Abridged 0 - 48: Mercury Red by Abridged

abridged __ p.1

Abridged 0__48 Mercury Red

Supporting the literary scene in Northern Ireland and beyond through new writing and reading development.

abridged __ p.2

Megan Doherty

Tamsin Kendrick 6

Eamon Mc Guinness

Eamonn McGinty 7

Eamonn McGinty 29

K.E. Duffin

Ross Jackson

John Black

Deirdre McKenna 31

Kelli Allen

Charlie Baylis

Megan Doherty

Éamonn Brown

Adam Crothers

Matthew Rice

Zoë Murdoch

Dianne Whyte

Emily Holt

Terence Dooley

Ian Cumberland 15

Joanna McNulty 37

Suzanne Magee 16

Nina O’Donovan 38

Éamonn Brown

Zoë Murdoch

Adam Crothers

Ian Cumberland 19

Megan Doherty

J. Roycroft

Terence Dooley

Fiona Ní Mhaoilir 21

Audrey Gillespie 43

Gerard Smyth

Charlie Baylis

Audrey Gillespie 23

Laura O’Connor 45

Justin Sullivan

Aisling Bradley

Eamonn McGinty 25

Liam Campbell

Deirdre McKenna 26

Kelli Allen

Cover by: Megan Doherty, John Black and Fiona Ní Mhaoilir

abridged __ p.3

laganonline.co

Stephanie Conn 5

Abridged 0__48 Mercury Red

What the Trees Whisper

editorial

A rook clawed free an empty wooden house,

Our virtual lives are spent in a permanent two o’clock on a cold Saturday night where every frustration and all our angers

took to the sky, content with the weight of rooms,

are vented on friends and strangers alike as what we had hoped to aspire to crumbles. Emotions are quick here, love

left behind three apple trees, their shadows

emphatic, anger relentless, all performed, all for the sake of an audience. State your preference, show your colours,

lengthening under a neon sky on the orchard floor.

expose yourself, for if you don’t, in this world you do not exist. All you have is ‘you’ and when that isn’t enough scorch the earth. They gave us a voice but now there’s nobody there to listen. We can only hear the static of stories struggling

He dropped it into the sea at dawn and left

to be heard, struggling to be real. We are all avatars now, vicious and divine, our anger living on in the ether long after

to find a single storey house. The open windows,

we have gone, the poison that keeps the system running. When the aspirational fails it turns into the inspirational which

not accustomed to salt winds, slammed shut,

has an almost religious fervour in self-deception. We wake up each morning to a torrent of messages on social media

wakening the ghosts and raising the roof

informing us that if are ‘ourselves’ and ‘believe in ourselves’ we can achieve the impossible. Transformation will be quick and painless. A screen full of medicine men (and women) selling easy answers with beautiful backdrops.

five metres into the air. It is easy to imagine lightning cracking open the solid slate sky above

Conversely when we do achieve something of substance there are legions of ‘trolls’ ready to lay siege to us. The age of the

this island house. Tropical birds emerge from sea-mist,

inspirational is an age of extremes. Love is public and anger is quick to surface. Our fear is now public domain. This fear

squawking of turquoise pools and a distant sun.

remains in the ether, an indistinct agent in our psychological lives, both invisible and disturbing as hypothetical warfare. When we feel under attack it solidifies and we name it. It is in naming the thing that should be feared that it comes into

I’m not drawn in to their dripping pollen stories

focus, even merely as mirage or red herring. By naming it, mythologizing it, adorning it with colours and connotations so as

and try to dream myself back behind three apple trees,

to turn it into a child’s villain, we cast it from ourselves and make it temporarily stable enough to identify: a tangible enemy.

their shadows lengthening under a neon sky – but find myself staring at barbed wire, a corrugated

white masks the problematic complexity of these qualities incestuous and changeful relationship. Light can obscure as

abridged 0 – 48

much as darkness, and on each the other depends for definition.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

iron fence, my own reflection. I never was content

without permission.

with the weight of rooms, tended towards open fields

and paths I didn’t know, would happily catch a train

Abridged is a division of The Chancer Corporation

into a black, forgotten tunnel. The track twists

Red Mercury is an explosive that may or may not exist. Abridged is heading into its thirteenth year. We’ve always existed in the adolescent and gothic so we guess the teens

c/o Verbal Arts Centre, Stable Lane and Mall Wall,

are a good place to be. Existence seems to becoming a more Abridged place so we feel we haven’t lost our relevance.

Bishop Street Within, Derry - Londonderry BT48 6PU.

It’s an appropriate time to thank once again our funders, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for their belief in us. Also

back on itself, clicks and creaks and groans

website:

to the Verbal Arts Centre for their assistance throughout the years and to the Golden Thread Gallery, Void Gallery and

in the record temperatures. On the grass bank

facebook abridged

the Millennium Courts Arts Centre for their continued and very valuable support. And of course appreciation to our

an abandoned grandfather clock ticks and tocks;

telephone: 028 71266946

contributors, our readers and to the people and organisations that make an issue come together. We couldn’t do this

a child falls over it following the scent of a forest.

email:

www.abridgedonline.com

abridged@ymail.com

without you all. Next: Abridged 0 – 49: Babel.

Stephanie Conn

abridged __ p.5

abridged __ p.4

A named fear is a catalyst for all that frightens, within and beyond ourselves. Telling a story of good and evil, of black and

MOON Here. On the dead of the moon I am as still as a bowl on an alter – a gift to the vacuum. Better to give yourself to something that doesn’t want you Better to give up. If a gift is received it must be unwrapped – sticky fingers on the package – they tear the paper you know. It is never quite what they wanted. Here. On the dead of the moon - you cannot point there and say, this is where he hurt her, You cannot look there, and say this is where it happened, We have no histories and there are no ghosts. On the moon I think of you. Still anchored to that garish planet. Still choked with possibility. You think: I shall give myself as a gift – the powers that turn the earth will conspire together – place a mantle on me. I shall flick out my hand and like a trick the land will bow before me. I will walk in the woods at night and not be frightened. I will lie in bed at night and not be frightened. I will navigate the intricacies of love and not be frightened. I open my arms and between them will be myself distilled - as clear as the midday sun, As clear as a vista where tourists flock in droves, mouths open.

abridged __ p.7

abridged __ p.6

I can wait here a little longer for you. I don’t mind. When the land doesn’t bow – and you are ashamed. When the seas don’t part – and you are ashamed. When there is no mantle – and you are frightened. When your data package runs out. I’ll be here – on the dead of the moon, Waiting.

Tamsin Kendrick

Opposite: Eamonn McGinty, Night Town 3, 2013

EVIL

A river of rust winding back to the source, tethering me to despair, tugging, nagging, metallic. The drone of a plane veering off course low in the sky on a humid night, dragging its threat through coruscated neighborhoods where fear makes its bed and puts out the light reluctantly, dumping grounds of shoulds that fester and glitter like shards of glass in the sight of Janus, whose backward glance always wins. Malign magnet, underside of time, your name often garbled by the wind or scrawled by rotted stalks in frozen fens— an alert animal in me senses your crime:

abridged __ p.9

abridged __ p.8

my soul tacked to a tree and skinned.

K.E. Duffin

Opposite: John Black, Mighty and Superior, 2016

Facebook ignores the priest’s blessed drink and we pull the bucket from the sweet well too soon

This is how the screen manipulates: I gather active and collect silence. Of the five sips, this is the third. Tell me when the feather slips cup into lips into gut. Explain this version of you-binary instead of voice, irrelevancies, regardless posture. See? We have married every drake bridging, wings extended hard, these ponds. Still, feasts devoured and mead tucked wet into gullets, I know how you look at me in afternoon light. Consummation is communion only after you admit, round eyes watching

abridged __ p.11

abridged __ p.10

My throat, that we are here. We are here.

Kelli Allen

Opposite: Megan Doherty, All Over Me, 2016

An Intimate Complaint

Don’t be rash, rash; rash, be not hasty. Spread not your swan-wings o’er my Leda’s rushes; when my left eye jumps her right eye lashes me. She treats me sparingly; don’t waste me. Well excuse me while I feng shui the universe to accommodate your double-parked aura! There’s something impolite behind your arras. Alas my lass falls victim to your never and her nerve ends. Some wounds don’t mend. Some moon somewhere’s out of place, hold on... I made a swan out of a poem: fold, unfold, organic growth, Bob Mould; I meant to sail that bird on a puddle swollen with sunset, but discreet cloud drew the down of itself over the itchy sky and its blooded lens. Life floats on, and who needs a swan, or a swan like that? Not everything is about sex, you know, which is not to say that this isn’t; but little rash, here is a seed, literally, for your fatal

abridged __ p.13

abridged __ p.12

flower garden; may it be the most that you grow.

Adam Crothers

Opposite: Zoë Murdoch, Я 118, 2013

Do You Take This Man?

On the U-Bahn to Pankow. Toss, flick your hair. Tongue the cigarette. At the top of the water-tower: look in, look down. Are you still bent down there (dear)? Between the legs? Flick, toss your hair. Tongue the air. Say yes. G’wan. Say Sure. Say Let’s be horizontal Say Oh the blue sheets— A moment or two in the balcony room. <First touch>

Remember the hunger? Remember,

abridged __ p.15

abridged __ p.14

Quick, the roles: Victim. Executioner.

how Woolf left her hat and cane at the river’s edge?

Emily Holt

Opposite: Ian Cumberland, Distance, 2016

The News from the East

We can’t look at it: the letters form a human face. It’s taken out to the rain and pressed to the rusted fingers of the wet railings –it becomes an aneurysm on paper,

abridged __ p.17

abridged __ p.16

so thin it barely breathes.

Suzanne Magee

Opposite: Éamonn Brown, Former Political Poster, 2016

Max Richter: Sleep

A further verse to waking, if it pleases sir. A sun all nosy-fingered squeezes her breast – matters it which? – through an all-seeing blind and a bra no sky is bluer than, nor might be. A Heathrow flight path – matters it? – grants some teatro, each pterosaur snore a slow snare in the marching band that dares go there: a plagiaristic gull being sent down, probably; banter and roast; the traditional cross baby. Windows yawn; with breezy rage, rails snooker on frames. At a space-age crawl the baby goes, electric, into the bathtub

abridged __ p.19

abridged __ p.18

of this white room where hours are racked up.

Adam Crothers

Opposite: Ian Cumberland, Sink or Swim, 2016

TWO ÈTUDES

I What makes this old woman dance The Tarantella like a Dervish, in the square in Ostuni? What urge unkinks her knotted varicose veins and prompts a lifetime of reserve to be dropped, as she drags a young man onto the cobblestones, at first reluctantly, then not so? Nearby, a young woman falls to the ground, as if seized by a fit of passion, expatiating whatever age-old guilts and loves convulse these ancient mountain towns. II Is it the same compulsion that obliges the flagellant, in front of his child, to beat his calves with a cardo on the steps of the Chiesa dell’Annunziata in Nocere Terinese? Each of its thirteen thorny fragments is a subdivision of Christ’s pain, and leaves him as bloody as John the Baptist. But do not mistake this mad minute for the slow, langorous pace of life in these places;

abridged __ p.21

abridged __ p.20

as you watch these two moments, you are there, but you are not there.

J. Roycroft

Opposite: Fiona Ní Mhaoilir, Hold Still, 2016

“EVERY LIBRARY IS A CEMETERY” – Derek Walcott

On a library shelf I found a book, blew off the dust and saw at once that it was not a book much loved:

On page after page there were pencil marks made by someone trying to remove the words.

Perhaps it was the library ghost who filled the margins with critical barbs,

who crossed out adjectives, cut short the scenes with too much idle conversation.

Or maybe a secret scribe made illegible

to hide his epithets, remind the reader to remember

abridged __ p.23

abridged __ p.22

the author’s metaphors, took the time

that every library is a cemetery.

Gerard Smyth

Opposite: Audrey Gillespie, Trashy Pop, 2016

WINTER (Edited by Joolz Denby)

Well, I dreamed that I was running

I felt them tugging at my shoulder

through a wilderness of plenty,

To come and join in the celebrations,

And I could hear the hunt behind me, getting closer, getting closer,

To mark the triumph of the Emperor,

I knew that the end was coming

The all-conquering, everlasting, summer,

And I wished that it was over;

And the streets were awash with the Blood of the innocents, sacrificed to slaughter,

Bring me the snowfall,

The crowds all drunk on power

Bring me the cold wind,

And madness as the noise grew ever louder,

Bring me the winter.

I could hear the knives being sharpened and I wished that it was over;

Now the mercury keeps rising,

Bring me the cold wind,

Like the sap and the blood and the oceans,

Bring me the winter

Bring me the snowfall,

The asphalt acres melting In the fetid air of poison,

Let all the sins of the past be buried

I can hear the soldiers coming

In the frozen ground,

And I wish that it was over;

Let the last of the vengeance fires die,

Bring me the snowfall,

The black wings flying high above the Skeleton trees disappear into the white.

Bring me the cold wind, Bring me the winter.

So let the weary land be rested And the killing season be over, In the light of burnished silver,

abridged __ p.25

abridged __ p.24

Let the shadows stretch forever For I fear the age of consequence And I wish that it was over. Bring me the snowfall, Bring me the cold wind, Bring me the winter

Justin Sullivan

Opposite: Eamonn McGinty, Alleyway, Derry, 2013

Minor Notations

She turns the light on at 5am. Cleaning the balcony , as I smoke another cigarette. I still haven’t put the batteries in the geiger counter, I don’t want to know. The last two peaches on my neighbor’s tree dropped to the ground 4 days ago, My balance is getting better too. Lonesome women shop, I join them. I talk to the lady in a tiny cigarette shop, neither understanding a word the other speaks beyond “hello and “thank you”. We talk for a long time, she writes things down, I draw a map. She points at the calendar. The woman in the queue for the train is swaying and shivering, in readiness for the compression of bodies on the last train. I feel the wind as two crows chase each other past my head. I join the men in the smoking area of a I see my bent reflection in every street mirror.

abridged __ p.27

abridged __ p.26

skyscraper. We are so high up with so little air. My hot water bottle is a substitute for my lover. Cats lick their bottoms on Skype. I wash the dishes and watch him as he trys to find where the key goes. He turns the light off at 1am.

Deirdre McKenna

Opposite: Megan Doherty, Greedy, 2016

Skerries

Now to the tragedies, the football followed to the slurry pit, about to jump in but Mick had a fit or the arm almost caught in the winch. I could have broken a finger, I say. No, you would have lost the arm, son. On clear days you can see the Mountains of Mourne and those times it looked like we could walk to Lambay. But the stories of drowned swimmers and lost fishermen kept us on the sand, waving at the sailors. Despite the talk of kangaroos we stayed put. No paths in the sea they tell us. No way home this way. North county rats with their look-a-like mouths to chew, small envies and whose lad are you? It doesn´t take long to catch up. Memories of the day before. Better days or just before? They follow us: the pit, the winch, the drownings. The almost beside the irreversible. We´re not from here. It´s not just a Main St. Timber falls and the country ball rolls and rolls, through local names and county

abridged __ p.29

abridged __ p.28

lanes. You should go to Skerries, my da used to say when I felt down, it´d do you good.

Eamon Mc Guinness

Opposite: Eamonn McGinty, Night Town 9, 2016

SAZANAMI*

In black water under stars/ morning will come soon /to drown golden flowers Black silk curtains hang

in the sky/weather wary fishermen

slow at breakfast/ their fingers

tied to chopsticks

The empress of the sun casts out silk

from her cut finger/ red bed

sheets for the swans

The bay’s kimono wears

red silk sashes/ fresh

whale meat is for sale

hinomaru in the heavens/ gold

leaf clouds across the pond/ pine trees in formal black

abridged __ p.31

abridged __ p.30

as they consult/ robed what chatter will storms/ in the bamboo forest radiate?

* in Japanese sazanami = ripples, hinomaru = circle of the sun, also the national flag.

Ross Jackson

Opposite: Deirdre McKenna, Lights, 2016

raymond cawler’s raspberry fetish

the last time I saw raymond cawler he was ogling goggles or googling ‘oggles’ pissed off his tits

somewhere in eastphalia

or westphalia i asked ray what he thought of my poem so you think you’re in love with jennifer he told me it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on i said damn my ancient gold edged bible parchment

four inch deep ivory cut spine spiral byron once jizzed on

he told me I was an imbecile performing an imbecilic impersonation

pulling his nose

I got him off his raspberry fetish by pulling his girlfriend

we connected later @ twitter

abridged __ p.33

abridged __ p.32

imbecile or not

of an imbecile

by then nobody cared.

Charlie Baylis

Opposite: Éamonn Brown, Selfie with Cigarette and Universe, 2016

Late Morning

Without sound of television Or the chatter of radio; Just pure, unworn privacy, A moment that moves Beyond itself Into the unnameable, Culminating by the window, Perhaps, new kitchen roll Torn off in a clean splash Of sunlight, Ghosting dust before your eyes, Space debris

abridged __ p.35

abridged __ p.34

Raining into air.

Matthew Rice

Opposite: Dianne Whyte, Untitled, 2016

A Skein

You could walk to the island over the ragged sea-fret, set like poured concrete just under the lip of the cliff, vast piazza or parade-ground lit-up by the blinding dregs of day, as if by an army of sodium-lamps, angled for interrogation. But the island isn’t somewhere you’ll ever set foot, not now. The cafe is derelict and open only to the winds and the gulls have stolen their last egg-sandwiches. The gift-shop is shuttered; you must take your own keepsakes with you from the land, displaying them on the bare rock, as a peace-offering, a forfeit, in mitigation for what you well know hangs over you, a clammy Pac-a-Mac, a miasma. Like a savage gardener, you slash and rake over your treasure-hoard of winking owls and prancing elephants, donkeys with sombreros, and memories of Margate; you arrange hope of placating the starved ghosts of the unvisited.

Terence Dooley

abridged __ p.37

abridged __ p.36

the broken pieces in a mosaic, a riddle, a skein, in the vain

Opposite: Joanna McNulty, Trailing Wire, 2016

Non mortem, somni fratem

The day exists to be gutted, firmly undone. At 8am you think you saw the moon, drained of blood, a pulse without its purpose; let it begin to bitter your tongue. You see the day out to darkness. Night becomes you, you become surgeon, or something less discerning, you become the blade. At 8pm you think you saw the sun wounded. It ran red rumour across the sky, it left the front line sweat warm and spoken for. You could have run your knife straight through. This is your brain on no sleep. What’s beauty really, you’ve been awake for nineteen hours and that’s only so far. That’s only as far as the harsh abridged __ p.39

abridged __ p.38

wash of skin, the rubber and masks, over old face a new protection. The gurney is set like a stage. So you perform diatribe. You perform dissection, or something less discerning. You become the blade, run straight through. Routine is a link with the past

Nina O’Donovan

but there’s no better butcher than you. Opposite: Zoë Murdoch, Drunken with the Blood of the Saints, 2016

Hammer Horror

You can’t make an egg without doing something complicated to an omelette. This Malleus Maleficarum has an afterword by the legendary Timmy Mallett, a selling point that justifies the revival of all manner of sadly archaic activity. Listen, I’m all for the triumph of reason, but these screams are beyond riveting. I’m all for one and a man for all seasons. Look like Percy Shelley, feel like Liam Neeson. Cut, like, a buffalo? the scriptures say; to oppose manifest destiny is high treason. Hammer-wielding I drive them towards the cliff’s cut-off. It’s more than sheer. It’s Shakespeare and his enjambments. The coyote persuaded by the wing of fate to clear the edge, pause in mid-air, drop catastrophically off-screen… My bleak midwinter dream come true! I can’t make this egg without you. Rhododendrons pave the road to heaven; I mean to say, I intend to plant them. The herd flows. They have their times of the month. They have their buffle highs and buffle lows, and none of them knows: the hammer is paper, tape, yesterday’s news of an auto-da-fé.

and for the déjà vu of this imminent desolation I am utterly not désolé.

abridged __ p.41

abridged __ p.40

I have put away childish things but not the hero’s weapon or the hip hip hooray,

The dust kicked up makes flowering shrubs seem to ghost the last of the daylight; what looks like a woman must be the dusk egging on, leading astray. It might be that the chicken quits the cliff and cliff and coyote and all else fall away.

Adam Crothers

Opposite: Megan Doherty, Untitled, 2016

White Houses

It turned out that the strangeness was expressed as summer houses strung along a shore of marram-grasses, dunes and little stones, loud voices, smashed glasses, star-crazed schooners, bonfires at night, and fireworks like a war. A high wind slams and slams the garden-door, while you lie dozing in your placid hammock. Well, you turn over, it’s only the neighbours. You sometimes see them in the threadbare store. It wasn’t bread or milk they came out for or frozen peas to hold against a bruise, or beach shoes; maybe it was sailcloth to wrap their unravelling dreams of leaving in; casting off, dangling their fingers in the water,

abridged __ p.43

abridged __ p.42

drifting further west, with the blue-flecked breeze.

Terence Dooley

Opposite: Audrey Gillespie, Sus in Glasgow, 2016

Taking coffee with Charlie Baylis this poem was not written by Juliette Binoche

juliette binoche typed me this poem topless told me of an illusion: the hamburger that is just a hamburger flavoured hamburger. I write better with my tongue tied in leather I write better with my tongue dipped in lime I have googled myself sixteen times today but no one has commented on the colour of my tongue nor that I am not a holy poet, I am a hat stand. juliette binoche licked a razor-blade and the world fell apart I rolled along the esplanade with socks under my feet I have googled myself thirty-two times today but no one has commented on the esplanade, nor the socks that are under my feet, my tongue dipped in lime and juliette binoche. I am afraid of my self obsession

abridged __ p.45

abridged __ p.44

I am afraid I may begin to enjoy it.

Charlie Baylis

Opposite: Laura O’Connor, Follow Me, 2016

Landlocked

I am a bad omen Worse than red haired girls, Whistling up the wind, or poaching an albatross. Worse even than spilt salt And left foot first on a vessel Landlocked I watch the shellbacks off shore. Sailors inked in lucky hens and curly tails Animals pitied by Neptune because they cannot swim And share the devils cloven feet. Sunday sail never fail No clothed women nor priests on board But bare breasts shame a storm So they may make an exception. Only eat mackerel from tail to head. Baptise the deck in wine. And never say drowned aloud. For no man in the water will be saved. You make your own luck. I tear seven drops into the water Salt returns to salt. There are no witches in Ireland and never were. I am no land lover. I have a silke’s soul. Water perpetually on the brain. I dreamt we would be married at sea. I dreamt Innsmouth incarnate. Sea monsters to bloom and burst, abridged __ p.47

abridged __ p.46

my womb a ripe mermaid’s purse. Gulls for doves, Maggots for confetti, Devil rays sinking us by the anchor, To depths where blind things swim in darkness. Scale against scale. Gills like jagged orifices. Hand to foot webbed in the marital bed. Kisses bloodier than dog fights. White flesh luminous as an anglers lure.

Aisling Bradley

A world of teeth and darkness behind us. Opposite: Liam Campbell, Battery Fish from series Stranger than Kindness, 2016

Vasilisa pulls up her hood and the rain comes anyway

Abridged Publications & Projects 2004 – 2016

Abridged 0 – 0: Archive: Out of Context (2014)

Abridged 0 – 17: Time (2009)

Abridged 0 – 34: In Blue (2013)

Abridged 0 – 1: (2004)

Abridged 0 – 18: Absence (2010)

Abridged 0 – 36: Dis-Ease (2014)

Abridged 0 – 2: Damaged Collateral (2005)

Abridged 0 – 20: Abandoned Clare (2011)

Abridged 0 – 37: Torquemada (2015)

Abridged 0 – 3: Romance and Assassination (2006)

Abridged 0 – 21: Magnolia (2010)

Abridged: 0 – 39: The Never Never (2015)

Abridged 0 – 4: An(other) Irishman in New York (2006)

Abridged 0 – 22: Nostalgia is a Loaded Gun (2011)

Abridged 0 – 40: Take Me Home (2015)

Abridged 0 – 5: On the Cards (2007)

Abridged 0 – 23: Desire and Dust (2012)

Abridged 0 – 42: Another Shade of You (2015)

a sea’s length from South. This is the way Cézanne

Abridged 0 – 6: Mutation (2007)

Abridged 0 – 25: Silence (2012)

Abridged 0 – 43: Lethe (2016)

asks us to drown. Our herds were never our own.

Abridged 0 – 7: Abandoned Donegal: (2010)

Abridged 0 – 26: Rust (2012)

Abridged 0 – 45: Why is it Always December? (2016)

Abridged 0 – 10: Haunted (2013)

Abridged 0 – 28: Once A Railroad (2013)

Abridged 0 – 46: Ich Bien Heir Alein (2016)

Abridged 0 -11: Word on the Street (2008)

Abridged 0 – 29: Primal (2013)

Abridged 0 – 47: A Many Splintered Thing (2015)

Abridged 0 – 12: I’d Step into the Light… (2008)

Abridged 0 – 31: Crash (2012)

Abridged 0 – 48: Mercury Red (2016)

Abridged 0 – 13: Mara (2014)

Abridged 0 – 32: Lockjaw (2013)

Abridged 0 – 14: Floodland (2016)

Abridged 0 – 33: Undercurrents (2013)

Listening to Shuman propels all cattle directly into foam—not waves arching to crest, no precious stillness after mud hoppers tuck flat feet into down. Rather hooves meet crosshairs directing us between— razor clams collecting to tunnel upward, dorsals as punctuation reminding North to keep its breast

Down this hall, another man, his beard assaulting his own sleeping face, places a palm against the belly’s tragic roundness, and sighs for us both. It’s alright

abridged __ p.48

from your cloak. What sets itself to water, proves closer, always, to East—where, like Archimedes, we assert the occupation remains only to firm fit one set of fingers over another, anchors locked in oak and lapis, and signal, eventually, we are already away.

PDFs of these can be read at: www.abridgedonline.com

Kelli Allen

abridged __ p.49

that you do not wake when I remove the bone pin

Contributors

abridged __ p.50

Charlie Baylis was born in Nottingham. His critical writing has been published in Stride, Neon and Sabotage Reviews. His poetry has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, the Forward Prize and for Queen´s Ferry Press´s Best Small Fictions. He was (very briefly) a flash fiction editor for Litro. ´Elizabeth´, his début pamphlet is out now on Agave Press. He spends his spare time completely adrift of reality. John Black is a visual artist who’s work examines the power dynamics of communication, place and memory primarily through installation, sculpture and performance. His work is often assisted by historical and anti-authoritarian text that explores areas of class and the human condition, challenging all relationships based on domination and submission, power and control. In doing so he pays particular attention to the relationship between that of the state and its citizens. A native of Derry, who’s work often observes and challenges controversial themes from occupation to militarism, human rights and social justice issues surrounding emotive topics relating to areas of social change. Aisling Bradley is a writer and visual artist based in Derry. She was shortlisted for the 2016 Galway RCC poetry competition. @AislingBradley

Éamonn Brown is an artist/photographer. Born in Letterkenny he has flip flopped between living in Derry and Donegal. Éamonn attended the art school in Void Gallery and has exhibited in group shows in Void Gallery (Derry), Millennium Court (Portadown) and I.F.S.C.I. (Rome). Éamonn currently sells mobile phones on a part-time basis.

Terence Dooley has had poems and translations accepted or published in Ambit, Acumen, Agenda, The Compass, Envoi, The London Magazine, Long Poem Magazine, Poetry London, New Walk, POEM, The Frogmore Papers, Brittle Star, Envoi, MPT, Shearsman, Tears in the Fence, Dream Catcher, Ink Sweat & Tears, and el cuaderno and Quimera (Spain). A pamphlet of his own poems is to be published by Argent press, Liam Campbell studied photography at IADT between 2001 and his translation of Eduardo Moga’s Selected Poems will be - 05 before going on to complete his Masters in Art in the out in the autumn with Shearsman. Contemporary World at NCAD Dublin in 2006 - 07. He is interested in alternative ways of living that revolve around food K.E. Duffin’s work has appeared in Agenda, Agni, The Cincinand the environment which has led him to work in America, nati Review, Crannóg, Harvard Review, The Moth, PloughScandinavia, & Israel. Recently he has been working on a project shares, Poetry, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prairie Schoonabout historic food markets in Europe working in Rome, Lyon, er, Scintilla, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, The & Dublin. He has exhibited on a regular basis and is based in SHOp, Southword, Thrush, Verse, Zymbol, and other jourBelfast, N.Ireland. nals. King Vulture, a book of poems, was published by the University of Arkansas Press. Stephanie Conn’s poetry has been published in the U.K., Europe, America and Australia. Her debut ‘The Woman on the Other Audrey Gillespie, born in a small city in Ireland, is currently Side’ was published by Doire Press in March 2016 and a Fine Art student at the North West Regional College who ‘Copeland’s Daughter’ was published by Smith/Doorstep in began her studies in 2014. Since 2015 her work has revolved June 2016. around the questioning and challenging of gender normalities, embracing ‘ungendered’ colour and tackling issues such as Adam Crothers was born in Belfast in 1984, and lives in homophobia and sexism through her art and photography. She Cambridge. He is the author of Several Deer (Carcanet, 2016) has been experimenting with photography since April 2016 and and an editor for the online magazine The Literateur. most commonly uses a 35mm colour film camera for her projects. Ian Cumberland (b.1983 Banbridge) is a visual artist based in Northern Ireland working primarily in painting and immersive installation. He is currently interested in exploring ideas relating to the ‘Society of the Spectacle’ and its contemporary manifestation in society, where authentic social life is replaced with its representation leaving little beneath, a process that has accelerated in the age of social media. His painted works, which are mainly figurative, reflect on the individual, their understanding of self, and the disparity between appearance and reality. Cumberland’s work is also concerned with exploring painting’s mode of presentation through installation. Megan Doherty is a 23 year old, Derry born photographer. Her practice predominantly revolves around youth, subculture, sexuality and the idea of escapism.

Emily Holt’s essays and poems have appeared in Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, The Honest Ulsterman and other journals. Her chapbook If Not Savior was a finalist for the Munster Literature Centre’s 2016 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, and selections of the multimedia project No Wounds Here, created with photographer and videographer Braden Van Dragt, have appeared in Talking River and have been on exhibit at universities in Washington State. Holt and Van Dragt were semifinalists for the 2016 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. Emily teaches poetry to youth in jail and in psychiatric hospitals.

Ross Jackson is a retired school teacher and long term resident of Perth, Western Australia. He has had poems in many Australian literary journals and his work has also appeared in New Zealand, Ireland, England and soon to be, Canada. He writes about the experience of aloneness in the suburbs, about aging, the companionship of dogs, visual art and many other topics. Ross has led an unexceptional life but he is not complaining. Tamsin Kendrick’s first collection Charismatic Megafauna was published with Penned in the Margins in January 2009 and went on to win a Forward Prize commendation. Over the years I have performed in various places (BBC3, Latitude etc..) and published in numerous poetry publications. I live in south London right next to a very loud train track. Suzanne Magee is from Belfast, and has had work published in Oxford’s Tower Poetry anthology series, SHIFTLit, Wild Ones, The Yellow Chair Review, The Honest Ulsterman, and other journals. She is working on her first chapbook. Eamonn McGinty is from Derry in Northern Ireland. He has been a photographer for a number of years working in both digital and film. His main interest is in social documentary/ street photography and urban landscape photography. He works mainly in black and white but also occasionally in colour. Eamon Mc Guinness is 30 and from Dublin. He has had poetry, fiction and memoir published in Wordlegs, Bare Hands Poetry, The Bohemyth, The Honest Ulsterman, The Galway Review and Skylight 47. In 2014 he was shortlisted for the Cuirt New Writing Poetry Prize. In 2015 he was shortlisted for the Penguin/RTÉ Guide short story competition and longlisted for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award and the Fish Short Memoir and Flash Fiction Prizes. He has recently completed an M.A in Creative Writing in U.C.D.

Deirdre McKenna, born in Dublin, Ireland 1973, is based in Belfast, N.Ireland. McKenna’s practice incorporates sculpture, installation, lens, audio, painting and curation. She studied BA and Masters in Fine Art at the University Of Ulster, Belfast. She is a former co-director of Catalyst Arts, Belfast. McKenna is a studio holder in Flax Art Studios, Belfast. Recent exhibitions; Art Center Ongoing, Kichijoi, Tokyo; Model Arts Center Sligo; FE McWilliam, Banbridge; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Scope New York. Joanna McNulty: born and currently based in Belfast, McNulty studied Art and Design at the University of Ulster, Belfast and MA Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport. Her work is primarily concerned with ideas about the geographies of home. Named Highly Commended in the Diageo Emerging Artist Awards 2007, her work has been exhibited in Ffotogallery, Penarth and at PhotoIreland 2013 and has been featured in group exhibitions in Berlin and San Francisco. She is currently working on a long term project about the processes of building a home. Zoë Murdoch has been a member of QSS Studios and Gallery, Belfast since 2001. In 2012 she was made an Associate Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy. She has had solo exhibitions in the QSS Studios Gallery and the Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast. Her work has been exhibited in a wide range of group and theme based shows throughout Britain and Ireland and has been included in international exhibitions in America, China, France, Hungary and Japan. In 2007 and 2010 she was awarded the Robinson McIlwaine Architects “Original Vision” Award by the Royal Ulster Academy. Her work is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Collection and numerous private collections.

Fiona Ní Mhaoilir, Dublin born, has lived and worked in Belfast since 1998. Ní Mhaoilir studied Fine Art in D.I.T, Crawford College of Art, and the University of Ulster. She is a former co-director of Catalyst Arts and Platform Arts, Belfast. She is currently completing a PhD in Agenda-Based Visual Art Production in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland. Her work is held in both public and private collections nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions Include: Platform Arts, Belfast; The Ulster Hall, Belfast; Saltburn Studios and Gallery, Saltburn; Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona. Group exhibitions include: Tate Modern, London; Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, Liverpool; Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast; National Sculpture Factory, Cork City; Contemporary Centre of Art, Warsaw, Poland; Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona; Sand Point Naval Base, Seattle, U.S.A.

Matthew Rice was born in Belfast in 1980. He now lives and works in Carrickfergus, County Antrim. He is currently studying for his BA Honours in English Language and Literature. Rice has published poems in magazines and journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Asheville Poetry Review and The Echo Room. He was one of six new poets showcased in a special reading to mark Poetry Day Ireland 2016, organised by Poetry NI and Poetry Ireland. His work was chosen for the 2016 Community Arts Partnership anthology, Connections, funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He was long-listed for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016.

Dianne Whyte is a photographic artist living and working in Dublin. From a design background, she achieved a BA (Hons) degree in photography from Institute of Art, Design & Technology and then an MFA in photography with distinction from the University of Ulster. With this work she examines how a simulation of reality is replacing the true complexities of concrete experience.

J.Roycroft’s work has appeared in, amongst others, The SHoP, Skylight 47, The Burning Bush 2, The Stinging Fly, the Weary Blues, Abridged, The Pickled Body and The Bare Hands Anthology. Educated at The Queen’s University of Belfast, he is Laura O’Connor’s practice explores female representation on currently at work on his first poetry collection. social media and how performative art practices infiltrate these networks. O’Connor is currently trying to complete her PhD Gerard Smyth is a poet, critic and journalist whose poetry has thesis at Ulster University on these online practices whilst appeared widely in journals in Ireland, Britain and the United simultaneously trying to avoid getting lost on social media. States as well as in translation in several languages including Recent solo and group shows include ‘On the Internet everybody Italian, Romanian, French, German, Ukrainian, Spanish knows you’re a girl’ at QSS, Belfast; ‘This Frontier so Familiar and Hungarian. He has published eight collections of poetry, so Strange’ at Article gallery Birmingham; The Royal Ulster including, A Song of Elsewhere ( Dedalus Press 2015), and The Academy annual exhibition at The Ulster Museum, Belfast. Fullness of Time: New and Selected Poems ( Dedalus Press, 2010 ). He was the 2012 recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Poetry www.lauraoconnorart.com Award presented by the University of St Thomas in Minnesota Nina O’Donovan is a twenty year old poet from Limerick City. and is co-editor, with Pat Boran, of If Ever You Go: A Map of She is regularly involved with local writing groups such as the Dublin in Poetry and Song ( Dedalus Press ) which was Dublin’s MIC Writers Society and Stanzas: An Evening of Words. One City One Book in 2013. He is a member of Aosdána. Her work has previously been published in the Stanzas Year One and Two Anthologies, The Limerick Magazine, and the Justin Sullivan, singer and singwriter, and Joolz Denby, writer LGBT anthology It’s a Queer City All the Same. When she is and artist, have been best friends and artistic collaborators in not writing, she can probably be found discussing queer theory various projects for the last 39 years. After co-founding the legendary underground rock band New Model Army, they have and existentialism in local cafes. between them produced a steady stream of highly successful music and spoken word records, novels, poetry collections, performances, visual art, tours, exhibitions - their work has spanned decades of unceasing creativity dedicated to exploration of the new and excellence in every field. Inseparable creatively, the pair continue to make art, music, writing, poetry, recording and giving live performances with as much application and energy as ever.

Editorial Assistant: Susanna Galbraith graduates from Trinity College Dublin this year with a degree in English Studies. Her poems have appeared previously in the Honest Ulsterman and various other journals. This is her first published feature.

Abridged Personnel: Project Coordinator/Editor: Gregory McCartney is settling anytime for unknown footsteps in the hall outside.

abridged __ p.51

Kelli Allen’s latest book is Imagine Not Drowning (C&R Press, 2017). Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge, is the Poetry Editor for The Lindenwood Review, and directs River Styx’s Hungry Young Poets Series. She is a Professor of Humanities/Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Her chapbook, Some Animals, won the 2016 Etchings Press Prize. Her chapbook, How We Disappear, won the 2016 Damfino Press chapbook award. Her poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, arrived from John Gosslee Books in 2012 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. http://www. crpress.org/shop/imagine-not-drowning/

8 October – 23 November 2016

Millennium Court Arts Centre, William Street, Portadown, BT62 3NX info@millenniumcourt.org, millenniumcourt.org, +44 (0)28 3839 4415

abridged __ p.53

abridged __ p.52

Aisling OʼBeirn Another Day in Futile Battle Against the 2nd Law

abridged __ p.55

abridged __ p.54

abridged __ p.56