy making the January issue meow!!. Well, that’s just about it from us for this edition everyone. Thanks again to all of the artists who submitted their work to be presented “On the Wall”. As ever, if you didn’t make it into this edition, don’t despair! Chances are that your submission arrived just too late to be included this time. Check out future editions of “A New Ulster” to see your work showcased “On the Wall”.
We continue to provide a platform for poets and artists around the world we want to offer our thanks to the following for their financial support Richard Halperin, John Grady, P.W. Bridgman, Bridie Breen, John Byrne, Arthur Broomfield, Silva Merjanin, Orla McAlinden, Michael Whelan, Sharon Donnell, Damien Smyth, Arthur Harrier, Maire Morrissey Cummins, Alistair Graham, Strider Marcus Jones Our anthologies https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_present_voices_for_peace https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_poetry_anthology_-april
Biographical Note: Karen Petersen
Adventurer, photojournalist and writer, Karen Petersen has travelled the world extensively, publishing both nationally and internationally in a variety of publications. Most recently, her poetry was published in The Manzano Mountain Review and Pilgrimage Magazine in the USA, Orbis in the UK, and The Wild Word in Berlin. Her poems and short stories have also appeared in A New Ulster in Northern Ireland and The Bosphorus Review in Istanbul. In 2015, she read "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" at the Yeats Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the KGB Bar in NYC. Her poems have been translated into Persian and Spanish. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Classics from Vassar College and an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and teaches English Composition at NNMC.
The Long Night’s Moon Has Come
I wander the world dwelling in one dark blue eventide after another, Frequenting mountains, caves, forests and other lonely places, where hunting sparrowhawks send small birds shattering out of branches and into the mouths of waiting foxes. Sometimes the sky brightly glitters in parts while being ominously dark in others, often foretelling storm, rain or snow: fine, wind-driven snow disorienting and obscuring the northern stars so I lose my way, or 'dog's-feet-snow’ falling in large flakes, quickly blanketing the landscape and freezing even the shadows under the trees. I look sunward to feel its warmth on my face, its apricity, and remember the shimmering eldritch mirages of the brutal heat in the southern latitudes destroying all equilibrium and sanity. I just want to close my eyes and sleep now or else shout my regrets at the lone skylark riding the currents of all that emptiness. And then there is this moon glowing and round, strong light flowing like a river through the night sky a giant portal to the heavens. I lean back, conquered, defenseless, surrendered in full, completely subsumed until that delicate pink blush above the horizon arrives, with its beautiful wild edges.
In Memory of Seamus Heaney: Reef the sails. Batten down.
Wind-tipped, then wind-drunk up went the sails into a fine billow my crow's nest of a life in full world-tilt as the rolling waves carried us out past the flat clean sandbars, with their shoals and eddies of tiny silver fish darting about. Where to?" I asked and the Captain replied "Anywhere is fine" so we headed West, deep water almost obsidian black now, surface-hard, whose unfathomable depths summoned an unseen underworld. I couldn't gaze upon that; it felt like the very darkest reaches, like the day my brother died so I looked out and beyond as the setting sun bathed the sky in washes of soft color: “open now as the eye of heaven,� and the world became gentle again.
A Wilderness Pantoum The world has forgotten what quiet means. And what does a wilderness mean? Is it a meadow, a sky or a stream perhaps a mountaintop or a lone sunbeam. So what does a wilderness mean? Being truly alone with only the company of perhaps a mountaintop or a lone sunbeam, hearing just the sound of your own breathing. Being truly alone with only the company of the wind rustling the trees, and an owl staring, hearing just the sound of your own breathing while wondering how the world is faring. The wind rustling the trees, and an owl staring from a meadow, a sky or a stream, as you wonder how the world is faring knowing we have forgotten what quiet means.
DIARY OF THE FLOATING WORLD
It was a mild and gloomy day in December when our train, a slow moving freight built by the Chinese, chugged its way through the lush African countryside. We were heading to Fuga Halt, a remote town on the northern edge of the Selous Game Preserve, the largest wildlife sanctuary in the world. There we were to travel inland with our rafts to our departure point on the Rufiji River for a rafting safari. Outside, it was raining so hard that the dry ground had begun to hiss. Our guide, Hal, a tall, rugged ex-pat from Texas now living in Nairobi, broke the compartment's silence. "If anyone's hungry, next time the Tazara stops we can get some roasted cashews and mangoes from the villagers. They'll be standing by the track." The train came through those parts twice a week, and as we slowed to a stop the villagers who had been waiting patiently for hours now thronged to our windows. "Watch out," a preppy blonde tourist from Los Angeles named Susie said to me. "They'll steal your watch from your wrist if you're not careful." I looked at her in disgust. The thin young girls before us were almost starving. They held the baskets filled with their meager harvest out to us plaintively, desperation in their eyes. The rains had soaked them all to the skin and they were shivering.
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm buying some even if you won't," I replied, taking several bags of cashews and a mango from one of the girls. The train slowly began to move again and the rains stopped as suddenly as they had started. Within minutes there was a great fluttering, as hundreds of butterflies rose up through the landscape. One, a creamy celadon green, was the size of a silver dollar. Another, tiny, delicate and grey, its wings edged in white, beat its wings and slowly dried off on a gnarled granite rock. A third, bright yellow, flitted above the high brush, silhouetted in the afternoon sun. On the window in front of me, a large, speckled orange and black beauty momentarily alighted, and then vanished. "Will there be a lot of bugs on this trip?" Susie asked Hal anxiously as the butterfly flew away. Hal laughed. "Yeah, I'd say so but you'd better get used to it. This is Africa, remember." Susie sat in glum silence until we reached Fuga Halt, where a few solitary men crept from the tangled camouflage of the bush to stare at the `wazungu' (white people). "Oh my God, they're going to attack us," she shrieked as we began unloading our luggage. "Calm down, Susie," Hal said sternly. "They're just curious." And he went over and said something to them in Swahili which made them laugh. Waiting for us was an ancient green Land Rover, a bit bashed up but apparently still serviceable. Leaning against it was a handsome Indian
named Kishore. "I'm your driver," he said, shaking our hands. Hal had Susie sit up front with Kishore and we jolted our way over heavily rutted roads for several hours in silence. Kishore drove the jeep with a devil-may-care attitude and I sat in the back seat laughing to myself over Susie's terror, even though my own ribs were getting a severe bruising from all the jouncing about. Close to dusk, we finally arrived at a hunting lodge, deserted except for the owners, an old German and his wife. There we were to spend the night. "Don't worry, there's plenty of food," Kishore cheerfully informed us as we got out. "Now that we're here we can all cure our aches with a few pints of Safari Lager." "Let's hurry," Hal interrupted, eyeing the sky. We were several hundred yards from the lodge when the storm caught us unprepared. The skies darkened and a thundering wall of rain fell, pounding the earth with a deafening roar. Within minutes, tiny rivulets were flowing everywhere and everybody dashed back to the porch, soaked to the skin. "This is what East Africans call a 'short rain'," Hal said with a grin, shaking his wet curly hair. "It lasts several hours and reminds us that the 'long rains,' will be coming soon." As the rain stopped the bush began to buzz with insect life. The cumulative noise they made was deafening, a soundtrack set on permanent reverb. "This is like an acid trip gone bad," I said as hordes
of flying termites appeared in giant clouds, flocking to any available light source in a bizarre ritual of shedding their wings and mating. Those who couldn't quickly find a mate died, and the ground soon became littered with thousands of termite carcasses. Susie put her hands over her ears and started howling in horror. "Help! Help! This is gross, really gross," she screamed as they got tangled in her long fine hair. She leapt up and ran inside hysterically. Hal went in to consol her as Kishore and the Germans looked on impassively. In the interim a baboon had crept up and stolen my tin coffee mug. One of my empty sneakers now had a mole cricket living in it. These discoveries made me forget about Susie's uptightness, and since the plague of termites had ended as quickly as it had begun, I finished my beer and went off to bed.
*********
At dawn, after a brief breakfast of tea, hard rolls and a braxy ham, the four of us went down to the river to reconnoiter as a pack of wild dogs, ever alert, slunk past the periphery of the lodge. "What are those?" Susie asked, using her binoculars. "Wild dogs," Hal replied. "You don't realize how lucky we are to see them. They are quite rare around here." "Not rare enough for me," she sniffed. "Such mangy little beasts. I prefer birds."
"In a pack, those dogs are one of the deadliest hunting machines in Africa," Hal said. "Once they get a bead on you, you're dead." Susie shivered and something like respect appeared on her face. We walked through savannah-like grasslands at the edge of a dry, deciduous woodland Hal called "miombo." Nearby stood two young elephants, gazing at us out of mild and ancient eyes. Startled, Susie and I looked back at them in awe. "Did you know that a recent census of the Selous showed that in the last ten years this elephant population has been cut in half by poachers?" said Hal. We didn't know it at the time but these elephants were the only ones we'd see on our entire journey. We were nearing the river when I saw two African men with rifles waiting for us. They were thin and wirey, of medium height, and looked as us carefully. "Jambo, habari ghani?" one of them said to Hal. They shook hands in a beautiful manner, by placing their right hand over their heart while extending their left in a light clasp. "These are our scouts," Hal told us, after addressing them in Swahili. "They are some of the best trackers in East Africa. They're not busy right now so I asked them to come along." As Hal talked to the scouts I looked at the river. The water level was rising and the gorge itself was about four hundred feet deep. "I've never rafted before," I told Hal. "Don't worry about the river," he replied, noticing my anxious face. "We'll be okay there. Just make sure you stay
in the boat. Over there's what you have to worry about." He pointed to several green and yellow crocodiles sleeping on the far shore. Each one was more than ten feet long and had enormous jaws. "We're about to launch ourselves into a 21,000 square mile wilderness and those babies will be everywhere." "Oh great, RUBBER rafts will really make me confident," I said, and he just laughed. The heat was getting steadily more oppressive as the sun rose and the air was heavy. "It's time to launch the rafts," Hal said. After so much rainfall the riverbed was swollen and filled with dangerous currents, swirling eddies, and fast moving, dark water. I could hear Susie whining to Kishore, "Do you think it's safe?" and even I started to feel a little nervous when I realized a tipover could be fatal. A light rain had started falling, making visibility poor, and the rapids had now become little infernos of churning water and sharp rocks. We "put in" with great difficulty, nearly losing each raft to the swift current, and once our gear was secured and we were all in place, three to a boat, the rafts took off like quarter horses at Belmont. Several times the rapids nearly got me. I looked back at the second boat and Susie was ashen-faced with fear. It wasn't that bad, really, in a prolonged sense, just terribly dangerous for about five seconds. But they were long five seconds. Going through the second rapids required all my strength to stay in the
boat and not lose my paddle. It was like riding a bucking bronco and at one point, when I lost my grip on the side rope and flew up into the air, I thought, "Sweet Jesus, this is it." I landed with the raft still under me, on my knees, but my balance went, and as I felt my grip slacken from the force of the waves crashing into us, I knew that one more like the last one and I would be finished. And then it came...whamo! I slewed across the boat toward the water. Then Hal reached out and grabbed me with an grip like steel and saved me, and I think I fell in love with him a little bit at that moment. Our boat waited downstream in a slow backwater for the other raft to follow and we saw their descent was just as difficult. For a moment, it looked as if their boat had flipped and gone under--"Shit!" said Hal--but then like a vision it emerged through the heavy spray of water, intact. We rendezvoused in the backwater for a while to catch our breath and come down from the adrenaline high. After those rapids, spending the rest of the day paddling hard in the rain to our first campsite, a large sandy beach with many hippo tracks on it, didn't seem so tough. Dinner was a communal affair and we relaxed afterwards by toasting pumpkin seeds over the fire and drinking "Bush Gush," a lethal combination of various tropical fruits at hand and vodka. Everyone staggered off to their sleeping bags seriously drunk. In the middle of the night there was a tremendous commotion, with loud snortings and a voice shouting, "Help, help!" It turned out poor
Kishore had pitched his tent over some hippo tracks. Sound asleep, he'd been nearly run over by a frightened hippo as it made its innocent way back to the river after grazing inland during the night. The animal had gotten tangled in one of the tent's guide ropes and bolted, dragging Kishore twenty feet or so before freeing itself. The trackers were besides themselves with laughter at the scowling Kishore, giving me my first glimpse of African fatalism; Kishore could easily have been killed--but he was alive so it was funny instead. I was impressed. That kind of attitude had a certain equanimity to it.
*********
In the morning, there were many hippo tracks around us but the hippos themselves were half submerged in the water, further downstream at a bend in the river. Other than Kishore's mishap, we'd all slept soundly as the great animals had lumbered by. But the image was a bit unnerving and I resolved to pay more attention to where I pitched my tent in the future. By nine a.m. the heat was fierce and already I had a swollen and festering cracked lip. I doused myself repeatedly with buckets of water to keep from becoming dehydrated, and kept as much of my skin covered as possible. But I was sweating excessively from being hung over, and I felt like a small cord was being drawn around my head,
tighter and tighter. We drifted under this brutal sun all day long. It was a lazy day on the river, the heat creating a sort of woolliness in the mind, and I found myself making cow eyes at Hal as we drifted along. Ever since we'd shot the rapids, he'd become a kind of wilderness hero to me, a prince, a warrior...back in New York City all those competitive men swarming the concrete in their business suits seemed pathetic by comparison. But Susie noticed me mooning after Hal and hissed, "Forget about him. He's got a rich girlfriend back in Nairobi, some kind of journalist. Kishore told me." So on we drifted, past great terminalia trees that displayed their gnarled roots in sandy banks forty feet high, while the tsetse flies, the natural guardians of this wilderness, buzzed loudly about us. The day had turned unusually cool and somber and even Susie was in a reflective mood. But we were suddenly startled out of our private thoughts by a herd of water buffalo, one hundred strong. They were moving slowly across the green landscape to the water's edge, their horns giving them an eccentric, bewigged, matronly look. The trackers were quickly on the alert, weapons ready, and Hal commanded, "Be very still. These animals are unpredictable and nasty." Slowly and carefully we crossed to the other side of the river. The danger quickly passed and by the late afternoon the day began to
heat up again. The shoreline grasses, a forest of hissing green reeds, were filled with birds of all kinds: hadada ibis, scarlet chested sunbirds, malachite kingfishers, plovers, white browed coucals, crested barbets. "Did you know that the Selous Preserve is home to over three hundred and fifty species of birds?" said Kishore, who'd borrowed Susie's binoculars to birdwatch. Hal added, "Yeah, this area is one of the least scientifically researched ecologies in Africa. It's unique in its genetic resources. There are more than two thousand plant species here--forty are new to science--and there are still inaccessible patches of land we think contain unknown wildflowers and shrubs." "Cool," said Susie. "Yeah," I added, sleepy from the heat and our languid drifting. Much to my relief, Hal decided to make an early camp, beaching the boats in a wooded grove on a small cliff where we spent an uneventful night.
********
Just before dawn the slow, ascending Ooo-wup, Ooo-wup cry of a hyena heralded a morning that was cool and cloudy. In the opaque early light the sky and water were indistinguishable from one another, except for an embroidery of green foliage on the horizon. There was a dreamy quality to the landscape as Susie and I bathed on the raft, bucket style, to avoid the ever present crocodiles, while the men got
breakfast. "This is the life, hey Susie?" I said, and to my surprise she nodded yes and said, "I'm just beginning to realize how boring my life is. I'm glad I did this trip after all." As we bathed, the silence of the river was broken only by the varied songs of the birds, and the deep bassoon honking of one hippo calling another in breathy quarter note fashion. There was no sign of civilization, large or small, anywhere. But Africa lets you romanticize only to a point. The hard impartial sting of nature is always just around the corner, as I found out when I climbed back into my tent to dress and was surprised by a large scorpion which I flattened with my sneaker. It was a nasty reminder to always keep the tent zippered shut. Hal had warned me earlier, but I'd forgotten, and I was learning fast that a wilderness was not a good place to get careless. Out in the rafts again we noticed there were many hippo in the river; it seemed we didn't round even one curve without running into yet another lone beast sent out as scout to warn the herd that lay basking in the water behind him. They eyed us suspiciously and frightened easily, rolling their little beady eyes and twitching their small ears nervously before submerging themselves and swimming off. We did our best to negotiate our way around each herd, and managed to survive several mock charges by loudly whacking our paddles flatly on the water in a
gesture of intimidation. At least that was what Hal had said usually worked. "I've decided I hate hippos," I said, to no one in particular. "They are the most neurotic, fat, ugly creatures I've ever seen, and good for nothing except wallets." Hal had told me that the Africans liked hippo skin when it was tanned because it was very soft. One bull, however, must have heard me for as we were nearing our next campsite in the late afternoon, it was clear he had taken a real dislike to us. We tried Hal's paddle whacking technique, but to no avail. His brown, knobby head disappeared under the water and we watched in terror as a low, rolling wave like a miniature tsunami advanced toward Hal's boat. Suddenly, the water was flat again. "Thank god he changed his mind," Hal said with relief. "A real charge would have been terrible. Let's keep the boats very close together now." So we all paddled ahead tentatively, not sure where the hippo was--his herd has retreated to the other bank--when suddenly without warning he surged out of the water next to my boat, huge jaws gaping. Everyone screamed except the African scouts, who'd quickly cocked their guns. Hal was yelling for us to paddle furiously to the edge of the bank, "Hug the shore, hug the shore! he said. This was in case the hippo bit our raft--or perhaps one of us--in two, we could quickly retreat to the shore's tangled undergrowth where the crocodiles were. This could mean death, and suddenly I was scared, really scared. It was clear from a knowledge of nature that this charge had been the
hippo's last big bluff and next time he was either coming in for real or back to basking with his herd. So we waited, hearts pumping hard, and after several minutes it appeared the hippo had decided he'd made his point and disappeared for good. But we advanced cautiously by poling and paddling near the river's edge as Hal had suggested. Shit, I thought, if there ever was a prime chance for a crocodile to easily snatch a meal, here it was. But living in a wilderness, perils are either terribly alive or quickly forgotten, and the river became beautiful and beneficent again as we made it to our next base camp without further mishap, other than a few nasty mosquito and fly bites. In camp, the first thing Hal did was open a bottle of whiskey, and we all gratefully took a couple of shots. We were all drunk by the time one of the scouts caught several giant catfish from the river, and the big fish were wasted on us. That night it seemed as if the sky was burning with the fire of the original Creation. The blood-red sun was as big as five suns and sank slowly, animating the world around us with its intense glow. We sat in silence until the night was calm and clear and the moon rose. Under the diamond brilliance of the Southern Cross we all slept soundly as insects clicked and hummed about us. The next morning, Hal, Kishore, Susie and I followed the scouts for a mysterious twenty minute walk, across an open area of bush, into a humid forest of chaotic greenness. We had walked for several minutes
along a route only they could see when suddenly there appeared a natural clearing where there was a large pool of bubbling water that cascaded over the many rocks surrounding it. "Maji moto," one of the trackers said, pointing. "That's the Swahili term for this natural hot springs," explained Hal. Tiny weaver birds flitted and darted about, having made their hanging nests to grace the water's edge. Without hesitation the four of us plunged into the warm, fresh water while both the scouts sat up on the highest rock, guns ready, watching and listening to the forest as it continually telegraphed its many meanings. In the falling of the small waters we frolicked, intoxicated and oblivious to anything but the beauty of the setting. Susie had started flirting with Kishore--it was clear they found each other quite exotic--and girlfriend or no girlfriend--I started batting my eyes again at Hal. But he was ever the professional and kept his distance. After about an hour we reluctantly left our paradise to begin another slowly unfolding day drifting on the river. Kishore and Susie birdwatched as white bellied go-away birds, bee-eaters, and lilac-breasted rollers careened about, surveyed by the sharp eyes of a fish eagle. Around the river banks, a yellow-billed stork, weaving and bobbing, stalked his prey while a family of wart hogs nearby, alerted by the splash of a paddle and easy to frighten, raced off squealing, tails ramrod high in the air.
Our early morning swim had left us refreshed and in good humor, although Hal had been bitten by a scorpion as he packed up his tent. The sun made his wound burn like hell and he was miserable. "Well, cheer up, Hal, despite a few mishaps, this river's been kind to us," Susie said, smiling at Kishore. "At least the hippos have gone...hey, what are those fruit trees doing here?" Beyond the narrow furrows and runnels of the far shore were groves of huge mango trees, incongruous in the remote bush. Kishore spoke up. "You'll never guess. Those trees grew from the pits dropped by slaves. The southern caravan route came through here, driven toward the coast to be shipped to the Middle East and India. Only ten per cent survived..." Suddenly it was as if those groves held the spirits of the dead and nobody said anything for more than an hour. We drifted slowly into a vast submerged landscape, a forest graveyard where the river had shifted course and drowned the land, leaving behind thousands of tall, phallic trunks from the giant Doum palm. It was a queer place, majestic and lonely, like some abandoned palace of Neptune's where only the pillars remained. High on a bluff we pitched camp so we could look across the river at our remarkable palm kingdom. I'd almost forgotten but it was Christmas day. "We've got a surprise for you," Hal said. He told Susie and I to shut our eyes and hold hands as he led us down a small path. "Open your eyes." The trackers had built
a "bush oven" and miraculously cooked a turkey, complete with cashew stuffing, baked yams, cinnamon rolls and pumpkin pie. Shoulders jiggling, they laughed at our astonishment in that modest, almost embarrassed, way Africans have of gently covering their mouth with their hand. It was a graceful gesture, unlike our loud American in-yourface guffawing. "Merry Christmas!" everyone shouted. "These ingredients were a secret part of the "equipment" we've been lugging about all along," Hal added laughing. "Let's dig in." "Ahsante," I said, turning to the Africans, using the one Swahili word I knew--thank you– and their eyes widened. They started laughing again, probably because of my accent. After dinner I was helping Hal clean up when I heard a fury of small birds in a nearby acacia tree. Underneath, Kishore was giving Susie a kiss. I looked away, feeling lonely, and I didn't say anything to Hal about it. A shot of whiskey put me to sleep.
*********
The next day, after two hours on the river, we found ourselves face to face again with the first signs of modern civilization. Built on a beautiful, slowly eroding bluff where we could come ashore, was a small, tented safari camp. "This camp was designed for weekend
tourists and ex-pats from Dar-es-Salaam," Hal said. "This is where we'll decompress for the night." We beached the giant rafts and carried them on our heads to a clearing. Once they were deflated, we let them dry off a bit before rolling them up. "Kishore's going to drive this stuff back to Dar tomorrow," said Hal as we walked up the bluff. Everyone at the camp was very pleasant; the owners and guests were from various European countries. Susie and I were the only Americans, but it didn't seem to matter. No jokes about imperialism or the president surfaced; these people seemed determined to forget politics and just enjoy being on the river. That night, to guard against snakes and other undesirables from sneaking into our tents to look for food, Hal told me to firmly zipper my tent shut, which I did, using my heavy camera bag as a blockade. Naked, I lay down on my cot, confident I had the wilderness at bay. But I had forgotten about all the rice I kept in my camera bag as a makeshift dehumidifier, and in the middle of the night I had a dream where I felt something big and heavy on my legs. Within a split second I knew it wasn't a dream and I felt a deep visceral fear. As I lay there totally exposed, my belly convulsed in primal expectation that whatever it was would now tear me open. I let loose a bloodcurdling scream. There was a scurrying noise and the thing vanished, disappearing through a small opening in the tent it had made for itself. I realized
with a start that it had opened the zippered tent with its nose and pushed my camera bag aside! Hal had raced over to my tent immediately. "What is it, what is it?" he said in a panic. "Some horrible animal was in my bed and I freaked out," I answered, through the canvas. "Its tracks are right outside your tent," he said. "It was a giant cane rat, about the size of a small dog...Well, at least one of us had a midnight suitor." "Go to hell, Hal, I said, irritably. "I'm going back to bed." A lot of gaffer tape around the closure this time did the trick but I slept in stops and starts for the rest of the night, unable to forget the sickening feel of the big rat near my unprotected belly. By morning I was very cranky and not in the mood to hear one of the guests claiming to have seen a green mamba, one of the most deadly of African snakes, crawling through the thatched roof of the dining hall. It threw everyone into a panic, and we all looked around carefully but found nothing. Unanimously our little group wished to be back on the river again, instead of traveling onward, toward even more civilization. Yesterday the trackers had been smart and cut out after we'd landed but now it was too late for us. The bush plane to Dar had arrived so Susie, Hal and I left, our breakfast uneaten. Kishore wanted Susie to drive back to Dar-es-Salaam with him, but Hal insisted she go in the plane for insurance reasons and that had been that.
**********
Back in Dar, I felt like a farmhand in the middle of New York City. Completely out of it. After the river, this world was loud and bustling and dirty. The swarm of flies was endless, the wine sour, the beer warm, and there was no place to get an inexpensive good meal. Hal had gone off somewhere on business and I sat with Susie in some tourist dive drinking warm beer and listening to her whine. With civilization, the whine had returned. This time she was afraid that the beer bottles hadn't been properly sterilized. "Susie, if you don't chill out I'm going to put you on the next bus," I said impatiently. We were near Kariakoo, a giant indoor marketplace, watching colorful buses with names like "Time is Money," "No Sweat" and "African Passion" jammed with Tanzanians heading home from work. I was tired, and overstimulated by the city after the simplicity of the river, so I didn't even see Hal until he was standing in front of us with a queer look on his face. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Kishore's jeep hit a bad rut and flipped. He and two others are dead. It just came in over the shortwave." Hal looked ill. "Oh my god," I replied and Susie fainted. She came to and started sobbing. "Not Kishore...Tell me this is just a bad dream." And then she grabbed Hal's arm and sobbed, "It could have
been me, too; if you'd let me go with him it could have been me." I stood up and gave my chair to Hal. I wasn't feeling too well. "Listen guys, it's been a long day. I'm sorry to leave but I'm exhausted. I've got to get some sleep...Susie, if I don't see you tomorrow before you go, you've got my address in New York. And Hal...I'll be in town for another week so I'll see you again, I'm sure." I headed back to a little African hotel away from the tourists for the night. It was a simple room overlooking the Indian Ocean, with a broken linoleum floor and a chipped sink that ran continuously, but it was clean and cheap. As I drifted off to sleep, I could feel the springs through the thin-mattressed bed. Then slowly, like some kind of creeping menace, the sound of the fan revolving became like the ominous hissing of a poisonous snake close by my ears. I woke up with a start, my eyes wide with terror and my body covered in sweat. I expected to die within seconds. But there was only the darkness of the room and a chorus of insects buzzing outside. I eventually fell back asleep, but not before I saw that only a small part of my face, where my nose was, remained exposed above the sheets--just in case something was waiting to bite me. These strange sensations occurred again and again throughout the night and I realized in my delirium I'd caught some kind of fever. But finally one night I woke up with a kind of mental clarity I hadn't known all week and I knew the mysterious fever had gone. The next
morning there was a knock on my door. "Come in," I said weakly. It was Hal, with some fresh tamarind juice. "I was wondering what had happened to you--I didn't see you around for a few days," he said, sitting down on the side of my bed and taking my hand. "I'm going to Nairobi for Christmas and I'll be flying back tomorrow. Would you like to get together tonight?" "I've been sick with some kind of fever, Hal," I said, realising that he apparently had been interested in me after all, saving his pitch until the last night of his stay. Much safer and no mess, I guess. But now we were off the river and Hal seemed sloppy and nervous in an urban context, a bit of a misfit really and not at all glamourous, so I pulled my hand away. "Well, here, I brought you this," he said, handing me the juice. "Thanks, Hal. Sorry about dinner but I'm still weak" I said, "But thanks for everything anyway. It was a great trip." He gracefully tipped his cap. "Let's do it again some time." He left the door open and as the daylight flooded into the room I saw outside an endless arc of palms embracing the ever-changing waters of the Indian Ocean, today a study in silver grey and pale blue. On the horizon, large tankers idled. A faint dusty haze lingered in the air, giving the already bustling streets of Dar-es-Salaam a dreamy quality as the African and Indian merchants slowly opened their stores to begin another long, hot day. From somewhere down the sunny street
someone was playing "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful" on a cassette player and I realized with a start I'd never found out where the game scouts were from--they had guided us through the most memorable parts of the trip and I hadn't even known their names.