The Attic Volume XIII Published by The Attic Funded by the Central Societies Committee All rights reserved. Š Contributors to The Attic All correspondence or complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, The Attic, Publications Office, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland Or email: denga@tcd.ie Enjoy and consume the contents responsibly.
CONTENTS
5 7 8 9 13 19
Editorial For Pogo the Clown on Valentine’s Day Pearl Depot Chapter 30 of the Abode of Fancy The Garden
21 23 24 25
Lost Limb For Rita Blackout The War After the War
27 Yolk 28 Labour 29 To Meabh, 5 Months Old
31 32 34 37
Still Life Feathers In Flight Notes on the Contributors
3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
STAFF Editor: Aisling Deng Prose Editor: Michael Barry Poetry Editor: Kate McNamara Copy Editor: Eiseart Dunne Graphic Designer: Fuchsia Macaree Photography: Fionn Fitzmaurice (p10, p11), Ross McDonnell (p7, p22, p25, p33), James McLoughlin (cover, editorial, contents, p19, p34, p37) Lucy Nuzum (p38), Lucia O’ Connor McCarthy (p27, p28, p29) Illustration: Kathi Burke (p8) , Isadora Epstein (p21, p24) , Fuchsia Macaree (p14)
SPECIAL THANKS TO The Literary Society, DU Publications, the Central Societies Committee, Lucy O’Connell, Emma Matthews, Michael Barry, Fuchsia Macaree, Eiseart Dunne, Kate McNamara, Deirdre Kilbride, James McLoughlin, Dave Molloy, Cathal Wogan, Mairéad Casey, Joanne O’Leary, Ross McDonnell, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, family and friends for all their patient help and encouragement.
4
EDITORIAL
L
ouis Sullivan believed the future of architecture lay in the form of the skyscraper. It drew upon the proportions of old Gothic architecture and appropriated a new skin forming its own identity by acknowledging the past; the backbone. In Modernist architecture, masters such as Mies van der Rohe would go on to appropriate this ‘skin and skeleton’ method to open up the sense of ‘home’, creating a literal discourse between the internal and external environment. Whether good, bad or the ugly, history forms an integral part of the fabric of life. However fiction brings this beyond the borders of the cerebral and cognitive. At the command of the writer’s wishes, it has the power to weave ‘the cloths of Heaven’ breathing life into the ‘soft machine’, a term Burroughs used for the body. The Attic chronicles these transfigurations. From initial contact, courtship, play, fight, flight, objects grow with complexity. There are times when even the best of us struggle to make light of our thoughts, suppressing them to the furthest corners of the labyrinthine brain. The mind’s complexity conceals itself under a cloak of cobwebs in the gathering yarn of time. Angles obscure into kaleidoscopic fragments. Such is the nature of relationships and the act of relating and remembering. Time is taciturn and fickle; a flicker. From primary school show and tells to college classes on sign and signifiers, from our storage space we choose objects which bear special significance to us. We not only illuminate them but illustrate them in their own right. Filtering through multiple layers of reality and fantasy, blood drips onto the page and binds words in holy matrimony: speech, letters and images: memories, ideas and dreams; and honours them within in the act of writing and drawing. Why not tap into these rich sources? The spectrum of this body of work runs from the blue smear of smugness strewn across a juvenile delinquents face in For Pogo on Valentines Day to the splintered crack of dappled ivory in Lost Limb, the cold grey sweat of For Rita, the clean cut green of The Garden and the golden candescent aura of childhood in Yolk, Labour, To Meadbh, 5 Years Old. The sole wish for this volume of The Attic was to cultivate a symbiotic synthesis, weaving in and out of the markings upon the page. We sought to create a Trinity of words, images and that esoteric feeling where seconds split and the cells of the brain blink. But at the end of the day, the soul wish was to publish something you could quietly enjoy over tea during those brief suspended breaks. Aisling Deng, Editor, The Attic vol. xiii
5
I
6
FOR POGO THE CLOWN ON VALENTINE’S DAY
When he paints Pogo’s face, the edges of the mouth are cruel and sharp as arrows, Where they ought to have been rounded. The blue tint triangulates around his eyes, Like an umbrella folding out against a dripping interval. Toad’s eyes, they swell with oracle and move like skulls that haul Their dried halos across the dome shaped mirror, into which he yawns. His yawn’s a negative. The man sees just as far as where the pink dusk Refracted through the speckled window, glances off the floor, As if a splash of bloody light is cast there By the soles of the clowns’ shoes− they both stick in it. Pogo feels the oily stiffness of the man’s pores along with something lost− The white expanse of cheek unmade for blushing. In the blank between garden fetes and crawl spaces, Pogo has gone to his head like a song- in the same way he thinks (as though naming averted disaster) that love closes distance.
Laura Rivers 7
PEARL
Part I
Part II
Pearl as a word Sounding solid, Looks opalescent (Uncertain spelling)
Beautiful oyster abuse, We steal their babies That they laboured to bear Worn as tokens, tokens That bring tears, so they say. Pinks, peaches, blacks, blues, Whites,baroque, half-rolled, We take all, strung like stars. And when bereft, we keep them alive Until we watch them writhe Under a lemon wedge-acidic. Gulped down in one swallow Aphrodisiacs... If their bodies are pretty enough They are treasured. Some discarded carelessly Some rejected outright. We take their beauty, their flesh, their shells.
The word puffs the lips Taps tongue to palate A well finished word. Rounded, near-baroque. Almost a held sigh At such beauty. Whoever first found it Must have exhaled so Clutched triumphantly And kept as treasure. For its purityShifty-sheen colours.
Sharon Courtney 8
DEPOT
“I’m of something of a nervous disposition,” she said. “You could call it a twitch. Whatever it is, it sometimes makes me throw myself under buses.” I nodded and watched her down another glass of wine. She was really knocking them back. But I couldn’t tell if this was unusual for her or not because I’d never met her before in my life. “What’s wrong with you then?” she said. “I noticed you didn’t speak through the whole meeting.” I nodded. She began to drink enthusiastically from a second glass of wine. “I’m a hypochondriac,” I said. I hadn’t touched the wine, or the food, although she’d bought me a glass. She drank it herself anyway. “I’m not overweight,” she told me, devouring a tiny triangular sandwich. I nodded. “But I eat and drink a lot,” she continued. “Why do you think that is?” I shook my head. I was sure she’d tell me anyway. “Because I run,” she said. “I run everywhere I go. I don’t care about fitness, but I like running. I run along roads and through parks and sometimes I get lost or throw myself in front of a bus.” “Why buses?” I asked. “Why not cars?” “They’re bigger,” she replied. It was twenty-five minutes to nine and the hall was beginning to empty out. It was Tuesday evening. Every Tuesday evening there was a meeting for people with problems and disorders. Alcoholics weren’t invited because they had AA, and there was wine. Obesity sufferers weren’t accepted either because every other night there were weight loss group meetings on, and there were sandwiches and cookies. What we had was a sort of motley crew of sufferers and endurers, whose problems bore no relation to one another, and so as a result little was solved and no one ever really achieved anything in the way of healing. For me it was an excuse to get out of the house, where I spent too much time already. Now the meeting was over, I was speaking exclusively to a young woman with a beret whose name I did not know. “My name is Alison,” she told me. “But I’m thinking of changing it.” I asked why. “Because it’s dull,” she replied and began another glass of wine. “Don’t call me Alison. Call me Rosalind.” The supervisor came and asked if we could please leave, as they were closing up the hall. We walked outside and into the car park, which was beginning to empty out. “So, you’re a hypochondriac,” Rosalind declared. I nodded again. “That would explain the gloves.” She nodded toward my hands. They were encased in thin, flesh-coloured latex gloves, which people generally did not notice unless they looked closely. 9
“Don’t they get filthy?” she asked, but didn’t give me a chance to answer. She suddenly stopped walking and turned to me. “Let’s go watch buses,” she said. And so half an hour later I found myself in the bus depot with Rosalind, watching yellow and blue buses pulling lazily in and out. It wasn’t quite dark, just dusky. This duskiness annoyed Rosalind. She told me it wasn’t whole and complete and heavy enough. I disagreed; in fact, this duskiness was one of the reasons why summer was my favourite time of year. But I didn’t tell her this. Some time passed and Rosalind began to glance uneasily at my gloves. I thought she was going to ask me to take them off, which I didn’t often do outside the house, but she looked away without saying anything. Presently she sat down on the ground. “Join me?” she asked. I shook my head. Sitting on the ground was out of the question entirely. She shrugged off her jacket and arranged it on the ground next to her. “Sit on this,” she said. I felt I didn’t have a choice and lowered myself down beside her. For a while I just squatted, but my legs quickly grew tired and I gave up, sitting down on her warm, light coat. 10
“Won’t you be cold?” I asked. She shook her head. Another bus rattled by and her eyes lit up. I folded my hands in my lap. She glanced at them, again, with a disconcerted expression. Then: “Do you have a wife?” she asked. “No,” I replied. “I did. But she died. She was sick.” “I’m sorry.” She genuinely was. “Is that why you’re a hypochondriac?” I shook my head. “No. She had cancer.” Cancer was not something you could catch. It just developed. It grew inside you whether you knew about it or liked it or gave it permission. You could protect against viruses. You could disinfect. You could wear gloves. I felt her eyes on my hands again. “I’m not a happy person,” she told me. I looked into Rosalind’s eyes, into her pupils. They were small and contracted and black, but not hard. They were alert. They looked as though they were probably always alert. She was not looking back at me, but looking instead at my hands, which were sweating steadily beneath my gloves. Eventually she raised her eyes to meet mine. She 11
looked surprised to see me, as though she hadn’t realised I was still there. Neither of us spoke for a long time. “Would you like me to kiss you?” she asked. Her pupils were a little dilated now, it was getting darker, the buses rolled past less frequently. “No,” I said, and she didn’t reply. In the distance I could hear a dog howling and barking. I imagined the moon was rising, and the stars. Slowly, I peeled the glove off my left hand, my heart thudding dully in my chest. The movements were slow and painstaking. The sweaty, damp rubber rolled back from my fingers like a skin, my hand recoiling in the cold evening air. I repeated this process with my right hand, and dropped both gloves in my lap. I was sweating hard, now. Rosalind watched me with an expression that was indeterminable. Slowly, awkwardly, I placed my hands on both her cheeks, brushing back her hair. My hands, from spending so long wrapped in the gloves, had become soft and supple, like a girl’s. I leaned in, and, shaking, clumsy, planted my lips on hers, which were soft and cold. I felt one of her hands resting on mine. A bus crawled by, and then another. Eventually I pulled away. Rosalind looked into my eyes, with an expression which I still could not read. I thought she was about to speak, when suddenly her eyes lit up and she looked away from me. I looked too. There was another bus approaching us. Before I could react, she shot to her feet. I was prepared to launch myself upon her, to prevent her from throwing herself in front of the moving vehicle, but there was no need. She did not dive into its path. She simply stood and watched it roll past, her eyes moist and alert. Then she looked down at me, and smiled a generous smile, and set off after the disappearing bus as though it was the most natural thing in the world. By then it was dark. I realised Rosalind had left her jacket behind, that I was still sitting on it. I took it with me when I left, but left the gloves behind, on the ground, like an offering.
Kerri Ward 12
Chapter Thirty of
THE ABODE OF FANCY
The Mad Monk smelt the air and said: ‘Never ask, dear Annie, for whom the world was made nor why; ‘twas made for thee by me.’ By the Galway graveside whiles she pined and keened, he took up an axe, and chopped some trees, and snapped some branches, and bore the felled plunder of lumber back to their boat, whose shape and build he tweaked and distilled, and with paste of his spittle wove together twigs with the knitting skill of a wren, latching on some spools and wheels he hauled in from the harbour, kitting out the caboodle with curtains and canopies, a roof and some ropes, a door to swing and within some bedding, piles of pillows and cushions riffled from bins, jangling beads and jingling rosaries, until soon their sometime ship had turned into a caravan, a vehicle worthy no longer for the rivers, but rather the roads. Aboard this wagon of wonders she was pushed without scruples, as he softly bade her lie easy, until he had found some proper beast of burden whose back he might beat and sting with his reins, to drag them along in his wheeling train, down dales and fens and dells, by hills and meadows, lakes and forests, and all the cluttered errata of the big little world of theirs. Parked in their stationary caravan he left her to pout, by the ditch in the roadside encircled by many cascading fields, each by one he arduously combed, nose to the ground and ears in the air, until he came across at last an amiable ass, munching grass with meditative air. He approached, leaning o’er the stony wall to beckon hither the randy donkey, who cobbled closer following the curling of his eager finger, whose long grey face he stroked as he kindly murmured friendly words, his trust and assistance to gain. The donkey’s name was Balthazar, and he was easily persuaded, for all he could be cheeky. So from the confines of his field, the stones of its walls rendered toppling with a thump of his steward’s fist, he was lead to the yawning gaudy caravan, and introduced to his mistress Banshee, who reckoned him a handsome creature, into whose service he was sworn. Strapped to his dappled sides were bridles and ropes, all the heaving equipage with which their mobile lodging to tow, the rusty wheels of which wagon soon began to scrape and grind into the ground, circles upon circles of sparks were struck as soon as the coachman sat in his seat, and took up his reins, and cracked and beat the back of Balthazar, who neighed and hurtled as he set out on his trot, and bore along their creaking lumbering caravan, moving easterly across their elder isle, from the setting to the rising sun. For many moons and miles they travelled as nomads all over the midlands, resting under the stars by farmyards and country bars, snatching provisions from village mar13
kets and jumble sales, dodging passing cars and beeping buses, evading the highways awash with gasping trucks, favouring marshy paths of mud less trodden, through which zone of winding lanes wheeled their queer carriage, the company of man and wife and donkey, idle wanderers upon crusty face of the sweet earth. By riverbanks and gushing streams they paused to bathe their bodies, to strip and swim and laugh like the young, to wash and scrub while humming to the buzz of the bees and the coos of the robins, and to make love behind teeming glissade of waterfall’s curtain, frolicking wetly starkers among shiny rocks and glossy rivulets. Crops that wanted tilling they stopped by twilight to dig, robbing spuds they stowed in their sack, potatoes to pop into the Banshee’s bubbling pot for supper, in exchange for which sneaky theft The Mad Monk would leave behind a pile of conjured gold, set by the door of whomsoever farmer of whose store they had siphoned, the erroneous response to which gifts was invariably – ‘Ah, them thar faerie folk are damn well good to us’. And they dawdled in orchards to pluck golden apples from the branches, borrowing honey from the hives of bees, and suckling sap from ageing trees. Olives and fennel, nectar and pollen they collected to season their salads, and luscious grapes they snatched from vineyards, with which to squash and brew their tiny barrels of goodly 14
wine. Wool that was shorn from the backs of sheep was used by Annie in the knitting of rugs, to drape them by night when the chill came, and of gloves and jumpers to clothe them, even of mittens to warm Balthazar’s ears, to sheathe them from the rushing breeze’s biting. And upon occasion also too, they would pose as wandering gypsies to whom the spirits had imparted all the secrets of earth, and unravelled all the mysteries of the heavens, kitting themselves out in floral shawls and scarves, kerchiefs and bandanas, and a medley of twinkling props to enrich their deceit. In the squares of tidy towns their caravan would halt with a screech, and out would alight the garish sign to lure in the punters, promising the foretelling of fortunes and the divulging of fates, and loudly too their talking donkey would neigh, by which time a swarm of hopefuls would have gathered. A creaking door would open then, and a silent figure would appear, tall and dark and brooding, bearded and hooded, with an eyepatch and an earring, who would poke out his shaggy head, and dourly peer and glare upon the curious crowd, and beckon forthwith the foremost, ushering them into the dim interior, a smoky place wherein wafted fragrance of incense and faint tang of perfumed musk, sitting them down with a shove upon a stool by the table round, where sat the psychic medium hunched, seeming asleep, nodding snoring in tune to music celestial, stirring only upon a prod from her partner, which bid her raise aloft her ragged head, lifting her Medusa’s curls with a wangling quiver, to fix upon her customer a piercing glance all of ice and fire, such as might turn their bowels to water, and all their dauntless mettle to quaking jelly. She would style herself Minerva or Mirabella according to her humour, entreating her client to cross her arthritic palm with a cluster of dropping coppers, upon which transaction effected, she would produce from folds of her robe an array of cards, an hourglass and an abacus, and lastly of all a crystal ball, within whose sloping glassy walls swam violet twining vapours, swirls that seemed to shape themselves into faces or skulls. Their wrinkled palms afforded her some scrutiny, tracing the curve or incline of the creases of their lifelines and lovelines, cooing impenetrable profundities with solemn intonation. Then would come the acid hiss of breath, the gasp that bespoke full certain doom, to stiffen one’s tingling hairs upon the nape or scalp, upon which cue her henchman, ‘till now stood mute in a solemn corner, would suddenly grunt, and lurch, and topple down to his knees, in paroxysms of ecstasy or agony, panting for breath and clawing the air, writhing and rolling all about the floor, clenching his chest and foaming at the mouth, gnashing and champing his jaws and chewing up the tip of his tongue, frothing spittle and bubbles of blood he dribbled and spat, garbling hoarse gobbledegook 15
between his grunts, a wave of raving weird words that seemed wrenched up from his guts or hauled out of hell, a secret potty language of prophecy into which one could read whate’er one wished, which edgy spectacle was sufficient to stun the spectators, who were accordingly urged exit by Annie, with some muttered assurance to quell their dubieties, such as – ‘You had best be gone, for this here caravan is like to be set ablaze and burning, what with the sheer heat engendered by the psychic vibrations we have set off in the starry stratosphere – them gods must be angry.’ Whereupon, once they were gone, Annie would shut the door and turn to look at her lover, having ceased to writhe in his burlesque of transcendence, who gave her a doggy grin, and then the two would chuckle, and warmly smile, having fooled another fool. Some customers were lavish with their tips, and some others were more stingy, but nevertheless they always made enough to live off the land in the freewheeling way they were going, enough to buy the sometime snatch of blue moon hashish to season their sleep, pinches of poppies or any of the other numerous narcotics that were doing the rounds – and bystanders on the streets, well groomed in the zany world’s ways, to whom their caravan soon became a familiar sight, began to tap their noses knowingly upon sight and smell of the glassy eyed occupants, numbly grinning and chanting dismal mantras, earning a reputation as anachronistic hippies making up for all the time that had gone by them. And no bad thing it was to be thought a silly pair of gypsy hippies, riding through town with a lazy donkey chewing their cud, preachers of insipid slogans that yet augured no harm nor hurt (‘LOVE HAS NO PRESIDENT’ became the tatty motto of their shrieking banner), since for a killer on the run, such as he was, there could be no more convincing cover, nor safer guise to beguile. Sometimes, feeling unsure, he would dash into the shops to scour the tabloids on their racks, lest there be news of the forces who pursued him – but never a word no more there was on that score, save alone for a forlorn obituary of Aloysius Looney, late resident of Sligo town, murdered bachelor of 63, which paltry tribute wrung a silent tear from the eye of the one who had helped him die, as he browsed the wrinkled paper with trembling hands, sadly marvelling at how little might be left of a life, no more than a few bland words of token summation, writ on sheets that would soon be shreds, destined to wrap up oily fish and greasy chips, to join ranks with rubbish and blow along the gutters, keeping company with the tide of detritus and all of humanity’s dregs, lasting scarcely longer than ghostly memories left behind in the minds of those that knew you, who will in any case themselves be dead so soon. But otherwise there was no mention made of the case, for the world had bigger fish 16
to fry than he, and greater criminals to catch, as he soon saw. Turning pages idly, for minutes on end intrigued, without deigning to dip a hand in a pocket to purchase the paper (which earned him many a dirty look from sneering shop attendants, of whose contempt he stood oblivious as he pored), The Mad Monk read of wars abroad on oil’s account, of bloodbaths and slaughters in the name of god and glory, of bombings and hijackings and vulgar battles, of self-appointed world’s police and presumptuous bigger brothers, self-satisfied self-elected watchdogs of the earth trampling over and toppling down some decrepit empires of olden days, young nations having childish tantrums, an army of morons with a baby monkey at the helm, mangling the language and all too trigger-happy, lavishing all on the crazed hunt for a turbaned bearded mastermind, a demented goat who had scripted some sabotage, taking lonely refuge in faraway caves, high among the hills of lands now steeped in wreckage and ruin, lost amid memories of vanished splendour, a cackling terrorist with a dream of a new world, which delusion he would erect by means of massacre, through pillars of blood that lead to blood, much more of which was spilt by his foes in dozens of gallons, those oafs who nursed a vision of their own, a cherished beacon of a shining city on a hill, crammed with supermarkets and malls and stores and fast food joints and fatty chains, all bloated with the big green buck, puffed up with lies upon lies, which monstrosity of banality they would stamp upon the crippled earth with all the mighty gunpowder that was in their copious store, to brand the land with their emblem of a beef-burger-bun, slaphappy land of the quailing free, with a prosperous few, who had cheated for their gain, lounging in motors heaving their exhausts, and an impoverished many sharpening their knives, injecting arms and vomiting pills, blowing out their brains and assaulting the elderly, raping women and children, murdering babies they dumped into toilets and flushed away with the crap – it was all too much, the depth of this disarray, this human folly that made him dizzy. Was this the same world he said he had made? All this mess and squabble and turmoil and misery – was this the chaos he callously presumed he could fix with, as it were, a mere swish of a wand? He regretted having dared to read the everyday news at all, the routine catalogue of horrors to which the common men around him were immune. But he was alone in this place, and had tarnished his ignorance that was his innocence, his precious naivety he somehow sustained – for though as old as the ages, his soul was a child’s soul still, appalled by the blurb he read on the blaring page, and the warring cacophony he heard in his head. His temples pounding, shaking, biting his lip and scratching his hairs that were full 17
of fleas, he gazed upon a picture of what was called a terrorist, a grainy portrait of a grizzly ruffian no bigger than a postage stamp, with whom he felt some guilty kinship, for all he deplored them, and condemned their bloody ways – that was the problem with the world these days, things had simply gotten too big, and all dark deeds were done in bulk, mounting up to a lofty ghastly quota of rotting dead – but it seemed that perhaps, to his eyes unschooled, that every one of these conflicting buffoons nursed a vision of something better, but the forms they thought ideal were clashing against those schemes of others that were irreconcilably alien, such being the sorry incompatibility of pathetic human desires – but yet to him it seemed that still they dreamed themselves of something sort of like an Abode of Fancy, never mind what other daft name they would dub it, the fervid effort of enacting which, no matter what the wretched cost, was so disastrous for the rest of us – would that one could wipe out all these warmongers with one fell swoop and stamp of fist or foot – but no, he was no exterminator, not on such a scope – for all the grandeur of his aims, he was resolved to operate on a smaller scale – he could afford to effect his improvements slowly, having all the time in the world literally at his disposal (hee hee!) – and he would begin at home – but where was home, and what was home, what family could he claim, being always alone in the end? – but if he did not act, could he preach? – but preach what message? – of love and understanding? – the words repelled him even as he uttered them and tasted their rank vapidity – why can’t everyone just be friends? – worse still – this sort of claptrap would not even hold up in a tavern, his preferred site for a sermon, surrounded by a sweaty coven of drunken geezers who knew bullshit when they heard it, nay, he would be laughed at and jeered, derided as an ignorant idiot, which in many ways he was – so why dare preach if one is not wise? – ah, go get thee gone – for the world’s more full of weeping than you can ever understand, old man – old boy – poor child – silly fool. And into the midst of his baffled contemplations, came a tap on his shoulder from a surly shop assistant, who bid him get out and get lost, an unfriendly request delivered in incoherent accents that wanted better elocution. To which in reply he bellowed ‘Fuck off, chump’, and dealt the boy a belt on the nose, which freely bled as he fell over backwards, bringing down all the rack of papers with him. And The Mad Monk, disenchanted, tore to fluttering tatters the periodical he had browsed, then turned about, and fled from the shop, and ran off cackling to himself, mirthlessly, alone.
S.J.C 18
THE GARDEN
Freshly cut grass lay in clumps in the front garden and stuck to the children’s football boots like hair against a sweaty brow. No one kept score.
Don P. Musey 19
II
20
LOST LIMB
A joint of bone, broken from the earth; cartilage splintered, rock ruptured dirt. Moss-clotted wrinkles scar over, forgetthe wounding of weatherthe years of neglect. Thick grime of rust peeled back off the stone; In the time lost marrowthe fractures of Ogham.
Andrew King 21
22
FOR RITA
You disappeared into the swirl of torch lit rain, sheep black curls plastered down your face; knee deep in the squelch of freshly ridged tractor scars. In a bloody thrashed clearing of thistle-thorned grass you found the lamb, bleating noiselessly, mink bitten hooves splayed out where they had given up trying.
When I first heard you’d killed yourself all I could do was sit in the cold sweat of my shock and imagine you on a torch lit night in the rain driven wind, struggling through the darkness until you found yourselfa lamb; bleeding and tangled in a trampled thorn hedge; an animal whose misery you put to sleep.
Reverently you knelt and eased probing briars from its flax sodden coat, cradling the shivering animal to your lap warmth. You fed it mother’s milk from a heated flask before finally killing it.
Andrew King
23
BLACKOUT
The night the bulbs gasped, The darkness rushedDrowned the world out, Set its tar. Under there, I felt Silence search, Sapping din sod, sentence Bracing, vowel-scrapeFollowing the emptiness In. But I remain as Artefact, with you, Undulating for a match.
Brian Boyle 24
THE WAR AFTER THE WAR
Inanimates desire the freedom We discard. A chair shaped to the last to leave Will mime "Come back! Make me know how to forget you". There is something faithful in how It keeps a crease, like veins That scrawl a name between divided arms. While you and I submerge ourselves in craters. We come up for air with powdered throats, Dripping in ink and warbling syllables. Here in the dark foreground of space, Silence keeps us safe from one another. Until the static licks our skin like a flame. Smoking entrails, our hair in cinders We crawl on raw knees, Shriek in scorched tongues. Words fly unfettered
And I Break Like a cornea Letting all light in at once And blinded plunge Like a white heron Into the darkness.
Caroline Hardwick 25
III
26
YOLK
Tapping open a shell Against any thin rim. The sound of breaking armour, Zig-zags splitting egg skin. Tapping open a shell And cracking across a smile, Through the thin toothless slit Pours my unborn child.
Ana Novacic 27
LABOUR
‘Look, no hands,’ and he falls gently, at first, gaining a second speed feet floored and then, the thumpf! of skin on linoleum the fist out, laugh-aloud of that sound ‘heave to, Mummy’ and she does.
Beth Burke 28
TO MEABH, 5 MONTHS OLD
Grateful to the daylight on her face She thrusts her arms out for the sky to pick her up. Balances the moment in her thought and smiles. The summer winds up, To thread itself, into curls yet ungrown. A sundress yet unworn, parents yet unpractised, vowels yet unformed. She is the perfect glass of milk. Oh world, don't spill her.
Joanne Marie O’Leary 29
IV
30
STILL LIFE
Still life on which we stand, Exposing to the world What nobody else knows. Showing men and hiding from children, That we are human And a little bit dead. But in this very long moment We live on As interpretations and translations Of the people who knew us Retold accounts and memories of when We were happy And said nothing to them. One by one the standing figures sit, Because we’re tired from waking up And seeing everybody seeing us In the form of oil paint and gloss. Average people, engulfed in still life.
Ana Novacic 31
FEATHERS
The street was quiet now. Nine o’clock had passed on, and with it much of the day’s traffic, only the occasional car whirred through now. The hush that had fallen on the trees was deep, the leaves seemed to breathe, to chatter as the birds within whistled evensong. The black bird pressed against his face, pushing horribly and seeming to swell. The feathers shone as a million tiny things rushed up and down the puckered skin, white mites skittering, in and out, disappearing and pouring through holes. The top-most feather pressed further up against his eye-lid, grazing softly against the lashes. Great black wings spread against the mercury sky, the gaze forced down- eyes hidden by the brilliant blue crest, gold filigrees running like water down one side of the face and the scarlet dot, burning like a sun half covering the forehead. The shine of blue off the feathers- the terrible smell of dried meal. Walking clear of the shadows of the trees, the evensong continued, louder but undisturbed. A great, black bird, squatting on the head, four-and-twenty the black is full of mud and blood, congealed to begin again baked in a pie. Torn feathers, fluffed again and wound up, wound up with gold The binding’s not so strong, she said I doubt that it will hold. And crack the eggs upon the face, the yellow will drizzle down that the eyes may yellow, around the lips Big water lips, red, which do not drown Big water lilies that lie in the pond And to the sky smile But the birds they fly and eat.
P.R Zont
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IN FLIGHT
Andrei sat, hugging his bare knees in the half space that was left of his bedroom. Wooden floorboards sloped downwards like limp fingers and then vanished into splintered ends. Charred posters flapped in the cool breeze, their colourful Disney images appearing and disappearing lazily. A window shaped rectangle framed the blinding white sky outside which was softly crying. Downstairs was rubble. That was where Mother and Father and Sister had been when the bombing had started, at breakfast. Mother would have been talking hungrily between hurried bites of yesterday’s stale bread about the impossibility of finding white lace or chiffon for Sister’s Communion dress. Father was bound to have been listening to his ancient wireless radio, an old Soviet issue, his head bent down, his eyes lowered in concentration. Sister would have been cautiously plucking the brown flakes from her bowl of Golden Mix, trying to avoid Mother’s supervising, watch guard gaze. Andrei hadn’t felt like getting up. Luck was a strange word. Now he didn’t even know if it was still morning, or if it was the same day or week or 34
year, or if he had in fact just awoken after twenty years of sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and everyone had grown up and gone away and there was a new government in charge with a new leader at its head. Lifting his blood flecked hand he cautiously felt his grimy chin. He frowned. He hadn’t grown a long white beard. That was disappointing. Carefully looking about, he gasped, springing onto his feet, his soft brown, boyish eyes fixed on the only remaining corner of his bedroom where rafters stuck out naked and overlapping like a tangle of crucifixes. Wedged suffocatingly between two of the upright beams there was a round, brown bird’s nest. It was woven with the litter of life lived: torn plastic, shed hair, dead twigs. Andrei felt his numbed body thaw. The nest meant something warm to his past. There was an awareness about the confused heap of interwoven sticks, dry and ancient. After a few steps in its direction he slowly eased himself down into a cross-legged position, maintaining his wide eyed stare. His cherub lips were parted slightly, a dry tear of blood frozen just above them. He felt long faded memories gradually drip their way back into his mind like the beginning tears of a rainstorm. His curly topped head leaned towards his shoulder as he thought. He remembered. The nest came from a younger time... a time when bottle caps were difficult to open, when Sister was a little ball of pink fat. Those were the days of wordless, frustrated rage and blurred vision, rusty tricycles and journeys to a musky, tomatoey house where an old woman called Grandma lived. That nest had once been a well for thirsty imagination and parched curiosity. Its water had been birdsong, distilled, clear, pure, like pleading. He shut his eyes tight. It was all rushing back to him, a great rapid of churning water, like the Amazon’s torrents captured in those photos in National Geographic magazines. Somewhere in him banks were bursting. He could see her again, just as she had been, the female swooping in, a pink grub dangling from her yellow beak, the little squawking sparrows thrashing about competitively. His white teeth erupted into an unconscious shape, just as they had before. He smiled. Not far off the deep heavy drone of bomber jets was creeping into the air. Rubble rattled. The hanging floorboards shook. Dust and ash fell in streams from the meshwork of rafters. A clattering shudder breathed its way through the skeletal ruins of the town. Everything was shivering. 35
Still Andrei smiled, his mouth stretching back over his glistening pearly teeth, He visualised the tiny birds being bossed about and urged stubbornly by their beady-eyed mother towards the nest edge. In his bones he felt the little birds’ worry, his fingers opening and closing, his palms sweaty. Silently, feathers fell like snowflakes. The fighters were screaming louder above. They were closer, closing in. Planks slid from their holdings and crystal shards of glass danced across the floor towards gaps and edges. Andrei had once seen a chandelier fall in the Eastern Star Hotel when he was a child. Some electrician had been fixing it at the time. It had been like someone spilt light. The sky was rumbling. It frightened Andrei like a savage spinning carwash. He was laughing. His eyes open now, glistening with salty delight. Finally, in a flurry of wings the little birds were out, falling towards the cobble frosted street below. Before the birds hit the ground they managed to pull themselves up dramatically, fluttering nervously and awkwardly upwards before swinging more confidently around, their miniature wings spread. Andrei’s laugh was now a screaming wail. Tears gushed down his shining cheeks. He clapped. He writhed. He kicked violently, joyfully. He could see colours everywhere, tastes. He could almost touch his memories. They were coming for the window, hurtling towards it at the speed of sound. The mother soared above them circling with pride. Everything was a quivering earthquake, a waterfall, a riverbank crumbling under the weight of its water. Convulsing, Andrei’s eyes rolled backwards, white, his lips pale and taut. Time blinked. Mother swallowed. Father turned off the radio. Sister spilled her bowl of Golden Mix. Rip Van Winkle cut his beard. A photographer in the Amazon put down his camera. The birds sang. The window framed the sky. In that one ecstatic moment everything changed, everything was realigned. The bombs landed. It was perfect.
Andrew King 36
FIN.
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NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Brian Boyle is rapidly disappearing into the everyday, but is a relentless self-improver - a skill he acquired in the Hamilton building from 2005-2009. Feedback to: boyleb4@tcd.ie Beth Burke is a Junior Sophister student of History, currently on Erasmus. She paints, preaches, plays ukulele and composes poems when not working for SoundProof Magazine. Feedback to: burkes9@tcd.ie Kathi Burke, illustrator. Her portfolio can be found via fattiburke.com Sam Coll died inside some small awhile ago. Coining pretty phrases that mean nothing much is the only paltry solace left. Buttered couplets and leaky quatrains may follow. Ignorant critiques and derogatory slurs, all much appreciated. Feedback to: collsj@tcd.ie Sharon Courtney is Dublin-born-and-raised and the youngest of three. She wrote the poem Pearl in a workshop where they were all coincidentally obsessed with pearls. She has just finished a degree in History and English TSM, and her left hand is her notebook. She is obsessed with trying to explicate words in idea and sound and image, how it was found and how it is now. Feedback to: courtns@tcd.ie Fionn Fitzmaurice, photographer. Feedback to: fitzmauf@tcd.ie Isadora Epstein, illustrator. Feedback to: epsteinisadora@gmail.com Caroline Hardwick feedback to: carhardwick@gmail.com 38
Andrew King is a Senior Freshman English and History Student. Feedback to: andrewbking@hotmail.com Fuchsia Macaree, illustrator and graphic designer. Her portfolio can be found via fuchsiamacaree.com Ross McDonnell, photographer. His portfolio can be found via rossmcdonnell.com James McLoughlin, the photographer’s portfolio can be found via jamesmcloughlin1. blogspot.com Don P. Musey is was born in Dublin in 1989, where he has resided ever since. He is currently in the final year of a single honours psychology degree in TCD. This is his first published work. Feedback to: rochforb@tcd.ie Ana Novacic is a Senior Freshman studying French and Russian. She has been writing poetry for many years and has had her work in magazines such as Icarus and Tema. A collection of her work has recently been published by Aora Naklada Publishers in Zagreb, Croatia. Feedback to: ana.nov@hotmail.com Lucy Nuzum, photographer. Her portfolio can be found via solarina.org Lucia O’Connor-McCarthy, photographer. Her portfolio can be found at luciaomc.com Joanne O’Leary studies English. Last year she summered in New York, where she played snakes and ladders with the rooftops of Brooklyn. In the sun, she was taught to draw schematically by Sue Rainsford and studied photography under Hannah Clare Gordon. Her current muse is Jonelle Mannion. Feedback to: olearymj@tcd.ie Laura Rivers feedback to: laurarivers1926@gmail.com Kerri Ward is a third year student of English and Drama born and raised in Dublin. In her youth she won awards in national and international poetry competitions including Féile Filíochta, Listowel Writer’s Week and the Patrick Kavanagh Centenary, had her work published in the Poetry Ireland newsletter and Teaching English magazine, and appeared on television shows such as News Today and The Afternoon Show, as well as on RTE Radio One’s Poetry Programme. Once considered a child prodigy, she now spends much of her time trying not to disappoint everyone horribly. She aspires to be a poet and moderately successful human being. Feedback to: wardke@tcd.ie P R Zont has gone, for a time, to a place where zonts are spoken of. Feedback to: reevellp@tcd.ie
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