Anu issue 40 / A New Ulster

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

Featuring the works of Peter O’Neill, Matt Prater, Kenneth Pobo, Nancy Ann Miller, Michael Mc Aloran, Steve Klepetar, Jo Burns, Eamonn Stewart, Bob Shakeshaft, Felino A Soriano, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Carlos Franco-Ruiz and Evelyn McAmis Bales. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 40 January 2016

A New Ulster On the Wall Website

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

Editorial

page 5

Peter O’Neill; 1.

The Wall

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Violins – the Deep Sea Reefs The Poet To a Passer-by Lethe Number 29 Bye Bye Blackbird

Matt Prater; 1.

2.

3.

Lalochezia Empty Hurt

Kenneth Pobo; 1.

Still Here 2.

Training Wheels 3.

Abyss 4.

Belle of Barmera Dahlia 5.

Mischief Mountain Nancy Ann Miller; 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Falling in Love with my father in the Snow Island Bound Mail I Re-Member Bermuda Land Snail Rock Solid Sea Pudding Crime Scene

Michael Mc Aloran; 1.

InDamage Seasons Steve Klepetar; 1.

Li Bo Eats His Cake 2.

Li Bo and the Pleasures of Wine 3.

Li Bo Tastes The cup of Sorrow 4.

Seventh Avenue 5.

Ghost Song #6 Jo Burns; 1.

Loading the Mare 2

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

The Pink Pussycat on Saturday Nights The Bomb At the School Bus Stop End of a Ceasefire Shergar’s Last Race Liam and the Horseshoe Crab in Portballintrae Swimming in Crop Circles.

Eamonn Stewart; 1.

The Equerries Bob Shakeshaft;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Auld Tripe Ashen sun Toddles A Thin White Line After Philomena

Felino A Soriano; 1.

Configuring Recollections XI- XX Evelyn McAmis Bales; 1.

Three Memories 2.

Legacy 3.

Falling Away On The Wall Message from the Alleycats

page 53

Round the Back Barbara Gabriella Renzi; 2.

Interview 3. extract Carlos Franco-Ruiz; 1.

The Zero Eye Review

3

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 “Full Moon on water� by Amos Greig

4

“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t met ” Yeats.

Editorial 2016 is here and we have reached a milestone issue 40 and to celebrate we have our largest issue to date. This will be a one off next issue we will return to our 89 page count. I still find it surprising that I would ever be an editor of a literary magazine especially a monthly based one, which has such a global following. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without your support and I hope to keep delivering a service for new and established writers.

We have poetry two extracts from work by Felino A Soriano and Michael Mc Aloran as well as the artwork of Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Carlos Franco-Ruiz.

Of course A New Ulster wouldn’t be what it is without the poets and artists who submit their work each month and this issue features some very strong material as well as some first time writers we also have some established names for you.

I consider myself as just a gatekeeper and today the door is wide open once more for everyone to share.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

5

Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill

Peter O' Neill was born in Cork in 1967. He is the author of five collections of poetry, most notably the Dublin Trilogy comprising of: The Dark Pool ( mgv2>publishing, France, 2015 ), Dublin Gothic ( Kilmog Press, New Zealand, 2015 ) and The Enemy, Transversions from Charles Baudelaire ( Lapwing Press, Northern Ireland, 2015 ). In his review of The Dark Pool, the critically acclaimed American poet David Rigsbee wrote: Peter O' Neill is a poet who works the mythical city of Modernism in ways we do not often see enough.' ( A New Ulster )

He holds a degree in Philosophy and a Masters in Comparative Literature, both awarded by Dublin City University. In 2015 he edited And Agamemnon Dead, An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry with Walter Ruhlmann for mgv2>publishing, and mg 81 Transverser. He also organised Donkey Shots; Skerries First International Avant Garde Poetry Fest in May, this year. He is currently hosting The Gladstone Readings once a month in his home town of Skerries.

6

The Wall (Peter O'Neill)

I pressed my lips against the cold stony Surface of... it is tumultuous; The inscriptions, the face off, your lips...

Pressed up against the stone cold chill of you.

You and I with our backs to Jerusalem, Burning behind us like a second sun.

All the visions of the heavens that we Once encompassed, the blessed scripture

Of what we both went through together.

The visions shared, all of the sainted days Of hair and wine, the precious illuminations

Of what we once knew! All our psalms of Wonder, compressed now into this stone wall.

The horizon is shut out, impossible to see through.

7

Violins - the Deep Sea Reefs For Katie Melua (Peter O'Neill)

You hold your head up above the sonorous Waves, their gentle orchestrations upholding You, emotive; the deep warm currents of the Heart-strings, pulling you right into the

Land and mindscapes, the impossibility Of distance, which her voice summons, A muse; call this listening, call this singing...

Plunging deep below the quivering

Tremors, her craft upholding you, and you Alone, through the lyric, the heart's request, The piece. or song, a microcosm of us.

Hold your head up above the sonorous waves, Their orchestrations upholding you, emotive; Their gentle heart stings pulling you in.

8

The Poet (Peter O'Neill)

My life is ridiculous, I should be in the circus; With a bible in one hand, the ever present Mystery on high, and Jacob still with me Holding dangerously the sacrificial knife.

My themes and motifs never change: A beautiful woman, a hole, the sacred heart.

If I had a lute it would be silent, And all the songs that I sang would be still.

I sit at my desk with the bloody light.

The contents on the surface forever change: Lemons, apples, bread and wine...

But after I have eaten it is all lead, lead, lead.

I have filled whole forests of paper with my script, And all of my books weigh like stone.

9

To a Passer-by Transversion from Baudelaire (Peter O'Neill)

All about you the deafening street roars.

A great dual ensues; O sweet majesty of pain...

A wonderful Amazon passes you, with a lithe Hand, balancing between her hem and her brow.

Noble agility, with aquiline limbs...

As for you; you drink her in, with as much extravagance.

From her perspective - the sky is livid, born of hurricanes; Her gentleness captivates, her pleasure kills...

Lighting bolt...and it is night! - Fugitive beauty, Her fervent glance quickly rejuvenates...

Will you only ever see her in dreams?

Elsewhere, not far from where you are, it is already too late.

Ignorant of you, and where you've gotten to, she who doesn't Know you. The one you could have loved...O, but how she knows you...

10

Lethe Transversion from Baudelaire (Peter O'Neill) For a long time now I have wanted to plunge My trembling fingers into the depths of your hair; Come to my heart, deaf and cruel soul, Adored tigress, monster with the insolent air.

Bury my poor head In your perfume scented chiffon, And let me breathe in, like a wilted flower, The delicate odour of my defunct love.

Christ! I want to sleep, more than live, In a sleep as soft and silent as death.

But instead, upon your body, like polished bronze, I will affix my remorseless kisses.

To banish the appeasement of tears Nothing is worth the abyss to be found in your bed, There, where deep oblivion lingers on your lips And the waters of Lethe flow through your embrace.

Ah, my destiny disrupts my delight, Yet I obey it like one pre-destined; A docile martyr, a condemned innocent, Whose fervour only adds to the torment.

To drown my rancour, I would drink from The carnivorous pitcher plants, the nepenthes, Which grow at the bottom of that gorge, The one which has never imprisoned your heart.

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Number 29 (Peter O'Neill)

Heidegger's on the shelf along with Baudelaire you look upon them like lights illuminating the room inside the apartment the concrete walls cocoon all about you up on the hill come the sea winds resounding in great volleys yet inside it is deep and still

12

Bye Bye Blackbird after a version by Miles Davis For David Rigsbee (Peter O'Neill)

The open horn trumpets the notes onto the November air, spiralling above the elm, over the black hills, passing the isle of birds, hurtling down through the temporal dimension,

bringing a metaphysical element, which suddenly catches you unawares; never expecting the autumnal burnish to further uncover the cool vermilion

nestling under your feathered wing.

This darker avian girl swooping like a screech owl, clutches you screaming towards a future.

Old jazz of wonder soon parting, migratory, an anthem to our dogfighting days, or a tune to spit a little fire on the gaspard of the nights .

13

Biographical Note: Matt Prater

Matt Prater is a poet and writer from Saltville, VA (US). His work has appeared in a number of journals internationally, including inGOWP Zine, The Honest Ulsterman, The Moth, and Munyori Literary Journal.

Winner of both the George Scarbrough Prize for Poetry and the James Still Prize for Short Story, he is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Virginia Tech.

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Lalochezia —Ryan Comer (Matt Prater) If drunk words are sober thoughts, stub is cousin to rum.

Our joints are merciless— hit, they hit back; struck, they strike.

Bone would take the nuclear option every time, under any provocation.

No wonder we would think of peace as a lamb or a dove, nerves cushioned or hollowed, eliding what we really do with injury.

Brother Ass, our avatar, is less us for his stink 15

or his hide than for his thin, incorrigable knees.

Empty —Todd Bailey Jim Wayne Miller praised the action of hard light in hard trees in January— a yellow, particular joy.

In this way, rum is limb-light, warm as any coil-orange heater.

It is what is not in liquor that makes liquor delicious.

16

Hurt — Darnell Arnoult (Matt Prater) Some survive their holy gifts— the part of them God bleeds through. But in Van Gogh’s miracle summer, at Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890, when the whole world seemed renderable in blue and green and gold, that whole world weighed immeasurably on the master.

Sometimes there is no answer for this world from its pleasures.

17

Biographical Note: Kenneth Pobo

Kenneth Pobo has a new chapbook forthcoming from Eastern Point Press called Placemats. His work has appeared in: Crannog, Orbis, Mudfish, Indiana Review, and elsewhere

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STILL HERE (Kenneth Pobo)

As autumn deepens, I check the crack in the wall where yellowjackets built a nest.

Late November.

They should be gone by now even as they hover over the entrance.

Having been stung, I don’t wish them well— or do I? I admire their tenacity.

Winter, the great Exterminator, gets closer. We say they’re “mean.”

Maybe we’re mean, caulking up hives, locking the queen in. Dead carcasses on the basement floor look so small, flight wiped out.

We sweep them up For the trash. Fly, yellowjackets. You know what’s coming.

We all do.

19

TRAINING WHEELS (Kenneth Pobo) After my dad removed my training wheels, he held onto the seat as I pedaled.

He’s 88 now, a widower, in a retirement community. He tells me how many people died there during the week, also how many are over 100. No training wheels for old age. The hand lets go and you’re off.

20

ABYSS (Kenneth Pobo) A group beats a gay couple bloody In the city of brotherly love.

I picture that group doused with lighter fluid and set on fire, people singing and roasting marshmallows as they scream, no one coming to help.

I catch myself— how close I am to the abyss, giving in to hate, becoming them, my feet at the edge, so tempting to leap and let the abyss be my new address.

Hate won’t stop it from happening again, won’t change a bandage or soothe a wound.

The abyss is large, its call seductive.

You never emerge.

21

BELLE OF BARMERA DAHLIA (Kenneth Pobo) Blossoms blot out the full moon.

Even they must shrink back into tubers that fit in my hand.

Each bloom tosses one last pink spear at November’s turned back.

22

MISCHIEF MOUNTAIN (Kenneth Pobo)

After the witch melts, a bad bout of water, we see her steam and the monkeys get happy.

All is well. But wait! She’s not really gone.

Her steam became a mountain and anyone who climbs her faces great danger.

She shakes the earth, brings you to your knees. She can un-sky a lightning bolt to aim at your heart.

You might be walking to the Emerald City, historically a difficult journey, and run into her mountain. So much for being in a hurry to arrive. You think, oh well, it’s not a very tall mountain, I’ll make it. That’s the thing about mountains.

Size can mean little. Put your ear to the ground and listen for a rumble.

That’s her.

Becoming a mountain wasn’t in her plans, but she’s adjusted. Locals call it Mischief Mountain which she likes. Under a full moon she admits she got way too crazy over a pair of slippers. Now she makes wildflowers, some poisonous, and from her peak she casts spells so potent that she can turn the sun into a cheddar-colored ping pong ball that she slams across several darkening worlds.

23

Biographical Note: Nancy Anne Miller Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet with three books : Somersault (Guernica Editions ), Because There Was No Sea(Anaphora Literary Press), Immigrant’s Autumn (Aldrich Press). Both Water Logged (Aldrich Press) and Star Map (Future Cycle Press) are forthcoming in 2016. She is a MacDowell Fellow published in Edinburgh Review, Agenda , Magma , New Welsh Review, Stand, The International Literary Quarterly, The Fiddlehead , The Dalhousie Review, The Moth, A New Ulster, The Caribbean Writer, Bim, The Arts Journal, Wasafiri, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Journal of Postcolonial Writing among others . She teaches poetry workshops in Bermuda.

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Falling in Love with My Father in the Snow (Nancy Anne Miller) Because when we came to America the landscape was black and white, snow and dark bark like the blotted print of the New York Times he read on Sundays.

Because he brought us here in January, when sleet swept across the horizon like a curtain to erase what I had known before, the colours of an island.

Because when he held the steering wheel in his hand, like a faucet he could turn off on, he was so happy as the traffic rushed by in the streams of water he was so thirsty for.

25

Island Bound Mail (Nancy Anne Miller) The sign at the Post Office shows what a terrorist package might look like.

Just like the one I send, has a clump of stamps in the shape of Matisse’s Snail.

A school of fish swims the front, headed up for the surface. Bits of Scotch tape here, there, like a snapper scaled.

And the loose brown package paper, a sweater a sibling hands down to you, big, baggy, the Shetland Wool unravels into the string wound round and round.

The postmistress asks if anything is explosive inside. I want to say Yes! Books have been known to cause revolutions, pages turning, fan many a fire!

The non-terrorist package has the US Postal Eagle.

Swift, eyes anything out of uniform, what strays across lines, roams 3rd class mail, it is eager to pick up in tallows.

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I Re-Member (Nancy Anne Miller) Like a candle streaming light onto the page, my fountain pen leaks Turquoise ink as I write about my isle.

I remember College Weeks when youth buzzed the island, flocks of hummingbirds, left Mobylettes on Front Street like group sex enmeshed in handle bars, gears and bicycle chains. I re-member the sail’s envelope flap in the harbor where the waves rose up in tips, the sea’s letter beneath in long hand writing we learned at Bermuda High School for Girls. I remember shoving handfuls of Crow Lane’s Banana Bread in my mouth after school, ingesting the island’s moist soil. I re-member the light sugar cubed in limestone blocks, chalky, made houses brim, float like a poem, the white washed roofs ascending, as Emily Dickinson said of poetry: the top of her head taken off.

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Bermuda Land Snail (Nancy Anne Miller) It is handy to come with your own glue, so you can adhere to anything while your shell whirls like a hurricane center, a spiral of action when you are so slow.

A kind of joke on you by nature, a ram’s horn with a fat awkward tongue. And to be a tricycle of sorts, your feelers, rubbery, handlebars on a toddler’s clumsy first ride.

A measuring tape to record our earliest life, white body, surf rushing to find a shore.

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Rock Solid (Nancy Anne Miller) Bermudians don’t need rocking chairs to cool out, relax. The ocean will do with the tide quick-sanding the beach, leaving while arriving, such a sway of water.

Bermudians remember the hand steadies the boat slapping up to the dock like a pup to a bitches’ teat, jumps up in the air.

Bermudians need a solid chair while they watch the horizon, see waves rise up like children to peek over the flat line fence, to see what is beyond. Need not be tilted back, forth bringing it in, out of focus.

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Sea Pudding (Nancy Anne Miller) That the sea would bake one, create a caramel sponge, spotted as Pauline’s, our cook’s face, her light brown skin dotted with moles.

Soft as the bodies of black woman, who took care of us Colonial Girls. May sewing Liberty of London dresses for Cissette, and Wendy, my Madame Alexander Dolls.

Rita ironing shirts, transformed them from a gloppy jelly fish substance, stiffened with the backbone of starch, while I pestered her with questions. Evie cleaning my privates as I sat in the tub, asking if I had any company? The shock America was for me as teenagers babysat children, picked them up, put them down casually as a plastic toy. Isochitopis badionotus, like the African Bermudian women who raised me up, digest detritus from marine snow, absorb what is discarded from above, but when stroked too much, throw up, extrude parts, and re-form with a spine intact.

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Crime Scene (Nancy Anne Miller)

I can’t go to the lake today, flat and round as the hurricane’s eye which deadened all sound through the casuarinas and poincianna. Can’t watch as the maple releases leaves: small boats sailed by children in the Grand Basin Rond at the Jardin des Tuleries, Paris.

Can’t follow the road’s yellow ribbon divider circling water, sections off an autumnal crime scene.

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Biographical Note: Michael Mc Aloran Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). He is the author of a number of collections of poetry, prose poetry, poetic aphorisms and prose, most notably 'Attributes', (Desperanto, NY, 2011), 'The Non Herein' & ‘Of Dead Silences’ (Lapwing Publications, 2011/ 2013), 'Of the Nothing Of’, 'The Zero Eye', he'The Bled Sun', 'In Damage Seasons',(Oneiros Books (U.K)--2013/ 14); 'Code #4 Texts' a collaboration with the Dutch poet, Aad de Gids, was also published in 2014 by Oneiros. He was also the editor/ creator of Bone Orchard Poetry, & edited for Oneiros Books (U.K 2013/ 2014). A further collection, 'Un-Sight/ Un-Sound (delirium X.), was published by gnOme books (U.S), and 'In Arena Night' is forthcoming from Lapwing Publications. 'EchoNone' & 'Of Dissipating Traces' were also recently released by Oneiros Books...

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nothing’s claim—

(from ‘In Damage Seasons’ (Oneiros Books 2013)

In Damage Seasons (Michael Mc Aloran)

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...through lock of detritus/ acclimatised to the fallen lung’s parameters there’ll be to drive the coffin head with nails birthing the fallen attributes

scarred without longing there’ll be the stasis of it the hearse of the ever-laughter spun lest from out of darkened/ choke/ dead space and an empty pageant’s shadow

what forth birthed till struggle else in a pit of night cleft erased welts of teeth and the searing of the salient grin of the none exposed of

struck out from or where till wonder as if to be were to know of it sudden till excise the sharp stab of it the teeth kicked in blank spaces a vertigo of flesh of final fragments

fragments raining falling from the banquet flesh for as long as can be recalled or what words to drag from out of speechless sleepless a turning of black soil and therein of silver lights eclipsed

foraging the breath long-asking of the want in terms of sunlight spit them out your nubs your cancers dry-a-day-a-lock seethe in corners of dissolution’s breathing

razor glint in dead light churning of where the silhouette falls to nothing’s pulse exigent time or the lack of breathing of the wind the meat of it bound till axial exist yet not a trace non-death of a winter’s speech out of which stasis no nothing

forever what/ what bones of sky till breath reclaimed in the drag of here or there said or not till shattered blackened out a clasp of the deaf sun and all the lights there have never been or those that never were...

-34

...claimed yes forever claimed the eye still roving yes in the realms of the none or the breath not taken settling as ash or a casket's knowing

rat’s pulse tread step-non-step the laughter of children here then spoken of what once till on again the filtering through of the blood hence the cup lifted as if to spite where there is none

mockery of the artery’s abnegation a pulse of rotting silences even breath there’ll be sudden of in the bereft silences unclaimed

death yet always of the death yet as the spark’s breath subtle as the edge of a blade cuts the semblance away the death mask sun there or else a kaleidoscope in a pit of slashed belonging

from out which the dead longing what waste the blackened veins the puerile none of it ever unto until erased what spun lie and the sudden of each the words no longer there or having fled unto nowhere else

tracing no no power in a white sheet stained with the blood's advance the meat hooks of all birthing and desire cracked stone a scattering of vapours vapours till din of nothing asked of

head what head long distance ahead gathering there’ll yet spoken of as if the meat knew better than the other which is the none perhaps knowing less or more no distance to trace ash in a cold palm strike a match a blessed bloom will follow after

it will say less the walls there as always birthing the breath of none stillness stillness of collapse catascope of bled shadow-knock a deft caress such was the memory there’ll yet be detritus of the vortices of eye breaking forth in semblance of the benign

35

wounds they say yet what wounds to breach when all is sudden tide a curved spine snap shadow play and the play of shadows mocking the erasing dawn with fingers to touch the dissipating vapours

outlived carried forth by what one asks as if to claim claim what winds to claim what blood to claim what breath to claim spun alack in the none that is in subtlety of...

--

...static between the being and the breaking echoing bones a surge of foreign embers memories shit-stained walls existence bleeding itself dry no marrow the taste for it eradicated all asked of yet said without not a trace by design

there’ll be now circus attributes broken valves of teeth the flesh cast away into some banquet of desire scattering forth

till claimed a headless barrage what head there was never the stitches bind the light together the stitches birth the pale light of no consequence in a suicide of nothing sudden in outcry muted birthed all stepped alone

eye what eye of shut till the last benign furtive as breath-stun harrow a sudden asking of the build of it there or else stench reek of nothing of in the clear light of the nonetheless

non-day or night basking of the following till clearness of speech there was never any of the build to chase the fragrance away hollowed spat out collectively/ no/ that was of another time

yet surging into nothing till ragged bone claimed the eye what eye still roving in the nothing of it here or there but for an instant into what birthing clogged the breath alone 36

such is the hearth of silence dragging its cold chamber into the death of all the death of nothing else cold chill breath aside the breath aside the laughter of the still-born ache

governed speech without name till obsolete till obsolete turning turning in the soil of the unforgiving memory till dread or the echoes of the frozen light

shafts of breath reaching beyond the abattoir’s asking telling as if to drift were to be but one in the vacancy of still-dread till shadow forth till shadowless all spun in the absence of the word to grace the emptily of the meat’s futility

here now the room of that which closes its fist around the throat of breath becoming ask of what winds to follow on from when the snare divides the breathing into nothing claimed ghosting the impress of silent hands sands eroded time what time is there ever...

--

...flayed or not a dead end sings sun the purpose of nothing teeth in a blaze twisted the nerve’s steel claimed in vortices of the ever-redundant

lack barbed it says the skull says the head what difference till breathen begotten laughs the foreign leg from out from under asking of the bleak till worship of

shadow cast a-dream they say sleep more or less to awaken in a majesty of shit tear the life from the closure of the build etch the skin with gift of absolute mutilation a broken tear flowing ever flowing

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what word there was it is said in the beginning there was nothing lying through the teeth yes the teeth once again

approximately flesh depth till din of the non-received in the pissoir tide asking of the non-beginning the non-ending there’ll yet be the laughter of the silent casket a closed door surrogate of no purpose

yet still the sway of chains and the meat hook’s glint idiot laughter and the freeze the incision bite what words to define the fucking meat of it the syllabus from aside the darkness grazes till bleed along some silence in-between the none of being

bite down hard upon the vacancy gathering the lightless pageantry to the breast so they say eye alone dreaming of the din eye alone in laughter stone upon stone till nothing having gathered

deafened yes by uproar and the silent word that places itself beneath the tongue of nothing herein the laughter of the claimed adrift what eye the eye of none vascular deaf mute scattered to the winds

ill seen what sung the gift of blind lesser than kicks to the fissure a cold gathering of futureless in the space of a/ the deft hand clipped settling to fall aside there’ll yet what distance breathing alone

blood yes asking of silent though in the breathing of some dreamscape ever-forgotten the lie of the flesh the headless wandering catacomb of breath and the eye unfolding as if it never was...

-...laughter still to knock upon half-worn the fingernails extracted a slap to the face drag drag of time and all of its light still crawling from the laughter of the depths in a non-space of lightless beauty 38

unfolding yes flowering unto graven flowers the stench of all none in the streets of the unclaimed blessed to fall what sung

these are the dead lands these are the unseen hands there or else the sun it mocks yet unknowing sing along till breath recedes till the pulse absolves the self of none

here a light there a light the barbed rhythm of night endless dregs dregs and the none till else along the way never motion and the grafted speech

close the door the rest will follow it is said such words resting never of the blossoming death till claimed nothing less than was before till remembered no nothing ever

locked to the sky the sky dead space all around in the bask of the rhetoric of silences enough to remove from glimmer of this or that in traceless broken upon the rocks of abattoir’s removal

yet feeding feeding frenzy of barricaded teeth the split in the eye birthing the emasculate what tears till final stretch nothing of the alack the meld of skyless pissed upon once more till dearth of silent of what spun long stretch of the obscene laughter till sky a-alock the din the retch of tears till bled scattered the non sense a bleeding wind

ice of the true shadow till lacking dream till spun of the spent corridor non else in the spurious of flesh burning to the hilt of it the death of galvanised

hence laughter longing and the breath of it till flesh eradicated till skyline of apocalyptic colourings held to the throat what dense silver unto shadowing

39

till pierce of none of the sunlight emptily absolved here now the traces the vapours cleft smoke drifting from out of lung till resend until erased lung less foreign yes...

--

...surmise what grip delirium of the trace-winds cleaving away heave-ho nothing less than of the claimed no nothing claimed asked of the yes spilled blood and the hollow shadow’s breathing

claim claim of some sudden guillotine the light eviscerated here now the echoing speech effortlessly abounding sudden as of silenced

an absolute of nothing for the given or the received stillness to breach in the knocked barbed wire of solemnity asking of the breath ever asked of what light sheer of the redeem nothing there begin again lacking the footfall ice in the veins of

till break as of sudden as of stripped the skin it dances dances dreaming then of the bereft blessed the cull the words erased set to flame in absentee of now

what claim the lung of stun-light murmurs to drag from out of this carcass erasing the candelabra light with the fruits of night’s bloodless

a dead zone cheer mockery still from out of reach till sunk sharp shock the blessed align of teeth of bones here there or there ever after

the gouge torn ragged the fuck of it absolved clearing the landscape of what will till exodus from out of none till naught’s breath floundering it flourishes flourishes

40

non death a writhe of the gilded advance lock spun in spurious lights breaking from out of which till claim of slaughterhouse and the naked foot upon the throat the light unmasked

there’ll yet be said aloft the roving eye kicks dusts back up from the hearth of bones stone adequate in the broken as of

(rattling all the while)

elected to this or that in an exile of benign murmurs given taken from the in-dreaming of shadow headless burrowing of the roving eye’s pageant of soundless blindness of ash upon the tongue a subtle else a-bask...

--

...echoing veranda of exile streaming light of the blood’s dis-chase all absent but for the teeth a-grind the bone break warp of the still-breath the eye glazed over in some cadaver settlement

till chase of nothing ever-after in a pit of reclamation till arc of lessened in the glint the shattering sky dense approximations of breath non-stir of the falling away

settled ash upon nothing’s bones the grind of no thing sonorous as the give or having taken till the eye’s claim what yet till words erased mocking the sheen the flesh burning away a showering of gardenias

there or never else yet stillness axial breath over and until again a claustrophobic exigency of the gone no words to take it away and no way to give it back then or else shadowed by lack cold wind desolate scarring

41

lapse lapse until having breathed the light of the none in cylindrical of nothing having ever the flesh swarming in the half-light

sing spun alone till dry of speech the asking of the prayers from the hollow entity unto some foreign grace traceless depth will in end no end in depth sing spun alone till speech evaporated

exile cleaves a way the rotting teeth of the sun headless screams the skull evaporated the tears that don’t come the absence of blood the meat stripped away till

with a slow hand gathering the non of the splendour dreaming less dead stone and a claim add a claim to rest

there’ll yet be the price of it masking the nothing but brief till victorious as a carcass a forgotten dream the head in sand wrenched from shadows obsolete

skip ‘scance a-dream of the willow orchard in the bleeding out from burst stitches torn out with the teeth what matter a silver itch binds the reclaim in an adagio of twilight’s longing...

--

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Biographical Note: Steve Klepetar Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Deep Water, Expound, The Muse: India, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have been nominated for \Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including three in 2015). Recent collections include Speaking to the Field Mice (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013), My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press, 2013) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).

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Li Bo Eats His Cake (Steve Klepetar)

He invites me for his birthday, so I bring a cake: white frosting with red, white, and blue balloons, “Happy Birthday Li Bo” scripted in red.

It’s the Fourth of July.

He shows me his present: colorful balls he juggles with practiced ease, tossing them high, and catching and tossing until I lose count and they rain down in a spectrum lovely as light shining through cataracts in a wooded glade.

When I look at his skillful hands, they are green, and then he’s a lizard meandering through parting grass, then a gray cat worrying a mouse.

When he reaches the laurel at the edge of his yard, he’s a squirrel scrambling up the trunk with mischief in his mouth and eyes. I am glad I came. In the darkness we watch fireworks across the river, 44

gasping at the wild finale with its flashes and noise and huge globes of colored light.

Then we go inside to gorge on cake, his eyes glazed with joy as frosting coats his eager lips.

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Li Bo and the Pleasures of Wine (Steve Klepetar) He stops by with a bottle of wine, a Saint Rita Hills Pinot. Red price tag reads $44.95. “Got it at the tag sale

at Westside – 13 bucks.” I bend a wire hanger, pull the cork. He pours and we swirl and clink and sip.

Then I lick my finger, move it slowly around the rim until vibrations ring in our ears. “How’d you do that?”

and I show him how to get the feel, smooth glass turning slightly rough as index finger finds the purchase.

“It’s the wine singing!” he shouts, face bright with grape and glee.

He scratches with his pen on a torn

page, a new drinking poem about a traveler by a pool, toasting the silent moon with melodious glass.

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Li Bo Tastes The Cup of Sorrow (Steve Klepetar) He drinks the cup of sorrow with dry lips, cracked from cold, tastes the viscous liquor with a tongue burnt by fires of rage, feels its strange, thick sweetness fill the hollow cavern of his mouth.

His eyes tumble in their sockets, his moans shake paintings from the wall.

His fingers uncoil slowly as feeling rushes back with surging blood.

He stumbles in a drunken parody of dance, wretchedness fills his arms.

In the dead orchard’s silence he listens to a golden bird as it warbles from its perch in the bent branches of a pear tree.

Through the flood of day he swims, hair tangled with weeds and mud.

All night he tosses under blankets that roll like the unquiet sea, where humpbacks serenade their mates and sing cold lamentations to the watery moon.

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Seventh Avenue (Steve Klepetar)

All day, rain spoke in its hissing voice: “I have come from hills to take you home, to bury you in salt and clay and broken shards of shell.”

Everywhere puddles and mud.

On Seventh Avenue, cars snake uptown in gullies of loneliness.

Past the park, angels gather in alleys, soaked wings bent inward, past lingering light glowing from proud chests and breath fine as steel wool.

No songs as flames die in ash cans, and a thousand fingers grated raw, slip into pockets or disappear in rising mist. “We are the way of the street,” whisper droplets spreading in black rivulets, climbing curbs. “We are only melting moon, heralding the end of days.”

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Ghost Song #6 (Steve Klepetar)

“Are you so fast that you cannot see That I must have solitude?

If I am in the darkness Why must you intrude?�

Dylan

They intrude with rude mouths of children, slathered with sweets, or drunks patrolling midnight

streets with false jollity. They intrude without kindness or cheer.

Their faces glow in glass panes

above my bed. I have woken to the sweep of their motion between walls, cold silence of their artificial

breath. I have shooed them with brooms, with catcalls, with the thrum of electric guitars. I have spoken

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cleansing spells and poured my own tears on the dusty floor.

I have plugged my ears with wax

and lay down with cats in their soft beds until moonlight woke us and we slipped into the bowels

of night where we spit and danced and tore our shadows into ripped shards covering the blood-slick streets.

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Biographical Note: Jo Burns Jo Burns is a 39 year old mother of three, living in Germany. She grew up in Maghera, Co. Derry. Jo is a medical scientist and hobby poet.

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Loading the Mare (Jo Burns) Bought at the Garvagh show, she was a fine, well bred mare, an unbroken pony, six years old with a Connemara head.

She stole a look at the rusty cattle box seeing demons sliding and spitting on its slats and cow shit splattered walls.

Her ears pinned flat, her muzzle steamed, she whinnied in fear at the murderous space between her and hell that gaped before They took the bar from the gate, whacked her deep to force her in; Three farmers trying to coax her into her imagined pen of wolves.

I was a ten year old filled with fear watching the frightened mare rear up, flailing hooves cleaving air as she fell, beaten and panicked.

She lay prostrate wet with terror, but suddenly leapt like a hare snorting and twisting she cleared a fence into a field of sheep.

She cleared a five bar gate, underhoof, interrupt, overcome.

This Eochaid incarnate, as though in her sleep, cantering home.

Inside my eyelids, I saw her still pulling horizons closer in gallop through dreams, and I dreamt of frisky Tuatha steeds under their fairy queens.

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The Pink Pussycat on Saturday Nights (Jo Burns) Waiting for the strobes to hit, for smoke to encircle our waists, feeling our slippery nipples rise as we lifted our glasses certain that our songs are being sung.

We would not sing the soldiers’ song at closing time, nor God save the Queen.

We drank to joy, no care for division.

Inebriated shadows we see ourselves in mirrored bars, the acronyms gone, as diesel gives way to double vodkas, a silver bullet as a homebound chaser and we fall back into safe padded cars with radios tuned to the same old war on Radio Ulster; slick-sliding, slipped by patrolling parents past army checkpoints, pulled lightly from night’s carousel, smoothed softly back into our beds. .

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The Bomb At The School Bus Stop (Jo Burns) “Listen to the rain spit in new ashes/As you heft a load of dust that was Magherafelt.”

Seamus Heaney, Two Lorries Lying around as drunk glass staggered, clinging onto frames to stand.

When the earth wobbled under us, as stone collapsed into it’s own sand.

It was a weekend afternoon, watching some soap opera omnibus.

We didn’t see the sweeping cloud, which blackened phone lines to wake us.

It touched our foreheads clenched and white, trying to glue shards, piece by piece, back to entirety in the shattered silent night.

We couldn’t prolong the brevity, of that moment before it broke on us, again, that peace explodes away.

On Monday we shared the bus to school with the boys in convent blue, playing Kevin and Sadie as a rule, and later we would be segregated out and marched straight-laced in black and red to Tennyson, perhaps Sassoon, those late war poets but rarely Plath or Woolf, for war is more tangible than any human condition.

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End of a Ceasefire Omagh 1998.

(Jo Burns) Inverted alveoli, froth on black, have lost their lungs, once green, once intact. The bloodless dry have fallen one by one among Samhain’s haemorrhaging time.

Slaughter’s month has come again.

Grave rubbings scratched in sooty lines rob the ashes of past years Beltane.

The hawthorn which budded fresh in may, will be blanketed, shortly after cremation.

As the ripen fruiting season dates into past and the future hibernates under snow sedation.

The berries of the rowan have soured away.

The blackbirds swerve in flight, drunk from most, to the sun which shows its back and abjures day, as we hunch under our harvests weight to home, not to enjoy but to store from young pooka that roams, Devil Man! Red eyed and cruel. We get glimpses of our cycles untravelled, while it bewitches them to believe all our labour inedible.

The cloth that binds unravels. For we don’t wait to try. We know we’re done. In apostasy, we, as foes, have joined on steed to race and seal the year in gerrymandered deeds.

Sacrifices were paid too long to wicker in this realm.

Now we handle in treaties, love nowhere to be found, and we abscond all relics and evidence of us and then to amnesty. No armistice. Our hands will be unbound.

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Shergar’s Last Race.

(Jo Burns) Note: In Farsi, Sher means Lion or Poem, Gar denotes possession.

The shape of the half moon, a ramp lowering as clicks of hoof and calk are hushed through worm hole, stretching a track too fine.

The half moon, blinding jute pulled over the crescent of a crest to the withers, horse blinkered, trust through the round noose of a chain.

The half moon arch of the young eye in balaclava, joined to fight a war. He has never seen adrenaline quite like him before.

The half moon, careful curved strokes, brushing the white blaze brown from the kink in his half moon swirl to the inflected smoking nostril.

The half moon, beams spread circumferent around iron grill bars, fixing the stallion, for the moment his white eyes roll up to see equuleus waiting.

The half moon hock pulls as he kicks breeze block walls, demented, all out, roaring, hind fetlocks torn, a coil unwinding, wailing, for a soft voiced stable boy.

The half moons of torchlight dissecting kildare turf, tipping farm sheds up, turning swivel hooks and hangs of abbatoirs.

A small girl bends her neck in arc after hearing news, to pray for his return with both curved ears.

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The half moon bolt slid back through semi circular catch, kick latch curled open by black issue boot, the rasping hinge strains to unfurl on it's rusted unoiled axis.

The half moon of a pushed stable half door, an arc of sawdust disturbed by one heavy, dutied, foot.

The half moon, an armalite strap of a widow maker as the vertical night is pulled, under crook of armpit, horizontal.

The half moon, caressed indented trigger by an index finger which never stroked the curvature of a velvet muzzle nor held in the bow of thumb and palm a galactic pulsing, racing, pastern.

The half moon, flailing around fulcrum, riddled atactic, on the sloppy going of his own gore, cannon’s running every race over.

The bend of heaving, steaming, lead filled flank falling to the floor.

The stable clock hands tick one moon more, untill last dawn groans gurgle from girth to a throat lathered in red foam.

They ring in sinusoidal wave over the bent curve of an arm, on axis, forcing a spade into the dirt.

Digging deeper and deeper, for him and the horse.

The half moons sigh, tick, search, rust, pat the earth down.

They are locked or unmasked, hang, point back to floor, and the theta star of Pegasus stares in straight line toward Orion.

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Liam and the Horseshoe Crab in Portballintrae (Jo Burns) I’m the horseshoe crab.

I scuttled from the wreck of the girona, to escape the moon eyes of divers and sights of shark fanged sharp slipper limpets drilled and burrowed alive by piddocks. I fled the open sea, where lobster pot’s cloaked in bladderwrack have taken many dear to me.

Here in the harbour, It’s calmer.

The water lies ironed and ripples only dawn and dusk, when the fisherboat shakes plankton off as dust then leaves the stretching shores of the bay to smooth all flat again.

Terns and black backs circumference as vultures, where the buoy line secants, and the light-flashes dance, but they don’t bother much with me.

Today I was fed a line of old ham, and carved clamflesh, excised by messy hand with a kitchen knife.

Then hauled up in a fine mesh of latitudes and longtitudes, a glistening lattice, bisecting the sun, which rose then eclipsed behind protuberate head of a child, who cried, „I,ve got it!“ He sucked in, to inflate his eyes and we both tugged, wary.

He knew one puff of impetus breath would send me spinning, precarious.

He picked me up, ginger, as if I were a kicker’s splitting hoof, and lay me on the greasy, lichen slipway.

The boatclub of tipsy fathers remote, as far-off bleachers, 58

he set me next to another, with one red tipped, broken, claw, then prodded us each on the carapace with his bamboo fishing net.

We sprung up, set to take off. „horseshoe crabs on your marks, get set!“ We shot through the starting gates, „Go!“.

He’d waited, to watch our spindly gait, but in the lap of the ebb, I’d already galloped my lengths, an apron ahead, cadent, under the blanket of my bed, the atlantic.

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Swimming in Crop Circles.

(Jo Burns) It’s the hazy bleached air season of white, the stalks hunger and cling to the sun, ears tuned for the suck and swing of the scythe splitting ranks of phloem one by one.

Four boys and I swim enchanted in this butter yellow, rolling, crawling in circles, daring dives into terra.

We taunt the proud, coarse, crackling wheat, flattening it to dust, stamping into dried dirt for good measure.

The ripples in this bowl of golden water spread from epicentre in these acres of times of our lives, treading trenches in tidal swell, seeds scratching our necks and reddening our eyes.

We pause, spent, spy the rusted John Deere tractor on edge at this once dense amber sea of tranquility, now threatening to become a furied twisting water, we dive behind the few erect stalks we can see.

A farmer’s bank of molten wealth has been plundered by concentrics the width of splayed 8 year olds.

As we delay our crawl out from this itchy decadence, we survey the courtroom and prepare our trial defence.

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Biographical Note: Eamonn Stewart

Eamonn Stewart was born in Belfast 1964. He trained to be an advertising photographer, worked in advertising as motion picture cameraman.

Eamonn studied film history at University of East London. His work has been extensively published in magazines and anthologies.

Presently, working pro bonoin student/indie films.

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The Equerries (Eamonn Stewart) This poem was inspired by T. S. Eliot, Arthur Rimbaud. Lautreamont , and Paul Verlaine

The worst thing in life is getting used to things.

Thousands of hangovers traded for a spark of jamais vu .

Cats claw at trash bags flimsy as graphene This was the veil that was lifted from me.

Callous, like modern mountaineers.

Oblates of the craving for oblivion.

Butterflies sip nectar. Houseflies sip ordure.

Waking, I was back in Byzantium With the sounding boards calling the faithful to prayer .

It was just kids battering the plywood That lazy builders left behind .

The fontanelles of the loudspeakers Shed exquisitely tangible sounds.

Still, I overheard the drunk who said Semtex looks like earwax.

They’ve swapped their grandparents fear Of the iron lung, for the sunbeds and dread Of not enough sun.

In the Loney they would have been Lachikos But now, they are trendy comprachicos .

Whose faces are portentless Dodonas 62

Do they tinkle in the dark night of the soul ?

Piercings evoke some Disney Saint Sebastien – Their integuments anthropomorphic Lascaux That Bradbury’s Illustrated Man would not know.

Carl Sagan said we are genetically close to trees.

Sunbeds turn their skin to bark – Ovid would have balked At such metamorphoses.

Petals softer than real fontanelles Pulsatile, pullulating in sloth.

The Anther is a finger and thumb Rubbing scales from the gaudiest butterflies Pluripotent odours, pollen climbing the viscosity of air.

An old man passing a black plastic bag: The wind moved the neck, it looked like a Faithfull dog As if acknowledging, the old man looked down.

On the loom of the park railings An eclatique tapestry of the mundane.

The Mama and Papa tube recalled, Like a prop from Dr. Who .

Proprieties in their Goldilocks Zone – Pared with bigotry’s microtome .

They’ve swapped their parents fear Of the Iron Lung for sunbeds and dread of not enough sun.

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In The Loney they would’ve been Lachikos

But now they are trendy Comprachicos.

Carl Sagan said we are genetically like trees Sunbeds turn their skin to bark Ovid would have balked at such metamorphoses.

Their faces are portentless Dodonas , or Do they tinkle in the dark night of the soul ?

Piercings evokes some Disney Saint Sebastian Their integuments anthropomorphic Lascaux Bradbury’s Illustrated Man wouldn’t know .

Cigarette paper Golems – embouchures that rival flautists’ Send themselves off on pointless missions Hungry as Pac Man, ravening without remission.

In synesthetic proprioception I feel An asteroid with rings and water on the moon.

One day I will clear my mind of these things How I bought shortcake in Brigadoon…

Here is their Burning Bush – A creosote plant and triboelectric sand It’s message for a tribe in a rush is It’s really ourselves we cannot stand.

Cocaine is the Hamon on their blade.

They are flies on the axle of history 64

Drunken with self-praise they cry “See what a dust we raise !�

Glissandos on the metal head lice comb One more Herostratic spliff And they idyll ends in maundering Chiliastic panic, The Palace of Wisdom On the bottom of the Lethe Where Lotos Eaters scoff Ramen Noodles The synteresis is snuffed out .

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Biographical Biographical Note: Bob Shakeshaft Robert Shakeshaft was born in august 1949. In 2004 he attended a creative writing course, this was his venture into writing. This course was run by Skerries poet Edna Coyle Green. At this event he wrote his first poem – February field. He first attended readings at open mic with Michael O.Flanagan of riposte in the Glen of Aherlow a pub on Emmet road Inchicore. Robert read at the Inchicore village festival at that time it was held in Kilmainham gaol. Robert has also poems published in riposte a broadsheet edited by poet Michael O Flanagan.

Later he began reading in Dublin city with the 7 towers open mic in Cassidy’s of Westmoreland st. in 2009 he submitted some of his poems for the 7 towers anthology. Also he has work published in the curlew collection of poems by Dublin writers in 2009.followed on by the ardgillian writer’s anthology where he is a member and a contributor. A further two poems published in seven towers 2012- anthology.

Soon to be followed by inclusion in the 2013 publication.

Robert has read at the glor sessions run by Stephen James Smyth on several occasions.

Also he has read at the new bridge writers open mic.nights.Robert has recorded his poems on KFM radio as well as performing live on liffey sounds with the host Eamon Lynskey a Dublin poet. Robert continues to write and read his poems at 7 towers new venue in the twisted pepper in Abbey st.

In 20014 he had his poem Butterfly published in the Brown critique magazine, also in the same year he read his poetry on Dublin South Radio.

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Auld tripe (Bob Shakeshaft)

The smell of fresh strewn saw-dust absorbing the pungent blood seeping from the block as the skilled sharp knife cuts into the dead bone splintered shrapnel flies from under the cleavers deadly accuracy one mistake will shout “oh fuck” someone needs stitching and a jab arse tetanus

lets a shout jump across the counter “here is any of yeez serving “ “ok gorgeous what can I get you this fine morning” “keep that talk for your own bit of fluff it won’t work on me I want a decent pork chop one that won’t ruin me dentures” A smile as broad as his hands crease his face “sure we can’t have that “ “now trust me this will be as tender as a baby’s arse” “I’ll take your word love go on give it to me” “will that be all “ “no I need some tripe for himself –he has a bad stomach” “serves him right drinking every bleedin night” “mind you the honey-comb will only do! “no worries only just in the door and fresh from the cows belly” 67

“grand now how much do I owe ya” “what say I round it off to seven schillings” “highway robbery is what I say” ah but that smile of yours is priceless” “ah jaysus I almost forgot the bowler gives us a bone will ya” “a big one” The band –saw starts with a high whine then it screams like a banshee bone catches in the deadly teeth of steel pulling bone-meal inside smells the air acrid

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Ashen sun (Bob Shakeshaft)

Moonlights pallid blossoms, white, wondrous, have blotted out the sun, soothes the soul of imperilled man dying for death, prepare your heart, turns pale with panic and pity, blood congeals coursing to its natural state.

Loathing his life, his self, his transgression eclipsed by perdition, the enemy within seeks solace, forgiveness, till the final beat breaths the end, finally cremated in pallid ash.

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Toddles (Bob Shakeshaft) On early Sunday mornings after mass my father wheeled his bicycle to rest against the window I reflected small, as the red ridged reflector bright

as my eyes, keen my ears long the call “come on, hop on the bar”, I can’t reach yet, he scoops me up in one strong safe hand, then leather pedals the crank into action.

Linenhall Street fades in the distance, the tower beckons the two of us along the Glasnevin way beyond, my small mind drifting free, where the wind pulling, my auburn hair aflame, sharp as fathers song Danny-boy, true in harmony, I tom-boy whistle, folding myself into his strong safe heart pumping love, he chins my crown, letting me know all is well.

We approach the ornate gates of angels, in stillness, Toddles tilts against granite walls, father hunkers down, unclips his ankles, reach full height. Steps are measured true to the tiny grave, simple as the wooden cross carved by fathers skill, is etched Danny-boy, my only brother, born to die before his time to know me, a loving sister, bent on knees of prayer,

I help our father place fresh bought flowers, as we clean-rake white stones, pure the whispered words pour over our lips kiss his name, turns us back

to the morning in reverse, O’Connell’s tower rounds us home in silence… till his booming voice celebrates, Danny-boy in sunshine and shadow, all is at peace.

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A thin white line (Bob Shakeshaft)

Shut up the dog barking, draw close the black curtain sky let the sun smile another day, allow silence transcend.

The loss is so sorrowful, yet it must be, no answers, no consoling, pain, more pain.

The truck on the sharp bend, way over the white line that decides life or death, crunched in the screaming metal, meshed in splintered body parts painful flesh stained, in life giving blood.

Offering no more, now rivulets red in frantic passion escape inanimate being, inanimate as the mangled bike.

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After Philomena (Bob Shakeshaft)

for fifty long years my heart was scalded in thinking of you I carried my sin with a heavy guilt the sisters of mercy left a shame of my choice to fall for a handsome man who made me feel a love so pure as the infant boy that spat from my love nest to the Magdalene laundry where all the cleansing could not lift my stain except that hour given to mothers like a tormented daily reminder that any day soon my precious bundle would be sold for a thousand of their green dollars

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Biographical Note: Felino A Soriano Felino A. Soriano is a poet documenting coÜccurrences. His poetic language stems from exterior motivation of jazz music and the belief in language’s unconstrained devotion to broaden understanding. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Netanthologies. Recent poetry collections include Forms, migrating, Of isolated limning, Mathematics, Espials, watching what invents perception, and Of these voices. He edits the online journal, Of/with: journal of immanent renditions. He lives in California with his wife and family and is a director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities.

Visitfelinoasoriano.info for more information.

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a selection from Configuring Recollections from XI – XX (Felino A Soriano)

On friendships Each new relational camaraderie built an effort of clarity toward speaking in braided, memorable text.

Friendships were similar in height.

Fiction of worlds wore my favorite shirt exterior to the closet holding its color pure.

Eventual, as in autumn’s dissolution winter’s cold into the corporeal pivoting of disagreements and friction’s diligent and subsequent silencing echoes.

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rehearsing the collection (Felino A Soriano) at 15 I shook my own hand a piano solo philosophy that stayed in an etching diligence until 16 alone was a rendition of trio conversation with my companioning books angled atop my desk awaiting diligent eyes and the ontology of hands to engage what cannot be rehearsed within the language of a systematic reverie

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Origins (Felino A Soriano) an obligation wrote my infrequent name into a chapter of devoted prose, desired articulation to portend emotion from my girlfriend which, unlike my reflectional behavior needed continuous emblems of others’ dialogue to feel belonging, inherited togetherness— my language, though a softened whisper-crawl paradigm of needed change—this change of desire to speak within how my thinking exposed truant fulfillment and dexterous affirmations— inside a Friday’s silence an awaiting for school’s Monday to interpret weekend boredom I opened a notebook and examined the quietness of each nocturnal page, the/ my internal music, an immediate rhythm exposed dimensional language with each syllable an abstract clarity confirming alabaster idea would become an 76

inexistent fathom of prior articulations, as the poetry unknown by the hand and speaking image would write toward my girlfriend a reactionary reciprocation I practiced to enchant and replicate from the interior obfuscation from where this language transpired

silence, the undeveloped virtue within these echoes. syllables crawl. my good eye, silent. night, an origami substitute. all these voices, control, curtail. nothing expands, oscillates. why the memory fades, an allusion to death is the momentary awakening toward north, an always north.

Of leaving don’t explain,— : the bend of your shadow arced into the grasping of my name

unfastened

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this distance cannot enunciate me well I am from the privilege of incisive hands the origin of sound and bodies’ encounter with prophecy of form without a name to determine approbation or soliloquy of determining timeline or deterioration of choice in the fathom of misplaced percentage of existence’s alphabetic misspelling

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Biographical Note: Evelyn Bales

Evelyn Bales, a poet living in Kingsport, Tennessee, has been published in journals and anthologies throughout the Appalachian region and beyond.

Her chapbook, Kinkeeper, was published by Finishing Line Press, Cincinnati, Ohio, as No. 18 in their New Women's Voices Series. Some of her poems were performed by the Palm Beach, Florida, Repertory Company in the play Tapestry: The Voices of Women Poets.

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Three Memories (Evelyn Bales) Three memories of that first love have followed me these fifty years.

A boy at summer camp, fourteen.

His skin smooth, glowing.

The sun jewelling his fair hair.

Cold lake water beading his chest. Our eyes met, then shyly dropped, our hearts feeling beyond all reason what we could not know.

The autumn of '57 driving the wetlands along Horse Creek, a sea of cattails, an exaltation.

A host of red-winged blackbirds taking flight, our talisman.

One frosty January night, the earth rimed in ice, he raised both arms to the heavens, calling down the numberless stars to name the measure of his love.

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Legacy (Evelyn Bales) Suppose the paths that once diverged had come together then, before you chose the single life and I the marriage bond.

Our son might walk the path you took to fish this teeming pond, And sun-kissed girl in pinafore might take her brother’s hand And lead him through these treasured fields you held in trust for them. while we from side-porch watched enthralled the wonders we had wrought. ‘Mid lovely supposition, reality intrudes.

Your farm may pass to other hands not skilled in plow or herd, and ruder folk might raze your hearth to build unmemoried stone.

But hearts can move in union still within that other realm, where souls transcend the mark of years as surely poets can.

From shadowed porch I’ll write to you, our stories will unfold.

And words will be our legacy, My heart your hearth and home.

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Falling Away (Evelyn Bales) Out here under the trees, we rest from autumn’s chore and fall side by side on cushion of multicolored leaves.

Red, pink and orange maple leaves drift on us like a patchwork quilt, their dust motes mingled with the hickory leaves’ musty essence.

We rue the oak and beech leaves that will remain until late winter, their rustling accompanying winter wind, their tenacity assuring we will rake again come spring.

We watch woodsmoke from our neighbor’s hearth wisping skyward as two hawks wheel and turn, and we are carried away like time travelers to that day you first showed me this place.

The years fall away then leaving us seventeen again coming to this place where we dreamed the home That stands just behind us, gray cedar and ancestral stone, roof gleaming in the sun, the front entrance welcoming.

But we are in another time when love was new and tender, full of hopes and dreams, when even time was young.

The children, seldom out of mind, fall away here, too; and we are alone, lovers still, the last leaves drifting slowly down.

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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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November 2015 MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

Like the tide the last few months have had their ups and downs but like cats we bounce back and land on our feet.

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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Biography: Barbara Gabriella Renzi

LULE I have been painting and drawing since my childhood and my art has always been the intersections of dreams and sweet memories and very often a metaphor of life and of my interiority.

The waves of the sea are also the waves of memory. Every time I bathe in the sea of memory I change the waves and my memories and my memories change me.

My paintings are visual evocations of my childhood: swimming in the warm sea water and floating on and playing with the waves, the internal peace that we lose when we grow, the food and the life in the moment that we forget to live, being the happiest child on earth when tasting and eating a lemon lollypop, the smell of coffee in the house, the taste of sugar with a drop of coffee and that of cinnamon cakes‌ The various images and patterns of my paintings emerge from my night dreams, slowly taking shape as a description of my interior world. They are metaphors of my life and of the different layers of my soul. I mainly use acrylics and oils.

Lule - Barbara Gabriella Renzi Lule started painting under the direction of Italian painter and sculptor Bruno Caviola. She has developed her original style thorough an on-going exploration of the qualities and combinations of textures, colours and materials. Her art has its origin in dreams and memories and it is a metaphor of her life and interiority.

Lule has extensively exhibited in Northern Ireland, Italy and Germany. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows at Synch Space (Bangor), Common Grounds (Belfast) and at the Crescent Arts Centre.

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano 92

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

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Biography: Carlos Franco-Ruiz

Carlos Franco-Ruiz (째1987, Managua, Nicaragua) is an artist who mainly works with painting. In 1988, as the civil war was winding down his parents immigrated to Miami, FL. Carlos was raised in Miami, in the neighborhood of Little Havana. At the age of 14, he was accepted into the Commercial Art Magnet Program at South Miami Senior High School in 2002. After graduating, he would continue to pursue art as a career and completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Miami in 2011. In 2013, he moved to Uruguay and continues to follow his passion for painting where he recently had a solo exhibition "Fractured Moments" at Roggia Galerie to showcase his latest body of work.

Currently lives and works in Sauce, Uruguay. www.franco-ruiz.com

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Dark nights by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

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Discarded wool online by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

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The Exchange by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

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Lapwing Publications List of works published during 2015 978-1-910855-16-4 As I Was Pulled Under the Earth x Grant Tarbard 978-1-910855-15-7 Lucky x Graham Buchan 978-1-910855-14-0 Mice at the Threshing The Memoir of Richie Roe x Arthur Broomfield 978-1-910855-13-3 Impromptus for George Erdmann & The Good Samaritan x John Gohorry 978-1-910855-12-6 Ventriloquist's Dummy x David Andrew 978-1-910855-11-9 Forms of Freedom x Sam Burnside 978-1-910855-10-2 At the Edge x Kate Ennals 978-1-910855-09-6 Annals x Martin Burke 978-1-910855-08-9 Glencree Riverain x Judy Russell 978-1-910855-07-2 The Enemy: transversions from Baudelaire x Peter O'Neill 978-1-910855-06-5 Escape & Other Poems x Nina Sokol 978-1-910855-05-8 Assassins x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-910855-04-1 Blue Flower x Richard W. Halperin 978-1-910855-03-4 Fifty-Three Poems x C.P. Stewart 978-1-910855-02-7 Fault Line x Paul Mortimer 978-1-910855-01-0 Fathomable x Jane Morley 978-1-910855-00-3 I heard an Irish Jew x Gerry McDonnell 978-1-909252-98-1 The Last Fire x Helen Harrison 978-1-909252-97-4 Speck: Poems 2002 - 2006 x Alice Lyons 978-1-909252-96-7 Smithy of Our Longings x Tim Dwyer 978-1-909252-95-0 The Trouble with Love x Fern Angel Beattie 978-1-909252-94-3 Broken Hill x Keith Payne 978-1-909252-93-6 Frequencies of Light x James R. Kilner 978-1-909252-92-9 Conversations in the Dark x Valerie Masters 978-1-909252-91-2 He Robes me Royally x Helen Long 978-1-909252-90-5 Landscape of Self x Aine MacAodha Available at £10.00 in UK £15.00 outside UK (due to UK international postage rates) 978-1-910855-13-3 Impromptus for George Erdmann & The Good Samaritan Is in A4 format and £15.00 UK £20.00 outside UK 978-1-910855-14-0 Mice at the Threshing is a memoir Buy direct from publisher via our website:- lapwingpoetry.com or e-mail address:- lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com Lapwing Publications is a not-for-profit publisher

and is not grant aided by the Arts Councils in the UK or Ireland.

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