Anu issue 22 / A New Ulster by Amos Greig

ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of John Urso, Paddy Mc Coubrey, John Jack Byrne, Alan Garvey, Colin Honnor and Peter Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 22 July 2014

A New Ulster On the Wall Website

Editor: Amos Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents

Cover Image “Wishing Well” by Editorial

Amos Greig page 6

John Urso; Kiss Me Kate Part One

pages 10-19

Paddy Mc Coubrey; Almost Titanic

pages 21-29

John Jack Byrne Conflict Canvas Ruins

page 31 page 32 page 33

Alan Garvey; RIVER ROAD THE BUTCHER ANIMAL ACTIVITY

page 35 page 36 page 37

Colin Honnor; Yews The Armistice Line

Ahbendphantasie

page 39 page 40 pages 41-44

Mytholmroyd

page 45-46

Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall Crow Fall – Crow Lift

page 46 pages 47-49

On The Wall Message from the Alleycats

page 51

John Jack Byrne; Maire’s work can be found

pages 53-56

Round the Back Peter Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill; The Empty Too: Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett Arthur Broomfield

pages 60-64

Manuscripts, 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 Digital distribution is via links on our website: https://sites.google.com/site/anewulster/

Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman Produced in Belfast, 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.

Editorial

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” Marcus Aurelius

We start this issue with some news namely a change of address for us of course such a carried a fair few hiccups most of which we have managed to overcome. Sadly there are a few issues still affecting us so our Facebook page will be quiet for a while whilst we get sorted out. This issue features a short story by Joe Urso the second part will be featured in next month’s issue as well as an essay by Peter O’Neill. We accept short stories and essays all are welcome in our pages. A New Ulster is open to experimental and traditional poetry styles and approaches. Poetry can be a scapel to lance the poisons of history both personal and worldwide. This issue features a strong example of experimental and local poetry from many voices and styles as well as a range of short stories. Come this September we will have been in production for 2 years. That’s two years as a semi independent monthly arts magazine/ ezine hybrid. I have plans as we move towards the future.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

Biographical Note: Joe Urso Perhaps writing my own epitaph would be the most accurate, and concise, introduction: He was 54. He spent his days earning a living cleaning restaurants and bars which gave him the freedom to make a life by writing at night. He was in love with the same woman for 42 years. Though never married and often apart, they were devoted to each other. A few of my stories have been published in The Penniless Press, Prole, Synchronized Chaos, Subtletea, and Damazine. As a writer for so long, sometimes I feel invisible. At first glance this may look like a poor pitch, but invisibility is part of the wardrobe of a constant observer. I believe a story should be written well enough to describe itself. I spend my evenings attempting to meet this standard.

Kiss Me Kate Part One by Joe Urso

“Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Anyone else but me/Anyone else but me - no no no/Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Till I come marching home.”

I am certain that if the Earth survives another 10,000 years and my father’s bones with it, the technological advances of forensic science will reveal he did not have an artistic bone in his body. Despite what would be considered overwhelming evidence, my father sang those popular tunes from the ‘40's; his world when he was a boy. Before I could read, I whistled. I remember my father’s stories about reading the Sunday comics and listening to the radio on December 6, wearing knickerbocker pants, being chased by the girls in his neighborhood as he pulled his red wagon in search of anything metal. Then he showed me a picture of The Andrew Sisters. I remember thinking how LaVerne looked just like Aunt Jay from Scranton, one of my favorite aunts. After Uncle Jackie died, she would take the bus from Scranton and visit us at least twice a year. I had so many aunts, a few with the same first names, the city they lived in became their surnames as if they were Princesses from medieval Europe – Aunt Anna from Albany, Aunt Anna from Brooklyn, Aunt Anna from Binghamton. When I sit back drinking my coffee, these memories are the company I keep.

We lived on Morris St., a working class neighborhood lined with maple and oak trees in front of homes occupied with two parent families.

Today you would venture a jaunt past pock marked buildings inhabited by crack heads, the trees replaced by parking spaces, the corners keep company with 2am Whoers. But in those early days it was our street, our world, in the neighborhood my father remembered as home during The War. My father was young, virile, singing all the time. On Saturday and Sunday mornings he would take me to The Park. I have those photos too, walking hand in hand with my Dad on the tree lined path directly across the street from our house. Dad bends down on the ground, props me up on his knee, somebody took a picture. “Climb upon my knee Sonny Boy/Though you’re only three Sonny Boy” These tunes rent space somewhere in the back of beyond my brain with the X Tables and The Lord’s Prayer. When I am 68 and sitting back, drooling, pissing on myself while my hand shakes like a humming bird’s wings, I will remember 9x7, The Our Father, The Andrew Sisters, and my father. His face painted with joy as he sings to me, as I recall how much he loved me. ************************* After she rang off, I smiled while slowly shaking my head at a 25 degree angle. She had to be. Only a foreigner would phone an Investigative Journalist and not the police for justice. 10

Justice, like an ancient corpse, is buried deep. If she called a second later, my phone would have been off and I would have been on my way to the airport. She could have left a message, but if the number is unknown the message is deleted. When Life happens like that, when a second and nothing else decides between the left or right side of the fork in the road, you have to wonder who is keeping Time. You have to wonder which God is crowning your insignificant ass as important enough to place the fate of someone else’s life in your hands. Mind you, I really do not care a rat’s ass about this philosophical crap. I am an instant convert to any religion which prevents me from taking a jet ride. –Hello. –Yes, Mr.___. . . I am sorry. My pronunciation you see is not so good. –It’s a burden of a surname to pronounce. Call me John. And you are? –I have forgotten my manners. My name is Lara Avtakin. I apologize John for this intrusion into your privacy. I hope it is not too inconvenient. –Not at all Lara. May I call you Lara? –Yes please do. –It’s a beautiful name. A beautiful story - Dr. Zhivago. –Yes. You are familiar with Pasternak? 11

–Oh yes. I was five years old. My brother and sister were wishes incubating inside my mother’s dreams. It was just the three of us, a summer night at the drive in. Years later my mother told me I cried so hard they had to leave. I can imagine the tension shaking down my father’s hands squeezing the wheel. I can feel the beads of sweat dripping over his face, as if his face was mine and he was the boy wailing away in the rumble seat. Then his shame, the shame I later witnessed so often in his eyes, shame as he beat a retreat past the ranks of cars, maneuvering our VW Bug around the field. My mother. . .I can see my mother turned around in her seat. The disappointment I later witnessed so often in her eyes burrowed into my memory. She looked past my me, past my father, searching for one last look at Julie Christie in Omar Sharif’s arms. My mother told me I started whistling the theme song the following day. It remains with me. It is the truest sound I ever heard. So sue me. I was making time with Lara. So did Yuri Zhivago. –So Lara, though I would like nothing better than to talk Pasternak with you, I assume you called for another reason. –Yes. I once read an article you wrote. The piece and your name has stayed with me.

Perhaps you understand this – you read something and it sticks you like a pin and leaves a little scar you hardly see but always feel. –What I write is not intended to cause any pain. Not any lasting pain.

–I assure you no permanent damage was done. Some scars are practical. Later, my research on this article permitted me to trace it to the newspaper that published it. I spoke with an editor, a man named Frank Wan--Oh yes, Frank. So whatta ya know, an editor now! Just a private joke Lara please continue. –I told him my circumstance. He gave me a phone number. He said you would be pleased to hear from me. –For once he was right. Now that our connection is established, what can I do for you? –It is my son Filat. *************************** I arranged to meet Lara in The Park the following Sunday. A walk in The Park is the chaser to a double shot of vodka story. –Who’s the man with Filat? –My father Ilari Avtakin. Filat’s father, well. . . –How about we make a deal. We both let our pasts rest to focus on your son’s

future. –Agreed John. He looks so happy.

–For a little boy, I’d say above average happy. –Well yes, but I was thinking of father. –Oh yes. They look right at home. –I imagine fathers walking with their sons in The Park look the same wherever you live. There was a Park near our apartment in St. Petersburg. My father began taking Filat as a baby as soon as he could be brought outside. I think Filat’s first memories must be of The Park – the footpaths bordered by trees and old statues, the great open space filled with what each day brings into it. There was a lake and a 17th century brick boathouse with a pavilion on the shoreline, and a narrow dirt path surrounding the circle of the shore. And of course his grandfather singing to him. I have a picture of them. . .see. –Yes. I have one just like this. Myself with my father. –Do you--I don’t carry it with me. I have it hidden away. Funny, but I never thought I’d have the chance to show it to anyone. Well, it’s easy to see they are close. –Immensely. From our apartment window, I would watch them cross the avenue hand in hand.

I could tell - even in winter through the frost covering the glass - they continued to sing those American show tunes my father loves. I would ready the tea, then wait to

hear the metallic echo of their singing bounce off the corridor walls. Father was a modest civil servant. I never knew my mother. He told me she was an American who worked at the embassy, and their relationship had to be kept secret. They could not marry. She was compelled to return home without me. I do not know why. He never said. I never asked. I have the feeling father never expected he would see her again. I think in his mind she lives through the songs they sung together, the songs he now sings with Filat. I cannot say if I ever believed a word he said about her, even if she was my mother. It makes no difference to me. I never had who I lost, so I lost no one. He has always been so good to me as a father and now to Filat, I no longer think the truth matters. Perhaps searching for the truth reaches a point of diminishing returns. Every family has an empty space in their hearts. She is ours. Father learned all about The American singers from my mother – The Andrew Sisters, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra. They would sing together has they took their walks through The Park. He would sing to me when I was a little girl, now he sings to Filat, and Filat sings to his classmates. –He was expelled for singing!

–Not particularly. For kissing. –Now I remember his story! I didn’t put two and two together. –Put two and two together? –When you first told me Filat was expelled, I didn’t add it to the story I previously 15

heard in the news about a boy being kicked out of kindergarten. –Yes I see. –I am usually quite good at putting two and two together. You have to be in my line of work. –Yes I see. –I’m boring you with my nonsense. I must be getting old. –Getting old is not so bad. Consider my father. –How did he take the news about his grandson? –I have not told him. The only news he listens to is the BBC on the internet, so he would not hear about it from local media. I could not tell him. He would not understand. I do not think I understand. Besides it would break his heart. What truth is worth the price of breaking someone’s heart? The old folks have a saying back home in Russia: “When a kopeck is placed is someone’s hand there is an empty pocket in someone else’s pants.” Nothing is free on this planet. Everything comes with a cost.

So too our bodies have to work for the air they breathe, so why do people think their lives are free? Now I am the one who is boring you with my nonsense. So too does Filat not know what happened. He believes he is on special holiday from school. He is too young, too innocent. I could not think what other to do. I am trying to protect

my son. I am trying to protect the both of them. –One day you will not be able to protect Filat, you know this. –Yes. –As for your father, I wouldn’t worry too much about him. From the look of him, I don’t think anything would prevent him from singing. You are right to protect your son. I say this from a man’s perspective who was once a boy. Even I use to be one you know. –And the cutest one in The Park on Sunday afternoons I am sure. –You are much too kind. . . My father would take me to this Park when I was younger than Filat you know. We lived right over there, see. . .Well, here’s to fathers and sons. And grandfathers and sons. –And to little boys. –Agreed. Though I would not want to be one in this world today. I think I’d prefer being a bird, someone who is pushed out of the nest in twenty days instead of twenty years.

–But such a short life, and so little time with your mother. –True. I think you should continue to protect Filat. Protect him for this reason – if the boy knows the truth and believes he has done something wrong, though we know he hasn’t, he will be scarred with shame that cuts below the marrow. If you believe 17

anything I say believe this – it would have been better for the kid to have grown up in The Soviet Union, church-free and guilt-free, than over here where people litigate for the right to ruin a little boy’s life over an innocent kiss. A kiss by a five year old boy can be nothing else. Damn the day it becomes a crime. I know, a bit dramatic. The story was worth taking to the stage. I am hedging my bets with God; the impression I leave behind at such a moment might be my only shot at immortality. So I’m a selfish bastard watching out for my soul. I had my reasons. My intentions were not heroic. Since my guardian angel is on permanent sick leave with its Boss, my #1 rule is watch your back. I am not going to be stranded in the dead of winter on a troika with an Oliver Twist in a Russian accent. To wit, plan A called for one more move before I left The Park. Saying good-bye and leaving Lara, I skirted a dirt path - one of two running parallel about twenty feet apart. The one I walked bordered the street, the other lined a long row of pine trees in between whence walked Filat with his grandfather. I was searching for the sign that would convince my back if I hitched a ride with a Russian, I might find myself on the road to my salvation. We were ships passing in the night. I was configuring their destination. They were singing their way back to my point of departure. “Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Anyone else but me/Anyone else but me no no no/Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Till I come marching home.”

This is why the world loves Oliver Twist, the honest boy surviving in a cruel/

calculating/money-loving/violent/self-righteous city who needs a little bit of help without having to say please. Not a Judgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision nor a Politicianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s propaganda will turn this trick. You will not hear Gary Owen whistling on the wind. The 7th Calvary will not be coming. And all the guardian angels are hibernating. One human being is going to choose to save another. Done deal. Simple as that. No vote necessary. Just one person to climb the cross. Oh no, not me. Thanks for the thought, but I must disappoint. I will not be the one with splinters up my ass. Next stop, the other mother with the other little lover.

To Be Continued

Biographical Note: Paddy Mc Coubrey Paddy was born in belfast, lives in lurgan shortlisted for 2012 Desmond O Grady poety contest, nothing published as yet,

Almost Titanic ( Paddy McCoubrey ) The April sky was gray and dull, as dull as the day before. Through the screaming come a lull, as Carpathia neared the shore.

From the corner near the Masters clock, for as far as the eye could see, the numbers swelled along the dock as they waited impatiently.

The questions numbered many but answers they were few, details were scarce if any, with no one telling what they knew.

The humming wire was buzzing loud as the news began to seep, it quickly inched along the crowd "that Titanic had sunken deep".

A man from WhiteStar was heard to say 21

that all on board survived, but cautious hope being the only way till all and one arrived.

Many there said a desperate prayer for their nearest and their dear, their poetic words filled up the air in the hope someone might hear.

Tom Dooley blessed himself again as he cursed that wrenched ship, his throughts were of his Martha jane and why she took that trip.

He buttoned up his tweedy coat against the early morning chill, he felt a dryness in his throat as an east wind blew at will.

The sun above was trying to shine but could nt break the clouds, as a gray mist on the waterline neared towards the crowds.

who watched the ship with focused eyes 22

till it reached the weathered pier, in the air the anguished cries were mixed with doubt and fear.

Captain Rostron watched the scene unfold now looking stressed and pale, thinking of how fate took hold that began the nightmare tale.

"it was sometime close to midnight the sea was calm and fine, we were sailng by the moonlight all was steady and on time.

I stared up at the late spring sky till i heard the 1st mates bell, and whispered thanks to God on high for all onbroad were safe and well.

Then a belt of coldness broke the air like a northern winter chill, it caught us quick and unaware but we were ready for it still.

An icy wind filed across the deck but everything stayed quiet and fine, till the older lad from the Radio shack reported ice bergs along our line.

So without delay and little haste we cut our engines low, each man knew the threat of waste and no man acted slow.

For no chances would we dare to take we double manned the nest, and if we tried we could nt break so we changed our course due west.

It was just before the Artic split when the SOS come in, it reported that an icebergs hit and soon sinking would begin.

So the master and the first mate rallied everyman to call, as we raced to save Titanics fate hoping God would save them all. 24

We knew where she d been sighted last so set our course for there, and every minute quickly passed as i ordered to prepare.

This was started then forthwith with a call for everyhand, volunteers come sharp and swift from every mother, child and man.

Who cleared the deck and all its lots as we kept a steady speed, the engines hit at nineteen knots closing in on natures deed.

The clock was set on three fifteen when we saw Titanics flare, about 4 clear miles were lodged between our position and where they were.

It was here our courage went beyond the fear of what we d find, what we needed when it come upon 25

was a clear and steady mind.

Now not a ripple stirred the sea it was much to calm and still, it was here that Titanic used to be and now lost to fates cruel will.

From the darkness come a heavy yell then another one behind, so we sounded out the landing bell as we set about to find.

And we were lucky for the fullest moon we could ever wish to see, with sunraise coming on us soon we were dreading what might be.

The Titanic now was lost from sight and gone was the Whitestar pride, all we saw in the growing light was endless bodies scattered wide.

Scattered further then we could see that it strained the naked eye, but for then we had to let them be as our prioritys were high.

With engines cut we anchored down and hoped our prayers were willed, it hit in deep for what we found boats were empty and unfilled.

On every face we saw the pain and felt their anguish too, each had a scar that would remain till all their days were though.

Mr Franklin Brown our medical man a doctor of the highest esteen, proved vital to our rescure plan along with his dedicated team.

Who treated the survivors down below with warm blankets, clothes and food, from engine one the heatpipes flowed all running steady as best they could. 27

They sat and stirred with little said for the shock had hit them deep, of the nightmare hell from which they fled still the memory they d have to keep.

The Pastor spoke then said a prayer with his wife and eldest son, about a grieve we all must share when this tragic night was done.

But i dont think God really mattered now for these victums of circumstance, each one must have wondered how they ended up in this hell of random chance.

With the streamship California near we anchored up with speed, then we consulted with our engineer and give the order to proceed.

For the flow of icebergs was still a threat and we had a cold wind blowing down, our fullest speed and course was set 28

without haste for New York town.

We made good along the Boston strait despite a rain and wind that blew, all passengers were more sedate from the ordeal that they d been though.

On the orders from the Whitestar line we were told to sit at bay, before docking down at fifty nine on that dark dull April day."

Biographical Note: John (Jack) Byrne

John [Jack] Byrne lives in Co. Wicklow ,Ireland he has been writing for almost 6 years mainly poetry; Traditional and Japanese short form and has had some published success in UK , USA, Ireland in Anthologies, Magazines ,Ezines /Journals his blog can be found here: http://john-isleoftheharp.blogspot.ie/

Conflict (John Jack Byrne) I see the troops prepare for war with their rockets, tanks, and guns. Always ready to start the killing, these soldiers, humanity’s sons.

I witness the conflict and trouble begin, with protesters banging their drums, truly not happy with what they possess, they face rockets, tanks, and guns.

How many to die when the shooting begins ? while these soldiers show most willing, no one will stop to count the cost, when it’s time to start the killing.

Who will clean the blood from their wounds, ? pity all these mothers sons bound to die without a by or leave, ? by these rockets, tanks, and guns.

Have lessons not been learned at all, ? by soldiers, humanity’s sons. They’re about to do what’s been done before, using rockets, tanks, and guns. 31

Canvas (John Jack Byrne)

You are more beautiful than the night where I look upon starry skies wrapped in dark and moonlit bright a vision as lovely as your eyes

I gaze far out into this space where time goes on forever a creatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work which shaped your face beyond all human endeavour

Of all the stars that sparkle bright none shine as bright as you all gathered in the milky way your beauty still heads the queue

Come the dawn this canvas wiped has such beauty faded away ? but I can sleep and rest assured youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re beside me night and day

Ruins

[Haibun] (John Jack Byrne)

I’ve always been one to explore old ruins, and cottage ruins especially. One place in particular I love, is the hearth or fireside, usually in this space the chimney is still standing, here my imagination drifts back to the gatherings which inevitably took place around such areas in the home. The “cooking over a turf fire, the story telling, discussions about the days happenings , plans for tomorrow , the music and singing“. If ever a place was aptly named it was this part of the house, which was the centre of the home. I find myself wondering if they got the spelling correct, should it not be the “Heart” instead of the “Hearth”

replacing the leaves the moon Autumn evening

Biographical Note: Alan Garvey Alan Garveyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poetry has been widely featured in magazines and anthologies. Three collections of his poetry are published by Lapwing Publications, though he recently self-published his fourth chapbook of poems, Avalanche of Shadow.

RIVER ROAD (THE BEND) (Alan Garvey) Not that he took his hands off the wheel

Not that a difference was made in flats or high heels

Not that the Strip was lethal from motel to bar

Not that they were afraid to be driven so far

Not that it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the simplest of plans

No trace of them came to light in his hands

THE BUTCHER (Alan Garvey) “Sometimes you’re nothing but meat.” Tori Amos, Blood Roses

Roll of breast, ham and thigh, chestnut, milk or mocha feast for the famished eye,

seen but untouched, bunched and crushed contradiction of flesh –

anyone’s for the taking but for the gusts of bills that flutter into a clutch.

Ruffled muchness of round pounds and ounces, glistening shoulder & shank, mesh

net sectioning shaven flesh, muffled rump pumping

its way past his windscreen, parading itself to a wounddownwindowmeatcounter.

ANIMAL ACTIVITY (MEDIA REPORTS) (Alan Garvey) Rodents will pick at your mother, nostrils a-twitch, noses glittering in the underbrush, shank claws flitter across cracked fragments of femur crunched for its marrow. They dance from one end of the stage to the other, spotlit by a sunbeam as it trickles over the major notes of your motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fingers. They are learning to watch and record, to communicate in the simplest of signals against the ambient hum of a river, connecting wires and currents they relay pictures of gravesites and finds to families saying grace in neighbouring states, TV in the background as they sit round and give thanks for their dinner.

Biographical Note: Colin Honnor

Colin Honnor Widely published poet in numerous magazines in print and online ; collections, mostly from small presses and private presses include From Underground (Mirabilis 1986); Dante; Cavafy; The Somme; (Yew Tree Press). A former editor of Poetry and Audience, he runs a fine arts press in the Cotswolds.

Yews (Colin Honnor) They are the fig trees of the west To fruit feed the nest of yearlings The serendipitous flock Gothic perpendicular topiary, Topiary of iron and verdigris And bitter arils, gnawed, a language with which the tongue sours. The horse eats and is skittish Propinquity of the brood mare The unloved princess cups the bole That are the bows length, the arrow's flight; yellow dye for scapegoat and outcast. Planted in stone these feathery spars sign and seal the skies' warrants fledged longbows arc in the flight of buttresses. In gardens May service girls in swings cusps of lore clenching a Roman nail as armoured, groan under their brittle branch whose turned shaft measures the length of memory; the oasis quiet from the fall of Acre the fall of arrow-shot in exhumed chivalry's broken fingers from which a tom signature is confirmed as the wind sighs through their green cirrus.

The Armistice Line (Colin Honnor) How well their names address them! They yield the grey clay of the buried soil in a kind of deliverance. Yearly they surprise from flagged fen or starred field of poppies.... Sniff the odours of chalk, loam, hot flint the share turns and taste this bitterness yellowed almond shaped fragments fallen from the unredeemable blue horizon, the barbed faces and the eyes this chemical crop grimaces at the fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge. And, if you can watch this twisted field unmoved stunted shapes hang from the grey bowl where now evenly we pick from maps the place names like forgotten rivers of myth that there is something to inherit after all not soldiersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tales or a clutch of medals underground where the waters darken stone of this broken armistice line.

Ahbendphantasie (Colin Honnor) "...like some prehistoric beast or the tumulii of a vanished tribe..." W G SEBALDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S The Rings of Saturn I Tarred styptics of wood signs its turpentine from aquium rites lutus shields sheiling ooze of Ouse, Auld and Orfe snakeskins unite they retreat castorum quarantined polymorph you engrave igneous, sediments imperium become their corals, you coral pebble alios scatter to vanish, to emerge, spine, molar shingle rattles a border merging of ocean's artforms licked label labials gurgle chuckle their sluice wind blown in the reedy sluice abandoned into the mud abandoned to the mud and seabirds your suave and soigne daughter photographs as a fresh casual atrocity conventions of polderlands outlaw such sophistry bitumen wood of the Thames barge they abandoned to the orts its broken backed keel it opens on promontories of light the sun winks and water sings through gapped ribs we used to sit here daydreaming of silver and aquamarine afternoons, as Sutton Hoos rose out of the sea and a pigeon flies up in the next room carpenters of sunrise, noon-gold, earth-prism as the tide works its own passage, nosing in homage to shingle, to 42

mudflats, courting it will betray with lifting and taking shed tribe...." your daughter on camera video films the box of Sizewell, hunched in its concrete mausoleum of dead waterbirds they are the grimoire of this age, feet winged in silt time-lapse images of flight their contrails of flight patterning arabesques and will have outlasted dinosaurs saurian, raptreplites bright intelligence winged-sheathed- lensed eyes broken wine of sea, brittle ophuiroids spread their tarry fingers of shale he seems to slip through grey door of himself the grey ghost of history, smiles finger to grey lip sips the instant then mists wiped from eye their contracts in the sea that rattles the shingle off Dunwich, and offshore islands the compact conventions outlawing soak and sink, sodden with the weight of their landfill the compliant mineral earth dredged, barged, tarred wood belches bubbles from aqueous rancid mud flats the broken backed keel the seeping leathers of spilt inhabitants 43

where dawn becomes sunrise and then sunlight rose to purple blue to gunmetal in a painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s light, where they stood like fisherman to capture the morning lure where the wind may free the wind rings freeform its freedoms, constant from its absences where the absolute gathers, filling the space between things II No cleansing tides, drowns the murmer of conversation from the next windbreak starred with mineral run off and the eels sensing open water, mussel-bearded elver clutched hatches to fry and swims.....

Mytholmroyd (Colin Honnor) I Their rookery chants raucuous singenspeil black crow smoke spreads and flies into grey-blue, into skies As I walked out in Heptonstall coal-burnished crow among the elms waddled on gravestones, pecked at mosses in blue-black darks sink hidden to where only instinct is in its blind eyelights stared sightlessly out of its element, air that Jurassic eye invoked its intoxications scythe-beaked, nodding at some unanswered question posed by Homer Lorca Poe or Pound or by Aeschylus, Frost or Ted Hughes. As I walked about Mytholmroyd granite cliffs pinched their brows accusing of unromantic crimes, unconsidered that crow dropped, a broken pilot Tolstoy’s, Mandelstam’s, Akhamatova’s crow Magri’s crow of the pampas tugging at his pony’s entrails, or Celan’s smoke-crow hovering above death-chimneys envoy to winged-oblivion, of black-silhouette of Kremlin’s crow-hooded eyes or Sophocles’ night-watch crow, cawing to murderous wife and son the Furies’ crowsfeet above Mycenae. As I walked out of Hebden Bridge that crow spreadeagled, cawed, familiar of hollow skulled Kampuchean, Armenian Rhwandan, echoes from scree-pike to sheep-fell 45

in dumbed bell of its throat bones as Homerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flocked feasting crows beaks carrion-bloodied like them dead like Baskinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Aeschylean crows carbon-black soaks images in Arches in feral frown-lines of his honing graver as primitive-heretical beak stabbing piercing, mystic-music chorus singing lode-eyed more-than-rage showers in their ludicrous dance scattering as late-sown winter wheat feasts living carrion. II. Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall These the lost craggy granites and grits tower dwarf man in his clutched and clenched myths a feral stink and furred ruff by the roadside mimicked by inscriptions ; wooly tined dags sharped on burred hawthorn and the cenotaph of Heptonstall, cold pilgrims seeking significant otherness firs he 1athes to stones and trees as you cross a broken stir, fearful, tremble more is instinct with impossibilities of your nature emigma to your unresolved lives and instantly the sky darkens an ice-cream van plays, come buy the stone clouds fixed in summer's flint-fire . III.Mytholmroyd II Gone those chapels, gone the ironies texts and homilies like wagging fingers into riverbeds and quarries where the Wordsworthian peak frowns the broken lamplighter's clogs become cobbled streets stretching away from stone cliff to bone black brow of cliff admonish you to millstones the milestones clogs notched the abundant words like threads flying shuttle 46

from the fanged frame to bury in linsey and cotton waste the undifferentiated myth, the odour of tar and linters God snores in the drifts of words would come to him III. Crow Fall As I was leaving Heptonstall these snagged branches roused from plumed sleep in the millennial heartfires ream burns spilled to outfalls of memory shingled on pebbles to sigh back their gape-staddles field spilled bloodied sunsets burn sight carting yew crying churchyards weeping pitiful stones to aggregate this agglomerate knobs and knurls far fields spilled their own blood in the sunset the churchyard cried yew -- pitiful stones to aggregate humanist burnt stone, fire in letters masonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tink chink water thrush tap humanist grieve, despair, kneel, but name. its agglomerate knobs and burls sobbed back to the black of its glacier then the crows began to lift like hang gliders pouring their exclamations from the mytholmroyds of their own imaginations their wings from molten light hardening to blackness the eels their questions marks, exclaimed spreading accidental blacks across cord-bands of new-ploughed snow raucous singspeil of their rookery chants their crow language of affront, of attack 47

no compounds, back to excellences spined as a black book pierced by bookworm shows a hundred eyes in its bitten boards the black stars unexplained remained pulsing their visible red shifts or falling like a lens consumed by magnification to a sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heat. he was out of his element air drinks dew pecks air birch sap twig birchlit gunmetals of feathered ravens wing burnished crow in blue-blacks of its blind eyelights stared sightless out of the element air earth water fire eye invoking as a drunken orgy silvered rivers trickled among stones yellow hollows scalpel beak drogue head snoop head granite teeth narrow in mouths moors furrow brows accuse your rebarbative pathos, pitiful tug at the entrails of your oblivions where the successor of end is quark and the toteriphilgyphum is phage: smoke-crow hover above death-dreams smoke chimnney

IV. Crowlift As I walked out in Heptonstall I saw a burnished crow among the elms waddled on gravestones, pecked at mosses in the blue-black of its blind eyelights stared sightlessly out of its element, air eye invoking as a drunkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, scythe-beaked, nodding 48

at some unanswered question posed by Homer Lorca Poe or Pound or by Aeschylus, Frost or Ted Hughes. As I walked about Mytholmroyd granite cliffs narrowed their accusing brows that crow dropped like a broken pilot Tolstoy’s, Mandelstam’s, Akhamatova’s crow Magri’s crow of the pampas tugging at his pony’s entrails, or Celan’s smoke-crow hovering above death-chimneys envoy to winged-oblivion, of black-silhouette of Kremlin’s crow-hooded eyes or Sophocles’ night-watch crow, cawing to murderous wife and son the Furies’ crowsfeet above Mycenae. As I walked out of Hebden Bridge that crow spreadeagled, cawed, familiar of hollow skulled Kampuchean, Armenian Rhwandan, echoes from scree-pike to sheep-fell in the dumbed bell of its throat bones as Homer’s flocked feasting crows beaks carrion-bloodied like them dead like Baskin’s Aeschylean crows carbon-black soaked into virgin Arches in the feral lines of his honing graver as primitive-heretical beak stabbing piercing, mystic-music chorus singing lode-eyed more-than-rage showers in their ludicrous dance scattering as late-sown winter wheat, the living carrion.

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 2014'S MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS: The birds have eaten all of the cat food again! In other news, Arizahn is muttering about making ANU into an online only publication, in order to protect the environment. So anyone who has opinions on this, please feel free to contact us; your views as readers/contributors count and Arizahn reckons no one reads this bit. 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”.

Biographical Note: John Jack Byrne

boring crowd by John Jack Byrne

Her Kiss by John Jack Byrne

Your Goodbye by John Jack Byrne

her scent by John Jack Byrne

Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill Peter O’ Neill was born in Cork in 1967. After spending the majority of the nineties in France he returned to live in Dublin where he has been living ever since. His debut collection Antiope (Stonesthrow Poetry) appeared in 2013, and to critical acclaim. ‘Certainly a voice to the reckoned with.’ Wrote Dr Brigitte Le JueZ (DCU). His second collection The Elm Tree was published by Lapwing (2014), ‘A thing of wonder to behold.’ Ross Breslin ( The Scum Gentry ). His third collection The Dark Pool is due to appear early in 2015 (Mauvaise Graine).

The Empty Too: Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett Arthur Broomfield Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Peter O’Neill)

The Empty Too is a sentence taken from Worstward Ho, Samuel Beckett’s penultimate prose work, first published in 1983. The emphasis is on the definitive article, which in the normal use of language acts as a referent to perhaps a person, place or thing (s) . The hands, for example. But, in Worstward Ho, Arthur Broomfield reminds us, language, by Beckett, is not being used in its normal way. Here, in the text, Broomfield underlines, Beckett wishes to free language. Empty The of hands – ‘No hands in the-.’1Beckett’s only concern, Broomfield reminds us, is ‘that language is the real that is haunted by nonbeing.’2 It is a refrain that Broomfield continuously underlines in this short work, which comprises of five chapters, each one, apart from the first, treating a single work by Beckett (Film, Godot, How It Is are the other works treated) and runs to just over 100 pages. In a later text, like Worstward Ho, Broomfield’s point is highly pertinent, and one of the very real pleasures of The Empty Too is that it, rather forcefully, encourages the reader to return to the texts themselves in order to explore further Broomfield’s claims.

The twain. The hands. Held holding hands. That almost ring! As when first said on crippled hands the head. Crippled hands! They were the words.3

Beckett, Samuel: Worstwrd Ho, Calder Publications, London, 1999, p. 32. Broomfield, Arthur: The Empty Too, Cambridge Scholars Publications, 2014, p. 81. 3 Ibid. 2

And here we must intervene. The words, not the hands!

Here now held holding.

The words, not the hands, on the page. And here we must draw attention to the beautiful bold print of all of Beckett’s later texts, whether they be published by Calder or Minuit, the unusually large printed words on the surface of the page. At once so different, even physically, to all other prose texts published during the author’s own lifetime. The great white spaces on the page purposely leaving room for the reader to breathe; Beckett was always the most generous of writers, in content and form, his vision encompassed into the very fabric of the book. In these two publishing houses no author was better served. For Arthur Bloomfield, Waiting for Godot is the greatest example of the inherent dislocation of being and non-being, and where, funnily enough, it is exactly this dislocation between the very real of language and the unreality of the physical world, or at least that as perceived through the senses, which gives a lot of the play its most comic moments. In fact, the play, as Broomfield reads it, is best seen, can only be seen, through this light. Hence the constant play on doubt which goes on between Vladimir and Estragon, who are, according to Broomfield, not tramps at all, but astute philosophers, grappling with the very real of language, unchanging, and so very assuring, to the existential nightmare of the physical world around them where nothing is permanently valid, and so constantly up for unending debate. Broomfield is as his most convincing in this chapter, as it is nothing less than an exposition on what it actually ‘is’ in the play we find so immensely enjoyable, hilariously enough, even if we have no real idea why- now we do! And it ‘is’ funny, so wildly comic. Broomfield, in what is perhaps his greatest gift in the book, elevates Beckett’s humour as it really is. To understand that articulated language is interposed between the void and itself gets to the philosophical core of Beckett’s thinking, i.e. that language, being the real, eliminates the void (see chapter 5) . Beckett’s created dimension in Waiting for Godot is the place where the real becomes aware of its reality, and this 61

reality is contrasted to the ultimate void over which non-being, the perceived world, is suspended. (Broomfield, p.41)

All of which helps to further clarify the almost dazed performances of the actors, in a good interpretation of the play, caught as they all are in this alternate dimension, to the audience for example. There is a profound distinction being underlined by Beckett/Broomfield here, a Copernican tilt to the inner tension in the words, in which the conflict between Being and seeming to be, or non-being, literally plays out before our disbelieving eyes. For now, when the theatre curtain opens it is opening upon the void to which we all, as members of the audience, as readers of the play, are now actively participating in. In theatrical terms, Godot is the nearest thing we have, in language, to the splitting of the atom. This is why the humour is so insanely comic. This is why when we laugh we do so hysterically. Or don’t, as the case may be. Detractors of Godot relinquish the void back to its ‘proper’ place, over Never Ever Mountain, as opposed to the crucifying slapstick of the everyday. For the latter would imply perhaps some kind of moral responsibility. The latter would imply a profound shift in our understanding of the language within languages. Arthur Broomfield’s treatment of Comment C’est / How It Is is less convincing then the analysis of the previous two texts, primarily because he treats this text only in the English translation, and while his analysis of Godot (also originally written in French) more than stands up, so many vital elements, other than the ‘language of the real’ are left out in Broomfield’s analysis of this key work that I was left feeling rather frustrated. Perhaps the difficult lies in the sub-title of Broomfield’s book – Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett. This subtitle is so vast, due to the subject’s immense linguistic and philosophical knowledge, that by inserting such a subtitle after the main, one expects a complete analysis into all of the linguistic and philosophical ideas which Beckett evokes, and this is my only problem with Arthur Broomfield’s remarkable little book. It does not, due to the sub-title, fulfil its brief, and for the following reasons. Perhaps ‘The Language of the Real in the Works of ’ might have been a better choice!

For, if you are going to write a book about Beckett and language surely one would expect the writer of such a book to discuss, and in depth, Beckett’s multilingual fluency – the majority of his literary output was written in French, yet he also treated his work in German. Why? Unfortunately, Arthur Broomfield offers no reason in The Empty Too. And this is a shame, for surely the case for ‘the language of the real’, it being so dependent on the notion of non sensory related input, is a hard case to defend when the choice of language, as determined by Beckett, is so obviously based upon the senses themselves, particular those of speech and sound? When one reads the work aloud in French, as one must, and then one reads the exact same piece of text in English, one can clearly perceive how the sound of the words alters our very understanding of the piece. We do not think in the same way when we think in French as we do in English, and this difference is voiced. The meaning of the two texts profoundly differs. Beckett himself was intensely dissatisfied with the English treatment of his work, despite the fact that he himself worked painfully at it for months on end. ‘It could only be, he wrote to John Calder, ‘at the best, a most lamentable à peu pré’ (approximation).4 Another aspect to consider; Deirdre Bair, Beckett’s much unfairly dismissed first biographer, signalled very early on the work’s indebtedness to French Symbolist poets of the nineteenth century.5 Rimbaud’s Illuminations being a case in point, Rimbaud being famously associated with his words of encouragement to other poets advocating ‘ Je dit qu’il faut étre voyant, se faire voyant.’ / ‘I say one must be a seer, make oneself a seer.’ 6 Rimbaud famously prescribed a methodology of déréglement de tous les sens/derangement of all the senses7. If one considers Comment C’est/How It Is from an alternative linguistic perspective to Bromfield’s, which advocates a language ‘emptied of non-being’; that is to say stripped of all reference to the world as perceived through the senses – one is then forced to deny a whole influx of interconnecting points of reference , or correspondences, which can only leave one feeling that Arthur Broomfield’s ideas on Beckett’s ‘language of the real’ is but one entry, or tool, albeit a very important one. As the influence of Viconean linguistics on Comment C’est/ How It Is is clearly outlined in the tri-partite structure of the text, corresponding as they do to the three ages of man. The 4

Knowlson, James: Damned to Fame, Bloonsbury , London, 1996, p.495. Bair, Deirdre: Samuel Beckett: Vintage, London, 1990, p.554. 6 Rimbaud, Arthur: Complete Works Selected Letters, Translation and Notes by Wallace Fowlie, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1966, pp. 306/307. 7 Ibid. 5

work seen in this light makes it his most Joycean, and must send us back to Beckettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own early study of the Neapolitan father of hermeneutics.

Here form is content, content is form. You complain that this stuff is not written in English. It is not written at all. It is not to be read- or rather it is not to be read. It is to be looked at and listened to. His writing is not about something; it is that something itself.8

The whole emphasis â&#x20AC;&#x153;Be-ingâ&#x20AC;? centred around the senses. Surely some food for thought there?

Beckett, Samuel: Disjecta, Grove Press, New York, 1984, p. 27.

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