ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Featuring the works of Joe Urso, Richard W. Halperin, Changming Yuan, Peter O'Neill, P W. Bridgman, David R. Cravens, Behlor Santi, Paddy McCoubrey, Tony Baillie, Rachael Sutcliffe, John Jack Byrne, Marion Clarke and Moyra Donaldson . Hard copies can be purchased from our website.
Issue No 23 August 2014
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A New Ulster On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Editorial
page 6
John Urso; Kiss Me Kate Part Two
pages 10-18
Richard W. Halperin; Love at First Sight Abscheid On No Longer Being Ill New England Reply
page 20 pages 21-22 page 23 pages 24-25 page 26
Changming Yuang; Would or Wouldn’t the Variations of the Wing On Another Rainy Day, Granville Street Directory of Destinies Y.E.S. Seasonal Stanzas
page 28 page 29 pages 30-31 pages 32-33 pages 34-35
Peter O’Neill; Gombeen Poet Gombeen Historian Poem as King Tiger Elevenses The Cormorant
page 37 page 38 page 39 page 40 page 41
PW Bridgman; Deat Dark Head
pages 43-45
David R. Cravens; Expiation I Expiation II
page 47 pages 48-49
On The Wall Message from the Alleycats
page 51
Behlor Santi; Tree Branches
pages 53-54
Paddy Mc Coubrey; 3
Number Eight A Spinsters Prayer
pages 56-57 pages 58-59
Tony Baillie; Axle Managua Scorched Skin
page 61 page 62 page 63
Rachael Sutcliffe; Summer Selection
pages 65-66
John Jack Byrne; Return A High Summers Day Tanka
page 68 page 69 page 70
Marion Clarke; Light Bleeds
page 72
Round the Back Moyra Donaldson; The following poems aretaken from The Goose Tree with permission from the poet and Liberties Press A Winters Gift page 75 Greba Cras page 76 Bad Dreams page 77 The Goose Tree pages 78-79 Gold page 80
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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 & 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 “Fairy pool� by Amos Greig
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Editorial
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” Marcus Aurelius
This issue features plenty of poetry, tanka and fiction pieces to satiate the strongest appetite sadly we have no artwork or haiga perhaps next month. I’ve attended some amazing poetry events this year including the launch of The Goose Tree by Moyra Donaldson and we are delighted to feature a selection of poems from the new collection in this issue. 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. 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 am surprised by how much fun running A New Ulster has been and have plans as we move towards the future.
Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!
Amos Greig
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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.
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Kiss Me Kate Part Two by Joe Urso
Maria Garcia Morales, her husband Jose, their five year old daughter Concha left their native country three years ago.
They settled here, worked long hours, bought a piece of a dream beginning to fade with the light of each successive dawn. City neighborhoods have lost their dreamy quality, so off I ventured to the freshly paved blacktopped roads of sewerless Suburbia with the hope for an interview with Maria Garcia Morales. I had no intention of speaking to the child about the criminal kiss in question. I did not need to hear the girl’s story; I only needed to hear her mother’s.
I will not describe the view in Suburbia. Suburbia is like a single mathematical equation, frozen in time, change the integers and it will disappear. So picture now if you will the house of Maria Garcia Morales. . .good. I pulled up in front of the house, one of the thousands of mistakes I have made in my life. It slipped my mind this was not a city street where the pigeons share space with your feet, and all the taxpayers own a piece of the pavement. The Missus was mowing the lawn.
–Stop. Stop there. 8
–Good afternoon Mrs. Morales, my name is–
--Ola Jose, Jose!
–I am a reporter–
--Acue me! A reporter! Oh no no no no you can go. I know you here about our daughter. I know what you want. I know my rights you go good-bye.
–I would like to hear your side of the story, Mrs. Morales, concerning–
--Oh no no it’s no story! You think it make believe what happened to our Concha. Jose, Jose, vena ca! Little Russian boy come over here and make kisses with our daughter in a Catholic school. I know my rights you go now bye.
Thus ended my interview with Maria Garcia Morales. Not on my best day would I tangle with her again. I would have had better luck trying to convince that pint sized, looney tune, chicken hawk to leave Foghorn Leghorn alone. Sometimes you have to retreat a mile in order to advance two; do not quote me the line is not mine. Not to worry, my exit was part of plan B. In The Battle of Life, survivors have a plan B. Again do not quote me, since I am willing to bet our ancestors thought of the same notion about 9 million years ago. The battle was to be fought according to Street Rules – fine by me. Rule #1 – control The Shepherd and The Sheep will start whistling your tune. I wished it were otherwise in this situation. Damn I wished it
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were otherwise, but this is a new world. Gone are the mornings when Mom would leave the little ones with a neighbor. Finito to the afternoons when Dad could forget the tickets to a ball game in the car and leave his son in line with the guy behind him. You can forget about the days when Grandpa could “coochie coo” a baby laying in the arms of mother.
And you can lay to rest the years when the Parish Priest could be a boy’s second father and give the kid a talking to and a hug when he needed one.
*************************
–Bless me Father but someone else has sinned. I’m here to see the Little Guy win.
–John. Still too impatient to wait for God to sort out the evil in the world. I had a hunch I would be seeing you. Meet me in the middle in fifteen minutes.
Since Einstein was a believer, then E=Mc squared is compatible with an atheist having a priest has a pal. His name is Father. I will give you a description: picture Sean O’Casey in a Franciscan habit. Atheist though I am, I believe in the symbols of tradition and the continuity of sacredness. The alternative world is not one I would wish to inhabit, a world where little girls spit on the sidewalks/little boys shoot guns/road rage and loud music in your face is avant garde/every secret and sin is just a click away/and – ah hell never mind.
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“Meet me in the middle” was code for the courtyard sculpted between the parish school and the church. I attended this school for six years as a boy. Year in, year out, I would sneak peaks through classroom windows onto this green patch. A circular marble bench in sections of three surround an equally marbled bird fountain and statue of St. Francis.
I remember marching two by two on First Fridays, silently through the courtyard. The incense and the Latin loomed behind the great medieval-looking doors of the side of the church. Once inside and seated, I would try to look through the stained glass windows onto the courtyard, but Jesus and his pals looked right back at me, reminding me why I was kneeling in the pew.
–John.
–Father, it’s good to see you. It’s been-
--Wait! Is this confession? I did not know this was confession. Let me get my-
--All right already all right! I’ve been a lapse Catholic all my adult life Father. I figure why break an old habit if no one is getting hurt.
–Let your wheels move along old ruts.
–St. Bonaventure?
–Lao Tzu. 11
–The good things in Life remain the same.
–Now let me see. . .wasn’t that an ad for Chivas Regal?
–Old spice deodorant I think.
–Ahhhh John. . . you always made me smile. A smile almost as big as yours. Well, let’s have it. Better out than in.
–I’m getting old Father.
–Feeling the burdens of Life are we. The date for achieving the good life in a good world long past due is it. Comes with the territory of being healthy and living longer my boy.
–You could have preached a little of this back then you know.
–The revelation of wisdom, as that of secrets, are best left to timing.
–Fair enough. My happier years are so far behind me, I can no longer see them waving good-bye.
–Now if this were the year 1143 and you were – let us say Sir John, Sir John The Defender of The Least Among The Faithful. Sir John living during The Age of Faith would not be afflicted with doubt and depression. When life ended for most people sooner than later, you would not have had the liberty for these malaises of the
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modern world. In 1143, Life was to the point. You knew who you were/You knew where you came from/You knew where you were going. And my predecessors made sure everyone knew the right thing to do.
You are in a world now where the right thing to do varies as often as a street Whore changing Johns on a Saturday night. You live in a world where an Informer can make a half a million dollars as a movie consultant and widowed Old Ladies in wheel chairs and Old Men hugging oxygen tanks live like serfs. Around the block from this parish, The Poor struggle to pay $220 a month rent in
a HUD apartment a little bigger than a prison cell on Attica’s honor block. So Boyo take it like a man and shoulder your 21st century life in The Age of The Computer like a duck carrying a scorpion across a pond.
I have been here forty two years, John. My whole adult life lived on this street, passing between these two buildings, watching 12,000 kids travel through this world on their way into the real one. This courtyard has not changed in a hundred and thirty-five years. . .hm. . . I have not changed in a thousand. I am a medieval man at heart. I am accustomed to living in a world without street lights, where the darkness seems to last forever, and the morning’s light is humanity’s only hope. Depression and regrets are for people who do not know who they are or where they are going, so they spend their lives hiding from someone they never knew while looking for
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someone they cannot begin to describe. But I will admit becoming a Priest was not #1 on my hit parade.
–Life usually works out like that.
–Yes. . .yes it does.
–I was happy here Father.
–I know son. I remember your smile. Others remember your smile. They still tell me. Do you want to go in?
–Busted.
–Your eyes, corner classroom.
–Second grade, Sister Annmarie’s class.
–And a little girl named Kathleen.
–Oh Jesus you remember.
–Quite the scandal in your day as I recall. The little Sicilian boy with a smile bigger than his face could hold, and a little Irish girl with eyes as blue as the clearest sky. The prettiest girl in school.
–Holding hands with me.
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He may be my Confessor, but I keep to myself her touch I still feel. Oh yes, her eyes.
–We can go in.
–My God, at the rate I’m going she might have been my only shot. No thanks, Father. Back to business. I need a favor. I want you to act as my Intercessor.
–Ah Intercessor. Sounds like I am about to be crucified.
–I was thinking more of taking a ride downtown to The Bishop’s office.
–I see.
–Filat Avtaikin.
–John, if only you were my Intercessor when I was his age.
–So you know the skinny on the boy.
–I know that is why you are here.
–I know you didn’t have a hand in this thing.
–No one here was pleased with the outcome, but this is not The Age of Faith. This is The Age of The Computer. Nihil Sacrare.
–Expel a child for a kiss? 15
–Extreme, even for the distant cousins of Torquemada.
–How much pressure did the girl’s mother apply?
–So you have met the formidable mother in question. You have done your homework – about time. Not turning the other cheek on this one I take it.
–A lawsuit I suppose.
–Petty and mean on her part. Though I will swear in a court of law her response was Un-Christian, I cannot put my hand on The Bible and swear it was Un-American. Therein lies the problem. Try just this once John to understand The Bishop’s dilemma. What was he to do? Abandon the wishes of 75% of his flock?
–Not the flock Father – abandon the one. Remember, this isn’t The Age of Faith. You fellas don’t massacre The Albigensians anymore and let St. Peter sift The Good Guys from The Bad Guys. You can make the case. Convince The Bishop to call her bluff and draw a line in the sand. Fight the good fight Father.
–So you are the Priest now and I the Advocate. Six of one I suppose.
–Perhaps being an Advocate was #1 on your hit parade?
–I have a feeling you should ask me later. I suppose I have no choice.
–You have the same choice Jesus had.
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Not pleased about that, but it is what it is. I estimate I have already killed about 84,000 ants with my size 9 shoes on various footpaths throughout the world. In much the same way, I have managed to step on the people I care about. This is what I do.
I remained silent. Looking West, the Sun was catnapping on the horizon visible between the narrow vista twixt The Church and The School. I shifted my eyes to the corner classroom, imagining shadows of children’s faces, ancient wooden desks, slate blackboards. An American flag fading fast in a dark corner stared back through the window.
–I take it you have already decided what you are going to do.
–I’m not letting this one go Father. But I’m asking, I’m asking you, to convince The Bishop to let the boy back in school and ensure that the matter is dropped.
–I see you have met the boy’s mother as well. . . I can see the headlines now:
STALINESQUE TACTICS AT ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL SEND MOTHER AND SON RUSSIAN BACK TO PUTIN
We walked over to the rectory for a drink before we headed downtown. The next day, I stopped by to give Father a check for Filat’s tuition, a CD box set of those old tunes for Ilari Avtaikin, an old copy of Pasternak’s expelled book for Lara with a few
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select hand written sentences behind the front cover, and a bottle of Hennessey’s for him.
In Memory of my Dad and The Andrew Sisters
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Biographical Note: Richard W. Halperin
Richard W. Halperin's collections are: Anniversary (2010) and Shy White Tiger (2013), Salmon; Empty Rooms, Thynks (2014); and A Wet Day & Mr Sevridge Sketches: Two Poem Sequences, Lapwing (2014).
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Love at First Sight (Richard W. Halperin)
She was in a white dress with a pink sash.
She was in a book.
You were in I don’t know what with a pancho thrown over it.
You were smoking a Nat Sherman, I think.
You were talking.
I was gone.
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Abschied (Richard W. Halperin)
The sun lowers, the walk continues, and what passes through my mind? and through whose mind do I pass?
Someone is speaking Czech, which brings back a memory:
‘Do you have children?’ the guide had asked. ‘No’, we said. ‘Ah, then you are the children.’
I smell coffee, a smell I will remember. I think of Silas Marner, a soul bewildered and benign. Do we ever do better than that?
A madman passes me, arguing with himself. He looks awfully familiar.
I am glad to be walking, my friend waiting for me at the end, 21
or so I hope.
I seem to have forgotten my name. What do I remember? If I had just a post-it to write on?
We two in a park in Vienna in September with our friend Kunio, looking at the dahlias, taller than we:
the dahlias, in their brief splendour.
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On No Longer Being Ill: A Prayer of Gratitude (Richard W. Halperin)
That I knew love once through no fault of my own. That grace is unmerited favour.
That one sees best in fluctuations: Abraham and Sarah visited by three angels, no, God, no, three angels; any wave of the sea.
That El Greco painted the View of Toledo. That Wanda Landowska recorded the Goldberg Variations.
That when I was eight and read in the tabloids the Duchess of Windsor’s memoirs I thought the title she gave it was The Heart Has Its Raisins.
That we live in an age of marbles.
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New England (Richard W. Halperin)
a calm night
the souls of sweethearts blow in the wind
a graveyard or a field some stars
the violets shut
my heart begins to rise and rise and rise
cars and people zig zags
hymns are being sung in a little wooden church
in a sitting room a poet in a grey dress
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is writing
she cuts something with a scissors
she loved once it was enough.
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Reply (Richard W. Halperin)
‘With rapid pencil I answer the poem of friends . . . ‘ Po Chū-i, ‘Last Poem,’ trans. Arthur Waley
Your dog did not die.
Even God has no say-so Over a dog.
She goes Where she pleases.
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Biographical Note: Changming Yuan Changming Yuan, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a
Chinaman (2009) and Landscaping (2013), grew up in rural China and currently tutors in Vancouver, where he co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Since mid-2005, Changming's poetry has appeared in 869 literary publications across 29 countries, including Asia Literary Review, Best Canadian Poetry,
BestNewPoemsOnline, London Magazine and Threepenny Review.
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Would Or Wouldn’t: the Variations of the Wing (Changming Yuan)
If every human had a pair of wings (Made of strong mussels and broad feathers Rather than wax like Icarus’) Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly Either towards the setting sun Or against the rising wind?
Who wouldn’t migrate afar with sunshine And glide most straight to a warmer spot In the open space? Indeed
Who would continue to confine himself Within the thick walls of a small rented room?
Who would willingly take a detour Bump into a stranger, or stumble down Along the way? More important
Who would remain fixed here At the same corner all her life Like a rotten stump, hopeless Of a new green growth? 28
On Another Rainy Day, Granville Street (Changming Yuang)
Again, water splashing against walls And windows with each car Passing by, colored umbrellas moving Above unidentifiable human legs Red light blinking towards the storm and White noise, every cherry tree skeleton Trying hard to find a shelter, a long-necked man Hopping around with yesterday’s Vancouver Sun on top off his bald head An oversized truck full of Thick cement pipes making a large turn As a bus is waiting for strangers To get off or on, all in wet cartharsis
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Directory of Destinies (Changming Yuang)
North:
after the storm, all dust hung up in the crowded air, with his human face frozen into a dot of dust and a rising speckle of dust melted into his face to avoid this cold climate of his antarctic dream he relocated his naked soul at the dawn of summer
South: like a raindrop on a small lotus leaf unable to find the spot to settle itself down in an early autumn shower my little canoe drifts around near the horizon beyond the bare bay
Center:
deep from the thick forest
a bird’s call echoes from ring to ring within each tree hardly perceivable before it suddenly 30
dies off into the closet of a noisy human mind
West: not unlike a giddy goat wandering among the ruins of a long lost civilization you keep searching in the central park a way out of the tall weeds as nature makes new york into a mummy blue
East: in her beehive-like room so small that a yawning stretch would readily awaken the whole apartment building she draws a picture on the wall of a tremendous tree that keeps growing until it shoots up from the cemented roof
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Y.E.S. (Changming Yuang)
Y You are really obsessed with this letter Yes, because it contains all the secrets of Your selfhood: your name begins with it You carry y-chromosome; you wear Y-pants; both your skin and heart are Yellowish; your best poem is titled Y; you seldom seek the balance between Yin and yang; you never want to be a Yankee, but you yearn to remain as Young as your poet son; in particular You love the way it is pronounced, so Youthfully, as a word rather than a letter to Yell out the human reasons; above all Your soul is a seed blown from afar, always Y-shaped when breaking the earth to greet spring
E
born to be a double reed that can be bent into a long vowel the most frequently used letter in english, echoing endlessly in silences 32
if pulled down, it offers two doors one leading to Soul via will, the other to Him via wisdom; if turned up right it forms a mountain with three peaks like three holy swords, pointing high one against the sun one against the moon one against the sky
Facing always towards the east, it embraces existence, equality, eternity, emancipation...
S
with a double hook, the sexist, the most charming shape looking more like a naked woman in postmodern art than folded cloth used to cover her body in an Egyptian tale
always ready to seduce
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Seasonal Stanzas (Changming Yuang)
October
Burning, blooming Like spring flowers All tree leaves Giggle, guffawing With the west wind In their fierce defiance Against the elegy of the land Recited aloud In blood-throated voices
November
Most monotonous month: Each passing day is depressed Into a crow, its wings Its body and tails Newly glazed in the mists Of thick dusk Though its heart still Lingers in the memory of Summer’s orange morning glows 34
December
As the sun sinks deeper every day Into the other side of the world The shadow is getting longer, darker Making our lives slant more and more Towards night, when nature Tries to balance yin and yang By covering each dark corner With white snowflakes Ever so softly, quietly
As each twig frowns hard at twilight Why not give it smile and thus Book a space in heaven?
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Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill Peter O’ Neill was born in Cork in 1967. His debut collection Antiope (Stonesthrow Poetry) appeared in 2013, and to critical acclaim. ‘Certainly a voice to the reckoned with.’ 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). As well as being a regular contributor to A New Ulster and The Scum Gentry his work has also appeared in The Galway Review, Danse Macabre, Outburst, Colony, Levure Littéraire, Mauvaise Graine, Abridged, and Bone Orchard.
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Gombeen Poet (Peter O’Neill)
I learned very early on to detest weakness, Witnessing it in my peers only strengthened my resolve. At the age of twelve I became a member of the Hitler Youth. My father, an insurance official, came home one day to Find the Fuhrer, Himmler and Goring hanging up over my bed. “Get them down.” He ordered, before shutting the door.
Around the same period, while home sick, I copied the entire two page entry on El Alemein From the Encylopedia Britannica into my copy book; I was beginning to distinguish between soldiers and dummkopfs. I put together my first masterpiece for my primary school library, It was a handbook on the twelve year old Third Reich. My Saul at Damascus moment came to me in the Phoenix Bar, The name of the horse which threw was called Molloy.
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Gombeen Historian (Peter O’Neill)
Certain middle-aged men revel in reading About the great military campaigns in the East: Guderian, Model, Kleist, Zhukov and Rokossovski , Their names evoking Odessa, Kharkov and Smolensk.
All such visions of turbulence and arms, Conjure up images of Hannibal at Cannan; The double encirclement there which led to victory at Stalingrad Had its origin in a knowledge of the Classics.
Whether it be military strategists, literary theorists, Viticulturists or Goms, the emphasis on historical Precedence is one of absolute foregones.
Housed deep with the stairwell of the cranium, As magnificently illuminated as the Pantheon, So, the great shaft of history is thrown.
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Poem as King Tiger (Peter O’Neill) The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand. Wislawa Symborska ( Trans -BarańcZak & Cavanagh )
In order to withstand the fiction of eternity The poem must be as resolute as the Final Solution. It must be able to withstand the holocaust, Stand up, like a flower of evil, to the most cynical inspection.
If it speaks of love it must do so With the velocity of an 88mm canon. Its heart must be as stalwart as a Maybach engine. Its skin as thick so as to be able to deflect all armoured piercing.
The poet likened then to a Commander Well versed in ClausewitZ and The Nature of War, Life being analogous to unending conflict.
Of course, choosing the right side to defend is key. Images of all panzers turning their turrets and reversing on AuschwitZ, Crushing the barbed wire, annihilating the real enemy.
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Elevenses (Peter O’Neill)
The bells of the old clock toll eleven times Up in The Muse Cafe on the second floor in Eason. The buoyant sonority of the peels echo above the trees And rooftops of O’ Connell Street whose existence, Up here with the pigeons and Gods, is signalled only By the murmuring reverberations of the traffic down below. It erodes the ear in a vain attempt at mimicking the sea. The nymph and mermen also seem very far off. We, the diners, take our much needed respite from them, Our cups, teapots and scones being the things now Of our primary consideration and concern. Picking up a spoon, to stir the brew, has you thinking of T. S. Eliot.
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The Cormorant (Peter O’Neill) For the memory of Mohammad Abou Khdeir
I wish to recuperate the bronzed labour of ancient childhoods, Hear the trumpet of sand beneath the flower of waves, Inhabit uniquely the cool dreamscapes of the forgotten tides.
Like the cormorant, who lets himself be crucified by the elements, His great wings outstretched, I too need to confront Be-ing Through the immensity of nature.
The sea, limpid and fresh, has other signs to read Other than those of a poor child burned alive. No longer do I wish to let myself be directed by words.
I wish now to be guided by other signs, Like the sound the rocks make once walked upon, Their quake and tremor sounding out the dark crusts of the egg.
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Biographical Note: P.W. Bridgman
P.W. Bridgman writes literary fiction from Vancouver, Canada. His short stories and flash fiction pieces have won prizes or been finalists in competitions at home and abroad. Some have appeared in anthologies published in Ireland, England and Scotland. His first book of fiction, entitled Standing at an Angle to My Age, was published by Libros Libertad Publishing Ltd. in 2013 and is available in bookstores across Canada and across the world, online, directly from the publisher and Amazon. You can visit P.W. Bridgman via his website at www.pwbridgman.ca.
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DEAR DARK HEAD1 By P.W. Bridgman For as long as I could remember, Mr. Pound had lived in the back bedroom. He wasn’t family, as my da was quick to point out to anyone who came by. “He wasn’t family until we made him family,” my mother would always add. Mr. Pound was already eighty when he’d first come to live with us in Newtownards. It was 1952, the year I was born and the year he’d left the kettle on the gas ring, sending his own house up in a fiery blaze while he dozed, oblivious, in a shady spot in his back garden. Even the pumper trucks didn’t wake him—an old bachelor, his mind going queer, without a living soul to care or look after him. “Some’d be content to take in a stray cat, but not your mother,” my da would say within her earshot. “Catch yerself on, Lorcán,” she’d say back to him, gently. “Is that the example you want to be setting?” These were good-natured exchanges. Sometimes there were harsher ones; low, muffled voices on the other side of a door. Mr. Pound spent all of his time either in bed or in the pushchair my da built for him with little cast-off wheels he’d brought home from work at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. In his more lucid moments Mr. Pound would ask me to manoeuvre him to the window so he could watch the birds. He would sometimes have me sit up on his lap and then point to them and tell me their names. He would also sing little snatches of old songs, bits of his own childhood dislodged by some stimulus not apparent to anyone around him. “Clitherty, Clatherty, Out upon a Saturday, In upon a Sunday morning.” This particular fragment brought my mother running into the lounge from the kitchen, her hands red and dripping from the washing up, her face alight with 1
“Dear Dark Head” is adapted from a story entitled Ceann Dubh Dilis that appears in P.W. Bridgman’s short story collection entitled Standing at an Angle to My Age (Surrey: Libros Libertad Publishing Ltd).
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excitement. “My father sang that to me, Ben! He was a weaver. They would sing that song at the beginning of each week when they changed the webs on the looms.” I could see that there was magic and mystery locked up inside Mr. Pound. By 1958, when Seán was born, Mr. Pound’s lucid moments came less and less frequently. My mother had to feed the two of them, side-by-side, and my da sometimes couldn’t bear to eat with us. The well of his considerable good nature did not run as deep as hers. He would turn away in exasperation as mashed peas and plaice collected on Mr. Pound’s stubbly chin. “Take your leave, Lorcán. Better that than say something unkind,” my mother would declare as my da pulled on his boots to leave for The Old Cross Inn over the road. Sadly, as Seán grew older and began talking, Mr. Pound had still fewer songs or snatches of intelligible verse to share with him or with us. These and such other scraps of formed thought as still milled about within his nodding head were, by then, almost irretrievably locked away. Age, in its indiscriminate cruelty, had robbed him of the ability to call them forth. He chattered away, to be sure. But it was mostly gibberish, seasoned with gusts of Gaeilge and the odd swatch of breathtaking profanity. “Mind your foot, Mr. Pound,” my mother would say as she did the hoovering. His reply: “Liverpool Street. Bank. St. Paul’s. Chancery Lane. Holborn. Tottenham Court Road. Oxford Circus. Bond Street. Marble Arch. Lancaster Gate. Queensway. Notting Hill Gate. Holland Park. Shepherd’s Bush. East Acton. North Acton. Ealing Broadway. Fuck King Billy. Amhrán Hiúdaí Phádaí Éamoinn. Máire an Chúil Óir Bhuí.” Mr. Pound would still sometimes reach out with his spindly arms and try to pull us up onto his lap but my brother would have nothing of it. “He smells of pee!” Seán would howl, squirming free, and he was right. Mr. Pound’s birthday fell on St. Valentine’s Day. How my mother came to know that, I have no idea. But we always put on a party for him and we were all 44
expected to join in, which we did, year after year until 1963 when the excitement of it got the better of him. “Mr. Pound’s cacked in his drawers! Mr. Pound’s cacked in his drawers!” Seán cried out in horror, not knowing his own unkindness, and he was right. “We’ll sort you out Mr. Pound. Never you mind,” my mother said as she wheeled him in to the toilet, giving Seán a black look that was more charged with hurt than with anger. Mr. Pound died in his sleep on New Year’s Day, 1966. My da found him, clammy cold in his bed at about 9:30, curled up like a fiddlehead under the coverlet. It was a sad time for us all. Even Seán wailed uncontrollably. Still fresh in our minds was the most extraordinary thing. It had happened that Christmas Eve—scarcely a week earlier—when some of my da’s friends had come by with their fiddles, pipes and bodhráns for a Christmas hoolie. Mr. Pound was parked in his pushchair in the corner of the lounge next to the tree, his blanket over his knees. He looked alert and peaceful and content, tapping his fingers lightly together in time with the music as they played and sang a lively “Pretty Peg.” When Captain Skinner put down his small harp to fetch himself a jar, Mr. Pound reached out for the instrument. “Mr. Pound wants to play the harp,” Seán called out. “Well, give it to him then, boy,” said Captain Skinner. Mr. Pound cradled the harp against his shoulder as if he had played it only the day before. He plucked gingerly at the strings once or twice and we all fell silent. Then, in a steady, measured voice he said, “This is called Ceann Dubh Dilis: in English, ‘Dear Dark Head’.” And he played it, not perfectly but near to perfectly, and so very beautifully that no one in the room, save my mother (whose dark head was fully bowed), dared to breathe.
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Biographical Note: David R. Cravens . David R. Cravens received his undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Missouri, Columbia during which time he spent a semester in West Africa studying eastern philosophy. Afterward, he spent several years working as a scuba-diving instructor in the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, the Turneffe Islands of Belize, and the Channel Islands of Southern California before returning to Southeast Missouri StateUniversity where he earned his master’s degree in English literature. He’s a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Magna Cum Laude, Sigma Tau Delta, The National Eagle Scout Association, and American Mensa. He started his writing career as an adjunct Professor of English Studies for Central Methodist University, and since that time he’s published widely, both in the US and abroad, as well as winning the 2008 Saint Petersburg Review Prize in Poetry and the 2011 Bedford Poetry Prize. He’s a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist for Ohio State University’s The Journal William Allen Creative Nonfiction Contest. He currently teaches composition and literature at Mineral Area College.
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Expiation I (David Cravens)
he’d not felt right for some time when hell broke loose with fury new eyes struck with gray of deep blue sky thrust with such force that he retched drawing icy sharpness into his being the world in its purest form – in its making colorless kaleidoscopic extension of himself— his scream sent crashing a murder of crows and this fresh uncompromised soul closer to God than any priest knew then with this that flag and wind are one for as Alan Watts would later say we’re the eyes and ears of the universe— that through which it perceives itself
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Expiation II (David Cravens)
when the boy was young he’d often walked to the girl’s door and they’d played together by a pond in a nearby wood sometimes holding hands
there’d always been a light around her and she’d made him feel good
then the girl’s mother began coming to the door saying the girl did not feel well and for him to come back later
then she’d not come to the door at all
~ ~ ~
as a young man he came back to the same grove of forest 48
where a weathered wooden sign stood from the water near a bank where the girl’s parents had planted a maple— it said that with hope lies salvation
and he felt again as he had before
and he brought another girl to the tree and they carved their names into it and they were happy
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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!
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Augusts 2014'S MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS: Purrfect weather and cake yes cake! In other news, Arizahn and Amos have decided to make ANU an online and POD only magazine it is expensive to produce and we need the catfood we talked about this last month but no one replied 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”.
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Biographical Note: Behlor Santi Behlor Santi currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts. A forthcoming story will appear in The Eunoia Review. Past stories have appeared in The Foundling Review, The Eunoia Review, Cliterature, and Sleet Magazine. Find her at behlorfiction.tumblr.com.
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TREE BRANCHES By Behlor Santi "We could consider termination, Martha," said Tom. "If that's what bothering you." Martha looked down at the snowy feta cheese crumbles in her salad. She hated cheese, even the fancy sort from foreign countries. However, that didn't matter now. Tom had a slight twang in his voice. He came from Waco. Martha grew up in Austin, where that twang was washed down with liberal politics, affluent bohemians, and lots of people from India. Martha sipped her Perrier. "That's not bothering me, Tom," she said. Tom snickered. Martha put her hand to her womb. She wanted to give birth right now. She wanted to stomp, kick, and kill whatever she spawned. Martha was studying nursing at New York University. When she wasn't with Tom, she holed herself in her apartment, supposedly studying different parts of the body. Recently, she had been on Wikipedia, obsessing over people like Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Jerry Lee Lewis, Greta Scacchi. She even read about Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his first wife. Tom didn't make her situation better. With his black hair and light build, he looked like a doctor who walked on the dark side. Martha imagined him killing patients just for fun. At first, Martha cried after they had sex. She was glad that Tom left her alone in her studio apartment. But all the isolation in the apartment, the self-righteous tears, couldn't hide her expanding belly. Should she terminate, the way Tom suggested? Martha took her hand off her womb. She wanted her stomach empty. The summer day in Nolita became more humid. Martha smelled the sweat in her armpits. She wished that she didn't pick her flowery halter 53
dress. She noticed sweat collecting on Tom's forehead. She dug into her Coach bag, grabbed a grubby brown tissue. She handed it to Tom. Her first cousin. The cousin she loved and feared all her life. Tom grabbed Martha's tissue. He smiled at her, bearing no teeth. RIP my baby, Martha thought with disgust. RIP my soul, as she imagined herself alone in her apartment, empty belly down on her bed. She would let Tom inside her again. She started to eat her salad, lettuce, cheese, and all.
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Biographical Note: Paddy McCoubrey Paddy McCoubrey was born in Belfast, he now lives in lurgan and is a regular contributor to A New Ulster.
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Number Eight (Paddy McCoubrey)
I loved you for your beauty well I know that’s not a crime but you felt it was your duty to limit and decline they say its just skin deep still I loved you long and hard and each path is thorned and steep when you’re dealt the devils card.
I always was a step behind when I followed in your path and tried to be the martyr kind who was never known to laugh and never thought to question why ? for things that others do just accepted it with just a sigh as resentment grew and grew.
then before we reached the line of the fatal "no return"
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I bravely claimed what’s mine with neither scar nor burn and how she felt I could not say as she fell back to the night for yet another wayward stray to help her with her flight.
about a year or more had gone each day had faded fast by a sudden fate I chanced upon a ghost that ruled the past where once her striking looks had caught and held me without blame its strange the way but now I thought for this time I saw her plain
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A Spinsters Prayer (Paddy McCoubrey)
Little children I have none, no one here when day is done, no one now to hold me tight, to cuddle up and kiss goodnight.
Tiny footsteps I don’t hear, the often silence brings a tear, that catches me in deepest thought, about a past I never caught.
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For in later years when I am gone, my memory wont be carried on, and no one then will tend my grave, no flowers will sit alone and brave.
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Biographical Note: Tony Baillie Tony has had three novels published, The Lost Chord (2006) and ecopunks (2010), both with Lagan Press. A Verse To Murder was published in 2012 as an ebook. His short story The Druid’s Dance was published in the awardwinning Irish crime-fiction anthology Requiems for the Departed (Morrigan Books 2010). Tony has also had two volumes of poetry published, Coill (2005) and Tranquility of Stone (2010), both with Lapwing Publications. Tony has had fiction and poems published in a wide variety of journals and magazines. He reviews fiction and poetry for the online New York Journal of Books and works as journalist with The Irish News..
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Axle (Tony Baillie) Tendrils of weed haul the rusted axle down to earth, encasement of clay, the memory of daytrips and blurred open roads fractured and flaking, clumps of nettle and dandelion clusters smother once glinting steel, machine-wrought precision mangled and blistered, journey’s end in an overgrown field.
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Managua (Tony Baillie) I Throat-clogging dust swirls in coned eddies, mini-tornadoes that rise and twirl in spiralled hoops that suddenly collapse and scatter chaos. Acrid smoke seers my eyes, snakes in wisps, drifting tendrils wrap themselves around me, lassoes cast by spectral captors who rise from the haze of embers and smoke to hover by a bonfire. II
Her powdered skin left a musky streak across my crumpled sheet that I didn’t clean for a week, the faint whiff of her lingering when I bent to sniff before going to sleep, the memory of our disastrous rut – separate rhythms that never merged into a unified flow – a hungry ghost hovering, burnt-out memories carried on a waft of ash, that settled on my bed. 62
Scorched skin (Tony Baillie)
Between the curve of wilted leaf and last ray of the sun a fracture in the evening opens with a half-heard creak, a shuffling in a copse of trees a ripple through a field. Startled cattle swish their tails and moan low warnings, nesting crows rise and craw above their shrieking chicks flapping in crooked spirals, maternal ties abandoned. She bathes to wash her scorched skin, faint smell of burning, rising from the mountain stream. She beckons to me.
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Biographical Note: Rachael Sutcliffe
Rachel Sutcliffe has suffered from a serious autoimmune disorder for the past 12 years, since her early twenties. Throughout this time writing has been a great form of therapy, it’s kept her from going insane. She is an active member of the British Haiku Society and the online writing group Splinter4all, has her own blog @ http://projectwords11.wordpress.com. She has been published in various anthologies and journals, both in print and online, including; A New Ulster, Prune Juice , Every Day Poets, Shamrock, Lynx, The Heron’s Nest and A Hundred Gourds
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Summer selection (Rachael Sutcliffe) holiday fortnight the sunshine turns up late
######
ice cream van’s song the long school holidays playing outside
######
heatwave the ice in my drink no more
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summer rain the dry part of our tent long gone
######
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so much more beach this year wash out summer
######
home from holiday the lawn greets our knees
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holiday clear out emptying sand out of my suitcase
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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://johnisleoftheharp.blogspot.ie/
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RETURN (John Jack Byrne) I wave a last goodbye to this mountainous warmth where the wine is always present in the air, with row upon row of vines that climb almost to the heavens .
Contrasting with light silver leaves of what is universally regarded to as the branch of peace, the olive tree, watched over by the cupressus sempervirens standing tall like sentries protecting their comrades and I vow to return to Tuscany.
Return to the rolling hills, and Chianti, a wine made for the gods, to blue haze which hangs like curtains of the finest lace on every mountain, to the pasta, and the cheese, to the ice cream and to a country of fine sculptured fountains, to a sun which is unceasingly smiling
.To the sometimes warm greeting of “Buongiorno” or in the cool of the evening “ Buona Serra”, all pleasantly delivered in a tongue of musical tones, in this country of art, of rolling hills and the naked David, but most of all I vow to return to my dusky Latin maiden Caterina. 68
A High Summers Day (John Jack Byrne)
Skylarks sing on a high summer’s day all down through the valley song spills I stroll through heather of purple and gold in soft mist through the Wicklow hills
I follow the path where the wild deer thread they grow fat on the fraochán they graze while a red tail kite circles slowly above unseen in the mountain’s light haze
I drink from the silk brown mountain stream infused by the high upland’s peat I rest awhile to take in the view an outcrop of granite my seat
I gaze upon far off distance hills all the way down to the sea I see the hen harrier rise from the furze fulfilling the content in me
Alas comes the evening, time to descend homeward to the kestrel’s cry home with the jackdaws, starlings and crows winging home through a golden sky
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Tanka (John Jack Byrne)
in the field the Brent geese gather to graze and chatter‌ they know not of loneliness
relaxing to music in my ears the song of the violins ease my mind like the wings of angels
I have little fear of falling on this uneven ground‌ providing I fall to your heart
a field of sunflowers smile in unison this hot summers day something I have failed to do since you’ve gone 70
Biographical Note: Marion Clarke Educated at the Universities of Ulster and West of England, Marion Clarke is a writer and artist from Warrenpoint, County Down. The themes of nature, childhood and the passage of time inspire much of her writing. Marion’s poetry has been published in online and printed literary journals, including Burning Bush II and The Linnet’s Wings. Last year her poem, Remembering John Martyn, was long listed in the Desmond O’Grady international poetry competition judged by Fred Johnston. Marion also studies and writes Japanese-style short form poetry (haiku, senryu, haibun and tanka) and her entry in the 2012 Vancouver International Cherry Blossom Festival Competition received a Sakura Award. More recently, one of her short stories, One Stop Beyond, received second place in a competition judged by Penguin Books crime writer, Tim Weaver.
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Light bleeds (Marion Clarke) Acid-lemon light on the cafĂŠ terrace at night jars with bilious green table tops under a skyful of starry fried eggs. At Arles, his trapezoid yellow room, was discovered not to be distorted by an unstable mental state, but by unusual street design. Fragile as quivering almond blossom in a dense turquoise universe, his newborn nephew gave him rare cause for celebration. One midnight-blue afternoon, near the Auberge Ravoux, a murder of crows scattered and the wheat field bled.
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In June I had the pleasure of attending a poetry book launch at No Alibis bookshop in Belfast. No Alibis has a reputation for being welcoming and accommodating for book launches, poetry nights and entertainment in general. I had been invited to attend the launch of The Goosetree the latest collection of poetry from Moyra Donaldson published by Liberties Press. Some of the poems from The Goosetree have been published previously or read at other evenings so I was familiar with their content however it is when these pieces come together as a collection that they come to life. The Goosetree is an excellent choice for a summer read one which I’ve read several times now. Liberties Press contacted us about using some of Moyra’s poems in this issue so it is our distinct pleasure to share a few from her new collection.
Amos Greig
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Biographical Note: Moyra Donaldson
Moyra Donaldson is a poet, creative writing facilitator and editor. Her work has been published by Lapwing Publications, Lagan Press, Belfast and Liberties Press, Dublin www.libertiespress.com who published her Selected Poems in 2012 and a new collection, The Goose Tree in June 2014
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A Winter Gift (Moyra Donaldson) How much further you can see when the trees are bare, the countryside open to the bones of itself, stark and absolute, stripped to essentials. The first time you feel it, contentment is a strange sensation: what is this settling on me? you wonder. It is the gift of snow, drifting, deep.
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Greba Cras (Moyra Donaldson) We have disturbed the crows into a fierce wing-clattering croaking black circling, threatening to wake the dead, but the dead stay sleeping, all God’s lovely loans crowded together, tumbled together: nothing to distinguish one bone from another now. Depending on the soil, type of wood, it’s about a year, two at most, until a coffin collapses in on itself. Four hundred years of headstones and over the wall, older stories still, the Manx princess, her abbey of thanksgiving for safe landing, the monks, wrapping their cloaks around themselves, becoming crows; out above all walls, flying into the arms of the village women, who waited in their beds for the sound of wings.
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Bad Dreams (Moyra Donaldson) Plagued by the grotesque and the disturbing, I’m seeking remedy. Gather the red willow when it’s at its brightest; coax it to roundness and fix the circle. For the web, use nettle fibre dyed red by plum-tree bark then spun to a thread and turned eight times around the spiral; seven points for seven fires. Place a single stone in the centre: the spider herself. Hang feathers: owl and hawk. Purify all with sage smoke. Suspend the magic above your sleeping. Surely it’s got to be worth a try.
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The Goose Tree (Moyra Donaldson) ‘There are likewise here many birds called barnacles, which nature produces in a wonderful manner, out of her ordinary course’. – Topographia Hibernia, Gerald of Wales There are certain trees whereon shells grow, white-coloured, tending to russet.
Each shell contains a little living creature; like the first line of a poem, a thing
like a lace of silk delicately woven, one end of which is fastened to the shell,
and which at the other feeds into the belly of a rude mass, that in time comes
to the shape and form of a bird. When the bird is perfectly grown, the shell begins to gape.
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First lace, then legs, then all comes forth until the goose hangs only by the beak.
A short space after, at full maturity, it falls into the sea, where it gathers feathers.
Those that fall onto the land perish and become nothing. A blank page.
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Gold (Moyra Donaldson) Remember how it was between us in the beginning. I was divinity, light of eternity, light of heaven, helping your soul to paradise. You fell in love with me for my beauty, my radiance. I was a piece of the sun you could hold in your hand.
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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.
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