The Words Zine issue 3

The Words Zine MOTHER MOON

SETANTA

MILLIONS

STARTED

MEN

SPRAY

MATES

SCONES

METAL

SPEAKING

MARMALADE

SUMMER

MEMORIES

SILENCE

MINUTE

SNOOZE

MAHON FALLS MEANINGLESSNESS

SUNBATHING SHOVEL

ISSUE # 3 € 2 by the WORDS Writers Group performing @ The Art Hand

Dear Readers, Welcome to the third issue of The Words Zine which is a quarterly publication of original material created by the Words writers group performing @ The Art Hand. Back issues of the Zine are now available to view in Waterford City Library, and are freely available online at www.issuu.com/TheArtHand.

This issue contains a varying array of poetry and short stories inspired by many things, from the Fruitfield Orange Marmalade jar to the Copper Coast and the recent crazy storms. So take your pick and dive into the imaginary world of our writers!

The next WORDS event will be held on Wednesday the 2nd of April at 7.45pm and the first Wednesday of every month. I hope to hear and see all your performances via Skype from Spain!

Remember non-writers are also welcome.

Finally I would like to remind everyone to email your submissions for the next issue of the WORDS Zine to me by the 9th of May at roisin_ph@hotmail.com. More details of how to submit are available at www.TheArtHand.com/words.

The Editor, Róísín Power Hackett Produced @ The Art Hand www.TheArtHand.com Find us on Facebook Bookings: 051 292919 Layout and Images: Sean Corcoran Distribution: Tom Power

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WRITER Ceridwen Goch Kathryn Curran Tom Power Matty Tamen Enya Eccleston Fina Eccleston James Eccleston Bird Tree Eccleston Niall McCann Róísín Power Hackett Judith Flynn Tommy Shillabeer Page 2

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Mother Moon has WORDS! Here are some details about our very special guest Cheryl Beer who will be bringing her magical tales to the Words event this month...

Award Winning Storyteller & Songwriter Cheryl Beer is The Story Weaver: unpicking the threads of fairytales to weave new stories for folk of today. After a lifetime of performing, she has been reinvigorating her craft, returning to the University of South Wales at Cardiff’s School of Creative and Cultural Industries, securing a Centenary Award to study an MA Drama, where she is putting her storytelling under the microscope. The result has been the beginning of a dynamic and exciting collection of new stories.

Mother Moon is based on an autobiographical character, Ceridwen Goch and her struggle to come to terms with menopause. Set on the West Wales coastline, Cheryl uses the fairytale format to teach the character how to believe in her inner self. The piece earned Cheryl a Distinction in her practical exam this month.

She will be bringing Mother Moon, weaving her way to WORDS @ The Art Hand, having been kindly invited by Sean & Miranda Corcoran.

You can chat with the character Ceridwen Goch on facebook as she has her own page: www.facebook.com/ceridwengoch or you can look at Cheryl’s work at www.cherylbeer.co.uk

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True Joy in a Jar

by Kathryn Curran

Last Friday I was doing my grocery shopping, a weekly activity that does not usually light my fire. At the check-out something that was once familiar yet did not belong to today, caught my attention.

Fruitfield Old Time Irish Orange Marmalade was the product in question and I rummaged through the jars looking for a particular one.

No…not quite it…no peel, fine peel and… found it, the only coarse cut peel jar left.

Yes! It all but had my name on it. I was salivating at the childhood memory of Old Time Irish coarse cut marmalade on batch loaf. Delicious!

The label too brought back warm cosy memories of me staring at it while enjoying the aforementioned treat. The beautiful traditional fireplace reminded me of the one in my grandmother’s house. That was a lovely house to visit and even to stay in.

I was permanently stuffed on home baked bread, scones, buns and tarts. There was no central heating so we would get dressed for bed and dressed in the morning by the big cosy fireplace. Sometimes we were allowed to use the bellows as a special treat.

The chair in the label is the same as a chair I have in my kitchen today. It was my grand aunt’s chair and I learned all of my nursery rhymes on her knee as we sat on this chair by the range at home in the farmhouse where I grew up. Auntie lived Page 4

with us. I was almost eight when she died and felt lonely for a long while after her death, every time I looked at her empty chair where we had such lovely times together. I felt loved by her. Many times since, I have sat on this chair with a child on my knee and bounced them through Yankee Doodle, Ride a Cockhorse and Row the Boat.

Old Time Irish - what a lovely phrase, I used to try to copy the Celtic lettering on the back of an envelope that the postman had just delivered. The soft cushions on the sofa by the fire and the orange hues not only reflect the marmalade inside but also the warm glow of the big log fire on the label. I could almost feel the heat.

And of course the cat, dare I say it, a marmalade cat…looking dreamily into the fire. Anywhere there’s a cat, there’s comfort. Yes that’s the word to sum up the whole experience.

Comfort...

Comforting...

Comfortable...

I couldn’t wait to get home to cover a slice of fresh bread generously with butter and Old Time Irish Marmalade and sink back in Auntie’s chair and savour the moment while connecting with happy childhood memories.

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The Copper Coast, what Is It?

by Tom Power

The Copper Coast, what is it? Can you give me an answer?

It’s a work in progress; it’s a young and old dancer.

Millions of years in the making, it’s yesterday and today, and it’s also tomorrow and our D N A. It’s a song of the sea, a lament on the wire, and crafted by ice, water and fire.

It is poetry and prose, and it is art and it is craft, today being serious, tomorrow just acting daft.

Now it is farming and factories, where once it was mines, it’s eating and Guinness, it is red and white wines.

It’s got lakes and walks, inland and on shore, caverns and taverns and a welcome at the door.

It is a fisherman on the rocks, a boat out on the blue, it’s swimming and diving and kayaking too.

It is mackerel and lobster, seals here and whales, a wave skipping speed boat, or wind in your sails.

It is calm and it’s tranquil, a beauty, a beast, and a razor sharp wind blowing up from the east.

It’s a roaring sou’ wester’ forming huge land battering waves, and thunderous noises emitted from caves.

It’s a sea safety centre to organise searches, it is winkles and Dillisk and sea birds on high perches.

It is castle and cottage, grassland and bog, damp swirling mist and dense drifting fog.

It is a beautiful evening in the middle of June, and waves on the beach rehearsing a tune.

It’s been a home to paupers and kings on the throne, and the sound of the fishing boats as they make their way home.

It’s a picnic, a barbecue, a walk hand in hand, building sandcastles and your shoes full of sand.

It’s a walk on the wild side and wish you were here, or a snooze in the evening on your favourite chair.

It’s got mountains and rivers and valleys so green, it’s a home for the young and old, and all in between It is sunbathing and lazing and doing nothing taxing, it’s just hanging out, and your surfboard need waxing.

The Copper Coast, what is it? Well it is sadness and laughter; it’s your father and mother, your son and your daughter.

It’s the here and the now and the long, long ago, it is summer’s warm sunshine and winter’s cold snow.

It is what it is, a never ending refrain, can you spare me a few hours and I’ll try to explain.

So let’s fill up our glasses and all drink a toast, to the best scenery in Ireland, the famed Copper Coast.

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Mahon Falls in Fall

by Matty Tamen Up harsh Climb In anticipation, Even when Magic road refuses To replay My head Fills With anticipation, Of rumbling river Of plunging water Of tumbling torrents, Dipping into Soft whiteness Of splashing spray But river is absent Falls are lost Only a trickle, Run down Between rigid thighs Of mountain, As goats chew Nonchalantly Away.

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My Story of Setanta

by Enya Eccleston aged 10

Part 1; Once upon a time there was an extraordinary boy named Setanta and his father Conor. One day, Conor’s friend Fionn asked Conor if he would come to his feast. “Only if Setanta can come”, said Conor. “Of course”, chuckled Fionn. They got dressed into their good clothes and set off. Setanta ran twenty times faster than his dad. He spotted some boys older than him playing hurling. “I love hurling!” shouted Setanta. “He’s too young”, said one. “He doesn’t have a dog”, said the other. The oldest said “Come here. What’s your name?” “Setanta”. “Well Setanta, how about a game of hurling?” “Yeah!” answered Setanta. He started playing and scored five goals in just one minute. “We could use a boy like that on our team”, whispered the oldest. “Hey Setanta, wanna be on our hurling team?” Setanta opened his mouth to speak and said “Sorry, got to go but I’ll come back soon.”

Part 2; Setanta ran faster than a cheetah, all the way to Fionn’s house in three minutes flat. Unfortunately, Fionn’s dog was out. “Ahhh here’s the dog now...”

Setanta just stood there, then picked up his sliothar and hit the dog. He saw something moving inside the dog. He reached in and pulled out a ...puppy. Then Conor remembered Setanta. Conor and Fionn pushed outside and saw Setanta next to the dog holding a puppy and a sliothar. “My Doooooog!” wailed Fionn. “I’ll be your dog until this puppy is trained”, offered Setanta. “Thanks”, said Fionn.

“Your new name will be Cú Chulainn.”

The Butterfly

by Fina Eccleston aged 6

Once there was a butterfly who couldn’t fly.

She climbed a tree But she couldn’t fly.

She climbed onto a cat’s body And jumped.

She still couldn’t fly.

Then she jumped off the cat’s head And the cat ate the butterfly.

Then the cat sneezed The butterfly got out and flew And she said FREEDOM! But then there was a fire And she said OH NO! But then the fire went out And it started all over again.

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A Tropical Breeze

by James Eccleston

A tropical breeze, warm as a breath from a lovers whispered words Swept over me as I laid on the rough cold metal, in the early hours of a moonlit morning As I looked up, into the night sky A myriad of stars broke through the dark of the day, like white fairy lights Breaking through a curtain of black hessian.

As I laid there thinking of family, friends left behind and thoughts of our next Port of call, and what sights and bars anew and what the runs ashore will bring What scrapes and adventures myself and my fellow crewman will get ourselves into.

I looked below me over the deck at the luminescence essence that floated On waves, wrapped around the white horses that danced and ran in the push Of our bows, And once more looked to the sky.

There it was, or was my imagination running riot effected by the peace I was feeling A small ball of light, with a streaming tail of white, like the tail of a kite trailing in the wind UFO I thought, a shooting star, shit it could be a missile heading to take us out.

But travelling slow as though not even moving, and still my mind could not grasp what I saw.

This reverie of peace and wonder was then suddenly interrupted by the dreaded Bugle call, and the voice booming over the tannoy “Hands to Flying Stations, Hands to Flying Stations.�

I jumped and ran to grab my gear, for a day of jet engines, noise and smell of burning aviation fuel Flames burning a few feet from my head, as we practised once again in case of war.

At the end of my watch, I thought of what I saw as I laid on my bunk, winding down with a couple of welcome beers.

When the announcement came over on the mess PA, this is the Captain speaking, For those of you fortunate to be awake at 0200 this morning a comet was tracked Crossing the early morning skies, this phenomena was reported to the Virginia Astrological Observatory.

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My Dying Wish

by Bird Tree Eccleston

I remember the day one fine summer a decade ago When I was picked by a man whose strange dialect I did not know.

I remember coming home, being given my spot Settling in and adjusting, happy with my lot.

Years flew past me and my little family, we all grew a tad Into different directions, I might add.

While everything changes, I remain on guard, Twisting and curling, and always a part My family minding me, taking good care So I was thrilled when they asked me to share: Delighted to shelter on those two scorching days, Or maybe ‘twas more, my thinking’s in a bit of a daze.

Honoured when I was asked for my beauty to be spread You now find my babies all around Kill and further bred.

Looked after quite proudly by their new mates I couldn’t wait to see what fate for them awaits.

Quite happy I gave what I had for all sorts – Easter cheer for all the coloured ribbons and eggs as ports, Summer shade and a place for the wind chimes Despite, at times, they committed noise pollution crimes.

Advent calendars, wicked shades and winter dramatics – I am so happy I lived through it all, And it warms me to say, from rush to tit and even crow’s feet, I was always first call.

Grave illness called in 2009.

A horrible thing, said friends of mine.

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They tore all the bad out, were trying to help me, But it wasn’t till last year that I once again felt free.

Naturally I dedicated my life to my natural purpose barely felt doing this, Making life, helping life and all that stuff they call photosynthesis Chatting across the way to my oldest child, I’m glad he survives me, and hope his winters will be mild.

It came as a shock when this big nasty storm last night Lifted me, twisted me, bashed me as if I was just light Swept my feet off the ground, bent me so close...

Too close to the house. I understand. My people chose.

Now I’m fading away, but that’s only my parts Because you just see, to get my roots out it’ll take you some horses and carts!

And maybe, who knows, there’s a bit of me left in that stump And I’ll come back, once again, coming up trump!

I may not though, and that’s okay, too I had a good life, and my time here just flew.

In that case I’d ask you, please take a part of me, And stick it in water to become not just a beautiful tree But also memories for the people around, The birds and the woodlice and...Oh, too many to count.

Spread life, spread love and I beg you, please It may well have sounded like it but it’s not just cheese!

Footnote; “Bird Tree Eccleston” was a Corkscrew Willow tree that grew in the Eccleston’s family garden in Kill. It was planted 9 years ago by Mareike’s father to celebrate their new home and was a much loved addition to their families life. Sadly the tree had to be removed during the recent storms but it’s legacy lives on...Mareike distributed branches to all the WORDS participants last month and by all accounts they have sprung to life in jars of water on window sills and now await planting.

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Untitled

by Niall McCann

He stood a little way back from the group. He was apprehensive, that was a lie - he was terrified. He had failed.

A group of men in long black overcoats, moved forward from the wall at the far side of the graveyard. They stopped behind the priest and waited, moving from one foot to another, whispering to each other, silent banter among a group of work mates. Bartley knew he was being paranoid, but he could not help feeling they were discussing him, his cloths, his weight. He felt so alone, he was alone.

The main group facing the priest did not see him, they were not aware he had arrived, damn them!

The priest, a young foreigner, stopped talking, he took a step back.

Four of the workmen moved around the priest, flanking him left and right. The oldest man unfurled two lengths of dirty green webbing, he knelt down and threaded the webbing under the coffin at the top and foot end. He stood up slowly, the movement caused him pain. Each of the workmen took their station two either side of the coffin with the webbing slack in their hands. Bartley shook, all he could hear was the blood thumping in his ears, his chest hurt, his knees were weak, he could not move, it was so wrong. The question, why, kept going around and around in his head.

The workmen took the strain of the coffin. An elderly man, pale and worn looking stood forward from the main group, he bent down and moved the two lengths of wood that spanned the grave. He stood back and Bartley’s mother was lowered into the cold wet ground, a stone’s throw from where she had lived and died. The priest spoke again.

Bartley pushed forward ignored the men and women present. He picking up the shovel sticking out of the mound of clay, it was ten years since he held a shovel. Without hesitation he pushed the shovel into the clay using his foot to drive it in and fill the shovel. He lifted the shovel full of clay and tipped the clay into the grave letting it slide slowly off the shovel. He was blinded, the tears flowed down his cheeks, his chest racked as he sobbed. He almost fell, but felt the hands of the group grab him and hold him. They embraced him, held him up, he was home.

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The Origin of Change: Why Do We Chase Peacocks?

by Róisín Power Hackett ‘Two things of opposite natures seem to depend On one another… this is the origin of change’.1 A ruffle, a light pink one, formed in fabric, at the edge of a sleeve, light, shadow, shadow, light, alternating…why do we need the ruffle, the change that propels? The act that ruffles casts off shells of skin, freshness brought in with the waves of the action character, walking around a lake to find the peacocks, chasing the holy grail of blue on a dull day for who knows what… For ‘not to have is the beginning of desire’.2 Why do we do, why chase the feathers of blue or travel to Timbuktu?

Upon a whim, a fleeting whim – a fleet of ships set sail, we jump, we bound, we hear a sound and chase music down a black lane shining white with rain. Desire to act upon the ruffle of a thought is the human condition. The action character who peers through the bushes for the rush of blue, does it for the Supreme Fiction, for ‘to speak of joy and to sing of it’,3 for that small action, for to clink her full glass of wine with the universe.

From desire? to action? to ‘not balances that we achieve but balances that happen’,4 we each are a pawn of the world. When we move from A to B, we meet C and D meets E, D might marry E someday, or they might write the world’s greatest poetry together in a grungy flat, who knows what they will be at? Only, we must choose to act, otherwise Rimbaud might never have met Verlaine, and with his burnt poetry up in flame, we might now be singing something rather tame.

But the question that still burns, is where from does the fire spring?

Desire for the uncertain in a certain life, ‘Up, down, up down it is a war that never ends’.5 At the edge of the ruffle it is the brilliant light of clarity sloping down into the fogginess of shadow, where one might shoot oneself in the foot to see again.

1 2 3 4 5

Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.342 Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.332 Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.347 Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.336 Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.356

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The desire for change is poetry. To do, and in the doing create a scene on the Green, in the sunny part of a dull day and make it rain romantically down forevermore, a poetry preserved from doing, and deciding, for ‘in a minute there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse’.6 But why go chasing peacocks? Instead, go look at the cathedral of the city. Look with tired eyes at something that has been looked at with tired eyes ten thousand times before, the tracery of its façade worn down to the meaninglessness of a faded postcard. ‘Catch from that irrational moment [of the worn out cathedral] its unreasoning’,7 and search for the majestic blue amongst the trees, or climb the spire – because they are acts worth doing that produce, they produce potential unending dissolutions of solutions to the nothingness of nothing happening. These actions are sapling of the new universe that will disperse, when in doing, you do for the sake of 6 Eliot, Thomas Sterns, (2008), Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/1459/1459-h/1459-h.htm 7 Stevens, Wallace, (2006), Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, p.348

Coming Out

by Judith Flynn

Byrne courted controversy.

A small man with a large presence, he was both admired and detested. For the most part, women loved him. He invited their attention.

He was their listening ear. He empathised, sympathised and advised.

One particular weekend Byrne hit the headlines in a big way. His name was on everybody’s lips.

“Outrageous!” “Shocking!” “Scandalous!”

His offensive conduct was decried by many but particularly condemned by the bishops of the Irish Catholic Church.

Byrne knew he’d have to face the music, in the form of a posse of paparazzi.

Montrose doors opened.

“Mr. Byrne! Mr. Byrne!”

“I’m Gay!” Page 14

Moral Warfare

by Tommy Shillabeer

Heavy hearted shadow retreats and the survivor of the system arises, Surveying the spiritual damage bare feet walk across battlefield debris floor, Built the trench in this anonymity cast corner, Tending to another of the countless causalities crying to be found, Wandering and lost is the multitude through corpse covered ground, The curious twisting configuration of those alone, Bodies in writhing contortion trying to carry on, Vessels to shrapnel ripped souls awaiting salvation, Wounds of the internal fragmentation that they are desperately trying to heal, The silence comes creeping and the truth comes, White eyeballs forcing themselves to waking open wide, Sunlight creating contours of sickening shapes the aftermath, Intrusive upon the drying of sorrow on cheek, Wishing instantaneously not to be blessed with this sight, The sound of wickedness moving across the sacred soil, Suffering cannot be disconnected, a face is made to look upon that human wreckage, Forlorn letters written to an idealized home, Fall from the hands to be forgotten in the filth, Again the artillery of alienation begins firing, Still we withstand the salvos though many have fallen, Over the top as escalation builds into a slideshow of colours and textures, Distortions and devices of death cannot destroy that truth, Pain cannot obliterate mercy or terror annihilate this love we share, How fruitless is the assault we face for the message remains, Life is a blessing and not a burden to serve.

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