Featuring the works of Amy Barry, Lorraine Caputo, Finnbar Howell, Oonah V Joslin, Stephen Klepetar, Marie Lecrivain, Maire Morrissey-Cummins, Norman Olson, Peter O'Neill, Kรกroly Sรกndor Pallai, Gillian Prew, Krystyna Rawicz, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Walter Ruhlmann and Ian C Smith Hard copies can be purchased from our website.
Issue No 8 May 2013
A New Ulster On the Wall Website
Editor: Amos Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents
Cover Image by Editorial
Amos Greig page 6
Amy Barry; A Love Reinvented At the 75th Anniversary Dinner of ITTA A Blooming Lotus War Child
page 8 page 9 page 10 page 11
Lorraine Caputo; Jaguar Dream Slumber Chimera On These Equatorial Heights
page 13 page 14 page 15 page 16
Finnbar Howell; Darkness Behind the eyes
pages 18-20
Oonah V Joslin; A far Cry Affinity & Beyond Us The Story of Dainty Dish Revolution maybe – on the wind
page 22 page 24 page 25 pages 26-27
Steve Klepetar; A Thousand Things I’d Rather Say On the Way Down Rooted
page 29 page 30 page 31
Maire Lecrivain; April 2, 1863 Behutet: the Moment of Al-Khemia On Wednesday evening…
page 33 page 34 page 35
Maire Morrissey-Cummins; Winter bluebells Railway tracks Selection of Haiku
page 37 page 38 page 39-41
2
Peter O’neill; Ulmus opaca ‘Troie!’ The Elm Tree Sweeney at Ephesus Sweeney at ‘Ugolino’s PiZZeria’
page 43 page 44 page 45 page 46 page 47
Károly Sándor Pallai; Choosing Silence Our Generation A Pelican Orgy My Bukowski
page 49 page 50 page 51 page 52
Gillian Prew; Moring with Gull Abattoir Blues This Other Winter April’s Disappointment
page 54 page 55 page 56 page 57
Krystyna Rawicz; Square Peg Worry Bird
page 59 page 60
Walter Ruhlmann; Disgust Infatuating Tune The Loss
page 62 page 63 page 64
Ian C Smith; Brothers in Law Wet Tuesday Where’s that book Youth
page 66 page 67 page 68 page 69 On The Wall
Message from the Alleycats
page 71
Maire Morrisey-Cummins; Maire’s work can be found
pages 73-75
Norman Olson Norman’s work can be found
pages 77-78
3
Round the Back Barbara Gabriella Renzi
pages 80-81
Manuscripts, art work and letters to be sent to: Submissions Editor A New Ulster 24 Tyndale Green, Belfast BT14 8HH Alternatively e-mail: g.greig3@gmail.com See page 52 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/
4
Published in Baskerville Produced in Belfast, Northern Ireland. All rights reserved The artists have reserved their right under Section 7 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 To be identified as the authors of their work.
5
Editorial April has left us now: a challenging month, to paraphrase The Wasteland ‚April is the cruellest month‛. Sudden weather shifts, health issues and technological hitches represented many of the challenges which faced us. So here we are the May issue of A New Ulster. Each issue is published online on the fourth of each month and thus we celebrate or share our publication with several events. On the one hand it is the unofficial ‚May the Fourth be with you‛ - an unofficial Star Wars holiday. No we have no special effects but here at A New Ulster we do agree that Han shot first. This fourth of May also sees several workers union marches taking place in celebration and solidarity with the 1913 Dublin Lockout. I watch the unfolding drama which is our economy with trepidation it is saddening to see so much work still needing done to make the world a better place for everyone. Thankfully we can bring a small ray of sunshine with the contents of this issue. We have an impressive range of poetry, fiction and art for your delectation. A New Ulster has developed a global presence issues are read worldwide and I am truly humbled by how many poets and countries we have encountered on this journey. Each issue is a collaborative production I would like to take this time to thank the poets and artists who have graced the pages of each issue. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Adam Rudden. Our website wouldn’t be what it is without his technological knowhow. Arizahn, who is the assistant editor and proof reader, juggles numerous hats within A New Ulster despite suffering from severe depression. Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity! Amos Greig
6
Biographical Note: Amy Barry Amy Barry writes poems and short stories. Her poems have been published in anthologies, journals, and e-zines, in Ireland and abroad. Travels to India, Nepal, China, Bali, Paris, Berlin, have all inspired her work. She lives in Athlone, Ireland.
7
A Love Reinvented
I love how he says my name, and how he kisses me on my nose not my lips, like the Maoris do. I want to embrace him, kiss him gently, make love to him, but with this love, it‘s hard to slow down, to examine the moment, as if the world shrinks, to his body, his face, then his lips, this wanting, every part of myself, to be only with him, the happiness in my soul, like walking in the garden in spring, flowers bloom, the fresh experience of a love, reinvented. Amy Barry 8
At the 75th Anniversary Dinner of ITTA
Extravagant embraces, sentimentality recounted. Trophies, photographs and memorabilia explored. Years of shared experience, friendship built on love, excitement, enchantment of the game.
In his youth, winning tournaments, a national champion. Eyes raging, veins throbbing at his temples, mental and physical exhaustion, the majesty of his playing! Waves of attacks, clever strategies, a cool eye, clear head, manoeuvring through aggressive opponents, the energy of a man possessed.
He collapses on the chair, exhausted, 9
like a man who has swam from shipwreck to shore, but tomorrow, the day will start all over again, the sun will shine, he will play, with fiercely contained passion.
We say goodbye. Shake hands; the familiar ‗Grip.‘ Reflecting, our still kept youth in this game of Table Tennis.
Amy Barry 10
A Blooming Lotus
I stood in the darkroom, watched your face slowly appear in the reddened liquid, overjoyed I‗d created it. A smile flickered to life, you seemed to be smiling directly at me, your face shone even in the autumn chill. I let my vision dissolve into the liquid and felt I was drowning. Drowning in your aroma, the scented Jasmine pinned to your hair. Your beauty, a rare kind, like a blooming lotus Amy Barry 11
War Child My life is not supposed to be like this. The air strike lights up the night sky as bright as day. Mother puts my head in her lap, I feel her stroking my hair. Pain rises in waves, crashing into me. My eyes, unable to focus, my hearing capable only of taking rhythm and cadence. Slowly words begin to take on discrete sounds, then come meaning and comprehension. Mother tells me I will be saved. When a person dies, the people cry. I can see mother crying. Dream fragments float past behind my eyes. Life hasn‘t been fair to me.
Amy Barry 12
Biographical Note: Lorraine Caputo Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her poetry and narratives have appeared in over 70 journals in Canada, the US and Latin America, as well as in eight chapbooks of poetry, five audio recordings and six anthologies. She has also authored several travel guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada chose Lorraine as poet of the month. She has made over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to the Patagonia. For the past decade, she has been traveling through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
13
JAGUAR DREAM Jaguar swims across the satin sea past the Islands Jaguar descends the cerro Slinking past sleeping homes past shuttered shops Slinking into my room into my somnolent Self
Lorraine Caputo 14
SLUMBER The wind breathes through the night, through the silent streets of this ancient city A whisper, a heavy sigh rattling the tin of a false roof A brittle wind chilling the light of distant stars in a royal sky The once-blue moon mutely waning, creeping towards the rim of a somnolent volcano
Lorraine Caputo 15
CHIMERA In the hour e‘ er the dawn, mist shrouds the mounts & moon. From the deserted square, a crisp wing beat—I see the flight of a large shadow.
Lorraine Caputo 16
ON THESE EQUATORIAL HEIGHTS Under the thunder moon, on these equatorial heights, the afternoons combust in sharp cracks & downpours—& in the night low clouds creep down streets
Lorraine Caputo
17
Biographical Note: Finnbar Howell Finnbar was born in Birmingham but moved to Ireland with his parents when he was six months old. He is currently studying Physics at UCD.
18
Darkness. Darkness behind the eyes. No-one sees me here, feels me here. I want no light in the Darkness. I want people to see that there is no light in the Darkness. The Darkness is fed, it grows. I fight it back. It grows again. I feed the Darkness, it feeds itself. I‘m lost in it. I cannot find my way. Father, I feel you here in the Darkness with me. I feel your pain, your loss, as we speak, each hiding how much we hurt from the other. Knowing the danger that hurt can do. Not wanting to feed each others Darkness. I want you to leave your Darkness, I want it as much as I have ever wanted. Your Darkness is tearing you from me. Your Darkness is taking me from yourself. But I cannot save you. And my Darkness grows. And I grow desperate.
Control. 19
Always control. Everything control. I want it. I don‘t want it. I fight for it. I fight it. I feel. What?
Wait. Weight.
A brief reprieve. All is well. The light shines. The factories run and life is produces. Work churns out. Poor work. The machines are rusted for want of use. And just as they begin to run smooth. Darkness returns.
I want. I am wanting, it is me Always. But I have, how can I have and want? I need what I have, I have what I want. All that I need that I do not have is before me… But I cannot pick it up.
Bleak. Like a Tundra. What is? I don‘t know, something.
Focus. Determination. Achievement. Wants. This is what I want. 20
Failure. Failure hangs over me. I’m going to fail. Always I feel it I know it. It terrifies me.
I love with above average intensity.
Success, what is my success? I always get what I want what do I want? I will get it. What’s the Plan? I can do anything and so I am condemned to be free.
LOOK AT ME! See me! See the Darkness behind my eyes! Feel the rage burning there. Burning with a black flame, giving off smoke as clean and white as brittle bones.
Finnbar Howell
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Biographical Note: Oonah V Joslin Oonah V Joslin was born in Ballymena and now lives in Northumberland from where she edits the e-zine Every Day Poets. Oonah has won three MicroHorror prizes and has judged both poetry and nmicrofiction competitions. You can find out more at http://www.oovj.wordpress.com
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A Far Cry Potatoes were the staple. That‘s no old wives‘ tale. You ate potatoes. Champ or parsley buns; boiled in their red skins, or peeled and cut. ―Quet jibblin‘‖ she‘d say ―and get them peeled or else there‘ll be no dinner the day.‖ She was aye ‗deaved‘ or ‗doiled‘ ‗scunnered wi‘ gowlin‘ we‘ens‘; her life one long mealtime. But I remember despite her onion eyes, love in a pot of hot stew; bacon, onion, boiled potato cubes, seasoned and simmering. Then bluebirds on the willow-pattern plate.
Oonah V Joslin 23
Affinity
calcium and fat blue in the vein and ripe stilton and me
Beyond us the world is full of things the hawk can see wave lengths beyond our capability an insight into bee activity the world is full of things we cannot see ultraviolet visibility veiled sunshine, black light, dark flowers, vole wee the world is full of things the hawk can see wave lengths beyond our capability
Oonah V Joslin 24
The Story of Dainty Dish Dainty was bored. Hey, diddle diddle, she thinks to herself; What am I doing here? This whole setting‘s just wrong for me. This pale cloth like a shroud... It‘s deadsville round here! There‘s got to be more to do than sit here and stew. And Plate — Now the knives were out — Plate‘s so... so...shallow. Everything here‘s bland whereas I have depth and colour and I‘m worth much more than this. I‘m downright dishy. In fact, well... tasty! A catch. Once more she saw herself reflected in Spoon‘s silvery bowl and this time she was sure he winked and she knew she‘d found her perfect match. Cat played fiddle at the wedding. Cow was over the moon and little dog laughed
25
and laughed and laughed. Silly mongrel! And Plate? Apart from an initial empty feeling he never really noticed she was gone. To him one receptacle was much like any other.
First published in Bewildering Stories 2012
Oonah V Joslin
26
Revolution maybe -- on the Wind Maybe grey, pale green, mottled shades of blue like the power station at Dunbar; or shiny, metallic, hexagonal tiles set at upward angles not to blind unsuspecting drivers‘ eyes; would sit less discordant. Aliens would use camouflage. These stalk roadsides, bestride hills, colonise the coast. Elongated ghosts of the air, their sci-fi stare, their scything blades go round. The fat cat who sits a-preening his whiskers atop of some far off corporate tree does not see the rotors turn regret a hill once free seashores fettered by technology. The root still feeds the tree. But if the tree no longer nurtures the root? Why, sir I hear blades.
Oonah V Joslin 27
Biographical Note: Steve Klepetar Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has been published widely in the U.S. and around the world. Steve has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Sweatshoppe Publications has just published his book Speaking to the Fieldmice.
28
A Thousand Things I Would Rather Say
Early September and already fickle leaves hang yellow or
scatter on dry grass. Someone is coming home, forcing his
weary way against wind. Cracked sidewalks, same smell of car exhaust
and dust, same widows forging uphill, dragging shopping carts
that bang against their reedy legs. There are a thousand things I would
rather say than this: my eyes ache, broken on this scurrying scene
of glass and bricks and half-starved cats.
Steve Klepetar 29
On the Way Down You will meet a woman who sings through smoke and a cat with a human face that will whisper to you across her rough tongue. On the way down you will meet three spiders: one will be black, and marked with three red spots, one will be brown and one will wind you in her silver threads and teach you to see in the dark. On the way down you will taste earth and lime, you will thirst for the waters of silence, you will placate the king of bats. On the way down you will leave your rings and your watch. You will undo your belt and pitch your phone into a fissure. Your clothes will scatter in cold wind, your strong legs will disappear. With your keys, you will scratch your name into rock until it becomes unfamiliar, a rune carved like a door into cave walls. Your hands you will leave, and your eyes. Your mouth will become a silent hole, another chasm in halls of change. On the way down you will come to understand shadow, flickering and impermanent, dancing with manic joy through your unencumbered brain.
Steve Klepetar 30
Rooted Rainy Lake, Minnesota
Today you are rooted to a single spot, not idle so much as weighted to a small circumference, a little plot of earth on a green meadow not far from Rainy Lake, with jays colluding around a clump of apple trees. Squawking in spring air, they have your number, know you can barely lift your legs, if those long tubers stretching through the ground can still be called by that strange sounding name. You were a mammal once, maybe, or was that some fading dream of teeth and nails and the taste of smoke and salt on what used to be your tongue? When it rained, did you bend and rush toward shelter? Did wind worry you along the path? Today your name is lost among clouds, a foreign sound, guttural and harsh among birdsong and tireless croaking of all those blithe and mystical frogs.
Steve Klepetar 31
Biographical Note: Maire Lecrivain Marie Lecrivain is a writer, photographer, and the editor of poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Cuib Nest Nido, Illumen, Maintanent, The Los Angeles Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Shwibly, and others.
Her
poetry
collection,
Love
Poems...
Yes...
REALLY... Love Poems (Š 2013 Sybaritic Press), is available through Amazon.com.
.
32
April 2, 1863 Stealing to eat ain't criminal-stealing to be rich is. - Andrew Vachss Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by war, politics, and avarice. Now, add the deep-seated rage of a mother not able to feed her progeny. Multiply this formula by seven hundred strong; the result... an estrogen-fueled tsunami of righteousness that flooded the streets and byways of affluent towns, smashed against the windows and doors of opportunity closed for so long, their foamy hands found salt and wheat, force and freedom; the four alchemical factors to foment revolution, all while a displaced king screamed pleas and denunciations, and tossed tokens into the whirlwind in a vain attempt to suspend the perpetual tide of familial devotion.
Marie Lecrivain 33
Behutet: the Moment of Al-Khemia I am alone, there is no God where I am. - Ch. 2, v. 23, Liber AL vel Legis Many are called, and few are chosen, to find IT... who stumble through the aeons to follow the fading glory of an external Source, while within the heart is the ember that needs only the breath of wisdom to kindle into being, the immortal spark that becomes the winged secret flame that burns in every heart of man, that core of stardust that is YOU... alone...
Marie Lecrivain
34
on wednesday evening... The water cascades into a less-than-sparkling tub. I add rose-scented bath salts to banish the scent of failure that clings to feet, the backs of my knees, the undersides of my breasts, a top note of guilty compost that follows me everywhere. I read another bard‘s book of poems, imbibe a glass of spirits, breathe in the moist aromas of sunset roses and flesh as my mind is assaulted by the sound of a hundred voices telling me to go away... until I rise from the bath, and my dream swirls down the drain, leaving me encircled with a ring of every defeat I tried to drown.
Marie Lecrivain 35
Biographical Note: Mรกire Morrissey-Cummins Mรกire resides in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. She is early retired and has found joy in writing and art. She loves to get lost in words or paint. She has been published with Every Day Poets, Wordlegs, The First Cut, New Ulster, Open Road Review, The Galway Review, Bray Arts, Notes from the Gean, A Hundred Gourds, Lynx and many online and print magazines worldwide.
She is a member of Haiku Ireland and loves to write this short form of poetry. She was listed in the top 100 European Haiku writers for 2012.
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Winter Bluebells In memory of my father East winds drive sleet showers, the grey shroud of January deepens. Frozen snow lies comatose between barren branches, roads and paths lost under a mantel of white, the village impassable, lifeless. I picture a pale sun, wish I could cradle it, staving off these icy days of Winter. Nights nip, snap at wrists and ankles numbing pallid flesh. I burrow under the duvet, shiver myself warm with images of Spring. I colour the darkness with sun-filled daffodils, and scent them with fountains of glassy green, and in my dreams I find you, frosted bluebells in my hands.
Mรกire Morrissey-Cummins
37
Railway Tracks Slate rooftops stack across a leaden sky. I gaze through rain spattered windows at a busy Railway from our fifth floor room at the Queens Hotel, and I am anxious, hemmed in by city walls of faded cardinal. Tangled trees twist, irked by the razor slant of sleet. A Union Jack warps around a rusty pole, roiled by frigid February winds, naked branches drip with Winter. Trains slam into the station, strangers footsteps dash wet pavements, heavy shadows stomp the cold black of day, and I am once again a little girl, lost and alone, running across knotted streets, crouching in obscure doorways, listening for the shriek of a smoking engine to find my way home.
Mรกire Morrissey-Cummins
38
Selection of Haiku (Japanese short form poetry) black night -rain washed streets glisten under lamplight
silence sprinkles from butterfly wings -new dawn
cold moon -the stars fold in mourning
walking between long shadows -spring sunshine
tall branches yawn into the light -primrose daybreak
open door -light spills into the darkness
leaking pen – dripping bouquets of poetry
hotel ruin -wildflowers dance in the old ballroom 39
wet Spring -cherry blossoms rusty with rain washing day – storing the fresh scent of linen old letters from France -grape stained old school diary -colouring my life on every page blackbird dawn a choir outside my window rosy hue on the horizon her peaceful passing waters of Spring -washing Winter from the skies the yellow glow of daffodils sun soaked bright morning in the spiders web a string of beads
MĂĄire Morrissey-Cummins 40
Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill Born in Cork in 1967, Peter O'Neill spent the majority of the nineties in France before returning to live in Dublin before the millennium and where he has been living ever since. His debut collection of poetry, 'Antiope', was published in February 2013 by Stonesthrow Press.
In August he will address the 'Beckett and the State of the Nation Conference' at University College Dublin, his subject being Heraclitus and Beckett. 'The Trees of Ephesus', from which the five poems enclosed come from,
is
his
fifth
collection
41
of
poetry.
ulmus opaca For Seamus Heaney
vegetative fibrous roots and boughs, horrendum stridens delicately coiled around each arrow-headed leaf. this architectural wonder of the elm trees, with the great lozenge passing overhead, its cosmicity, encircling the globe, below the unfolding palms of the branches seemingly gracing the orb in playful embrace, illuminating, at the same time, the lantern phenomenon of the day tree, pre-figuring the street lights, nature‘s civic pride on full display with the light trees. ―Look, no wires!‖ she seems to say, we the so called guardians in clear distress, seemingly oblivious.
Peter O‘Neill
42
‘Troie!’
Whore in English, ‗Troie‘ in Italiano. Or, one from Troy – not Trojan, but like Helen! La belle Helene reduced to a mere putana, This is what they call ‗them‘ here. Within the Microcosm of this solitary word We have the genesis of the Mediterranean; Everything is still so proximate. Whether it is the whores in Palermo, Or indeed those within the Parlemento, As they are called by Battiato: ― Troie!...Troie!...Troie!...Troie!” See within the oracle of the word The Ships of the Aecheans burning, Hear also the stigmata of the universally accursed.
Peter O‘Neill
43
The Elm Tree
As Eugene Montale once wrote, poets from distant ages passed Have always eulogised about very specific plants and trees. He himself had his lemon, while Cesar and Dante before Him had both their laurels and bays. And in England didn‘t Marvell himself continue that tradition, the English were Always fascinated with Italian gardens, a fascination, As our great country houses show, which still endures. Now, pan in to a modern housing estate built on the cusp Of the great 21st century downturn, not quite exactly Ghostly, but more a development abandoned. So, that When I look out my main window, from this two bedRoomed apartment, I can see just this lone elm before me, Evoking more Godot than Belvedere... It stands solitary, Yet upward; ablaze against the abyss of changing cloud.
Peter O‘Neill
44
Sweeney at Ephesus
And Sweeney stood there before the tree. I could be anywhere, he thought, scratching his head. Eden, Ephesus or Portmarnock on the seventh! I could even be one of those tramps in Godot, Waiting for just enough rope. Or, out in The badlands that were once the AmaZon. Such is metaphor, he thought, grounded in The literal. He approached it, touching it. Its bark felt rough against his soft palm, It came as a kind of shock to him, the sensation. And that is when it came to him, the sudden realisation. That this was no Elm, nestling within the shades of Hell, But something far less portentuous. More like A symbol then, on which he had yet to attach a sign.
Peter O‘Neill
45
Sweeney at ‘ Ugolino’s PiZZeria’
Strategically placed by the train station In a small town called Siliqua in southern Sardinia, There under the Kafkaesque shadows of il castello di Aquafredda, Sweeney sat out of it (the heat), sipping Eine perle de natura. The television screen Spewed out image after atrocious image of some Scenes from Aleppo, corpses rolled up like mummies And were laid out side by side. Till one of the diners Complained, wanting to see the match. As the proprietor stepped in bearing the remote Switch like a prize, Il Cavaliere next appeared Grinning buffoonishly, before pronouncing to The assembled gathering, ― Vergognativi... Voi siete dei povera ignorante stupida!‖ The footballers leather transformed then into a human head.
Peter O’Neill 46
Biographical Note: Károly Sándor Pallai Károly Sándor Pallai is a PhD student at Eötvös Loránd University - Budapest. He‘s the conceptor, founder and editor in chief of the international electronic review of literary creation and theory Vents Alizés. He writes and publishes poetry in French, English, Creole, Hungarian and Spanish. His poetry has appeared in electronic and print journals in France, Canada, the USA, the Seychelles, Hungary and the Philippines. His collection of poems Soleils invincibles was published by Éditions Arthée in 2012. His play Mangeurs d'anémones has just come out. In acknowledgement of his theoretical, poetical and editorial work, he has been chosen among the „50 Young Hungarian Talents‖ by the La femme magazine. website: http://pallaikaroly.com
47
Choosing Silence Sounds of a silver-yellow melody fold back in the cracks of the window. The notes stumble over my apathy and plunge into the drain. I flush the toilet indifferently and creep towards the window by stealth to map the street and the source of the sound. A fragile little sparrow is raging with anger, trying to talk back to the frantic blasts of wind blowing from parliaments and state houses. It‘s hit on the mouth, intimidated and deprived of the achievements of postmodern age. We don‘t have this courage. We‘re all waiting for organ transplants, longawaited promotions, fortune, sex kittens, success or silicon breasts. Our life is an appendix to energy interests, market tendencies and the fluctuations of power. The necessary but accessory workforce, an indolent illustration of decay soothed with falling crumbs of ancient glory and the golden days of primeval nudity. We‘re now usufructuary citizens of obedient submission. Recharged batteries of the remote control, antiaging creams, a more energy-saving food waste grinder, lip augmentation. We choose silence.
Károly Sándor Pallai 48
Our Generation Flexible, pornographic clouds caress my ears and my neck. Sensual, wet licking while I‘m loafing on the roofs. We‘re secret lovers like in a tale of chivalry. The gleaming genitals of distant painters and adult movie actresses overshadow the crimson skies. Late afternoon of a fading day, charcoal on your lips that you kiss on the faces of elders passing by, confetti on the branches: leftover of a new year‘s eve. We polish and chisel each other like a luxurious manicure set. Just you and I in the fading afternoon: retired tigers fighting for bodily pleasures. This is our generation; a generation of human trafficking and sex slavery. You‘ll be my stepping stone, my wet and hot shelter in these days. Cheap workforce, military use and abuse of children, ruined lives as we‘re trying to bridge the all the fiscal cliffs in the world. Lung roses sit over our heads as clouds, like bald caucasus. This world desperately needs a life-saving laryngotomy, an infusion of compassion and never-ending rains of blessing. We need to recruit immediately the best architects of grace.
Károly Sándor Pallai 49
A Pelican Orgy A lousy, slobbery bird tries to make its way in the air traffic, in the crowd of migrating pelicans. I see the violet stains on their tuxedos: they must have had a copious caviar dinner and a game of cards before the heart attack or before losing their virginity. We‘re standing right under this celestial traffic jam, under this avian upheaval of a new renaissance. Unshaven, we‘re standing in the middle of a human phalanx gathered to witness a shrieking orgy, the flying love-making of a black-andwhite turmoil. Suddenly, we hear a sneezing and then silence. Time stands still, the birds grow stiff and comes an absolute silence that settles in drugstores, bars, sits on our eyelashes and oozes into our drinks. The pelicans make no more sound: probably tuberculosis or a paralysis of the lungs. I‘m thinking that they should be hospitalized, or sent to a TB sanatorium. Is there one for pelicans? Maybe birds should also undergo pulmonary screening from time to time. Then the silence was over and the pelicans went on tour with their performance.
Károly Sándor Pallai 50
My Bukowski Perverseness often seems very seductive somehow. Putridity, depravity, profligacy and freedom, the freedom of making the wrong choices, going crazy from time to time, cutting the rags of our lives amidst hilarious laughter. Violating taboos like sex, good manners, marital intimacy, alcohol and addictions of all sorts. A fresco of our age: of our derailed attempts at transgression and narrow-minded rebellion. This is a false peace before a real breach in the tissue of time and space, before a new wildfire of negation and contestation. This is my bukowski turning grey in filth but never fading. Where does life go after death, does it creep out of the body through the pores? Is it given to someone else? Will it go to a cinema or dance halfnaked and drunk? Who gets your life when it‘s gone? Will this new, re-implanted life take showers, drink beers, write poems on a century-old typewriter? My bukowski: stroking the butt of a sexy girl and mounting a torrent of existential crisis. Strange towers are burning outside in the roaring night as he laughs and shades into the horror vacui.
KĂĄroly SĂĄndor Pallai 51
Biographical Note: Gillian Prew Gillian Prew lives in Scotland and is the author of two chapbooks: DISCONNECTIONS (erbacce-press, 2011), and In the Broken Things (Virgogray Press, 2011). A further book is forthcoming from Lapwing Publications in 2013.
Her poems have been published widely online and in print, including Danse Macabre du Jour, Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Glasgow Review, The Recusant and Ink Sweat & Tears. She has twice been short-listed for the erbacce-prize.
You can find her online at http://gillianprew.com/
52
Morning with Gull
Morning with gull under its throat a horror
a gift of sorts hollering
to collected birdsong the rumour of dark heartbeats. Slapped and flung like green water over a lip pressed and wintery
the air here
so loud
and far off I have salt for a tongue. I am an onlooker with two gazes and only one was born wrong.
This one
poetic child, its mother swaddled bone. A knot for a sun making sorrow seem wrong, a fist to put my eye to.
Gillian Prew 53
Abattoir Blues
“This open stone is it you, this wrecked house, How can one die?� - Yves Bonnefoy
February lands like a lake, the whole water of winter emptying.
We collaborate like clouds, the rain bluntly sown, our art drowned in pieces. Perhaps we are white now
saved
by a wild epitaph that shaves abattoirs a glabrous clean,
that shoots blue in the air.
And of the stiffening pink, the bagged-up hearts we forget
they are gone now, they are not ours.
Gillian Prew 54
This Other Winter
“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” —Leo Tolstoy
Resting this other winter on the rust muscle of my tongue I hear all that is violent in one red sound safe behind my own blue arm.
Where the sun comes
there is the loud dead; a knot of dragged dogs and their blood; the clouds reddening like cut swans.
The ruddled sides,
flashing with flies, of bodies hauled to a swinging weight; their wrecked eyes slamming the room of their grave. And the air slaps violet to the wounds‘ gauze, and the gun buds bloom like sunflowers,
and as all the
colours shift to black
I hear all the good things splinter.
Gillian Prew 55
April’s Disappointment
The wind, it barks, and the forests are without treetops. Dreich, the veil of air reminds me grey-quiet. A brighter sound, lonely for a scent. A head-down daffodil a petal from ruin.
The people
stuffed in the gut with jobs and carcasses. Must, must a durable soul be driven down further?
Elsewhere
the sun shines, the ground is warm, the flowers are bloomed proud.
Gillian Prew 56
somewhere,
Biographical Note: Krystyna Rawicz Krystyna Rawicz was born in Birmingham in 1963, the youngest child of Polish parents. She moved to Ireland in the early 90's.
In between raising her four children and running a business, she likes to write and play with paint and other mediums.
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Square Peg Worked hard all my life to make The square peg that is me fit The round hole of my life. Jammed and squeezed me in to Space that is too small; hacked off Rough edges to make myself fit. It's time; time to make the hole Bigger, to expand the life to fit Each and every part of me. Reclaim those rough edges. Feel And know the sharpness of my angles. Make a life fit for this square peg.
Krystyna Rawicz 58
Worry Bird The worry bird is flapping his wings, and tapping his beak against the glass, trying to get my attention. Flap. Tap. Flap. Catching the edge of my awareness; whispering through the keyhole - "psst psst psst". Reminding me that I've forgotten to worry. Anxiety blooms as I wonder what it is I've forgotten to worry about. The worry bird is black, beady eyed, stares through the glass, and flaps and flutters his dark dark wings. Peck, peck, peck, the rythmic tap of his sharp beak on the thin glass. He's not going to leave unheard. I slide open the glass and shoo him, clap my hands to chase him off. Worry bird, you have no purpose, I don't WANT you here, peering in, pecking and flapping and trying to scare me. I take an old sheet and throw it over you. You struggle and flap as I wrap the sheet tight. I wonder where I can put you, to hide you out of sight, keep you out of mind. If I kill you, I'll never forget you, you'll haunt me day and night, 59
peck and flap in my head forever. Here's what I'll do; I'll bring you in. Unwrap you gently and let you loose. See if maybe we can make friends. I'm scared of your pecky beak, scared of your flappy wings. More scared of you really than I knew. You look at me sideways, out of that yellow, staring eyr. You're hungry for worries, that's why you peck and peck. Maybe I can feed you my worries one by one, bit by bit. Watch as you swallow them down. Then, when you're sated, I'll open the window; put you on the cill. Watch you stretch your black wings wide. Take off and flap - flap - flap get further and smaller in the sky taking my worries away with you.
Krystyna Rawicz 60
Bibliographical Note: Walter Ruhlmann Walter Ruhlmann works as an English teacher, edits mgversion2>datura and runs mgv2>publishing. Walter is the author of several poetry chapbooks and e-books in French and English and has published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in various printed and electronic publications world wide.
Once nominated for Pushcart Prize, his latest collections are "Maore" published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast, 2013 and "Carmine Carnival" published by Lazarus Media, USA, 2013.
His blog http://thenightorchid.blogspot.fr/
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Disgust Disgust took us last Saturday its vivid veil falling on us and covering our lives, the breaths we were given, voluntarily or not. Disgust is like the fog invading the greenish moors around us rocks and ghost trees, grey gloomy ghouls guarding those implacable marshes. The smell of it is like petrol invading the nostrils of this nine-year-old child at the back of the car sucking on the temples of those sun glasses made of plastic. The filling of the tank exploding in his nose. It can also be like the acrid odour of puke when six or seven years later he entered the dark corridor of lust. Disgust is shaped like some misshaped mass in motion. Monitoring our senses and our existences.
Walter Ruhlmann 62
Infatuating Tune A year from now, the piano clanged and chimed in my deaf ears. Walking down the stairs to the yard, I heard it buzzing once again – a gloomy recollection, a fearful sign, an omen – it meant waves of darkness and doubts and dusk were on their way back. This time though the spill comes from inside a branch that cracked, a root that ceased to be, an existence elapsed or still held by some thread, a thin cotton wool fibre the flames of hell approach. The upright piano sheltered by the chess queen, the wrong chords threatened easiness. Meals gulped and glasses smashed, debris remain on the floor. The tolling bell made me jump, the phone rings when death comes.
Walter Ruhlmann
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The Loss Why would I choose to loose when all I have to do is love? Loosing can take the shape of flies circling above your head in the mid-summer moist air in a kitchen filled with buzzing black beasts falling down into the sink getting stuck onto the glued strip. The dark room where these straw hats hung, the toilets of the chessboard queen, these afternoons with beer or sparkling water mixed with lemon juice, and chocolate chips. The loss was there already in the air, the spirit of it lingered in moist corners, on the tombstones we would clean, on the paths to the church they would drag me to, on the roofs made of wood, made of straw, made of infinite nightmares. I chose to accept loosing bits of me, parts of my health, limbs and neurons, organic cells, just to make sure I would keep you forever the space I've made was not enough and though I held your hand in your last breath the loss has taken all the room that's left.
Walter Ruhlmann
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Biographical Note: Ian C Smith
Ian C Smith‘s work has appeared in Axon:Creative Explorations,The Best Australian Poetry, Island, Poetry Salzburg Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Southerly,& Westerly His latest book is Here Where I Work,Ginninderra Press (Adelaide). He lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.
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Brothers-in-law
More than a decade of collaboration does its bit to change English poetry an enviable example of mutual genius‘ conjugation kindled by sincere affection. Voluble, rheumatic Sam develops a habit. William and his women take him in even as he warns about petticoat government. Hope for a joint superpoem‘s fruition buttresses William who weathers this trough his opinions, once so radical, fading until the realization of friendship‘s end as Sam‘s brilliance spasms between swoons lapsing into word-choked near-lunacy. Given this and William‘s prickly ego the walker wounded, the wit self-saturated their estrangement could be scripted. Who will be cast in the Hollywood biopic? When they reunited lost years later the ashes of the Romantic Period lay cold.
Ian C Smith
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Wet Tuesday Rain today like a worry always at memory‘s edge. I‘m stuck inside, my luck to wander from room to room, pick up a book, read a few pages, put it down & stare into the past, sigh while rain washes our windows like rain in a Hemingway story. I read a page & the main character drinks bourbon at the end of pain. I immediately want a drink, now, the middle of this wet day. Something disturbing about these non-events. Why am I reminded of a time when I walked home along our road & heard a distant rushing noise wind hurrying across the land toward me? I stood quite still in the still air thinking What‘s that? Then it rushed through, fluttering leaves of high trees & my hair, my skin, like a woman‘s caressing fingers, before everything grew calm again. I can‘t reason what‘s bothering me but I‘m jittery, a cat before a storm. That much is certain. I check the time. You‘d better come home, break this spell. 67
Where’s that book?
The children beginners, we searched dense crowds together, avid for a skinny man. Questing tension mounting, we strained to scan that mob to be the first to cry aloud There! pointing in gleeful recognition of this peoplescape fox from those glad times who lured us beyond quaint nursery rhymes to developing their precognition.
Sophisticated texts moved them ahead dealing with issues more complicated than alliteration illustrated hunting needed VCE scores instead. Surrounded on a superseded shelf a man in a striped jersey waves to himself.
Ian C Smith
68
Youth
Here comes Ian Smith, look at him, whiffy disapproval under a whiskery nose worrying the rest of his faux-suffering face. ButIknewhimasatattooedne’er-do-well. Has he forgotten or is this yet another example of selective memory-warp? This poet-dreamer has distanced himself from the community of one that was him when he never fretted about the bomb, wouldn’tbebotheredaboutglobalwarming if polar ice was then as terminal as manners, didn’tcareaboutglobalanything, people slaughtering people, rampant greed, other constants like lies, which he told if it stoked his needs, which was often to do with seduction or other solipsisms on past roads that petered into cul-de-sacs. Listen to the priestly-wiseoldfart’scant. He’swhitewashedhisblood-red fizz to live. I know he has. I knew him long ago.
Ian C Smith 69
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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MAY 2013'S MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS: This month, we want to remind everyone that longer prose fiction is very welcome, but will be published in serial format. The Alleycats also have a Facebook presence now…well, Arizahn does. There may be occasional articles published there. As cats, we are not very computer literate! 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: Mรกire Morrissey-Cummins Mรกire is Irish, married with two adult children. She lived abroad for many years, working in Holland mainly and Mรกire lives between Wicklow, Ireland and Trier, Germany at present. She loves nature and is a published haiku writer. Mรกire retired early from the Financial Sector and found art and poetry. She is really enjoying the experience of getting lost in words and paint.
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Celtic Woman by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
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Cliff Walk by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
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Summer Landscape by Maire Morrissey-Cummins
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Biographical Note: Norman Olson Norman is a 65 year old small press poet and artist. Since 1984, he has published hundreds of poems and drawings in literary journals - both in print and on line, and in three separate books of poetry and art. http://www.nomanjolson.com
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Five figures and a Tree branch by Norman Olson
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Ink Drawing Fingers of Time by Norman Olson
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Biographical Note: Barbara Gabriella Renzi Barbara Gabriella Renzi is a philosopher and a linguist. She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals and monographs in English and in Italian. She is a published poet in Italy. She loves reading short stories and painting the Belfast sky.
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In the Name of Women When I was little, I didn‘t spend much time with my grandmother. For a start, she used to live quite far away. Secondly, she didn‘t speak my language well, which made any communication difficult. However, I clearly remember a day when we were talking, sitting on an old sofa in her house. (Her house was a bit smelly, I have to say: it smelt of old things and of old age.) We were sitting there and she told me: ―I have something to show you‖. And she took an old black box, which was hidden in a blanket. She opened the box, slowly. Inside there was a very old book, it smelled leathery. It smelled funny. Well, I had enough... I was fed up of smelling strange odours and really wanted to switch on the TV or do something. But my granny looked at me and said be quiet for a moment and start reading. She opened the book, it was written in a weird language, and I said: ―Look I cannot really read this stuff... what kind of language is that!‖ My granny with her small brown eyes stared at me and said: ―Read! This is the language of women... you can understand it, it is your language...you are old enough.‖ I started looking at the text and the strange words began to make sense, one after the other... I was listening to my soul speaking. And my soul was saying: “Hi! My name is Miriam. I am Jesus’s mother. With my friend Martha, we have decided to tell you the most important story of the Gospels, the one that for sexist reasons was left out. They go on and on about all the miracles, but they forget to tell you about the most important miracle of all, the fact that a woman alone, running away from the Romans managed to give birth alone and survived the event. And that her baby survived the event too. They forget to tell you of her pain, her loneliness and her need for calm and peace. I was heavily pregnant, weak and I could not sleep well. I am not sure what was going on in my body, probably it was preparing itself for the event. And I had to pee so often, every five minutes... what a nightmare. Everybody was very worried about numerous things: the Romans, the war, the politics...well I was there, tired, round, big and 80
giant. And I wanted to rest, to have a warm soup and to think about nice things, of when I was little, when I was playing with my cousins and sisters... We started running to go on a cart that was bringing us in a safe area... my belly was bouncing and I was so tired... I felt I was going to be sick soon... and everybody was worried about the Romans, the politics and everything else, but not about a woman who was about to give birth, probably to risk her life (Jesus was my first child, and everybody knows that the first child is the most dangerous). I was in need of peace, assistance and calm... and the world could not care less (as usual). I was in need of being heard and considered. I used to be a strong, independent woman... but at that moment I needed others for help.... But there was no time.... we were in a cart and running away from the Romans... the cart was bouncing I needed so much to pee.... I think it was the weight of my baby... I think I peed myself. I delivered on my own, I was just lucky, I guess. I can’t remember much, just that it was painful and I didn’t have much time to think. There were animals near me and there was another woman, in the same hut. A Roman. A poor Roman. A woman. She wasn’t so lucky. She died and her baby too. Nobody was there to help her. The Romans were running after their enemies and they were forgetting about their women. I won’t forget her, although everybody did.”
The book was longer, there were stories .... millions of stories... My granny looked at me... she said those are the stories of women who are not told, they are written in women‘s language, your language. In a man‘s world, the losers are always women, no matter their birth, their nationalities, their origins. Nothing has changed from Maria‘s time. The book is now thicker than at my granny‘s time. Millions of stories are there. Millions of stories that need to be told aloud!
Barbara Gabriella Renzi
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LAPWING PUBLICATIONS RECENT, NEW And FORTHCOMING TITLES 9781907276798 Martin Domleo The Haunted Barn: A Novella 9781907276804 Helen Soraghan Dwyer Beyond 9781907276811 Richard Brooks Metaphysical Flaw 9781907276828 Martin Burke For / Because / After 9781907276835 Gerry McDonnell Ragged Star 9781907276842 James O’Sullivan Kneeling on the Redwood Floor 9781907276859 Una ni Cheallaigh Salamander Crossing 9781907276866 Teresa Lally Doll 9781907276873 Lynne Edgar Trapeze 9781907276880 Paul Tobin Blessed by Magpies 9781907276897 Laurence James Deliquesence of Dust 9781907276903 Marc Carver London Poems 9781907276910 Iain Britton druidic approaches 9781907276927 Gillian Somerville-Large Karamania 9781907276934 Martha Rowsell Another Journey Like This 9781907276941 Kate Ashton The Concourse of Virgins 9781907276958 Martin Domleo Sheila 9781907276965 Tommy Murray Swimming with Dolphins 9781907276972 John O’Malley Invisible Mending 9781907276989 J.C.Ireson The Silken Ladder 9781907276996 Mariama Ifode Senbazuru 9781909252004 Keeper of the Creek Rosy Wilson 9781909252011 Ascult? Linitea Vorbind hear silence speaking x Peter Sragher 9781909252028 Songs of Steelyard Sue J.S. Watts 9781909252035 Paper Patterns Angela Topping 9781909252042 Orion: A Poem Sequence Rosie Johnston 9781909252059 Disclaimer Tristan Moss 9781909252066 Things out of Place Oliver Mort 9781909252073 Human Shores Byron Beynon 9781909252080 The Non Herein Michael McAloran 9781909252097 Chocolate Spitfires Sharon Jane Lansbury 9781909252103 Will Your Spirit Fly? Richard Brooks 9781909252110 Out of Kilter George Beddows intro x Jeremy Reed 9781909252127 Eruptions Jefferson Holdridge (out soon) 9781909252134 In the Consciousness of Earth Rosalin Blue 9781909252141 The Wave Rider Eva Lindroos (out soon) There are other new works in various stages of preparation. All titles £10.00 per paper copy Or In PDF format £5.00 for 4 titles.
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