A New Ulster 107

FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF ALISA VELAJ, ANT MAC, TERRY BRINKMAN, CALVIN MCMANUS, SAEED SALIM BABAMIRI, MICHEAL LEE JOHNSON, GORDON FERRIS AND HELEN DEMPSEY EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.

A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 106 August 2021

UPATREE PRESS

Copyright © 2020 A New Ulster – All Rights Reserved.

The artists featured in this publication 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) Edited by Amos Greig Cover Design by Upatree Press Prepared for Publication by Upatree Press

CONTRIBUTORS

This edition features work by FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF ALISA VELAJ, ANT MAC, TERRY BRINKMAN, CALVIN MCMANUS, SAEED SALIM BABAMIRI, MICHEAL LEE JOHNSON, GORDON FERRIS AND HELEN DEMPSEY

CONTENTS Review Alisa Velaj

Page 1

Poetry Ant Mac

Page 5

Poetry Terry Brinkman

Page 15

Poetry Calvin McManus

Page 21

Poetry Saeed Salim Babamiri Page 30 Poetry Michael Lee Johnson

Page 36

Poetry Gordon Ferris

Page 41

Poetry Helen Dempsey

Page 47

Editor’s Note

Page 53

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Alisa Velaj Alisa Velaj was born in 1982 in the port town of Vlora, Albania. She was shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. Her works have appeared in more than 100 print and online international magazines in Europe, UK, USA, Australia etc. Velaj’s poetry book “Dreams” is published by Cyberwit Press in India Besides English, her poems have also been translated into Hebrew, Swedish, Romanian, French, and Portuguese. Her poetry collection With No Sweat At All is scheduled for publication by Cervena Barva Press in November 2020.

1

LYRIC AS GREETING, LYRIC AS FAREWELL

Alisa Velaj Poet, Researcher

2

According to Edward Hirch, "Poets have often taken waving as an emblematic gesture of the poem itself: lyric as greeting, lyric as farewell.".1 Gloria Mindock's poems in her latest collection, "Ash", are fervent farewells of a time of utter destruction that yet transcends to one of superior dignity. They are the farewells from a land where the fire of destruction burns down everything, toward another land where the fire of a loving soul dances a magnificent dance. In this context, ash comes as a word of double connotation: the ash left after everything has been burned, which in fact should have never happened, and the ash from which hope is reborn. This latter kind emerges as the kind of ash from which phoenix is reborn. The poetic collection is structured in four bundles: burnt, baked, buried, and opposition. The first three acts appear to describe the process of burn-down by the destructive fire, the kind of fire that leaves behind the cold ashes of death, while the last act (opposition) aims at conceiving the image of a world that has degraded the meaning of true love. Three instinctive human dimensions have tossed love into flames, exactly the opposite of what Mindock glorifies in her fourth dimension. The poet appeals for a new dimension in order to comprehend the world and the bird of the sun or the bird of fire. The flame must regain a resurrecting quality; the idea that a flame is just a flame (“Plastic”) is altogether intolerable. The poet seeks answers through direct existential questions or subtle poetic conditions, at times in verses and at times in prose poetry, where her poetic fervor craves to see a different image of the world.

"The man surfaces his heart./ He carries it away delicately./It still beats, and he breathes asking / how much sorrow can this heart take? /There is never an answer." (Protected) "The house becomes ash from the couch burning, / the windows shattering, and glass breaking into air." (Burned beyond recognition)

The answer to why we cannot resurrect within our spiritual boundaries won't be found, as long as we are burned down in cold ashes, without first gaining awareness of the light of true fire. It is like sleepwalking on the path of death, while wrongly thinking you're rollicking on a swing seat in the gardens of El Dorado. The house that burns is actually us—the human beings, who wake up and go to bed getting burned beyond recognition. Beyond recognition turns into a kind of sarcasm that takes two interpretive directions: first, we just erase awareness as a process of enlightenment and thus, dim-minded, pass up on clarity; second, awareness goes far beyond our sick egos, which means we burn down because we ignore the concept's life-saving essence. In the second bundle, baked, Mindock offers her testimony on how to pursue the path of absolute love, describing for us evil with her heart on a platter. Devil has polluted the air and human brains have been polluted to the extent that killing is natural for some. As if a human being may be roasted in a fire oven just like killed game or fowl!

“Angel. Wrap your wings around the oppressed./ Hold and protect against evil and the hands entagling /the last breath…the 1

Hirsch, Edward. (1999). How to read a poem and fall in love with poetry. San Diego, New York, London: The Center for Documentary Studies in association with A Harvest Book Harcourt, p.46.

3

last gasp…/The dead bodies can not sing,/therefore, the world is empty” (Air)

The world is empty for lack of regenerating air, for we keep angels away and submissively follow the command of Devil, who has become the Almighty of the air that our minds are breathing. How can we give birth to human thoughts and resurrect out of cold ashes, at a time when the very air we breathe is polluted?! 2 In the third bundle, buried, the poet revisits even more determinedly the barren lands of our spiritual demise, the nearly fatalistic impossibility of the resurrection process, if we still insist on our journey down the dark valleys of death. With her eyes heaven-ward, Mindock prays and chants psalms of light, while calling on the reader through verses like the ones below:

“Scream to the black sky, the endless sky, the abyss-/All else is prohibited./Give up, close your eyes, and beg for a light kiss/keep your mouth closed.” (Light)

These are, in brief, the grounds supporting the observation that all the poems of the first three bundles stand for as metaphorical dimensions of the spiritual destruction and, simultaneously, as the poet's personal bidding farewell to evil. Her kind of lyric intensely wants such a farewell to be a pathway to light. The last bundle, opposition, or the blueprint to absolute love, shapes the lyric as a greeting to the enlightened soul, the soul that, like Phoenix, is born out of the ashes of salvation. The structuring of the collection in four bundles that stretch from death to life, along with the manner how the symbols of ash and fire are rerun from one poem to the other in order to justify either a function of a word or the opposite of its function, are certainly poetic techniques that have resulted in superb poetry well-delivered to elite poetry readers.

2

See the analogy to the biblical verse (in particular to its part in bold) in Ephesians 2:2 NIV: “in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

4

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Ant Mac

Ant Mac is a poet and writer, which he has done for many years. He writes for both children and adults. Their children's story, The Tale of Little Beak, was released a few months ago.

5

The Debtor

by Ant Mac

To all who are among us, I bid you all farewell, as the lid press down the eye, another story tell,

drift me to a meadow, at peace the ever last, where all the times of sorrow, rest only in the past,

judge me by mistake, for who does wear the crown? win or lose the game, the dice have rolled me down,

as the end is final, and all begins anew, whether inch or mile, love travels back to you,

adieu to those who loved me,

6

why must this slip bereave? this part of what was lent me, is all I have to leave.

7

Paddling pool

by Ant Mac

“Its coming!” they said, but with my ear to the ground, all my senses are mute, surely what’s in the distance, is only a mirage? like the plush green oasis, whose source is rich,

should we allow superstition to gain a hold of our hope and insignificance, has the milk curdled in the mother’s breast, before the child has had time to fully nourish? placed on infected earth, among poisoned seeds and odours, remembering that there is no such thing as escape, simply transference into what might appear transparent,

by the sea, a proud father watches its belly rise and swell, in the dawn of reclaiming its tears, let it have them, for salt too, sits bitter and sickly on the pallet.

8

Why does the sea contain salt? simply to remind us of the balance between life and death, as it suspends a tested formula, of which we have all transferred part of, and may all become or return apart of, again someday.

9

Read Light

by Ant Mac Sin reared itself, it’s tail coiled, and then it sprang, again! again! an introduction came ages early, before the mark left by the pen.

She was 14, star of the village this was her place before the touch, shining brightly while all among them, and whose to say, ‘a bit too much’.

Eyes still gaze on the hands that gathered, taken! taken! their given right, hands without control of fury, and watch them pressed throughout the night.

Serpents of worms precede their fingers, driven by a carnal lust for more, lost! lost! within the circus, the master pushed to steal her roar.

Family bonds bind all influence, a secret code passed out of reach,

10

50 to 100 and she is taken, and still they jostled to take their seats.

Changed by hands, altered by places, bright lights battle against the dark, what was a gift has now been stolen, an empty space without a heart.

Yes, today! and still tomorrow, the corner window of the street, see her still shining but not as brightly, a different smile at 23.

11

Sea Life

by Ant Mac

The ebb and flow and lapse of time, a rhythm held like a summer’s dance, tied to a pull that swings and sways, the lost buoy drifts on slowly, losing all energy and the will it never wrote or owned, kelp it cries to empty skies, it’s efforts break a passage, and salt the only sweet embrace, a fleeting grace glanced towards the sun, arms swim away and form to part, the stroke upon each lesson, a moon’s harness and too release, an empty vessel, echoes and creaks,

secrets of the wind, whisper ears to seek, 12

the mirrored ripple but a silhouette of hope,

chastised by the rise of fury, they wave on and gulp mouthfuls of distaste, weaned on brine and life’s essence, dipped and coated to break the surface, with an oar, or a quaint, or a pen, calls of the deep, locked in a struggle, gasping for air again, coming together to form bubbles, rising like halos, that float to desert you, a wonder beheld, of trouble, dragged down for a privileged sight, the body does fight as it tries to take flight, far from a common resting ground, the wings of an angel, relinquish disparity, lifted up to the sun the light seems brighter than before, less intrusive, the buoyancy returns to the fore, for all to 13

observe,

carried away by the moment, their eyes drop to sea as they scent, losing touch with the horizon and all is absorbed as it passes, passes with no time to lament.

14

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: TERRY BRINKMAN Terry Has been painting for over forty five years. Has Five Amazon E- Books. Poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed. Winamop, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, Adelaide Magazine, Variant, the Writing Disorder, Ink Pantry, In Parentheses, Ariel Chat, New Ulster, Glove, and in Pamp-le-mousse, North Dakota Quarterly, Barzakh, Urban Arts, Wingless Dreamer and LKMNDS.

15

Cow-Girls Smile

By Terry Brinkman

Meek smile, behind a cold foul Cigar Her lips shiver in the sun waiting for a kiss Weeping whirlwind hopeless grin He’s a lanky looking galoot Breezes mocking Kate’s kite Dust covered window-pane She polished with a Nose Rag Decline a poor chap even a chance Finis Zig Zagging over the lead glass Singing in a troubled base baritone voice Puff-balls of smoke eyes unshed tears too see Working in blue canvas boots skimpy frock-coat

16

Sonnet CCLX

By Terry Brinkman

Rocky Mountain Utah High Drinking Wasatch Provo Girl Beer Best Snow on Earth atmosphere Gloved hand, on Cast Iron pan to fry When we can’t get a drink we cry Hearing the message from her Salvation Auctioneer Eternal life divine revelation cheer Dwell with your father, a Frog Prince Kiss lie She began to weep, wept and wept the embrace Be-mused sore over her limp kiss like a wet rag Shifty looking weak joy gutta-percha base Sail furled worst form of lucky bag Un-hasty kisses on her friendliness face Melt a heart of stone rich silk stockings nag

17

Sleepy Whale 257

By Terry Brinkman

Relinquished the light Viscous cream only daughter imitation crown Marks of hospitality unconscious guest Host drank jocosely, in silence Her Creative Cocoa Complete contemplated suppressed She completed the act, drank more quickly Presentable ascertained condition To be in Ten Seconds, Three sips She had her articulated pink Lips Around the concaved surface of a spoon

18

Sleepy Whale 314

By Terry Brinkman

Purely domestic affectionate surroundings Slightly permeated like the whipping post Lapses of heaving her besom Falling glimpses loop like a lost railway Homely life race over a foot plate Model young ladies house were told Family Rosary pray for a dog’s love Around the crackling Yule log She mumbles incoherently with renewed laughter To remember Borins and Greens bowling lanes Loosens his boots without looking up she slaps him

19

Sleepy Whale 315

By Terry Brinkman

She hears Uproars and Catcalls Without looking up from City Weekly Inaudible indecent talks all around her Indecorum levity painted prates of lies Oxford rag Bear-Garden of weeds Cobbler’s alleged not guilty to this day Prima facet weak case Especially with atomizer all around Hotly lone-hand fight or flight Laughing Hyenas populace times Mosaic code emphatically

20

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: CALVIN MCMANUS Calvin McManus is a poet, songwriter, performer and musician from Co. Cavan, Ireland. Holding a BA in applied music from Dundalk I.T. and currently studying an MA in music composition at the University of Limerick. His music has been praised by Hot Press Magazine as “glossy production and lush backing harmonies paired with strong vocal talent and a range of genre influences”. As an aspiring poet, his poem “Arriving at night” was received well In the first issue of Bealtaine E-Zine. He continues to write poetry with the aim of publishing a book of his own collection of poems.

Calvin’s poetic influence relies heavily on the work of Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Kennelly, Robert Frost, Leonard Cohen and W.B. Yeats. Themes of his poems stem from romance and courtship that dwells within youth, empathic perspective, and the nature of his home county of Cavan.

21

A Night Walk in Rossmore Wood

By Calvin McManus

My father would welcome the dusk That to him fell in Rossmore wood.

Away, deeper in mind, He’d amble as oft the rambler could.

To his flank an embellished cane Of painted wood and hanging feathers.

Companion to ornament it served each walk In boots of torn and painted leathers.

And dusk grew strong And night grows dim.

And dusk grew long And night blows in.

My father would beckon the moon To spare her lamp on glowing paths.

Illuminated lakes rest their feeble shores For ghostly swans to their crystal baths.

And he would hear no voice No wagging chin or mouth in the wood.

22

Welcomed he this, by choice.

Farther was the town from where he stood.

And dusk grew long And light grows dim.

Then wispy on long Legged flies swim.

My father would unlock the forest’s sleep For those at the eternal helm.

Among the walking sprites And the visit the Sidhe in their realm.

And hag that harks the death in clans, Her wailing to curdle Dad’s blood.

To smell the sweetened damp night, My father, welcomed in Rossmore wood.

And dusk fades fast And night comes, hark!

Oh gentle night, last!

Walk him through the dark.

23

Spanish Point

By Calvin McManus

Up on Spanish Point, Her and I straddled the strands.

Wavey in the distance I seen Two, straddled holding hands.

Older like a mirror on golden fluid sands.

I said I’m sorry and you said its fine.

I’ve been so sharp with you of late.

The older two became the sea, And I watched their love decline.

24

The Burning Gorse

By Calvin McManus

The hills are lit Aflame with a fiery force.

And as a boy I feared the burning of the gorse.

Translucent plumes Made gentle by miles Are dragged between trees in their files.

Is it to wrest a crop on barren sod?

An offer to a wanting god Whose hunger knows the taste of ash?

The heather will die in a lavender sky And the pheasant left without stead.

The smell will attack me, The gorse will be dead.

25

By Calvin McManus

I couldn’t help But stare Like an indecent romantic threat.

I’m sorry, but I felt your smile again.

I couldn’t help but stare, At your brow beaded sweat Then urge to conquer all your men.

I couldn’t help but see An untethered breast nestled Among the creases of your dress.

And I couldn’t help but need, Your indecent romantic threat And for you these notions to address.

26

By Calvin McManus

Talk, Break, Beg.

Please, let’s talk.

I utter secrets in the rain Which leads me to believe in pain.

A vision of the quiet eye.

Let’s break.

A library of silent moods, or Out in tears for all etudes, or Up because lame on wing we sparrows fly.

Let’s beg.

“Do not leave this side of mine, or Turn away, I’ll change your mind, or Lover’s love will truly die”.

27

Going to Fish

By Calvin McManus

I set a fence neath the long row Of elderly pregnant trees.

Running behind and down along The hawthorn set by Peter Lynch That shot up with ease.

He straddled the gripe with courteous grin, “I’m goin ta go ta fish” he’d say.

Then we’d find ourselves in A dream on Baraghy lake, fishing for the day.

28

The Old Cab Driver

By Calvin McManus

Turning onto market street, I glimpsed the past.

The sweet July sun filled the cab Of the old flat bed and a Smokey shadow cast.

The driver’s hair was aged and thin.

In upward curled mouth, A mellow pipe crooked downward.

And I thought of the youth My mother lived in.

29

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Shaho Ghahremani Dehbokri & Saeed Salimi Babamiri Poem by: Shaho Ghahremani Dehbokri (Karwan); Kurdish poet and Patholo gist, born in 1981 in Bookan, Iran. His first collection of poems called “First Breath” was published in 2018 which he started to write in 2007.

Translated by: Saeed Salimi Babamiri; Kurdish translator and poet. His published books in Iran are Kurdish translations of “Half an Apple” and “The Mouse's Wedding” a play and a story in verse, both for children. He has many other translations waiting to be published. His major long translation from Kurdish into English verse is “Mam and Zeen” by Ahmad Xanee. It is known as “Kurdish Romeo and Juliet” which is ready to be published.

30

The stranger of strangers (To Artin, the 15-month-old Kurdish boy died in the English Channel.

He and his family were trying to reach UK to take refugee but their boat sank.)

“You have done it at last dear?

Very welcome to come here.

A stranger amongst strangers you are.

What have you done baby so far?

In wonder lands they call abroad, Have you found to success a road?

How was the ways?

Your nights and days?

How many brooks and springs did you see?

How many lakes and long rivers there to be?

How many mountains were in chains?

How many deserts were in pains?

How many meadows were dried?

How many eyes full of tear when they cried?

31

How many clouds having no rain?

How many birds without a nest flying in vain?

To what spot did you arrive?

How many birds like you did dive?

Did you see a bird carry a pinch of soil in his hand?

Or they all resided a land that had no soil and no sand?”

“The moment I flew in water, The sea became a wide sky, and l stood in the center.

To the doorway in Milky Way, I flew and flew in any way.

In an endless bottomless sea, Many strange things I could see:

A group of drowned breathes, Frozen suns told me the story of deaths.

Some roses harvested by a heavy frost, A wave of buds suffocated in dirty dust.

32

A blue ocean full of deceive, In it tricks and lies active, It only had my death to give!

An armful of benumbed bubbles tried to sing, A ford full of broken wings fluttering.

Baby dolphins around mothers making a ring, Beastly hunters coming along staggering.

Then I saw tortoises aside, Each one carried a shell to ride, Whales were riding with any tide, Each one had a Joseph inside.

Crabs clipping claws to pinch, They moved sideways in every inch.

Full of silence were some places, Some were empty; full of ices.

Shoals of fishes, red and yellow, swam among, Every now and then came along, To kiss me and speak in song:”

33

“Welcome! Welcome! You the bud, From a land stuck in mud.

You were once a brave lion, But now you are a wandering dandelion.

Why have you come, what do you need?

You in soil without a rain, a thirsty seed!

You are the messenger of burning roses indeed.

How many magistrates and killers were on the way?

How many night guards on the bay?

How many wise men did you pay?

And how many pimps anyway?

How many Auschwitz-Birkenau camps kept you?

How many SS gates of death opened to you?

How many times did they there crucify you?

How many times you died before your death arrived?

How many times whips and wires stroke your innocent body, the time it dived?

You have arrived, but understand; ‘If you don’t have home and your land, Your fate will be sad and cruel, out of your hand!’

34

Here as far as the eyes can see, It is a bottomless blue sea, No sand and no land is to be.

Of this dreadful nightmare, have no fear, There is no way back home dear.

So come baby, welcome here!

To find comfort, sleep in here.

You’re a symbol we admire: ‘A home dark and cold in fire!*’ *From Youness Rezaee, Kurdish poet.

35

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson is published in more than 2033 new publications. His poems have appeared in 42 countries; he edits and publishes ten poetry sites. He is the administrator of six Facebook poetry groups; he has several new poetry chapbooks coming out soon. He has over 533 published poems to date. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet 42 countries, nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net nominations. 234 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.

Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses is available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089. Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: The Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717. https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Lee-Johnson/e/B0055HTMBQ%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Michael+Lee+Johnson&type=. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.

36

Witchy Halloween

By Michael Lee Johnson Inside this late October 31st night, this poem turns into a pumpkin.

Animation, something has gone devilishly wrong with my imagery.

I take the lid off the pumpkin’s head light the pink candles inside.

Demons, cry, crawl, split, fly outsides — escape, through the pumpkin’s eyes.

I’m mixed in fear with this scary, strange creation.

Outside, quietly tapping Hazel the witch, her broomstick against my window pane rattles.

She says, “nothing seems to rhyme anymore, nothing seems to make any sense, but the night is young.

Give me back my magical bag of tricks.

As Robert Frost said: “But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

37

Poets Out of Service (V6)

By Michael Lee Johnson

Like a full-service gas station or postal service workers displaced, racing to Staples retail for employment against the rules of labor, poets are out of business nowadays, you know.

Who carries a loose change in their pockets?

Who tosses loose coins in their car ashtray anymore? iPhones, smartphones, life is a video camera ready to shoot, destroy, and expose.

No one reads poets anymore.

No one thumbs through the yellow pages anymore.

Who has sex in the back seat of their car anymore, just naked shots passed around online?

Streetwalkers, bleach blonde whores, cosmetic plastic altered faces in the neon night; they don’t bother to pick pennies or quarters off the streets anymore.

The days of surprise candy bags for a nickel pennies lying on the countertop for Tar Babies, Strawberry Licorice Laces (2 for a penny), Wax Lips, Pixie Sticks, Good & Plenty are no more.

Everyone is a dead-end player; he dies with time.

Monster technology destroys crump fragments of culture.

Old age is a passive slut; engaging old age conversations idle to a whisper and sleep alone.

Matchbox, hand-rolled cigarettes, serrated, slimmed down, and gone.

Time is a broken stopwatch gone by.

Life is a defunct full-service gas station.

Poets are out of business nowadays.

38

Deep in my Couch (V2)

By Michael Lee Johnson

Deep in my couch of magnetic dust, I am a bearded old man.

I pull out my last bundle of memories beneath my pillow for review.

What is left, old man, cry solo in the dark.

Here is a small treasure chest of crude diamonds, a glimpse of white gold, charcoal, fingers dipped in black tar.

I am a temple of worship with trinket dreams, a tea kettle whistling ex-lovers boiling inside.

At dawn, shove them under, let me work.

We are all passengers traveling on that train of the past— senses, sins, errors, or omissions deep in that couch.

39

Nightlife Jungle Beat, Bar Next Door (V2)

By Michael Lee Johnson Like all thing’s life changes, its melodies fragment.

It breaks pieces apart, then they drift, then shatter.

The singers of songs love bars, naked bodies, consistencies, and inconsistencies that make it burn all turn outright night.

They like to drum repeat rhythms and sounds.

Poets like to retreat to dens of pleasure just like these.

Sing poets sing off-key free verse notes down by the bridge, near the river as far as their voices will carry them away.

It is the nature of difference, indifference the vocabulary of us confused, minds between insanity and genius.

The hermit asks for a public forum in shyness, while treading to the bar next door for a shot of tequila no money, no life.

40

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: GORDON FERRIS Gordon Ferris has had poems and short stories published here in A New Ulster, Impspired magazine, and Impspired magazine anthologies 2,3, and 4. He also has had work in Lothorian Press online magazine, The Galway Review, and Hidden Channell. He won prizes in the HIAT creative writing competitions for two of his poems in the summer 2020 comp, and for winter 2020/21 competition, where he was the joint winner.

41

By Gordon Ferris Alone at the bus stop icy wind crept inside and pained the inner flesh of the well-covered barman his feet hurt the settling frost made his toes hurt more he moved from toe to toe hoping to ease the discomfort Regretting now his not going when his day was done

42

By Gordon Ferris half asleep thoughts. we move from one heart experience to heart-felt experience does the earth in this place emit energy to drive us towards truth does the air we breathe fill our heads with deeper or shallower ways are people over those deep and dark oceans inspiring us to be better human beings than we are or do any of these random thoughts really matter Will any of these things make any difference

43

By Gordon Ferris Conscience.

It looks at you every day tells you to think again sometimes it looks guides you which path to take sometimes it may seem indifferent but it’s just it doesn't know sometimes when something feels good it says it's wrong how does it know this Sometimes when darkness falls it tells you to go into it that it's not as black as you think It doesn't even affect you but you know it hurts others When this happens, you are hurt.

44

By Gordon Ferris The door imposing obstacle to freedom no locks or bolts just restraints on the will to leave. the same restraints tie the hand that holds the pen Making the words stay where they are

45

By Gordon Ferris

Plan.

Don't ya just hate it you plan to go write out by the river find you have instead poured another coffee and you’re again writing indoors

46

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: HELEN DEMPSEY Helen Dempsey from Rush, has been published in anthologies, magazines, online, and local radio. She holds a Masters Degree in Poetry Studies from D.C.U. Most recently her poems have been appeared in Live Encounters and the Irish Chair of Poetry commorative anthology. She won Fingal Libraries' Poetry Day competition 2021.

47

Early Evening in the City Early evening in the city, hot, sultry, thronged with fresh-faced strangers vibrant youth, loud gabblers, exchanging the measures of the holiday shrieking top notes, shared laughter of transient experiences for the fortnight, or language month, delving into the shallows of another culture while residents criticize the babble, or their space on the street.

Outside the two-Euro shop a five-year old and his younger sister ignore their mother who keeps places in a Luas queue.

Oblivious to the obstruction, their new plastic dinosaur roams the pavement while pedestrians step around her children's Jurassic world.

Up the street capital dwellers redden, assaulted by the sights and smells of city filth.

Addicts roar abuse, reel, peddle, use, discard liquor cans, needles, junk.

Bitterly a pensioner combs the area for uniformed protection.

The norm of cuts brings no one.

On the bridge the crouched beggar mumbles for assistance.

Approached by fresh-faced, Simon Samaritans they smile, chat, offer him bread and soup from a flask in their rucksack.

In the gneiss and schist of granite slabs stained with chewing gum decency sparkles.

Helen Dempsey

48

Insomnia Close leaden lids for a little while the dark aisle of the capricious moon has hours of restlessness yet to trace.

Hump a turn to the other wall, face familiar silhouettes' cocoon designed for rest; décor out of style.

Mound of books and untidy clothes piled, another chore puffs guilt balloon, lazy promise of a clean-up. Race against incessant clock that graces the locker as semaphore ticks ruin sleep peace. Cross-examine daytime trials, events reworked. Conquer my facile servile inadequacies. Festoon in weighty words, arguments. Retrace your last retort, put-down clichés. Brace for revelations. Set to impugn rows. Wrestle reality. Beguile ego. Night hero - in light - docile.

Reveries of sleep, stir opportune private wish which harbours no disgrace.

Pigeon chorus proclaims the day’s pace, soothes troubled soul. Sun peeps over dune.

To close leaden lids now is futile.

Helen Dempsey

49

Lambay Through my kitchen window I live on the threshold of mystery.

This stationary Brendan’s-whale weather-vane swathes cloud shadow, rain.

Morning sun pitches from behind the dune light shards to make crystal rainbows on my cupboards.

Clothes billow in the east-north-east salt the drying, pennants of obscurity.

In the old days, a handful of locals plied the life-line, the Shamrock carried nurse and priest when the mainlanders were trusted. Boats are rusted now.

Trees hide habitation and helipad. Rare invitations.

Cattle freckle grassy slopes on summer days, sailors in the club recount sightings of puffins, seals, wallabies.

Sharp-toothed rocks sink the unsuspecting, shrouded secrets lap in innocent swells.

A pilot boasts of costal jewels in the queue as we approach the airport, I do not recognize it from the sky.

Stories of Roman remains in the lore of gas-men laying fossil pipes. Courts silenced history.

The great leviathan, my facet of this diamond, broods in cumulus, haloed by mists.

On the threshold of mystery I am lured through my kitchen window.

Helen Dempsey

50

Sappho the Wolfhound Cú Chulainn's hound could have crossed these fields to Lusk.

Its descendent roams Ardgillan's woods and slopes.

Mists roll between hazel, hawthorn, rowan, oak.

They named her Sappho. Her grace, pace, gentle eyes wait for a greeting, ladylike, not raucous, like the Lesbian lyrist played at Grecian bawdy beanos, weddings, wakes and victories.

Stately epics sung by Gaelic Filí, lore of ancients saved for a modern student, scraps of parchment found by the poet's lovers; translation headache.

Sappho rambles steep, uphill, constitution, Hopes to meet her there, on the castle's driveway.

Heart flutters in sight of her regal coming.

Fancy the chances!

Transit mode is hard on her master's body.

Lifting Sappho into a car is painful.

Wooden, slanted plank is her owner's answer.

Classical climb in.

Warriors at rest, drank their fill of her words.

Opaque history obscures her ancestry.

Imprints the labours of a Hellenist girl with pithy syllables, rhymed to bardic air.

Small islands have no hold on mighty legends, nor quills, noble deeds, nor giants of their breed.

Helen Dempsey

51

52

EDITOR’S NOTE Trying to produce any form of artistic content during a Pandemic has proven to be exceptionally challenging even more so when technology itself plays up against you. We had to get a new router from our ISP provider, a new Master Socket that’s the part of the equipment which brings the internet and phonelines into the house.

We’re all in a period of uncertainty and unusual shortages I’ve heard that there’s going to be a paper shortage coming up to Christmas which could have a knock on effect on books, magazines and comic book annuals which are normally published around those times.

Still, we must take such issues as they rise and not let them destabilize or demoralize us.

Happy reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor)

53

54