ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Featuring the works of R.W. Haynes, Salim Mustafa, Terrence Sykes, Ruth Egan, Marc Carver, Philip Larrea, Karoly Sandor Pallai, Kenneth Hickey, Mel Waldman, James Paterson, Neil Ellman, Paul Hughes, Fiona Perry, Grant Tarbard, Sarah Padden, Karen Petersen, Gordon Ferris. John W Sexton, Fabrice B. Poussin, Cristina Bresser de Campos, Lisa Stice and Patrick Deeley.Hard copies can be purchased from our website.
Issue 58 July 2017
A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Editorial R.W. Haynes;
1. Suzannah Lays It on the Table 2. Sonnet of the Two Pistols 3. Once Again Mr. Webster Drops the Apple Salim Mustafa; 1. The Contemporary Lover Terence Sykes; 1. Bauhaus Memories 2. Elegy for a Lost Poem 3. Cathedral 4. Broken 5. Refugees 6. Partridge Ruth Egan; 1. Black Hole 2. Waterline 3. The Skating Rink Marc Carver; 1. Stranlya 2. Anon 3. Have To Philip Larrea; 1. Like Watching Soccer 2. Heroes 3. Soul of an Old Machine Karoly Sandor Pallai / Karoly Fellinger; 1. Continuity 2. Illusionists 3. Dried-Up Shadow 4. In Memoriam Alios Alzheimer 5. Evergreen 6. Replica 7. Painkiller
8. Time Halt Kenneth Hickey; 1. Phoenix Dying Mel Waldman; 1. The Music of Trauma 2. Sweet Phantasmagoria’s Rhapsody 3. Darkness Blessed 4. The Unfathomable Blessings of the Cosmic Breath & the Unholy Flesh 5. Blues Apocalypse 6. Lovely Dream-Lady Neil Ellman; 1. Undisciplined Emotion 2. Fish 3. Tank Totem VIII 4. The Fall of Man Paul Hughes; 1. The Magic Tea Tree Leaf Fiona Perry; 1. A History of the World Sarah Padden: 1. Sonnet for Messines 2. Reaching for Velvet 3. Anatomy of Silence Karen Petersen; 1. The Whooper Swan (found poem) 2. Remembering Paddy’s Market, Glasgow Gordon Ferris; 1. In my child’s eye 2. View from a train 3. Invisible old man John W. Sexton; 1. Scrambled Milk 2. Scarlet is Scarlet to the many-Hued 3. Seven Mirrors Fabrice B. Poussin;
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Playing the Strings Seeking a gaze Stabbed by the ghosts Sweet pathways Ice experiments
Cristina Bresser de Campos; 1. Sea is feminine Lisa Stice; 1. Dear Ciaran Carson Patrick Deeley; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
From the Benedictine Abbey at Schaffhausen The End of the World In Michelstown Cave Deserted Village, Achill Island Guanche Kings Torso On The Wall
Message from the Alleycats Round the Back Grant Tabard; 1. Self Portrait, Unfinished I 2. Icon 3. Beneath the Tree 4. Reincarnation of Pop II 5.Self Portrait, Unfinished II 6. Collage no. 8
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 “Scenic� by Amy Barry
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ” Aristotle Onassis. Editorial Welcome to the July issue of A New Ulster we have a strong line-up for you this issue. For our American readers we hope you have a nice 4th of July for everyone else I hope you have a peaceful month. As you may have noticed our own government has stumbled into stasis with a refusal to break deadlock. Putting words together in a coherent pattern can be challenging enough, focussing on the editorial process is also difficult combine that with waiting for test results for cancer and a genetic defect made the task even harder. Any way after months of unknowing (hah!) I finally got my results back. I do not have cancer or the genetic defect of the MSH6 gene which runs in the family, with that worry no longer on my mind I can get back to focussing on poetry and prose again. What then should my focus be considering how few words I allocate to myself each month for musing and discussion? How about the 1910 political turmoil caused when the British Liberal party attempted to raise taxes on the wealthy to support the rest of British society? The fact that the house of lords rebelled and blocked it and how the Conservatives would manipulate the political system here to gain the majority in parliament? No too much like politics sadly and that is something I promised to keep out of ANU. How about the increase within some circles were quite often Cis White anonymous ‘social commentators’ attack the positive changes within media portrayal of over ethnic identities. Examples include comics, movies and now tv. Marvel has been on the receiving end of such tirades and now so has Star Trek. I suspect that many of these commentators are just trolling to get a response still it happens. Take Star Trek Discovery the show will feature a female captain and a female first officer and commentators have attacked the show saying they won’t watch someone who can’t speak good English or “Oh no another person of colour and or woman taking a man’s role”. Some even cite Turnabout Intruder as examples that in canon women can’t command a starship. They overlook Janeway, Rachel Garrett, the Captain of the Saratoga and many more. Worse Trek in a show about social and racial diversity which makes you wonder what show have they been watching.
Amos Greig Editor.
Biographical Note: R.W. Haynes R. W. Haynes is Professor of English at Texas A&M International University. He recently edited the Salem Press collection Critical Insights: Horton Foote.
Suzannah Lays It on the Table (R. W. Haynes)
Just read the plays; you’ll find that it’s all there. He built the cathedral of modern literature, And I made sure that he would never dare Ignore the voice that kept his drama pure. He needed a rock to stand on, and that stone Was me, and he stood, fortunately, Often isolated, but never alone, His spirit always in counterpoint with me. And after Nora, Hedda, and Hilde took the stage And foolish incompetence threatened his glory— I didn’t mind the girls; my jealous outrage Arose from the threat to Ibsen’s epic story— I killed him. He knew there never would be A more Ibsenian woman than me.
Sonnet of the Two Pistols (R. W. Haynes)
Her shining Beretta and his battered .38 Lay together on the nightstand side by side. Guardians of this unsanctioned date, Suspending detonation to abide, Romantic souvenirs of hopeful protection (Hers a graduation present to assure A daughter’s safe commencement, his selection A museum piece of origin obscure). Both fully loaded, carefully maintained, Safety locks poised for sudden release, Faithful companions whose company sustained Passion, guaranteeing momentary peace. And later, the lady, something seeming wrong, Put them away, where in passion they belong.
Once Again Mr. Webster Drops the Apple (R. W. Haynes)
Let’s consider the word again again, Miss Do-Well, I winged the ball over the net, and you slapped It back, and then it racketed back and fell, Flapping its wings, until I fiercely clapped A take-that roundhouse: it grazed the ball, Which skittered skyward, ready for your pounce‌ But wait, let it hover here and never fall. Let it soar in place and never bounce. Let repetition wash its paws of what it does While we stare each other down in place, No thought now of what will be or was, No sight but that of frozen mind and face. Thus we escape a cycle we could spend Our lives revolving, without a decent end.
Biographical Note: Salim Mustafa
Salim Mustafa is a teacher in his own coaching institute located in New Delhi, India where he teaches literature. Recently his work (Indifferent Life) has appeared in “A New Ulster� (April, issue 55).
THE CONTEMPORARY LOVER (Salim Mustafa)
Sin, living, is, thy unaccompanied O my friend, immortal you’re Either formed or breathed for thy Ah! That Majnoo roamed shelter less The world will torment, make him deceased His bright eyes will be flooded with agony
Gasping for breathes, he found thy Will be barren, if thou go off tracked To say, thou aimed to demolish him Proving his love beyond infatuation Shall return he, by the judgment day That aficionado saw thou, when saw Then swallowed tears for thy joy
To shield thou, he, then, was intended to No day, he, on Earth, going to create blunder Being true, defenseless was love struck by Whether they prohibited, in love with her What if he collapsed there? Upon thyself, that devotee melt away Then, balled warranted, heartache he went through
Promptly and simply, he wanted thou accompanied
His love you’re, be loyal, saying lingers The world he left behind, nothing but thou So should that tongue, utter few words Find him nowhere, will you live along? ‘cose no death will stop him to commit love.
Biographical Note: Terrence Sykes Terrence Sykes was born and raised in the rural coal mining area of Virginia. This isolation brings the theme of remembrance to his creations, whether real or imagined. Though not traditional in his spiritual path, these traditional threads of his past are woven into his tapestry of writing. His poetryphotography – flash fiction has been published in India, Scotland, Spain and the USA.
BAUHAUS MEMORIES (Terrence Sykes)
that night in Dresden outside our window wind rain sleet smoke from a factory fire descended upon my soul dawn drove into darkness
Elegy For A Lost Poem (Terrence Sykes)
It came not into fruition nor amongst stillborn remembrance merely scattered like ashes in November
Cathedral (Terrence Sykes) From seed thou came….To seed thou shalt return……. Book of Babel closing light casts upon spires & towers meandering amongst cathedral ruins meteor shower lit the dusk dreams & blueprints crumble amongst thale-cress before another Ulster mizzle laden dawning ….. BROKEN - after reading Dylan (Terrence Sykes) Upon the flint of time This seed of mine was broken Once a mere stone Dwelling in a fiery landscape I coil & travel in time The ashes only strengthen me Reaching my roots Toward vaulted sands There I shall Bow & bend Verdant as the oat That makes my daily bread Even in the length of night When my words ripen I shall not Be broken
Refugees (Terrence Sykes)
my words are refugees scattered across decimated borders haunting symphonies war amongst movements orchestra of exiles arise from the pyre
Partridge ‌..Elegy for WWI (Terrence Sykes) unmarked forgotten unnamed forest once merely hills & vale foreign fields mizzle laden seed buried bullet blossomed crimson within partridge sings ponderous songs upon branches juniper & yew rabbit & badger and I beneath rest at their roots all about & around flourish comfrey & rue
Biographical Note: Ruth Egan Ruth Egan is an Irish poet living in Dublin. She has had work published in poetry journal Verbal Art (2015), Baby BEEF Zine (2014) and was one of the winners of the Liberties Festival 2013 poetry competition in Dublin.
Black Hole (Ruth Egan)
We go out for a walk, you and I, under the red eye that is Mars which causes us pause and to think skywards, you and I.
We talk of black holes, you and I, and look to the heavens ridiculously! As if to see, you and I, how it would be inside the beast where internal force slows to a stop all in its orb.
No movement, no change: we, silently, timelessly side by side; no movement, no change –
not living then; no movement, no change – nor death? Perhaps this is what bliss is, an infinite side-by-sideness…
But we’d never get that far, you and I, torn asunder as we would be by immeasurable gravity.
And so the thought dissipates and we continue our walk under the sky, you and I.
Waterline (Ruth Egan)
I am floating beneath the surface of the sea like a corpse slowly making its way back to shore. But I linger here below the waterline, caught in prism of glass coffin spitting light, waves washing back and forth, pushing and receding heavy sea-breathing absolving me back into the sea.
The Skating Rink (Ruth Egan) Alabaster sun sprinkles morning buildings, leaving the snow-buried sleeping undisturbed. Smiles, chatter, clatter and chips at the skating rink with Babs. Gliding self-contained in her rounds through the throng while we race, try backwards, sudden stops, fall, check in with her at times. Unlacing skates, dragging on boots afterwards, we tread homewards on slushy paths. An adage for every occasion, a superstition for most, she passes on time to us: we absorb it like the frail sunlight caught in the snow.
Biographical Note: Marc Carver Marc has had ten collections of poetry published and over two thousand poems published on the net but all that really matters to him is that people send Marc emails telling him that they enjoy his work.
STRANLYA (Marc Carver) We went to the theatre a Russian production with English subtitles. Ninety percent of the audience was Russian. You saw them before you heard them. They all loved it got the jokes before they came up on the subtitles. And after three hours they stood and cheered. All I wanted to do was get out and have some fresh air I remembered falling asleep after half way through but nobody noticed. Out they all swept it wasn't that good but they were all happy because it was Russian the motherland. Putin could gas three million Jews and they would still love him. He could slaughter all the gays and blacks and they would love him more. He can kill every journalist and dissident and still they would not care. That is the strange thing about them The Russians they really are patriotic as for me I feel nothing for this country but they really do. Makes you wonder why they are here and why they would care more about their country than themselves.
ANON (Marc Carver) I went for a walk in the sun looked down on the path. Kids had been writing in chalk and had drawn a hopscotch grid. I bent down picked up the chalk and wrote some poems on the path. It was going to be hot for the week so maybe a few hundred people would see the words before the rain would surely come and both mine and the kids words would be gone and no one would ever know who wrote them and that of course is how it always should be. HAVE TO (Marc Carver) I can't quite leave it whether I want to or not something keeps pulling at me. Dragging at my soul Like those times you see beauty in something or someone sometimes you have to look hard but you see it, and you know it is real. You have to give what you can if nothing else you can't keep it to yourself and pretend you hate everyone because whatever has happened it cannot happen again. It can never be any worse.
Biographical Note: Philip Larrea Phillip Larrea is the author of Our Patch (Writing Knights Press), We the People (Cold River Press), and his brand-new collection, Part Time Job (Sybaritic Press). He serves on the Advisory Board of the Sacramento Poetry Center and edits the annual print anthology, Sacramento Voices.
Like Watching Soccer (Phillip Larrea)
Rather a headless chicken dance in which we spare no expense for fancy footwear. Go all gaga for a bloody kneecap, but goals are rarely- if ever- achieved. My European bar mate sneers at me, “Just like a Yank. Stand in the Vatican, all you can ask is, ‘What good does it do?’ I understand a little. I did play kick-the-can as a kid. I loved that game. But it was child’s play. No one ever died trying to get out of the stadium. “Serious business, this sport,” he says. “We don’t count points, but rather, tickets sold. Kick and scream all you like- just pay the toll.”
Heroes (Phillip Larrea)
We weave through the secular section of these semi-sacred grounds laughing a little because we shouldn’t.
We giggle over that silliness back in Trafalgar Square when you said “Lord Nelson! Now that’s what I call an erection. But not worth an arm and a leg.” cocking a sly eyebrow my way.
I have a sinking feeling this might be the wrong cemetery.
“How is it possible you don’t remember where he is buried?” you scold. Irritated, I say that where his remains are is neither here nor there.
We pick our way shoulder to shoulder like soldiers through a granite minefield. Sidestep implacable angels, orthodox crucifixions. You impress a breast against my bicep.
‘That old trick’, I think. I have always liked it.
Here we lay to his final rest (I forget the rest) devoted husband and father of… (they are forgotten now too).
“He was you know.” “What?” “Well… devoted anyway.” “Who? Your father or Nelson?”
We cannot find my father’s plaque, and that time of day is approaching when cemeteries become graveyards. “We have done our best - time to go.”
Heroically, we meander our way back home. Treading lightly together through the gloom.
Soul of an Old Machine Stutz - she was a bearcat machine. Pumps and hose, a few discreet belts like most lovely things.
She would thrust her large round perfectly proportioned headlights at you. All any man would ever likely see. She'd say, C'mon in skin to skin, shake that stick let the games begin. How she trembled. When you twisted her ignition. Growling pure combustion engine. Now, this lonely new appendage. You hold it in your hand like a deck of large-print playing cards for the canasta set. We sit here on our naugahydes, go nowhere make nary a sound except the occasional impolite burp.
Biographical Note: Karoly Fellinger & Karoly Sandor Pallai
Bio of the author: Károly Fellinger was born in 1963, in Bratislava. He has published 18 books in Hungarian so far. His volumes of poetry have been published in English, German, Romanian, Serbian, French, Russian, Slovakian, Albanian, Greek and Turkish. He has been awarded the Golden Opus Prize twice and the Imre Forbáth Prize for the best collection of poetry written in Hungarian in 2014.
Bio of the translator: Károly Sándor Pallai is a Hungarian oceanist, historian of literature, poet, translator and editor. He defended his PhD thesis (La micrologie de l’identité archipélique) in 2015. He collected and translated the poems of Károly Fellinger in French in 2015 (Bétonnière ivre). He is the author of three theoretical books published by the University of Pécs: Subjectivités seychelloises, Mosaïque des oceans, Microlectures polynésiennes.
CONTINUITY (Kรกroly Fellinger trans Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai) The mirror is missing in me, when two parallel lines change places as if they knew that this is the price of their meeting in infinity, at such times the light-bulb switched off in the empty cinema shows its true colors, clinging to the darkness like the late master of ceremonies to the curtain in order to find his way out of his head, out of this enormous shelter which is day by day eaten away by liberty and carried away by love.
ILLUSIONISTS (Kรกroly Fellinger trans Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai) The emigrant rays of the sun people the world, all is in vain, we buried my father. Its tongue is always wagging, with its mouth open like a cave, I say this about the aimless time. From time to time it bites its own tail, placing the balance in the row. Among the others. Where there is no room for it anymore.
DRIED-UP SHADOW (Kรกroly Fellinger trans Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai) The poem is the spot check of silence.
IN MEMORIAM ALOIS ALZHEIMER (Kรกroly Fellinger trans Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai) I bear my memories just like my mother bore my two siblings under her heart deep as the stars.
EVERGREEN (Kรกroly Fellinger trans Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai) The soaring birds are a hundred times more loyal to the ground than the trees having gigantic roots on which birds take a rest, encouraging the leaves to return home just like the future to the past, pushing itself off a perfect diving board which is already the everlasting present itself.
REPLICA (Károly Fellinger trans Károly Sándor Pallai) I wandered through the cemetery with my mother, we didn’t meet anyone, my heart was like a discarded aircraft, withdrawn from circulation which wasn’t given the chance to crash, at least accidentally into the itching palm of its creator, on the way home, I was blinded by the December sunset, I almost ran over a cyclist who raked me over the coals, he had the right, just like I have a burial plot next to my father’s grave.
PAINKILLER (Károly Fellinger trans Károly Sándor Pallai) The devil is in the detail, but this is a sort of a question of detail, don’t make me recount all the rest, heating is provided by solar panels and windmills even in hell. Hope is a worn collecting box in the consecrated, brand new church, where the congregation collects money for the demolition of the walls each Sunday.
TIME HALT (Károly Fellinger trans Károly Sándor Pallai) John is accompanied by his selfish pain, he would let himself go if he could, if he could expose himself to death to let it breath eternal life into him. Silence says goodbye by stepping on a mine, there’s a huge explosion, poor John becomes deaf, he makes signs, each of his limbs is now at the mercy of grace.
Biographical Note: Kenneth Hickey
Kenneth Hickey was born in 1975 in Cobh, Co. Cork Ireland. He has been published in various literary journals in Ireland, the UK and the United States including The Shop, Southword, Crannog and The Poetry Bus.
Phoenix Dying (Kenneth Hickey) Who from the sacred ashes of her honour Shall star-like rise as great in fame as she was I In the silence where no music plays We face the reality Of dead Syrian babies Washed up on Athenian shores A picture shreds a thousand words The rubber boats keep coming Bobbing on the Mediterranean Eagles of Death Metal fly south Still we count the bodies And the Music doesn’t play And the Music doesn’t play The music has stopped. II So lover number nine writes the following lines A reborn girl’s touch still trembling on my goose bumps, exposing dark half etched negatives to a brighter sun, until they are burnt blank with indifference wandering through a star shadowed night, of two minds scratching randomly. Under the fractured cedar moon he counts his lives remaining, Slowly I crack his unborn dreams with abandoned kisses. She is promised to a soldier. My rusting blood betrays me. III At harbour stations he breaths The greenness of the hill
Slipping to the sea As blood slides from his crumbling veins, Before the dusk arrives To end the agony of the day Silently whispering goodbyes To the watching lighthouse children Smiling over the still water golden mirror of a seafront Dazzling eyes tightly closing The day has extinguished itself He is going back to sea. IV At midnight the words return Listening to the dark chimes of the cathedral Announcing midnight, I wish she was wrapped around me Embraced by my misplaced possessiveness. Tomorrow I am without, And the day will have no ending. V Such journeys to ancient kingdoms Trouble him greatly Miles of agitation congealing in unsteady pools Of tepid blood red water Singular vehicles forced to obey rules Passed down to us from absent mentors Silent in their rusting throne Cracks grows wilder now With brambles of lost time Broken sunshine dappling His path of joyous crimes. VI In the cobwebs Each wave itching against him Crests tarnished with bright beauty Offering the dawning world in a single handful
A drop of everything on a desert tongue. Her voice echoing through a ghost phone line Long forgotten in the darkness Of a night of lost words Alone again A tapping heart longing to be silenced Violently And the Music doesn’t play And the Music doesn’t play The music has stopped.
Biographical Note: Mel Waldman Dr. Mel Waldman is a psychologist, poet, and writer whose stories have appeared in numerous magazines including HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, PULP METAL MAGAZINE, and AUDIENCE. His poems have been widely published in magazines and books including LIQUID IMAGINATION, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, THE BROOKLYN VOICE, BRICKPLIGHT, THE BITCHIN’ KITSCH, CRAB FAT MAGAZINE, SKIVE MAGAZINE, ODDBALL MAGAZINE, ON THE RUSK, POETRY PACIFIC, POETICA, RED FEZ, SQUAWK BACK, SWEET ANNIE & SWEET PEA REVIEW, THE JEWISH LITERARY JOURNAL, THE JEWISH PRESS, THE JERUSALEM POST, HOTMETAL PRESS, MAD SWIRL, HAGGARD & HALLOO, ASCENT ASPIRATIONS, and NAMASTE FIJI: THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY. A past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature and is the author of 11 books.
THE MUSIC
OF
TRAUMA By Dr. Mel Waldman
Now, in the ghetto
no time is sacred, no time safe.
Death comes now at 1st light & through the luminescence of day
flowing into night
after dark after light.
Death comes, evil speaks
Brave one; listen to the rhapsody of death. Pop, pop, pop in bestial hip-hop.
Gunshots shriek & find the meek
pitch-black darkness illuminated
& life obliterated
sentenced to otherworldly silence & mortal absence in the swirl of ethereal extinction
for this is the time you taste the music of trauma
& feast on fear.
This is the time you bathe in crimson water
& taste the underbelly of sin.
This is the time you hear the eerily everlasting music drowning in the key of death.
This is the time of the shattering
here, inside the rhapsody & the requiem
& a stranger sings of non-being
while gunshots gut the grotesquerie of night & gallop into the deformity of day.
This is the time to vanish in the music of trauma.
This is the time to die & fly away.
SWEET PHANTASMAGORIA’S
RHAPSODY
By Dr. Mel Waldman (on reading Arthur Rimbaud’s poem-Mystical from Illuminations) Sweet Phantasmagoria, phantom lady of unreality, rushes across an unholy/holy dark/divine Janus-faced dreamscape & swirls around the cosmic circle of non-being into the mystical dance of dreams where She kisses the whirling silence that morphs into Sweet Phantasmagoria’s rhapsody & within the hypnotic music, sliced in half, Heaven & Hell hide side by side north
& south east & west of nowhere inside the bestial split of the phantom lady’s gorgeous ghostly mind & celestial creatures beautiful & deformed gallop across metaphysical conundrumsangels & demons swirling in the chimerical mirrored sky & through diaphanous hills, mountains & valleys, unfathomable even in their unveiling, & into the deep of divinity
DARKNESS
BLESSED
By Dr. Mel Waldman (on reading Jorge Luis Borges’ poem-In Praise of Darkness)
Darkness blessed & the night glitters with otherworldly secrets a sea of swirling miracles flowing everywhere on waves of thalassic opalescence
Darkness blessed & the divine explodes in the deep silence of the night & I see for the very 1st time young old man in search of myself rushing slowly into the omphalos approaching the center of my unfathomable self letting go of the lacerated landscape & the panorama of chaos-my earthly distractions &visual overload
Darkness blessed & I flow into the holy harrowing night releasing my mortal ruins & mutilated spirit & now my weary eyes close & the blackness opens up & I receive a gift a glimmer a pinpoint of light shooting out of the wilds of my mind in the deep of the pitch-black darkness within the beautiful divinity of night I receive Darkness blessed & devour the cosmic light
THE UNFATHOMABLE BLESSINGS
OF
THE COSMIC BREATH
&
THE UNHOLY FLESH
By Dr. Mel Waldman
(on reading Yehoshua November’s poem-The Life of Body and Soul)
Thank You, Hashem
for the unfathomable blessings of the cosmic breath
& the unholy flesh
Thank You
I am but a wild flower in the wilderness
a wounded & weary soul case longing for serenity &
oneness with You, Hashem
holy, holy, holy Hashem
& I am
but an otherworldly stranger
wearing the earthly shroud of doubt
meandering around the sphere of nonbeing on the rim of unreality
as I travel through the invisible universe a wanderer in search of the Without End.
Even in apocalyptic time,
when my wounded eyes weep with unbearable pain,
& my flesh shrieks eerily with the scars of sin & redemption
& my brain is a sick, moribund forest on fire burning ferociously,
a strange spirit reveals itself enters my earthly ruins & frees me- my neshama, my Jewish soul, frees me.
Now, I dream of the Celestial Garden & discover the Tree of Life
& the swirling spheres of the 10 Sefirot
holy orbs of opalescence & the kaleidoscopic glory of the hidden world
I dream
& discover divinity
& the unholy flesh marries my neshama & I am one with the Ultimate Nothingness I am
one
BLUES APOCALYPSE
By Dr. Mel Waldman (on reading Lenore Kandel’s poem Blues for Sister Sally)
the flow of the blues rushing slowly
oozing into oblivion
in the black of the night
the flow of the blues drifting
into the deep of nowhere
silence & the sinful flow
mourning into
midnight & the moonlight blues
& jazzy notes floating
on the crimson river of the soul
& junkie blues junkie rhapsody
flowing far away & falling into ephemerality
for the flesh is weak & on fire
& full lips succulent & sucking soul
crave & caress oblivion blues & the mutilated mind’s a cut-up
montage/collage & a freaked-out fugitive
slinking & skulking into
the shadows
spewing electricity & the electrocution flow of the suicide blues
the dead sea of lacerated flesh spitting blood the furious death-flow
the blues apocalypse wafting through oblivion & rushing slowly through the veins
& flowing into a damning salvation down the River Hades the blues apocalypse descending into the deep of nowhere
& longing for the lethal love of a phantom lady-
Lady Lamentation Lady Blues Apocalypse
vanishing forever into the Valley of the Shadows & the everlasting silence of the swirling Abyss
LOVELY DREAM-LADY
By Dr. Mel Waldman (on reading Arthur Rimbaud’s poem-Being Beauteous from Illuminations)
Lovely Dream-Lady, hiding
in the Garden of Light
dazzlingly divine,
bathes in opalescence
in her holy haven
& I watch her
through diaphanous invisibility,
an eerie shroud of
see-through
non-being-
sensuous & everlasting nothingness
the blessing of
unreality &
I gaze at her, my distant vision
gorgeous & glittering as
the lilacs & lilies of the luscious glowing garden
& she kisses phantom flowers bestial
& succulent rising from the sweet soil
until they open up with the wild rhapsody
of
the wounded world
& assault Dream-Lady with death-songs
& delirious lamentations
& the mournful music of the trauma-flowers
flows into her efflorescence
& even with earthly pain shooting into her spirit
she becomes more beautiful
in a mystical alchemy,
lovelier with the influx of unfathomable suffering,
& she wears a beatific smile & I watch
with the dazzlement of celestial candlelight
Biographical Note: Neil Ellman Neil Ellman is a poet from New Jersey who has published numerous poems, more than 1,000 of which are ekphrastic, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. His latest chapbook, Of Angels & Demons, is based on the works of Paul Klee and will be available from Flutter Press in late September, 2016.
Undisciplined Emotion (Neil Ellman) (after the painting by Perle Fine)
Not even the planets have discipline wobbling around the sun as if they were lovers and antagonists at once full of their separate conceits anger, fear and distrust and guided by the perturbations of an inner, still distant star. Without control or center there is no freedom of the will love becomes obsessive hate for the sake of it sentiment forbidden in the struggle of a mind without a troubling thought while instinct governs like an absent lord a mischievous child without a sense
of right and wrong and the capacity to feel within his heart.
Fish (Neil Ellman) (after the lithograph by M.C. Escher) How many fish how many fish how many fish in a school of fish how many they are how they swim schooling in circles in the sea in a school of fish how many they are they swim one after another and another they swim how they swim against the flow how they swim how many how many will die in a school of fish swimming against the flow.
Tank Totem VIII (Neil Ellman) (after the sculpture by David Smith)
Stack their faces high with eyes riveted on the setting sun. Turn flesh to wood and then steel then paint them with the rusted blood of time. Make a totem to and of their lives and watch them scan the sea for signs of spring. Have them look to tomorrow and rebirth as if that day will ever come.
The Fall of Man (Neil Ellman) (after the lithograph by M.C. Escher)
What happened at the first in the garden of innocence has happened so many times from then to now and will happen again mankind fallen, humbled resurrected then fallen again and again and again to rise from the grave of its own conceit with delusions of grandeur to fall again as if it never happened before as if it will never happen again.
Biographical Note: Paul Hughes Paul Hughes is a Guitarist, Field Recordist and has a keen interest in the arts for example writing poetry. Paul has been creating music since he was a teenager, playing in punk bands and electronic acts with friends. After graduating in 2005 from De Montfort University in Leicester with a BA (HONS) Degree in Music Technology and Innovation, Paul decided to learn the Alto Saxophone and since then has became a keen Field Recordist taking him to various locations like Iceland and beyond for capturing sound. Paul has a keen interest in the arts and writes poetry. More Information about Paul: www.soundcloud.com/bib-6 & www.architectofsound.net.
The Magic Tea Tree Leaf (Paul Hughes) Once upon a time, Grew a Cuppa Tea Tree, A Special mature type of Pine. To all the kids delight, the tea took them on a flight, To a place of a far away land. The Magic of the Leaf had children dancing on the street, Oh the sound of their stamping feet! Bang! Bang! Stampy Crash Bang! Thud Scream Smash! The Moon from afar Strummed his guitar, Such sequences of musical delight. While the bells back on Earth, Rrrriiinngggged ding and dong! Open arms to Welcome them back. But the Magic of the Leaf had children running wild through the streets, Singing with Jubilant Joy! “Tea Leaf Magic Tea Tree Leaf! Warm, Fuzzy Hap-pi-ness” But all of a sudden… The Moon from afar, Put away his guitar, As darkness loomed over his light. And…
A leaf from the tree Shed to the ground, A sign of first Autumn, In sight. “Ralph! Awake! Would you like a Cup of Tea?” Shouts mother, On mornings first light. Awakening, Rising… Had Ralph been dreaming? Yet suddenly he got a fright! He gazed out his window and In his front garden, Stood a Cuppa Tea Tree. “It must have grown in the night”! Yelped Ralph. ~ The End ~
Biographical Note: Fiona Perry
Fiona's short stories and poetry have been published in The Irish Literary Review, Spontaneity Magazine, Into The Void, The Galway Review, Tahake Magazine and Skylight47. She grew up in Northern Ireland but has lived most of her adult life in England and Australia. She currently lives in splendid isolation in New Zealand. Follow her on Twitter @Fionaperry17.
A History of the World (Fiona Perry) A wide-eyed boy, urgent and loud banged On our front door that night and shouted. Get Out. Bomb He was clutching a gun talisman-tight to his camo uniform This boy was not much older than my son is now His hair was wet with sweat around the rim of his beret My mother’s response was to pad into the kitchen, Wrap custard creams in tissue paper and place them in her handbag For the two mile walk she would take her tiny daughters on To her sister’s house. Coats over pyjamas and shoes without socks The stars shouting silently. Miniature escape routes. I had never been out so late. Now we cram into boats. We have washed up small and dead on beaches We have been dismembered by bombs and skewered by shrapnel. Raped And taught to kill. Sprayed by bullets and thrown half-alive on top of our mother’s Corpses in open graves. It is hard to believe that once food was made and packed for us. Our hair was brushed. We said our prayers. Someone settled us back to sleep and Our cries were answered. A wide-eyed boy, urgent and loud banged On our front door that night and shouted. Get Out. Bomb He was clutching a gun talisman-tight to his camo uniform This boy was not much older than my son is now His hair was wet with sweat around the rim of his beret.
Biographical Note: Sarah Padden
Sarah lives in Galway, Ireland. Her poetry has been published in the anthology: Washing Windows? Irish Women Write Poetry: Arlen House, 2017'. She has also been published in: 'Skylight 47', 'ROPES 2016' & 'Freehand' and has been long-listed for the OTE New Writer of the Year 2016 competition
Sonnet for Messines June 1917 (Sarah Padden)
With cramped fingers around metal muzzles we woke in death, in the mud of Messines sullen as the soaking summer skies, carrion crows screeched in no man's lien all night, like boy soldiers hoping to be heard quickly gathered and tagged, we were buried like knackered horses in bare earth, two ideologies dying side by side as the Island conjoined before rupture I dreamt you brought red poppies at last, unknown son of my daughter, after the century of shame had passed to reclaim me, and concede that I too died and fought for you.
Reaching for Velvet i.m. Vaclav Havel (Sarah Padden)
We could say the powerless have no power until they use their limbs to intertwine and contort into ballerific shapes, shocked by their own capacity to stretch and move as One, a unified body of multitudinous felines strolling the streets and provoking dogs, rather than rushing from one bush to another in semi-darkness.
We could say they are powerless until they realise that being one body means a loss of their own meow, as conforming is an appearance of security and contentment born out of repressed kitten memories of fights with the old moggy from no. 42 whose prowling disturbed all the Molly cats. He should have been neutered but everyone said he was harmless.
We could say we are powerful when one of us dare climb the wall
and sit on top, half asleep in the sun with our tails wrapped around our paws, watching the Dissonant Crows give a rock concert to border guards on the other side, who listen to truth spilling out of dignity undiminished, then wonder how they ever thought barking at the base of the wall made them powerful.
N.B. Written in response to Vaclav Havel’s seminal essay ‘The Power of the Powerless’ 1978.
Anatomy of Silence (Sarah Padden)
To survive one must understand one’s place: For instance, the _______* (insert antagonist) must be silent, must accept the omniscience of those entrusted with the seal of the red pen, who have already achieved the high standard of Unseeing, having been invested as philosophers in the art of ciúnas at a slow processional ceremony in the Aula Maxima. For ______s who aspire to that elevated position where they can exercise their innate brutality, unimpeded, their first test is compliance and in shrinking back to protect the self no matter what they may see. There is no personal advantage in breaking the omniscient’s code. Nothing good ever comes from speaking out against ciúnas. This is your first lesson in post-truth.
Naturally, the ______’s reaction is to resist at first, even dogs and monkeys understand the concepts of fairness and nepotism but the dark-art professors would argue that initiating resentment is crucial in maintaining silence. They invest their office hours into ______s willing to assimilate into the Primacy, at the first test. Eager ______s are referred to in the paradigm as early adopters whilst more advanced practitioners learn techniques of explaining away and selective hearing, both crucial skills of Unseeing. Neo-rhetoric is taught at introductory weekend retreats which also include silent meditation. ________s are preened by their fellow retreatants, their nits and ticks squished whilst resting in the contentment of shared silence, certain that their fellow _____s are enfolding each other into compliance and not sacrificing them to inner-truth.
Those that resist will later or sooner be brought before the secret tribunal which is spun as ‘counter-ciúnas enforcement’. Of course, the rules are written by Chancellors - those most proficient dark-art lords and the ________ is judged in absentia in the manner of witches’ trials without representation, as the ______ will be found guilty and should a __________ not submit to the ruling they will be left in a silent room until they conform to post-truth ciúnas.
N.B. This poem has not been previously published, although a version of the text was in Ropes 2017 under the heading ‘Ciúnas, le do thoil’. Unfortunately, it was badly edited into a piece of prose with gaps and mistakes in the text, and so distorted that it no longer read as the poem I submitted. It was published under creative commons, print only.
Biographical Note: Karen Petersen KAREN PETERSEN, adventurer, photojournalist and writer, has traveled the world extensively, publishing both nationally and internationally in a variety of publications. Most recently, she was published in The Malpais Review in the USA and Antiphon in the UK. In 2015, she read "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" at the Yeats Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is currently at work on Four Points on a Compass, a collection of her poems from overseas. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Classics from Vassar College and an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
The Whooper Swan (found poem--thanks to Dara McAnulty) "Out with you upon the wild waves, Children of the King! Henceforth your cries shall be with the flocks of birds." (Karen Petersen) It was like any other day in the forest until we saw them, all four; they could have been the children of Lir: Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra and Conn, from Irish legend, whooper swans, ancient travelers, they landed gracefully on the silver-lit lake long white necks held high and stayed with us a long time. Suddenly the honking and trumpeting began, their wild cries without abandon and yet forlorn were joyous and magnificent. As we reverently watched, I felt magic in the air and wings extending on the leader swan, heads bobbed and rose as they all communicated, ready for flight, as throughout the centuries they soared off Northwesterly perhaps towards Iceland, past the tolling bells of the old stone monasteries, and into the bright clouds.
Remembering Paddy's Market, Glasgow (Karen Petersen) When I was young, my grandmother would frequently look at my bedroom, which was usually in a state of chassis, and exclaim "It's like Paddy's Market in here.” But it wasn’t until I was older and got to travel that I saw the actual wondrous space, a true sign of the times, a “crime-ridden midden” according to the nervous local council, filled with the flotsam and jetsam of lives now abandoned or in desperate enough need for a few quid or perhaps just the attention gotten from putting out your best shoes for sale. “Four fur a fiver,” one merchant cried, her wee stall tucked under a railway arch in the lane running between the city center and the River Clyde. Her clothes, books and furniture were strewn along two rickety tables and a camp-bed, upon which sat a friend who’d stopped by for a morning chat. “I got my first two-tone suit here when I was a Mod years ago,” he said, flicking the ash of his cigarette off onto the grey, ancient pavement. Around for over two hundred years the market met its demise in May of ‘09, and with it went the second-hand fur coats, mismatched shoes, guitars and cuddly toys. Run by generations of working class Irish, the hawkers seemed bemused or resigned; after all, this end was nothing compared to the Great Hunger of 1845, the real end. The lane is quiet now, the shops gone, Empty except for the pigeon flocks and the echoes of an old man’s words to the tv crew on the market’s last day... “I dunna think we’ll have anywhere to go na because Glasgow’s gettin’ too posh.”
Biographical Note: Gordon Ferris
Gordon Ferris is a Dublin writer and poet who has lived in Donegal for almost thirty year's. He has been published previously in a magazine based in Sligo, A New Ulster and appeared on the radio.
In my child’s eye. (Gordon Ferris) In my child’s eye The future holds its flame Behind her silent smile All the input of the ages Of others ideas Their way of seeing Planted there, inhibiting her free will Inducing false desires. In my child’s eye The future withholds its flame Hidden in dreams Of lilac flowers And lavender scent. The truth lies in Stinging nettles And forgotten reverie. In my child’s eyes dreams falling into place The heart smiles Its love and grace He holds you Looks into your eyes Utters the words You want to hear.
Into my child’s eyes All the fantasies of tales told Made transparent The tricks that men play How precious these words How sting the heart, they flay. But when with eyes wide open The reality of it burns.
View from a train. (Gordon Ferris) Winter trees in a Barron field. Skeletal Like holocaust survivors' standing in icy rain. Some reaching arms to heaven Some on their knees in Prayer Summer just a memory now Eternal dusk upon them. Another of history's winters.
Invisible old man. (Gordon Ferris)
I see an old man every day. Keeps to himself, Introverted but not rude, always smiles. Appears to be a man of routine Seen at the same time every day Doing the same chores. One day to the shops for groceries Must get his food fresh every day.
Another day to the Post office Maybe to collect his pension Or collect the odd parcel, Must miss the delivery. I never see him in company Casual talk in the street with neighbours Always with a smile. But seems comfortable alone.
Spoke to him one day Asked if he needed anything I was going to the shops wouldn’t mind getting a few things for him I’m fine, he said like the buck from Father Ted Told him if he ever needed help I was just two doors down. Thanks for your kindness, but I’m fine, he graciously said.
Biographical Note: John W. Sexton John W. Sexton lives on the south-west coast of Kerry and is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent being Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009) and The Offspring of the Moon (Salmon Poetry 2013). His sixth collection, Futures Pass, is also forthcoming from Salmon. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. He is a past nominee for The Hennessy Literary Award and his poem The Green Owl won the Listowel Poetry Prize 2007. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.
Scrambled Milk ache one flaccid cont ainer sinner gently hen wring to the boil pour undo vidual serving allow two ovaporate
(John W. Sexton)
Scarlet is Scarlet to the Many-Hued The yellow jelly babies cower together, spreading rumours of the Teeth that will crush them all. The green jelly babies pray to the Angelic Fingers that will pluck them from the claustrophobia of the bag. The black jelly babies speak of the purity of the non-coloured: Black is a state of Being. The white jelly babies claim that they are transparencies of Love. “We are the Alpha and the Omega,” they say. “We are the windows to the heart.” The pink jelly babies step bravely in style; for their colour accessorizes everything, even death. The orange jelly babies know that Time will end; the clock is too preoccupied with ticking to keep Time in hand. The scarlet jelly babies imply a sweetness of blood. They are an impending wound even when whole.
(John W. Sexton)
Seven Mirrors reeds rattle their heads; the moon develops its photograph on the darkened lake eels thread themselves through skeins of mud, hold the water in its place the deepest fathoms dream themselves into seven mirrors a mirror of gold, a mirror of iron, a mirror of ice a mirror of crystal, a mirror of stone a mirror of grass, a mirror of light the clouds are heavy with sleeping children, they turn to rain laughter ripples the water, the deep turns in its sleep; children wake in their beds
(John W. Sexton)
Biographical Note: Fabrice Poussin
Fabrice is the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication. Fabrice’s writing and photography have been published in print, including Kestrel, Symposium, La Pensee Universelle, Paris, and more than 200 other art and literature magazines in the United States and abroad.
Playing the Strings (Fabrice Poussin) The aura is invisible, magnets have weakened to the unwilling; a force is true to the chosen one. A dark dress floats in the hands of energy, light, second skin to a body inherited by chance as she walks, light, lovely spirit in the realm. She lives on the surface, many smiles alive, life pours in unleashed, drawn in, ideal for the one who knows nothing. In a cage, the beat flutters, it is sure of a future, lids are closed on a soul feeling her ecstasy, she has butterflies in her home, pleased and still. Fishing hooks on a line thrown from above, he brings in the catch from two ends so very close, though they may not know, the path slithers. A head lies still in the breast of perfect gentleness; no sight to see, sound to hear, intimate, far away.
Seeking a gaze (Fabrice Poussin)
It is another searching moment, a hope of a desire attained, wondering whether the atoms at play will connect.
Floating through the days of endless weeks, solitude often melts away amidst the crowds, as clamors rise in infinite perfumes.
The table is set, adorned in pleasures, to tease the palate in colors, flavors, sounds, into a marriage of words, laughs, even sorrow.
Silence has been lost amid the notes of a symphony, common only to those acquainted with the species of souls, in a desperate quest for the other.
Eyes wonder in mid-air, mirrors of many lives, harmonious rainbow to the purity of the giddy newborn, the evening darkens to reveal a subtle glow as she speaks.
All is still, she is alone, goddess for a moment more, her gaze, clear of blue, as a heavenly diamond, she scans her audience with glee.
And to wonder which will be so fortunate, to become, for that infinitesimal cosmic trace, the recipient who will shine, complete reflection of her.
Undefinable quietude, deeper than a soundless hour, time as well suspends its course, respectful, knight at attention before his lady.
He ventures to dare the end of an adventure, perilous, journey through giants, dwarves, and comets, to lay his gentile heart at her foot, as she sings a first verse.
Leaning for the welcome undue him, he will rest perhaps, enchanted in the single ruffle of an ebony dress, his mistress tall, center of a recent universe.
Stabbed by the ghosts (Fabrice Poussin)
The ghosts know better than to throw daggers into the air; the ghosts polish their aim, and never miss a soft target. The living alone may wonder, in the darkness of his night, whence the pain this day has come on such swift wings. The ghosts know to change the rain to ice while they wave their souls, their hellos of shallow misty breaths slaps on the chilled bones of their sons. The living again stare into their space; puppets of a strange theater, they must be quiet in the ruckus of those who once loved them. The ghosts do know better than to throw daggers into the air. Young yet, they can only converse with the frigid words of their dead pain.
Sweet pathways (Fabrice Poussin)
The wedding party could wait no more in Rome or any congregation of many alleyways, pathways, clearings and highways all lead to the sought enlightened destination.
Caught in the midst of a never-ending river the traveler lost in reverie, gave up the lead surrounded by thousands of peers unaware his eyes closed for a moment to become eternal.
Strange creatures of steel and fiberglass changed become creation anew, leafy green and dark potholes gave way to mud and deep little pools the adventurer gathered images of many mustangs.
Free as they were, flying it seemed through the air a stampede of true life into a doubtful sunset followed by the owl intrigued by the commotion the skipper in the arms of Morpheus smiled.
Arriving at the temple guided by the magic of ages in a jungle of pillars roses and other travelers transported by a melody crafted of angels’ thoughts the wedding party was right on time.
Ice experiments (Fabrice Poussin)
Freezing a joyful moment into an icy mirror the dreamer seeks universality.
The idea into a found feather, the forgotten petal as if sent into deep space to find its mate.
Potter spinning his wheel, the object turns revealing infinity in sparks, spots and voids.
Letters from a lost encyclopedia, comic strip they mix to project flashes of yellowed out velum.
Dropping color, molten lava into the tiny ocean to watch it become galaxies, a soundless big bang.
Closing those browns, the snapshot preserved sleep is possible, deserved, full of needed memories.
Watch it decompose as he awakens to a broken ice age dripping worlds, creations without master they live.
Alchemist of simple devices, father to the newborn he can watch helpless universes form recklessly.
Frozen for but an instant, observer of an experiment now removed, it is time to simply share in the miracle.
Biographical Note: Cristina Bresser de Campos Brazilian, fluent in English, Spanish and French. Graduated by Universidade Federal in Graphic Design. Two published books: Torre de Papel (Paper Tower) in 2015 short stories anthology. “Quase tudo é risível” (Almost Everything is Laughable) a155 pages novel, Nov 2016. Studied Creative Writing at University of Edinburgh in 2016.
Sea is feminine (Cristina Bresser de Campos) today I understood why the french call the sea la mère. the sea is feminine, no doubt. what we call a hangover, is pms. calmness is a result of a night of burning love with the sun - all hidden, while the moon shines. next morning, enjoying the peace, spread on the sand shards of stars’ outer party leftovers. the sea is the mother who rocks with her wavy waters. is there a better lap, than a mother’s lap? mother nature, omnipotent. generous - almost always, rigorous if disrespected. time passes by so fast that life hardly notices it. on the beach, it slows down and lets life walk on the sand, slow, warmed by the sun, refreshed by the sea breeze. walking with difficulty on the seashore comes the peanut’s vendor. he walks on toes left to make it up for the additional centimeters of the right leg. he carries a basket full of sweets and savoury delights. he has long created callus in his shoulders, but in the coming year, he will retire. then, he will sit on the sand and instead of a heavy burden, he will hold one, or some, cans of cold beer in his hands. the ice cream saleswoman has more than 700 songs on her playlist. when she walks along a band of desert sand, she turns it up, because it has a bit of everything in this selection, including rock and roll. the old tidbits lady has her arms tired of carrying the basket of snacks for thirty long years. today she comes to the beach accompanied by her granddaughter, but she's the one who pushes the cart once again. the girl passes by holding a parasol in her left hand and types on her cell with the right one. above all, the birdman, who was forbidden to fly around here. stubborn, he plants the windsock in the sand and takes off with his paramotoring, for a moment of peace. above in the sky, he notices shoals only dreamed by fishermen, a secret between him and mother nature. finally us, swimmers on the sand, protected by colorful canvas mushrooms. we spent the day watching tiny fast crabs and giving shade to stray dogs that roam around the beach. these are the captains of the sand. as soon as
daylight comes, they get crazy in the creek’s waters that flow to the sea. they run, roll and bark, celebrating another day of life in the summer.
Biographical Note: Lisa Stice Lisa Stice is a poet/mother/military spouse who received a BA in English literature from Mesa State College (now Colorado Mesa University) and an MFA in creative writing and literary arts from the University of Alaska Anchorage. While it is difficult to say where home is, she currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter and dog. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of a poetry collection, Uniform (Aldrich Press, 2016). You can find out more about her and her publications at lisastice.wordpress.com and facebook.com/LisaSticePoet.
Dear Ciaran Carson (Lisa Stice) I write to you with fountain pen: a Waterman 52, circa 1920— black with a nickel clip, classic, vintage, with a New York imprint nib newly tuned, an even wear in the spot it rested on another’s hand and now leans easy against mine— I tell you this because I know you know it’s important, details, where things come from—the pen is US made, like me. How unexpected the weight: cataloguing people with whom we share meals, people who work and come home late evening, people who walked out of this life and sleep in retold memories— mapping out cities and towns in words and punctuation: commas where we snapped pictures in front of statues or signs or such, semicolons at the spot between being couples and being families, periods when we said goodbye and didn’t know it was for good, dead ends where we turned ourselves around an em dash— The choosing of sides, divisions, buildings, destructions appear elegant, written out in cursive or calligraphy, laid out neat in even rows, fitted inside margins—
* Ciaran Carson (1948- ): The Troubles in Northern Ireland; author of several collections including The Irish for No (Wake Forest University Press, 1987)
Biographical Note: Patrick Deeley
Patrick Deeley is from Loughrea, County Galway, but has lived most of his life in Dublin. His poems have appeared in many literary outlets in Ireland, UK, USA and Canada over the past forty years. “Groundswell: New and Selected Poems” is the latest of his six collections with Dedalus Press. His memoir, “The Hurley Maker’s Son”, was published recently by Transworld.
From the Benedictine Abbey at Schaffhausen (Patrick Deeley)
The giant stone font holds holy water no more. Cracks run this way and that, as through a dried-up river. * Images of devoutness go round a tabletop. The holiest – of a wet nurse expressing milk from her breast. * The world in its stain gazes at the sad-eyed saint trying to shy away by means of the discoloration of paint. * The abbot’s crucifix, and his chair. If the floor creaks, it’ll be us, tourists tramping back from the future.
The End of the World (Patrick Deeley) They’ve nothing in common, the young girl knocked from her bicycle and dying on a roadside in Harold’s Cross, and the tribesman of Sumatra being interviewed on television, shaking his head at the levelled forest, cut and burn stretching for miles behind him; they’ve nothing in common except, as the man says, the end of the world is happening. And the sight of a green snake flicking its tongue at a chainsaw that still keeps cutting; and the sight of a rainbow flourished above the city after we look up from the crumpled shape of the girl, both haunt us, being more than props for pathos, more than backdrops to the uselessness of beauty in face of greed or misfortune. The end of the world is happening, and grief that starts sudden tears in our staring eyes might wish them closed as soon, with no desire to open again – but this, too, is the world, and somehow a beginning.
In Michelstown Cave (Patrick Deeley) The old man’s face on the cave wall, mere happenstance of iron oxide, manganese and limestone, is not a face at all. Still children say hello to ‘him’, and wave in the darkness, and even the hard-boiled among us look again, imagining kindness in those features as worth our striving for. Calcite curtains hanging alien but exquisite in lamp-lit grottos and alcoves – are they somehow alive that sparkle and grow? Or a ceiling’s stalactites, each matchstick-thin, each set to extend maybe an inch every millennium until made at last to resemble the great, twisty ‘Tower of Babel’ or the stout pillars named for Hercules – does their dying amount to no more than a chemical reaction triggered by the touch of a careless hand? I listen for old wall-face’s say-so or say-no, but not with the fervour I listened in boyhood for the say-no or say-so of the ring-fort souterrain under my stamping heel, the slurpings of the weed-haired witch I imagined drinking the sky from the bottom of a well. I listen while the earth keeps me guessing – a stranger even less at home than the dead tree leaning from the ash pit, the headstone claimed only by ivy as it subsides at the centre of the wood, the slouchy hills perpetuating past sunset a faint, ethereal glimmer that yet seems all their own.
Deserted Village, Achill Island (Patrick Deeley)
The first Ordnance survey of Achill, conducted in 1839, showed the village at Slievemore to be inhabited. Less than two decades later, following the ravages of the Great Famine, a traveller to the island described the village as deserted. Slievemore and myself sit back to back. Below the graveyard, a farmer whistles his two sheepdogs up. I pluck a tráithnín and mark my place in the book. Go down to nod to the bells of fuchsia again, ramble with rhododendron. The longest story – to do with hunger, loss and exile – is one I’m slow about braving. Yet I know that if these stones could speak, their words would batter our skulls and we’d run raving.
Guanche Kings (Patrick Deeley) Count in the Nine Kings of Old Tenerife, count the sticks and stones they armed themselves with, and the obsidian implements they used for cutting. Count the goatskins they wore and the language they spoke. Count the fish they caught and the crops they grew. Count Teide, the volcano, which they called Echeyde, meaning ‘Hell’. Count the lizards and canaries, the eagles and sun. Count Bencomo, Ayamo and the others, the leap some of them took – out of their world and into this one, where they are now the ghosts of a way of life that’s dead and gone, even as they stand in sculpted valour at Candelária, with their backs to the ocean.
Torso (Patrick Deeley)
He looks made of frogskin, darker than harvest frog, the span of his arms imaginable in perches, his shut fists clutching heather, squeeging gloops of sphagnum as he sits propped, the head gone missing – screamed off, you might say, into common decay, and with it the last pleas, the unmerciful agonies. But if so raggedly truncated, the torso floats centuries deep under bog’s wet blanket, spits of tannic acid conspiring to keep it. Stablets happen, breast-sleáned ingots, sour-puss holes where eels and bicycle tyres linger and a TV set not quite able to drown eyeballs the heavens. Now what big child or little king refuses, through his long death as through his short life, to toe the line, what horror, what wrong of ours is fessed up in this sorry, welted scrappage of the sad old son of Croghan?
Old Croghan Man is the name given to a well-preserved Iron Age body found in Croghan Hill, County Offaly in 2003.
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!
July 2017’s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:
July is here and the hot weather has vanished. We had 53 submissions this month. 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: Grant Tabard Grant Tarbard is an editorial assistant for Three Drops From A Cauldron, a reviewer & the author of 'Loneliness is the Machine that Drives this World' (Platypus Press). His new collection 'Rosary of Ghosts' (Indigo Dreams) will be released soon.
Self Portrait, Unfinished I by Grant Tabard
Icon by Grant Tabard
Beneath the Tree by Grant Tabard
Reincarnation of Pop II by Grant Tabard
Self Portrait, Unfinished II by Grant Tabard
Collage no. 8 by Grant Tabard
LAPWING PUBLICATIONS RECENT and NEW TITLES 978-1-909252-35-6 London A Poem in Ten Parts Daniel C. Bristow 978-1-909252-36-3 Clay x Niall McGrath 978-1-909252-37-0 Red Hill x Peter Branson 978-1-909252-38-7 Throats Full of Graves x Gillian Prew 978-1-909252-39-4 Entwined Waters x Jude Mukoro 978-1-909252-40-0 A Long Way to Fall x Andy Humphrey 978-1-909252-41-7 words to a peace lily at the gates of morning x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-909252-42-4 Red Roots - Orange Sky x Csilla Toldy 978-1-909252-43-1 At Last: No More Christmas in London x Bart Sonck 978-1-909252-44-8 Shreds of Pink Lace x Eliza Dear 978-1-909252-45-5 Valentines for Barbara 1943 - 2011 x J.C.Ireson 978-1-909252-46-2 The New Accord x Paul Laughlin 978-1-909252-47-9 Carrigoona Burns x Rosy Wilson 978-1-909252-48-6 The Beginnings of Trees x Geraldine Paine 978-1-909252-49-3 Landed x Will Daunt 978-1-909252-50-9 After August x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-909252-51-6 Of Dead Silences x Michael McAloran 978-1-909252-52-3 Cycles x Christine Murray 978-1-909252-53-0 Three Primes x Kelly Creighton 978-1-909252-54-7 Doji:A Blunder x Colin Dardis 978-1-909252-55-4 Echo Fields x Rose Moran RSM 978-1-909252-56-1 The Scattering Lawns x Margaret Galvin 978-1-909252-57-8 Sea Journey x Martin Egan 978-1-909252-58-5 A Famous Flower x Paul Wickham 978-1-909252-59-2 Adagios on Re – Adagios en Re x John Gohorry 978-1-909252-60-8 Remembered Bliss x Dom Sebastian Moore O.S.B 978-1-909252-61-5 Ightermurragh in the Rain x Gillian Somerville-Large 978-1-909252-62-2 Beethoven in Vienna x Michael O'Sullivan 978-1-909252-63-9 Jazz Time x Seán Street 978-1-909252-64-6 Bittersweet Seventeens x Rosie Johnston 978-1-909252-65-3 Small Stones for Bromley x Harry Owen 978-1-909252-66-0 The Elm Tree x Peter O'Neill 978-1-909252-67-7 The Naming of Things Against the Dark and The Lane x C.P. Stewart More can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/home All titles ￡10.00 per paper copy or in PDF format ￡5.00 for 4 titles. In PDF format £5.00 for 4 titles.