A New Ulster 92

FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF PATRICIA KAMRADT, KAREN MOONEY, SAM BURNSIDE, ALISON BLACK, ALLEN STEBLE, STEPHEN KINGSNORTH, KEITH WOODHOUSE, MICHAEL MADDEN, LIND GRANT-OYEYE, AND RICHARD W. HALPERIN, AND EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.

A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 92 JUNE 2020

UPATREE PRESS

Copyright Š 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 Patricia Kamradt, Karen Mooney, Sam Burnside, Alison Black, Allen Steble, Stephen Kingsnorth, Keith Woodhouse, Michael Madden, Lind Grant-Oyeye, and Richard W. Halperin.

CONTENTS Poetry Patricia Kamradt

Page 1

Poetry Keith Woodhouse

Page 3

Poetry Stephen Kingsnorth

Page 5

Poetry Lind Grant-Oyeye

Page 9

Poetry Allen Steble

Page 11

Poetry Alison Black

Page 16

Poetry Michael Madden

Page 18

Poetry Richard W. Halperin Page 20 Prose Sam Burnside

Page 24

Poetry Karen Mooney

Page 28

Editor’s Note

Page 32

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PATRICIA KAMRADT Patricia was born in Chicago, Illinois, and didn’t learn of her Irish heritage until well into her forties. She writes poetry and short fiction.

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A FARMER’S SIMPLE LIFE The farms in my soul the plow is my wife In good times and bad in bounty in strife My fathers’ home and his father’s before him Four generations strong Side by side, we have worked this proud land Every inch of earth was turned by our hand Working the fields from dawn until night The clean smell of soil after the rain fills my nose The sweet song of the lark is joy to my ears The brown dirt packed under my nails is a glorious feel At peace and harmony as I sit on my plow At one with nature I am here I am now The warmth of the sun rests on my back I am content and happy I am one with the earth Her blood runs through my veins Through strong winds and gentle rains We are bound together Till death do us part Giving all of herself like a mother’s love for her child Asking nothing in return Forever grateful to her and all that she gives Respecting her thanking her as long as I live For I am a farmer and she is my wife and I will love her and cherish her all the days of my life. Amen (Patricia Kamradt)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KEITH WOODHOUSE Keith is a poet and musician from Cornwall. This is his first submission to A New Ulster.

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DETENTION Mental patients Goldfish in a goldfish bowl, Under the consultant psychiatrist, Under the watchfull eye Of the universe.

Lying in our beds, Spinning in our heads, Bright sun through tall windows.

"Nurse, Valium, please."

Anything to slow it down, I try and read But I can't focus, Someone is tapping a teacup.

Mania, Schizophrenia, Clopixol Acuphase, Hired muscle dotted about, "Talk to the doctor on Monday Morning."

(Keith Woodhouse)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: STEPHEN KINGSNORTH

Stephen, married to a Ballymena lass, retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church in Warrington, has had pieces accepted by some twenty on-line poetry sites; and Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines, Vita Brevis’ Anthology ‘Pain & Renewal’ & Fly on the Wall Press ‘Identity’.

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THE MOMENT Momentum starts with moment, the given twist on handle door, pane open space enabling climb, a lyre bird, a key cuckoo call, a rite of spring, known if unannounced, the crossing front, changed atmosphere, a flap of wings, moved paradigm.

(Stephen Kingsnorth)

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RESISTANCE BRED Grandfather, ChĂŠ on student wall, aroused, still evenings works the crowd of grandchildren gathered close to hear his, now hoarse, recital turn.

Plaster scabbed by leprous spread, the talisman to touch that long dead work, medicine touch in colony.

Beyond the shade, alive in heart, rising dust from dust, exhausted fumes, tyres tread through sullen lads bent on sloping, hangdog hungry home.

Despite the writ from see of faith, Father’s witness of a different tale, leads change under alter peace.

Resistance bread in homework spread, unprotected, unpaid dues are paid by son, who crossed the ways of bandit men and refused drug haul.

The blood is up in stifled heat, a distant bell, knees are bent, sweat beaded hands still must cross the palms.

(Stephen Kingsnorth)

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BABY GROWS In Dhaka born, forty older than her land, she aids her family health by sweating in the city shop, with black walls, and no safety checks, where Buriganga river wends.

Singers hum their usual scales, where, needling with her bare ten hands, fingers fold the errant seams, ensuring western prices cheap, eastern lives, seems, cheaper still.

By rows of city’s towers, from ranks of black-walled Bogside desks where Foyle, the father, river bends, another schoolgirl delivers birth, where weighted baby’s first outfit was fitted out in Bangladesh, the baby-grow from sweatshop row.

At ranks of desks the girls make more, for in the west the babies grow; Bangla too, needs baby girls, to be the future’s pension scheme.

(Stephen Kingsnorth)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: LIND GRANT-OYEYE Lind is an Irish poet with publications in several international literary magazines.

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SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF KILKENNY Hold your whim to trick one into writing about friends, and other transients like blood and ailments on old street corners waiting with their gangster game plan to fold, then flood folks. Life is a deep khaki pocketful of old Irish Guinness gently seeping through a bit of odd blue, a bit of grey and I speak not of what you know of skies Not of what should be or not be up there, on one's dark trek from Letterkenny all the way to the agreed middle-here the smooth sexy corners of Kilkenny.

One day, we shall write again about bland Today, indulge us our allocated shand.

Hold your showy songs about tomorrow and its certain rising and growing time.

We know young and unpolluted marrows find their youthful way southwards sometimes Folks, life is a deep khaki pocketful of old Irish waters slowly rising above a bit of old dams, causeways.

Now, we may also speak of greying cumulus and how it surely makes way for bright streetlights holding forte and how they dress up the empty streets of all these old counties .

Watch them await yet another morning, when the June glow, rising from wherever it decides to rise from these days, reconciles with the streets once again.

(Lind Grant-Oyeye)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: ALLEN STEBLE Allen is a contemporary poet that derives inspiration from self-growth and the beauty of nature. He enjoys classical poetry and derives most of his inspiration from great poets like Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou, and Roald Dahl.

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SONNET: LONELY SOUL’S INN Come walk with me dear hunched shadow Smile wide and raise your lowly chin Take off your coat and let go of your woes Let’s spend some time at the lonely soul’s inn A place where there exists not pain nor sorrow Or the scattered remains of a broken heart Nor the bitter tears that closely follow Just a place for a new life, a new start Here at the lonely soul’s inn You’ll pay no fee You can rest soundly your heavy eyes And let Its mystic walls set your mind free From the scars of the past and severed ties So, relax for a while with a glass of tonic and gin Enjoy your stay here at the lonely soul’s inn (Allen Steble)

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SONNET: IF I RISK NOTHING AT ALL If I risk nothing in life or love, I indeed risk it all For I only get stronger when I learn to take many falls The iron horse of Greece, as a redwood so tall Into the bolstered gates of Troy’s impenetrable walls The shattered bones, the great grazes of that mighty leap Are the steppingstones to achieve that impossible so-called feat The feat to become more than the nobles thought I’d become If I played my hand safe…safe with a nought outcome I lost it all many times…and many more still will I lose it again But never will that ever stop me…for no risk at all is the greatest pain The blows life belligerently throws, will hit me hard and without cease I’ll risk it bold…I will never fold for the length of my lifelong lease To risk nothing in life is the greatest risk you could ever make For the greatest triumphs exist, in the boldest chances you take!

(Allen Steble)

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WHISPERED WINDS On whispered winds Crystal clear I can see Crystal clear I can hear High on this hill Time stands still Your fears will subside Into the high tides Despair does not dare To sing its lullaby Whispered winds Pass me by In the deep blue sky They carry me So gently So peacefully Time does not exist In this calm abyss Just one with the seas Flowing with the breeze On whispered winds Time stands still Time stands still (Allen Steble)

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SONNET: DEAR FUTURE ME Dear future self, are you proud of me?

Did I set you up for sparkling success?

Or did I waste my youth in obscurity?

When you look back now, did I do my best?

Dear future me, do you like what you now see?

Did I take care of the temple in which you now dwell?

Or does your once silk skin sag from your bones like jelly?

When you look back now, would you say I invested well?

Dear future self, are you proud of what you have become?

Did I bring a beaming smile to your resplendent face?

Or are you now masking regret with bottles of tonic and rum?

When you peer back now, did I run my finest race?

So, when I am standing in front of a mirror in a decade or two I will ask myself...are you proud of who’s looking back at you?

(Allen Steble)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: ALISON BLACK Alison is a writer from Belfast. She has been writing for over ten years, and has written a variety of poems, of real life rather than fiction, about relationships & friendships.

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I MISS What I miss is friends for coffee, Meeting friends for lunch, The freedom to shop whenever I wanted to, I miss hugging friends for comfort.

I miss visiting the antique shops, I miss going to Portrush meeting people there, I miss socializing with people, I consider this as a holiday.

To keep positive, People are in the same boat, Be appreciative of we have communication, We still have mobile phones & email for contact.

(Alison Black)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MICHAEL MADDEN Michael has worked for many years in the IT industry, as a result of which he has been quoted in publications as prestigious as the New York Times. This also spawned the successful blog The History Of (My) Coding, a narrative in eleven parts detailing his experiences in and around various IT departments across a forty year career.

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LOCKDOWN CHORUS Morning chorus amongst the blossoms Soften and flick Our gin soaked echoes Behind and across our horizons.

Melodies of rejuvenated nature Buzz in the sun soaked air Cut by the silence From the Nightingales.

Our distractions torn Like reused PPE gowns Soaked from seeping rain But stand if you can.

Bursts of radiant shoots Soaked in our sweat Grow as well if not better Towards the light.

(Michael Madden)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: RICHARD W. HALPERIN Richard holds dual Irish-U.S. nationality. His poetry collections are published by Salmon and by Lapwing. A video of his reading of the 20 April poem 'George Eliot 2020' may be viewed on the UK Poetry Archive Now! WorldView 2020 website.

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CONFINEMENT THOUGHTS God is invisible.

Mathematics is invisible.

Covid-19 is invisible.

The music of Bach is invisible.

Betrayal is invisible Until it happens.

What I earnestly pray is invisible.

Yesterday is invisible.

That there can be a photo of it Is a joke.

The statue of Ozymandias is visible.

He has his reward.

What is most real is invisible.

It doesn’t need a mask.

(Richard W. Halperin)

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A CHIPPED CUP For the cover image of Tea in Tbilisi, My publisher chose a photo of A chipped cup ‘because life is chipped.’

My childhood was chipped.

I thought at the time no one else’s was.

My marriage was chipped.

It was I who chipped it.

I noticed today a chip in a cut-crystal glass I’d just bought as a pressie for myself.

Neither the vendor nor I had noticed.

I once dreamt a galleon had docked outside my window.

A chip kept me from remembering more.

Middlemarch is chipped, thank God. (Richard W. Halperin)

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THE LANE Edward Thomas’s poems level me, Their solace and their beauty.

Today ‘The Lane,’ especially.

C.P. Stewart, as fine a nature poet, Wrote his own ‘The Lane,’ After the beloved path he walked In Easingwold.

One day he suddenly died on it.

It was his Arras.

He loved Edward Thomas I love them both.

This is Easter morning 2020, Jesus up and about.

(Richard W. Halperin)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: SAM BURNSIDE Sam was born in County Antrim. He is an established poet, writer, and educator, and received an MBE in 2012 for his services to the arts.

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GUNS He did not know what the boss’s real name was, he knew him only as the leader, the man who now slid into the back seat, beside him.

No words were spoken. The gun appeared, lying naked in the palm of the man’s opened hand, presented like an offering of some kind, a thing revered, then with a nod of his head but without speaking, he slipped it into the pocket of the car seat in front.

The leader told him what had to do. Like a chef, or a scientist pursuing the outcome of an experiment, he knew he would recognise the command and follow the recipe. * It was a week later when he strolled to the top of the designated and previously muchreconnoitred location. He waited inside the bookshop there, as arranged, watching through the window while pretending to examine a succession of books. He spotted his target, as described, and stepping out onto the pavement following him closely. Walking casually until they were outside the post-office when he stepped up behind him. He withdrew the gun from its paper bag and holding it close to the base of the man’s skull pulled the trigger, once, twice. He stepped around the already falling body and turned right at the bottom of the street. He did not look back. There he stepped into the waiting car, was driven onwards for a few minutes, got out as soon as the car stopped, strolled around the corner and climbed into an old van that was waiting, engine running. * He had been here seven days, lying low, as instructed. The safe house was a cottage built from the local stone that lay scattered about the rising slopes, standing half hidden in a in a V-shaped hollow between two hills. Its approach road took the form of a gravelled, weedand-grass infested track that had been laid years before, cutting through the surrounding fields. The first day there he sat in an old armchair beside the open fire. The third day he took down the bottle of whiskey. The fifth day he finished it. That night he was gone – the whiskey had done for him.

The whiskey and his thoughts: his thoughts were all about the leader.

He had been unable, deep down he knew this – was it that he was too young – to read the leader’s mind – he was as deaf to what he knew to be its generational echo and blind to its pre-historic cob-webbed maze of hurts and hatreds as he believed the leader was wide awake to his.

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The leader, he mulled on this, was such a dainty-faced man; but he had a reputation; he had a ravenous appetite for action that led to product; let it happen, was known to be his watchword. * He had no radio here. There was no television. The only punctuation to his days was the sun’s setting and rising, the unremitting coming and going of light and darkness. In the night there was no moon and the stars were hidden behind cloud. His circadian rhythms moved and stalled, melting, one into another.

The landscape it occurred to him had been been built vaguely on the template of ocean waves – little hump-shaped shadowy figures, some lying head to toe, yet interspersed with other bodies, the lot thrown down willy-nilly in the cross-current of history with each one having shouldered over itself a comfort-covering of dried ancient ferns, curled and webbed and laced with wisps of dried dead grass.

During the dreariness of these final three days of constant rain-fall he had grown more and more was fretful, with both his body and mind in a state of mild agitation. He now stepped out into the still, calmness of a new morning: he rocked gently back and forth on the heels and balls of his feet in unconscious time to the breathe-rhythm of the hills: last night’s storm had been and gone, sweeping the hillsides clear of their accumulated debris while the rain had washed the grass, leaving it a pristine carpet of a brushed green.

Below him, the icy blue of two small lakes, reflecting the sky above, rested, at blind peace, inset on the green slope. For the first time he wondered…

He had not, he allowed himself to realise, he had not seen or glimpsed the policeman’s eyes, or his face, had not known, nor did he now know, would never know… The leader had appointed another to walk towards the pair, the stalker and the stalked, and to use a predetermined signal to confirm that this was the one, that now was the time. This other unknown would raise a copy of a newspaper and then lower it as he passed what was a mere, an anonymous, cog in a wheel, the representative of an oppressive force engaged in a dirty war, a legitimate target.

A black animal – no, not an animal, a bird, a bird of prey, it must be, though, on closer inspection, whether it be a rook or a crow or a raven, he did not know, he could not tell. He stood, ignored by the animal as in its ravenous hunger it fed off the carcase of a dead sheep.

He gave no consideration to his own ignorance, nor did he think it strange, but rather mechanically noted this – he did not know the name or nature of the wildlife in his own country! * The headlights of two vehicles intermittently traversed the hillsides and occasionally directed their beams high into the sky as they accelerated bumpily along the approach roads. The 26

roads – it was really one road that came to an acute bend just where the gravelled track led off to climb to the cottage.

One vehicle approached from the north the other from the south.

From his vantage point outside the cottage he turned and dashed into the house where he delved his hand deep under the cushions of the old sofa. He hauled out the gun and ran to the yard. There he halted for a moment before a low stone wall before dropping the gun down through darkness to the bottom of the well. He waited breath-bated till he heard the abrupt splash as it struck water, before sinking.

Then nothing.

Back in the house he stuck both hands into a pail of icy cold water that sat in the porch and held them there for a bit, before wiping them dry on his trouser legs. This in the belief that any residue from the gun would be washed off his skin He returned to the porch where he stopped and stood still, prepared to wait. The vehicles too had stopped, their lights blaring like searchlights, seeming to seek him where he stood in shadow.

He had emptied his mind of all thought.

Hr had been well versed if the time came what he should do, how to behave, to say nothing, to empty his mind, to admit to nothing.

He was just for one instant peripherally aware of movement among the bushes by the yard’s perimeter. Then his body slumped, heavily but neatly as if in one protracted rhythm, to the porch floor, arms spread in almost perfect symmetry, his frame pirouetting in an arch of beauty to the sound of a gun’s explosive stutter.

(Sam Burnside)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: KAREN MOONEY Karen has been scribbling lyrics and poetry and since 2016. Her work has been published in USA, UK and Ireland. Most recent publications include Fevers of the Mind, Re-Side Zine, Poetry NI’s Four x Four and Pendemic.

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APPRENTICESHIP The craft was engrained within huge calloused hands, their whorls, valleys and ridges blackened to reveal his unique identity. These hands were tools, trained to service engines in Harry Ferguson’s, they worked on motorbikes, cars, lawnmowers and tractors. Toughened with each new project, restoring old cars and bikes, they conducted an orchestra of screaming valves in the garage at the end of our garden. His domain. A flick of the lights from the kitchen signalled that tea was ready and the hands, rubbed on an oily rag, raised to smooth Brylcreemed hair.

The smell of grease, oil and petrol announced his arrival. Woven into the overalls, it overpowered any remaining traces of the Old Spice applied earlier in the day and he commandeered the kitchen sink, temporarily scrubbing off his trade with Swarfega in the kitchen sink before refuelling.

If it was a cold winter’s night, he would bring his work home, in that the engine would be laid upon newspapers in the living room. Whilst he worked his magic, we sat enthralled.

With lessening physical activity, the hands softened, as did he, yet it seemed that oil still coursed through his veins. He would read about engines, talk about them and listen to them.

Sadly, his own could not be restored. the apprentice craft mastered at eighty-four time served

(Karen Mooney)

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BONFIRE As children, Dad drove us up the Rocky Road to see the bonfires lighting up the Belfast skyline. I didn’t understand the significance but appreciated the spectacle and had no desire to go near them, nor would I have been allowed.

Carnival for all Night sky illuminated Keep a safe distance Years later, attracted by the excitement I went to see one but perhaps it was just a chance to see a lad I had a notion of. Singing, dancing, a chaste kiss round the back of the boney and the fire was lit. That is, until my damper deployed with the thoughts of a disapproving father Youthful excitement Drawn like a moth to a light Afraid of the fire Dumped like the remnants that would not take to the flame. Scarred like the bonfire site, I learned that there were several components required for a real fire, that they should be handled with care and even more carefully set.

Putting out the flames Charred to protect from danger Setting a new fire Well it doesn’t mean that you’re an arsonist if you light a few fires and we’re all long enough in the tooth to know that dying embers can be rekindled. Mind you, sometimes those components have to be kept apart unless of course the hearth is empty and you need the heat.

Hot ash can ignite Flicker or a flame, beware Playing with matches (Karen Mooney)

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MIGRANT WORKERS The landing strip, a field outside of Ards, car horn honking announces arrivals who have flown here from Iceland. Their rewards are the gleanings for winter survival.

Not just immediately recognized as around here we're attuned to strangers and jest of the distance between the eyes.

But close inspection reveals no danger from blow-ins creating competition, whether or not they even have passports.

Nature picks a preferred destination, after all, we too, are imports of sorts.

Whooper Swans teach us the need for reason.

We say 'haste ye back' to help next season.

(Karen Mooney)

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EDITOR’S NOTE Welcome to the June edition of A New Ulster. We have an amazing range of poetry and prose this issue. I’ve enjoyed reading all of it, and I am hopeful that you will as well. We feature our first Lockdown piece it has led to quite a few new pieces of art, prose and poetry as well as, uncertainty and financial concerns. I am very glad to announce that I will be receiving a Covid 19 financial support package from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland so that I can replace the computer, which died two months ago now. .

My father had Covid 19 and it has affected him quite badly it seems to attack the blood vessels which frankly terrifies me as I have a bleeding disorder which puts me at greater risk should I catch it. I will continue to promote poetry, prose and artwork to the best of my abilities and I hope you will all join us in our next issue.

A New Ulster has published poets, artists and writers from around the world, we have published people living in exile or who are currently living with the daily threat of violence because they are of a different ethnic background or religion.

We are deeply saddened by the recent events in America which has shone a light on something that has lain under the surface ignored by many, officially there are no statistics on police based deaths. Unofficially however that number appears to be on average 1000 dead by police action, this year alone around 225 people have been killed of which 35 were Black, on average 23% of those killed were Black, those are sobering numbers hopefully a peaceful solution is found and those affected receive justice. All lives matter but right now we need to be aware of the Black Lives.

My usual ending does not feel right so I will close with a wish for, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor)

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