ISSN 2053-6119 (Print)

ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of Peter ONeill, Matt Prater, Kenneth

Pobo, Nancy Ann Miller, Michael Mc Aloran, Steve Klepetar, Jo
Burns, Eamonn Stewart, Bob Shakeshaft, Felino A Soriano,
Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Carlos Franco-Ruiz and Evelyn McAmis
Bales. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 40
January 2016

A New Ulster
On the Wall
Website

Editor: Amos Greig

Editor: Arizahn
Editor: Adam Rudden
Contents

Editorial

page 5

Peter ONeill;
1.

The Wall

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Violins the Deep Sea Reefs

The Poet
To a Passer-by
Lethe
Number 29
Bye Bye Blackbird

Matt Prater;
1.
2.
3.

Lalochezia
Empty
Hurt

Kenneth Pobo;
1.
Still Here
2.
Training Wheels
3.
Abyss
4.
Belle of Barmera Dahlia
5.
Mischief Mountain
Nancy Ann Miller;
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Falling in Love with my father in the Snow

Island Bound Mail
I Re-Member
Bermuda Land Snail
Rock Solid
Sea Pudding
Crime Scene

Michael Mc Aloran;
1.
InDamage Seasons
Steve Klepetar;
1.
Li Bo Eats His Cake
2.
Li Bo and the Pleasures of Wine
3.
Li Bo Tastes The cup of Sorrow
4.
Seventh Avenue
5.
Ghost Song #6
Jo Burns;
1.
Loading the Mare
2

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

The Pink Pussycat on Saturday Nights

The Bomb At the School Bus Stop
End of a Ceasefire
Shergars Last Race
Liam and the Horseshoe Crab in Portballintrae
Swimming in Crop Circles.

Eamonn Stewart;
1.
The Equerries
Bob Shakeshaft;

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Auld Tripe
Ashen sun
Toddles
A Thin White Line
After Philomena

Felino A Soriano;
1.
Configuring Recollections XI- XX
Evelyn McAmis Bales;
1.
Three Memories
2.
Legacy
3.
Falling Away
On The Wall
Message from the Alleycats

page 53

Round the Back

Barbara Gabriella Renzi;
2.
Interview
3.
extract
Carlos Franco-Ruiz;
1.

The Zero Eye Review

Manuscripts, art work and letters to be sent to:

Submissions Editor
A New Ulster
23 High Street, Ballyhalbert BT22 1BL
Alternatively e-mail: g.greig3@gmail.com
See page 50 for further details and guidelines regarding submissions. Hard copy distribution is
available c/o Lapwing Publications, 1 Ballysillan Drive, Belfast BT14 8HQ
Digital distribution is via links on our website:
https://sites.google.com/site/anewulster/
Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman
Produced in Belfast & Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland.
All rights reserved
The artists have reserved their right under Section 77
Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
To be identified as the authors of their work.
ISSN 2053-6119 (Print)
ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)
Cover Image Full Moon on water by Amos Greig

There are no strangers here; Only friends you havent met Yeats.
Editorial
2016 is here and we have reached a milestone issue 40 and to celebrate we have our
largest issue to date. This will be a one off next issue we will return to our 89 page count. I still
find it surprising that I would ever be an editor of a literary magazine especially a monthly
based one, which has such a global following. I wouldnt have been able to do this without your
support and I hope to keep delivering a service for new and established writers.
We have poetry two extracts from work by Felino A Soriano and Michael Mc Aloran as
well as the artwork of Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Carlos Franco-Ruiz.
Of course A New Ulster wouldnt be what it is without the poets and artists who submit
their work each month and this issue features some very strong material as well as some first
time writers we also have some established names for you.
I consider myself as just a gatekeeper and today the door is wide open once more for
everyone to share.
Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!
Amos Greig

Biographical Note: Peter ONeill

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

He holds a degree in Philosophy and a Masters in Comparative Literature,

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

The Wall
(Peter O'Neill)

I pressed my lips against the cold stony

Surface of... it is tumultuous;
The inscriptions, the face off, your lips...
Pressed up against the stone cold chill of you.

You and I with our backs to Jerusalem,

Burning behind us like a second sun.
All the visions of the heavens that we
Once encompassed, the blessed scripture

Of what we both went through together.

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

Of what we once knew! All our psalms of

Wonder, compressed now into this stone wall.
The horizon is shut out, impossible to see through.

Violins - the Deep Sea Reefs

For Katie Melua
(Peter O'Neill)

You hold your head up above the sonorous

Waves, their gentle orchestrations upholding
You, emotive; the deep warm currents of the
Heart-strings, pulling you right into the

Land and mindscapes, the impossibility

Of distance, which her voice summons,
A muse; call this listening, call this singing...
Plunging deep below the quivering

Tremors, her craft upholding you, and you

Alone, through the lyric, the heart's request,
The piece. or song, a microcosm of us.

Hold your head up above the sonorous waves,

Their orchestrations upholding you, emotive;
Their gentle heart stings pulling you in.

The Poet
(Peter O'Neill)

My life is ridiculous, I should be in the circus;

With a bible in one hand, the ever present
Mystery on high, and Jacob still with me
Holding dangerously the sacrificial knife.

My themes and motifs never change:

A beautiful woman, a hole, the sacred heart.
If I had a lute it would be silent,
And all the songs that I sang would be still.

I sit at my desk with the bloody light.

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

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

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

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

All about you the deafening street roars.

A great dual ensues; O sweet majesty of pain...
A wonderful Amazon passes you, with a lithe
Hand, balancing between her hem and her brow.
Noble agility, with aquiline limbs...
As for you; you drink her in, with as much extravagance.
From her perspective - the sky is livid, born of hurricanes;
Her gentleness captivates, her pleasure kills...
Lighting bolt...and it is night! - Fugitive beauty,
Her fervent glance quickly rejuvenates...
Will you only ever see her in dreams?
Elsewhere, not far from where you are, it is already too late.
Ignorant of you, and where you've gotten to, she who doesn't
Know you. The one you could have loved...O, but how she knows you...

10

Lethe
Transversion from Baudelaire
(Peter O'Neill)
For a long time now I have wanted to plunge
My trembling fingers into the depths of your hair;
Come to my heart, deaf and cruel soul,
Adored tigress, monster with the insolent air.
Bury my poor head
In your perfume scented chiffon,
And let me breathe in, like a wilted flower,
The delicate odour of my defunct love.
Christ! I want to sleep, more than live,
In a sleep as soft and silent as death.
But instead, upon your body, like polished bronze,
I will affix my remorseless kisses.
To banish the appeasement of tears
Nothing is worth the abyss to be found in your bed,
There, where deep oblivion lingers on your lips
And the waters of Lethe flow through your embrace.
Ah, my destiny disrupts my delight,
Yet I obey it like one pre-destined;
A docile martyr, a condemned innocent,
Whose fervour only adds to the torment.
To drown my rancour, I would drink from
The carnivorous pitcher plants, the nepenthes,
Which grow at the bottom of that gorge,
The one which has never imprisoned your heart.

11

Number 29
(Peter O'Neill)

Heidegger's on the shelf

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

12

Bye Bye Blackbird

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

The open horn trumpets the notes onto

the November air, spiralling above the elm,
over the black hills, passing the isle of birds,
hurtling down through the temporal dimension,

bringing a metaphysical element,

which suddenly catches you unawares;
never expecting the autumnal burnish
to further uncover the cool vermilion

nestling under your feathered wing.

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

Old jazz of wonder soon parting, migratory,

an anthem to our dogfighting days, or a
tune to spit a little fire on the gaspard of the nights .

13

Biographical Note: Matt Prater

Matt Prater is a poet and writer from Saltville, VA (US). His work has
appeared in a number of journals internationally, including inGOWP
Zine, The Honest Ulsterman, The Moth, and Munyori Literary Journal.
Winner of both the George Scarbrough Prize for Poetry and the James Still
Prize for Short Story, he is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Virginia
Tech.

14

Lalochezia
Ryan Comer
(Matt Prater)
If drunk words
are sober thoughts,
stub
is cousin
to rum.
Our joints
are merciless
hit,
they hit back;
struck, they strike.
Bone would take
the nuclear option
every time,
under any
provocation.
No wonder
we would think
of peace
as a lamb
or a dove,
nerves cushioned
or hollowed,
eliding what
we really do
with injury.
Brother Ass,
our avatar,
is less us
for his stink
15

or his hide
than for his
thin, incorrigable knees.
Empty
Todd Bailey
Jim Wayne Miller
praised the action
of hard light
in hard trees
in January
a yellow,
particular joy.
In this way,
rum is
limb-light,
warm as any
coil-orange heater.
It is
what is not
in liquor
that makes
liquor delicious.

16

Hurt
Darnell Arnoult
(Matt Prater)
Some survive
their holy gifts
the part
of them
God bleeds
through. But
in Van Goghs
miracle summer,
at Auvers-sur-Oise
in 1890, when
the whole world
seemed renderable
in blue
and green
and gold,
that whole world
weighed immeasurably
on the master.
Sometimes there is
no answer
for this world
from its pleasures.

17

Biographical Note: Kenneth Pobo

Kenneth Pobo has a new chapbook forthcoming from Eastern

Point Press called Placemats. His work has appeared in:
Crannog, Orbis, Mudfish, Indiana Review, and elsewhere

18

STILL HERE
(Kenneth Pobo)

As autumn deepens, I check

the crack in the wall
where yellowjackets built a nest.
Late November.
They should be gone by now
even as they hover over the entrance.
Having been stung,
I dont wish them well
or do I? I admire their tenacity.
Winter, the great Exterminator,
gets closer. We say theyre mean.
Maybe were mean, caulking up hives,
locking the queen in. Dead
carcasses on the basement floor
look so small, flight wiped out.
We sweep them up
For the trash. Fly,
yellowjackets. You know whats coming.
We all do.

19

TRAINING WHEELS
(Kenneth Pobo)
After my dad removed
my training wheels,
he held onto the seat as I pedaled.
Hes 88 now, a widower,
in a retirement community. He tells me
how many people died there
during the week, also how many
are over 100. No training wheels
for old age. The hand lets go
and youre off.

20

ABYSS
(Kenneth Pobo)
A group beats a gay couple bloody
In the city
of brotherly love.
I picture that group
doused with lighter fluid
and set on fire,
people singing
and roasting marshmallows
as they scream, no one
coming to help.
I catch myself
how close I am to
the abyss,
giving in to hate,
becoming them,
my feet at the edge,
so tempting to leap
and let the abyss
be my new address.
Hate wont stop it
from happening again,
wont change a bandage
or soothe a wound.
The abyss is large,
its call seductive.
You never emerge.

21

BELLE OF BARMERA DAHLIA

(Kenneth Pobo)
Blossoms blot out the full moon.
Even they must shrink back
into tubers that fit in my hand.
Each bloom tosses
one last pink spear
at Novembers turned back.

22

MISCHIEF MOUNTAIN
(Kenneth Pobo)

After the witch melts, a bad bout of water,

we see her steam and the monkeys get happy.
All is well. But wait! Shes not really gone.
Her steam became a mountain
and anyone who climbs her faces great danger.
She shakes the earth,
brings you to your knees. She can un-sky
a lightning bolt to aim at your heart.
You might be walking to the Emerald City,
historically a difficult journey,
and run into her mountain. So much
for being in a hurry to arrive. You think,
oh well, its not a very tall mountain,
Ill make it. Thats the thing about mountains.
Size can mean little. Put your ear to the ground
and listen for a rumble.
Thats her.
Becoming a mountain wasnt in her plans,
but shes adjusted. Locals call it Mischief Mountain
which she likes. Under a full moon
she admits she got way too crazy
over a pair of slippers. Now
she makes wildflowers, some poisonous,
and from her peak she casts spells so potent
that she can turn the sun into a cheddar-colored
ping pong ball that she slams across
several darkening worlds.

23

Biographical Note: Nancy Anne Miller

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

24

Falling in Love with My Father in the Snow

(Nancy Anne Miller)
Because when we came to America
the landscape was black and white,
snow and dark bark like the blotted print of
the New York Times he read on Sundays.
Because he brought us here in January,
when sleet swept across the horizon
like a curtain to erase what I had
known before, the colours of an island.
Because when he held the steering wheel
in his hand, like a faucet he could turn off
on, he was so happy as the traffic rushed
by in the streams of water he was so thirsty for.

25

Island Bound Mail

(Nancy Anne Miller)
The sign at the Post Office
shows what a terrorist
package might look like.
Just like the one I send,
has a clump of stamps in
the shape of Matisses Snail.
A school of fish swims
the front, headed up
for the surface. Bits of
Scotch tape here, there,
like a snapper scaled.
And the loose brown
package paper, a sweater
a sibling hands down
to you, big, baggy,
the Shetland Wool
unravels into the string
wound round and round.
The postmistress asks if
anything is explosive
inside. I want to say Yes!
Books have been known
to cause revolutions, pages
turning, fan many a fire!
The non-terrorist package
has the US Postal Eagle.
Swift, eyes anything out
of uniform, what strays across
lines, roams 3rd class mail, it
is eager to pick up in tallows.

26

I Re-Member
(Nancy Anne Miller)
Like a candle streaming light onto
the page, my fountain pen leaks
Turquoise ink as I write about my isle.
I remember College Weeks when youth
buzzed the island, flocks of hummingbirds,
left Mobylettes on Front Street like
group sex enmeshed in handle bars,
gears and bicycle chains. I re-member
the sails envelope flap in the harbor
where the waves rose up in tips,
the seas letter beneath in long hand
writing we learned at Bermuda High School
for Girls. I remember shoving handfuls
of Crow Lanes Banana Bread in my mouth
after school, ingesting the islands moist
soil. I re-member the light sugar
cubed in limestone blocks, chalky,
made houses brim, float like a poem,
the white washed roofs ascending,
as Emily Dickinson said of poetry:
the top of her head taken off.

27

Bermuda Land Snail

(Nancy Anne Miller)
It is handy to come with your own glue,
so you can adhere to anything while
your shell whirls like a hurricane center,
a spiral of action when you are so slow.
A kind of joke on you by nature, a rams
horn with a fat awkward tongue. And to be
a tricycle of sorts, your feelers, rubbery,
handlebars on a toddlers clumsy first ride.
A measuring tape to record our earliest
life, white body, surf rushing to find a shore.

28

Rock Solid
(Nancy Anne Miller)
Bermudians dont need rocking chairs
to cool out, relax. The ocean will do
with the tide quick-sanding the beach,
leaving while arriving, such a sway of water.
Bermudians remember the hand steadies
the boat slapping up to the dock like
a pup to a bitches teat, jumps up in the air.
Bermudians need a solid chair while they
watch the horizon, see waves rise up like
children to peek over the flat line fence,
to see what is beyond. Need not be tilted
back, forth bringing it in, out of focus.

29

Sea Pudding
(Nancy Anne Miller)
That the sea would bake one, create a caramel
sponge, spotted as Paulines, our cooks face,
her light brown skin dotted with moles.
Soft as the bodies of black woman, who
took care of us Colonial Girls. May sewing
Liberty of London dresses for Cissette,
and Wendy, my Madame Alexander Dolls.
Rita ironing shirts, transformed them
from a gloppy jelly fish substance, stiffened
with the backbone of starch, while I
pestered her with questions. Evie cleaning
my privates as I sat in the tub, asking if
I had any company? The shock America
was for me as teenagers babysat children,
picked them up, put them down casually
as a plastic toy. Isochitopis badionotus,
like the African Bermudian women who
raised me up, digest detritus from marine
snow, absorb what is discarded from above,
but when stroked too much, throw up,
extrude parts, and re-form with a spine intact.

30

Crime Scene
(Nancy Anne Miller)

I cant go to the lake today,

flat and round as the hurricanes
eye which deadened all sound
through the casuarinas and
poincianna. Cant watch as
the maple releases leaves:
small boats sailed by children
in the Grand Basin Rond
at the Jardin des Tuleries, Paris.
Cant follow the roads yellow
ribbon divider circling water,
sections off an autumnal crime scene.

31

Biographical Note: Michael Mc Aloran

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

32

nothings claim

(from In Damage Seasons (Oneiros Books 2013)

In Damage Seasons
(Michael Mc Aloran)

33

...through lock of detritus/ acclimatised to the fallen lungs parameters therell be to

drive the coffin head with nails birthing the fallen attributes

scarred without longing therell be the stasis of it the hearse of the ever-laughter spun
lest from out of darkened/ choke/ dead space and an empty pageants shadow

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

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

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

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

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

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

-34

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

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

mockery of the arterys abnegation a pulse of rotting silences even breath therell be
sudden of in the bereft silences unclaimed

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

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

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

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

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

35

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

37

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

39

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

40

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

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

(rattling all the while)

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

--

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

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

settled ash upon nothings bones the grind of no thing sonorous as the give or having
taken till the eyes claim what yet till words erased mocking the sheen the flesh
burning away a showering of gardenias

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

41

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

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

exile cleaves a way the rotting teeth of the sun headless screams the skull evaporated
the tears that dont come the absence of blood the meat stripped away till

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

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

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

--

42

Biographical Note: Steve Klepetar

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

43

Li Bo Eats His Cake

(Steve Klepetar)

He invites me for his birthday,

so I bring a cake:
white frosting with red, white,
and blue balloons,
Happy Birthday Li Bo
scripted in red.
Its the Fourth of July.
He shows me his present: colorful
balls he juggles with practiced ease,
tossing them high, and catching
and tossing until I lose count and they rain
down in a spectrum lovely as light
shining through cataracts in a wooded glade.

When I look at his skillful hands,

they are green, and then hes a lizard
meandering through parting grass,
then a gray cat worrying a mouse.
When he reaches the laurel at the edge
of his yard, hes a squirrel scrambling
up the trunk with mischief in his mouth
and eyes. I am glad I came. In the darkness
we watch fireworks across the river,
44

gasping at the wild finale with its flashes

and noise and huge globes of colored light.
Then we go inside to gorge on cake, his eyes
glazed with joy as frosting coats his eager lips.

45

Li Bo and the Pleasures of Wine

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

at Westside 13 bucks. I bend

a wire hanger, pull the cork. He pours
and we swirl and clink and sip.

Then I lick my finger, move it slowly

around the rim until vibrations ring
in our ears. Howd you do that?

and I show him how to get the feel,

smooth glass turning slightly rough
as index finger finds the purchase.

Its the wine singing! he shouts,

face bright with grape and glee.
He scratches with his pen on a torn

page, a new drinking poem

about a traveler by a pool, toasting
the silent moon with melodious glass.

46

Li Bo Tastes The Cup of Sorrow

(Steve Klepetar)
He drinks the cup of sorrow
with dry lips, cracked from cold,
tastes the viscous liquor
with a tongue burnt by fires of rage,
feels its strange, thick sweetness
fill the hollow cavern of his mouth.
His eyes tumble in their sockets,
his moans shake paintings from the wall.
His fingers uncoil slowly as feeling
rushes back with surging blood.
He stumbles in a drunken parody
of dance, wretchedness fills his arms.
In the dead orchards silence he
listens to a golden bird as it warbles
from its perch in the bent branches
of a pear tree.
Through the flood of day he swims,
hair tangled with weeds and mud.
All night he tosses under blankets
that roll like the unquiet sea,
where humpbacks serenade their mates
and sing cold lamentations to the watery moon.

47

Seventh Avenue
(Steve Klepetar)

All day, rain spoke in its hissing voice:

I have come from hills to take you
home, to bury you in salt and clay
and broken shards of shell.
Everywhere puddles and mud.
On Seventh Avenue, cars snake
uptown in gullies of loneliness.
Past the park, angels gather in alleys,
soaked wings bent inward, past
lingering light glowing from proud
chests and breath fine as steel wool.
No songs as flames die in ash cans,
and a thousand fingers grated raw,
slip into pockets or disappear in rising
mist. We are the way of the street,
whisper droplets spreading in black
rivulets, climbing curbs. We are only
melting moon, heralding the end of days.

48

Ghost Song #6
(Steve Klepetar)

Are you so fast that you cannot see

That I must have solitude?
If I am in the darkness
Why must you intrude?

Dylan

They intrude with rude mouths

of children, slathered with sweets,
or drunks patrolling midnight

streets with false jollity. They

intrude without kindness or cheer.
Their faces glow in glass panes

above my bed. I have woken to

the sweep of their motion between
walls, cold silence of their artificial

breath. I have shooed them with

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

49

cleansing spells and poured my

own tears on the dusty floor.
I have plugged my ears with wax

and lay down with cats in their

soft beds until moonlight woke us
and we slipped into the bowels

of night where we spit and danced

and tore our shadows into ripped
shards covering the blood-slick streets.

50

Biographical Note: Jo Burns

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

51

Loading the Mare

(Jo Burns)
Bought at the Garvagh show,
she was a fine, well bred mare,
an unbroken pony, six years old
with a Connemara head.
She stole a look at the rusty
cattle box seeing demons sliding
and spitting on its slats and
cow shit splattered walls.
Her ears pinned flat, her muzzle
steamed, she whinnied in fear
at the murderous space between
her and hell that gaped before
They took the bar from the gate,
whacked her deep to force her in;
Three farmers trying to coax her
into her imagined pen of wolves.
I was a ten year old filled with fear
watching the frightened mare
rear up, flailing hooves cleaving
air as she fell, beaten and panicked.
She lay prostrate wet with terror,
but suddenly leapt like a hare
snorting and twisting she cleared
a fence into a field of sheep.
She cleared a five bar gate,
underhoof, interrupt, overcome.
This Eochaid incarnate, as though
in her sleep, cantering home.
Inside my eyelids, I saw her still pulling
horizons closer in gallop through dreams,
and I dreamt of frisky Tuatha
steeds under their fairy queens.

52

The Pink Pussycat on Saturday Nights

(Jo Burns)
Waiting for the strobes to hit,
for smoke to encircle our waists,
feeling our slippery nipples rise
as we lifted our glasses certain
that our songs are being sung.
We would not sing the soldiers song
at closing time, nor God save the Queen.
We drank to joy, no care for division.
Inebriated shadows we see ourselves
in mirrored bars, the acronyms gone,
as diesel gives way to double vodkas,
a silver bullet as a homebound chaser
and we fall back into safe padded cars
with radios tuned to the same old war
on Radio Ulster; slick-sliding, slipped
by patrolling parents past army checkpoints,
pulled lightly from nights carousel,
smoothed softly back into our beds.
.

53

The Bomb At The School Bus Stop

(Jo Burns)
Listen to the rain spit in new ashes/As you heft a load of dust that was Magherafelt.
Seamus Heaney, Two Lorries
Lying around as drunk glass staggered,
clinging onto frames to stand.
When the earth wobbled under us,
as stone collapsed into its own sand.
It was a weekend afternoon,
watching some soap opera omnibus.
We didnt see the sweeping cloud,
which blackened phone lines to wake us.
It touched our foreheads clenched and white,
trying to glue shards, piece by piece,
back to entirety in the shattered silent night.
We couldnt prolong the brevity,
of that moment before it broke on us,
again, that peace explodes away.
On Monday we shared the bus to school
with the boys in convent blue,
playing Kevin and Sadie as a rule,
and later we would be segregated out
and marched straight-laced in black and red
to Tennyson, perhaps Sassoon,
those late war poets but rarely Plath or Woolf,
for war is more tangible than any human condition.

54

End of a Ceasefire
Omagh 1998.
(Jo Burns)
Inverted alveoli, froth on black,
have lost their lungs, once green,
once intact. The bloodless dry
have fallen one by one among
Samhains haemorrhaging time.
Slaughters month has come again.
Grave rubbings scratched in sooty lines
rob the ashes of past years Beltane.
The hawthorn which budded fresh in may,
will be blanketed, shortly after cremation.
As the ripen fruiting season dates into past
and the future hibernates under snow sedation.
The berries of the rowan have soured away.
The blackbirds swerve in flight, drunk from most,
to the sun which shows its back and abjures day,
as we hunch under our harvests weight to home,
not to enjoy but to store from young pooka that roams,
Devil Man! Red eyed and cruel. We get glimpses
of our cycles untravelled, while it bewitches
them to believe all our labour inedible.
The cloth that binds unravels. For we dont wait
to try. We know were done. In apostasy,
we, as foes, have joined on steed to race
and seal the year in gerrymandered deeds.
Sacrifices were paid too long to wicker in this realm.
Now we handle in treaties, love nowhere to be found,
and we abscond all relics and evidence of us and then
to amnesty. No armistice. Our hands will be unbound.

55

Shergars Last Race.

(Jo Burns)
Note: In Farsi, Sher means Lion or Poem, Gar denotes possession.
The shape of the half moon,
a ramp lowering as clicks of hoof and calk
are hushed through worm hole,
stretching a track too fine.
The half moon,
blinding jute pulled over the crescent
of a crest to the withers, horse blinkered,
trust through the round noose of a chain.
The half moon
arch of the young eye in balaclava,
joined to fight a war. He has never
seen adrenaline quite like him before.
The half moon,
careful curved strokes, brushing
the white blaze brown from the kink
in his half moon swirl
to the inflected smoking nostril.
The half moon,
beams spread circumferent
around iron grill bars,
fixing the stallion, for the moment
his white eyes roll up
to see equuleus waiting.
The half moon
hock pulls as he kicks breeze block walls,
demented, all out, roaring,
hind fetlocks torn, a coil unwinding,
wailing, for a soft voiced stable boy.
The half moons
of torchlight dissecting
kildare turf, tipping farm sheds
up, turning swivel hooks
and hangs of abbatoirs.
A small girl bends her neck
in arc after hearing news,
to pray for his return
with both curved ears.
56

The half moon

bolt slid back through semi circular catch,
kick latch curled open by black issue boot,
the rasping hinge strains to unfurl
on it's rusted unoiled axis.
The half moon
of a pushed stable half door,
an arc of sawdust disturbed
by one heavy, dutied, foot.
The half moon, an armalite strap
of a widow maker as the vertical night
is pulled, under crook of armpit,
horizontal.
The half moon,
caressed indented trigger by an index finger
which never stroked the curvature
of a velvet muzzle nor held
in the bow of thumb and palm
a galactic pulsing, racing, pastern.
The half moon,
flailing around fulcrum,
riddled atactic,
on the sloppy going of his own gore,
cannons running every race over.
The bend of heaving, steaming,
lead filled flank falling to the floor.
The stable clock hands tick one moon more,
untill last dawn groans gurgle from girth
to a throat lathered in red foam.
They ring in sinusoidal wave over
the bent curve of an arm, on axis,
forcing a spade into the dirt.
Digging deeper and deeper,
for him and the horse.
The half moons
sigh, tick, search, rust, pat the earth down.
They are locked or unmasked, hang, point back to floor,
and the theta star of Pegasus stares in straight line toward Orion.

57

Liam and the Horseshoe Crab in Portballintrae

(Jo Burns)
Im the horseshoe crab.
I scuttled from the wreck
of the girona, to escape
the moon eyes of divers
and sights of shark fanged
sharp slipper limpets
drilled and burrowed alive
by piddocks. I fled the open sea,
where lobster pots
cloaked in bladderwrack
have taken many dear to me.
Here in the harbour, Its calmer.
The water lies ironed
and ripples only dawn and dusk,
when the fisherboat shakes plankton
off as dust then leaves the stretching shores
of the bay to smooth all flat again.
Terns and black backs circumference
as vultures, where the buoy line
secants, and the light-flashes dance,
but they dont bother much with me.
Today I was fed a line of old ham,
and carved clamflesh, excised
by messy hand with a kitchen knife.
Then hauled up in a fine mesh
of latitudes and longtitudes,
a glistening lattice, bisecting the sun,
which rose then eclipsed
behind protuberate head of a child,
who cried, I,ve got it!
He sucked in, to inflate
his eyes and we both tugged, wary.
He knew one puff of impetus breath
would send me spinning, precarious.
He picked me up, ginger,
as if I were a kickers splitting hoof,
and lay me on the greasy, lichen slipway.
The boatclub of tipsy fathers remote,
as far-off bleachers,
58

he set me next to another,

with one red tipped, broken, claw,
then prodded us each on the carapace
with his bamboo fishing net.

We sprung up, set to take off.

horseshoe crabs on your marks, get set!
We shot through the starting gates,
Go!.
Hed waited,
to watch our spindly gait,
but in the lap of the ebb,
Id already galloped my lengths,
an apron ahead, cadent,
under the blanket
of my bed, the atlantic.

59

Swimming in Crop Circles.

(Jo Burns)
Its the hazy bleached air season of white,
the stalks hunger and cling to the sun,
ears tuned for the suck and swing of the scythe
splitting ranks of phloem one by one.
Four boys and I swim enchanted in this butter yellow,
rolling, crawling in circles, daring dives into terra.
We taunt the proud, coarse, crackling wheat, flattening
it to dust, stamping into dried dirt for good measure.
The ripples in this bowl of golden water
spread from epicentre in these acres of times
of our lives, treading trenches in tidal swell,
seeds scratching our necks and reddening our eyes.
We pause, spent, spy the rusted John Deere tractor
on edge at this once dense amber sea of tranquility,
now threatening to become a furied twisting water,
we dive behind the few erect stalks we can see.
A farmers bank of molten wealth has been plundered
by concentrics the width of splayed 8 year olds.
As we delay our crawl out from this itchy decadence,
we survey the courtroom and prepare our trial defence.

60

Biographical Note: Eamonn Stewart

Eamonn Stewart was born in Belfast

1964. He trained to be an advertising
photographer, worked in advertising
as motion picture cameraman.
Eamonn studied film history at
University of East London. His work
has been extensively published in
magazines and anthologies.
Presently, working pro bonoin
student/indie films.

61

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

The worst thing in life is getting used to things.

Thousands of hangovers traded for a spark of jamais vu .
Cats claw at trash bags flimsy as graphene
This was the veil that was lifted from me.

Callous, like modern mountaineers.

Oblates of the craving for oblivion.
Butterflies sip nectar. Houseflies sip ordure.
Waking, I was back in Byzantium
With the sounding boards calling the faithful to prayer .
It was just kids battering the plywood
That lazy builders left behind .
The fontanelles of the loudspeakers
Shed exquisitely tangible sounds.
Still, I overheard the drunk who said
Semtex looks like earwax.
Theyve swapped their grandparents fear
Of the iron lung, for the sunbeds and dread
Of not enough sun.
In the Loney they would have been Lachikos
But now, they are trendy comprachicos .
Whose faces are portentless Dodonas
62

Do they tinkle in the dark night of the soul ?

Piercings evoke some Disney Saint Sebastien
Their integuments anthropomorphic Lascaux
That Bradburys Illustrated Man would not know.
Carl Sagan said we are genetically close to trees.
Sunbeds turn their skin to bark Ovid would have balked
At such metamorphoses.
Petals softer than real fontanelles
Pulsatile, pullulating in sloth.
The Anther is a finger and thumb
Rubbing scales from the gaudiest butterflies
Pluripotent odours, pollen climbing the viscosity of air.

An old man passing a black plastic bag:

The wind moved the neck, it looked like a Faithfull dog
As if acknowledging, the old man looked down.
On the loom of the park railings
An eclatique tapestry of the mundane.
The Mama and Papa tube recalled,
Like a prop from Dr. Who .
Proprieties in their Goldilocks Zone
Pared with bigotrys microtome .

Theyve swapped their parents fear

Of the Iron Lung for sunbeds and dread of not enough sun.
63

In The Loney they wouldve been Lachikos

But now they are trendy Comprachicos.

Carl Sagan said we are genetically like trees
Sunbeds turn their skin to bark
Ovid would have balked at such metamorphoses.
Their faces are portentless Dodonas , or
Do they tinkle in the dark night of the soul ?
Piercings evokes some Disney Saint Sebastian
Their integuments anthropomorphic Lascaux
Bradburys Illustrated Man wouldnt know .

Cigarette paper Golems embouchures that rival flautists

Send themselves off on pointless missions
Hungry as Pac Man, ravening without remission.
In synesthetic proprioception I feel
An asteroid with rings and water on the moon.
One day I will clear my mind of these things
How I bought shortcake in Brigadoon

Here is their Burning Bush

A creosote plant and triboelectric sand
Its message for a tribe in a rush is
Its really ourselves we cannot stand.
Cocaine is the Hamon on their blade.
They are flies on the axle of history
64

Drunken with self-praise they cry

See what a dust we raise !

Glissandos on the metal head lice comb

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

65

Biographical
Biographical Note: Bob Shakeshaft
Robert Shakeshaft was born in august 1949. In 2004 he attended a creative writing course,
this was his venture into writing. This course was run by Skerries poet
Edna Coyle Green. At this event he wrote his first poem February field. He first attended
readings at open mic with Michael O.Flanagan of riposte in the Glen of Aherlow a pub on
Emmet road Inchicore. Robert read at the Inchicore village festival at that time it was held
in Kilmainham gaol. Robert has also poems published in riposte a broadsheet edited by
poet Michael O Flanagan.
Later he began reading in Dublin city with the 7 towers open mic in Cassidys of
Westmoreland st. in 2009 he submitted some of his poems for the 7 towers anthology. Also
he has work published in the curlew collection of poems by Dublin writers in
2009.followed on by the ardgillian writers anthology where he is a member and a
contributor. A further two poems published in seven towers 2012- anthology.
Soon to be followed by inclusion in the 2013 publication.
Robert has read at the glor sessions run by Stephen James Smyth on several occasions.
Also he has read at the new bridge writers open mic.nights.Robert has recorded his poems
on KFM radio as well as performing live on liffey sounds with the host Eamon Lynskey a
Dublin poet. Robert continues to write and read his poems at 7 towers new venue in the
twisted pepper in Abbey st.

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

66

Auld tripe
(Bob Shakeshaft)

The smell of fresh strewn saw-dust absorbing

the pungent blood seeping from the block
as the skilled sharp knife cuts into the dead
bone splintered shrapnel flies
from under the cleavers deadly accuracy
one mistake will shout oh fuck
someone needs stitching
and a jab arse tetanus

lets a shout jump across the counter

here is any of yeez serving
ok gorgeous what can I get you this fine morning
keep that talk for your own bit of fluff it wont work on me
I want a decent pork chop one that wont ruin me dentures
A smile as broad as his hands crease his face
sure we cant have that
now trust me this will be as tender as a babys arse
Ill take your word love go on give it to me
will that be all
no I need some tripe for himself he has a bad stomach
serves him right drinking every bleedin night
mind you the honey-comb will only do!
no worries only just in the door and fresh from the cows belly
67

grand now how much do I owe ya

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

68

Ashen sun
(Bob Shakeshaft)

Moonlights pallid blossoms, white, wondrous,

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

Loathing his life, his self, his transgression

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

69

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

as my eyes, keen my ears long the call

come on, hop on the bar, I cant reach yet,
he scoops me up in one strong safe hand,
then leather pedals the crank into action.

Linenhall Street fades in the distance, the tower

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

We approach the ornate gates of angels,

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

I help our father place fresh bought flowers,

as we clean-rake white stones, pure
the whispered words pour over our lips
kiss his name, turns us back

to the morning in reverse, OConnells tower

rounds us home in silence
till his booming voice celebrates, Danny-boy
in sunshine and shadow, all is at peace.

70

A thin white line

(Bob Shakeshaft)

Shut up the dog barking,

draw close the black curtain sky
let the sun smile another day,
allow silence transcend.
The loss is so sorrowful,
yet it must be,
no answers, no consoling,
pain, more pain.
The truck on the sharp bend,
way over the white line
that decides life or death,
crunched in the screaming metal,
meshed in splintered body parts
painful flesh stained,
in life giving blood.
Offering no more, now
rivulets red in frantic passion
escape inanimate being,
inanimate as the mangled bike.

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After Philomena
(Bob Shakeshaft)

for fifty long years my heart was scalded in thinking of you

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

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Biographical Note: Felino A Soriano

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

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a selection from Configuring Recollections

from XI XX
(Felino A Soriano)

On friendships
Each new
relational camaraderie
built an effort of
clarity toward speaking
in braided, memorable text.
Friendships were similar in height.
Fiction of worlds wore my favorite shirt
exterior to the closet holding its color
pure.
Eventual,
as in autumns dissolution
winters cold into the corporeal
pivoting of disagreements and
frictions diligent and subsequent
silencing echoes.

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rehearsing the collection

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

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Origins
(Felino A Soriano)
an obligation wrote
my infrequent name into a chapter
of devoted prose, desired
articulation to portend
emotion from my girlfriend
which, unlike my reflectional
behavior
needed continuous
emblems of others
dialogue to feel belonging,
inherited togetherness
my language, though a softened
whisper-crawl paradigm of
needed changethis change
of desire to speak within
how my thinking exposed
truant fulfillment and dexterous
affirmations
inside a Fridays silence an
awaiting for schools Monday
to interpret weekend boredom I
opened a notebook and examined
the quietness
of each nocturnal page, the/
my internal music,
an immediate rhythm
exposed dimensional language
with
each syllable an abstract
clarity confirming
alabaster idea
would become an
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inexistent fathom of
prior articulations, as
the poetry unknown
by the hand and speaking
image would
write toward my girlfriend a
reactionary
reciprocation I practiced to
enchant and replicate
from the interior
obfuscation
from where this language
transpired

silence, the undeveloped virtue

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

Of leaving
dont explain,
: the bend of your shadow
arced into the grasping of my name

unfastened

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this distance cannot enunciate me well

I
am from the privilege of incisive hands
the
origin of sound and bodies
encounter
with
prophecy of form without a name to
determine approbation
or
soliloquy of
determining timeline or
deterioration of choice
in the fathom of misplaced percentage
of existences alphabetic
misspelling

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Biographical Note: Evelyn Bales

Evelyn Bales, a poet living in Kingsport, Tennessee, has been published in

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

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Three Memories
(Evelyn Bales)
Three memories of that first love
have followed me these fifty years.
A boy at summer camp, fourteen.
His skin smooth, glowing.
The sun jewelling his fair hair.
Cold lake water beading
his chest. Our eyes met,
then shyly dropped, our hearts
feeling beyond all reason
what we could not know.
The autumn of '57 driving
the wetlands along Horse Creek,
a sea of cattails, an exaltation.
A host of red-winged blackbirds
taking flight, our talisman.
One frosty January night,
the earth rimed in ice,
he raised both arms to the heavens,
calling down the numberless stars
to name the measure of his love.

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Legacy
(Evelyn Bales)
Suppose the paths that once diverged
had come together then,
before you chose the single life
and I the marriage bond.
Our son might walk the path you took
to fish this teeming pond,
And sun-kissed girl in pinafore
might take her brothers hand
And lead him through these treasured fields
you held in trust for them.
while we from side-porch watched enthralled
the wonders we had wrought.
Mid lovely supposition, reality intrudes.
Your farm may pass to other hands
not skilled in plow or herd,
and ruder folk might raze your hearth
to build unmemoried stone.
But hearts can move in union still
within that other realm,
where souls transcend the mark of years
as surely poets can.
From shadowed porch Ill write to you,
our stories will unfold.
And words will be our legacy,
My heart your hearth and home.

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Falling Away
(Evelyn Bales)
Out here under the trees,
we rest from autumns chore
and fall side by side on cushion
of multicolored leaves.
Red, pink and orange maple leaves
drift on us like a patchwork quilt,
their dust motes mingled with
the hickory leaves musty essence.
We rue the oak and beech leaves
that will remain until late winter,
their rustling accompanying winter wind,
their tenacity assuring we will rake again come spring.
We watch woodsmoke from our neighbors hearth
wisping skyward as two hawks wheel and turn,
and we are carried away like time travelers
to that day you first showed me this place.
The years fall away then
leaving us seventeen again
coming to this place where
we dreamed the home
That stands just behind us,
gray cedar and ancestral stone,
roof gleaming in the sun,
the front entrance welcoming.
But we are in another time
when love was new and tender,
full of hopes and dreams,
when even time was young.
The children, seldom out of mind,
fall away here, too;
and we are alone, lovers still,
the last leaves drifting slowly down.

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If you fancy
submitting
something but
havent 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
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These guidelines make sorting through all of our submissions a much simpler task, allowing us to spend more of
our time working on getting each new edition out!

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November 2015 MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

Like the tide the last few months have had their ups and downs
but like cats we bounce back and land on our feet.
Well, thats 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 didnt make it into this edition,
dont 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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85

Biography: Barbara Gabriella Renzi

LULE
I have been painting and drawing since my childhood and my art has always been
the intersections of dreams and sweet memories and very often a metaphor of life and
of my interiority.
The waves of the sea are also the waves of memory. Every time I bathe in the sea of
memory I change the waves and my memories and my memories change me.
My paintings are visual evocations of my childhood: swimming in the warm sea
water and floating on and playing with the waves, the internal peace that we lose
when we grow, the food and the life in the moment that we forget to live, being the
happiest child on earth when tasting and eating a lemon lollypop, the smell of coffee
in the house, the taste of sugar with a drop of coffee and that of cinnamon cakes
The various images and patterns of my paintings emerge from my night dreams,
slowly taking shape as a description of my interior world. They are metaphors of my
life and of the different layers of my soul. I mainly use acrylics and oils.
Lule - Barbara Gabriella Renzi
Lule started painting under the direction of Italian painter and sculptor Bruno
Caviola. She has developed her original style thorough an on-going exploration of
the qualities and combinations of textures, colours and materials. Her art has its
origin in dreams and memories and it is a metaphor of her life and interiority.
Lule has extensively exhibited in Northern Ireland, Italy and Germany. Her recent
exhibitions include solo shows at Synch Space (Bangor), Common Grounds (Belfast)
and at the Crescent Arts Centre.

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Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

87

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

88

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

89

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

90

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

91

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

92

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

93

Painting by Barbara Gabriella Renzi photography by Giulio Napolitano

94

Biography: Carlos Franco-Ruiz

Carlos Franco-Ruiz (1987, Managua, Nicaragua) is an artist who mainly works with
painting. In 1988, as the civil war was winding down his parents immigrated to Miami,
FL. Carlos was raised in Miami, in the neighborhood of Little Havana. At the age of 14,
he was accepted into the Commercial Art Magnet Program at South Miami Senior High
School in 2002. After graduating, he would continue to pursue art as a career and
completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Miami in 2011. In 2013, he
moved to Uruguay and continues to follow his passion for painting where he recently had
a solo exhibition "Fractured Moments" at Roggia Galerie to showcase his latest body of
work.
Currently
lives
and
works
in
Sauce,
Uruguay.
www.franco-ruiz.com

95

Dark nights by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

96

Discarded wool online by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

97

The Exchange by Carlos Franco-Ruiz

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99

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

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

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