A New Ulster 114

FEATURING THE TALENTS OF Mick Strata, Peter Adair, Christopher Moncrieff, Terry Brinkman, Eugene Platt, Michael Lee Johnson, Patrick Cassidy Noel King, Jessica Berry and Saeed Salimi Babamri EDITED BY AMOS GREIG

A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 114 MAY 2022

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 Mick Strata, Peter Adair, Christopher Moncrieff, Terry Brinkman, Eugene Platt, Michael Lee Johnson, Patrick Cassidy Noel King, Jessica Berry and Saeed Salimi Babamiri

CONTENTS Poetry Mick Strata

Page 1

Poetry Peter Adair

Page 6

Poetry Christopher Moncrieff Page 14 Artwork/Poetry Terry Brinkman

Page 19

Poetry Eugene Platt

Page 26

Artwork/Poetry Michael Lee Johnson

Page 42

Poetry Patrick Cassidy

Page 50

Poetry Noel King

Page 58

Prose Jessica Berry

Page 64

Poetry Saeed Salimi Babmiri

Page 67

Editor’s Note

Page 70

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Mick Strata Mick Stratta is a British-Italian writer of fiction and poetry. He has published some short stories and is in the process of publishing his first novel, a story of first love set in the nineties. His non-literary activities include playing football and guitar pretty badly and fathering two lovely rascals. You might find him talking about writing and other stuff on Twitter @Mick_Stratta

1

Teenage Love Ain’t Real

verglas tingles 8 a.m. yawn light’s debut, soft boiler hot to trot ping bird bath crackles unheard crawl of worms ice gritty tongues unvoiced

slurp milk wheat crumbles roll-up curtain jammed like rhubarb knife scratches wholemeal confetti words suppressed bitter below

scanning rolling stone with fingers dead n.4 bus halts mighty - village green Kinks from row eight Rhi looks my way teenage love ain’t real, honey, she whispers in similar fashion to our lips

fleetingly #butcertainly# compressed

(Mick Strata)

2

Midnight Skater

ice whispers below opaque blades she floats alone a whispered hieroglyphic of scratches like a jealous secret:

fairy of midnight tales it’s just her under the neon moonlight

(Mick Strata)

3

My Grandad’s Blurry Outline

my grandad’s outline a blurry wave from the park gates

the face smiles but I’m mistaken it’s just a resemblance

‘cos it’s not 1985 and worlds do get forgotten if we’re not careful like those VHS in the ripped box He-Man and you and me

(Mick Strata)

4

Hedgehog’s Dilemma

blue ink on the nape of your neck reminds me of that first dance into the small hours, that old bar off piazza S. Marco

you breathed intoxicated air into my ear our tongues twisted as we draped each other bass thumps embracing us like sandy waves

your eyes blind to the tiny ways in which i could disappoint you we hadn’t heard of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma

warmth with thorns – or shivering with empty forms with lowered castle drawbridges we swayed to the beat spines intertwining unseen into our soft sides

(Mick Strata)

5

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PETER ADAIR

Peter Adair’s poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Bangor Literary Journal, Boyne Berries and other journals. He has a poem in Eyewear’s The Best New British and Irish Poets 2019-2021. An epamphlet Calling Card is available from Rancid Idol Productions. He lives in Bangor, Co Down.

6

Easel They sip mugs of tea and munch scones fresh from the oven, then drift to the craft room, sit at benches nailing picture frames together, hammering wardrobes almost into shape; sawdust, drips of paint, their sacrament, when, through golden light, a dove hovers a moment over a homeless prophet, that epileptic haloed like a saint.

Peter Adair

7

Memorial – a found poem In Z1 Public Plot, Belfast City Cemetery, 7,863 babies – stillborn or soon dead – interred 1943-1996.

I’m lucky. I know where my baby is buried in a copse.

Each tree has a number, in between are graves; each grave hides several babies.

When it rains it’s waterlogged.

A smell of rotting leaves.

Belfast City Council said: The soil in Z1 is a heavy red clay and the heavy rainfall this year did cause difficulties.

Proposed design: a 150cm headstone engraved with a baby lying on a bed of leaves.

Some mothers are still searching.

Peter Adair

8

Beachhead

Hard not to admire their conquest of earth, the yellow outposts that colonise the rocks on Ballywalter beach.

Like the Romans and British they’ve built an empire to last. But when we’ve fled to some distant planet, and laid down sewage pipes, and poisoned rivers, a few dogs might miss us but not the imperious lichen.

Peter Adair

9

Leftovers Once the leftovers from the feast were stored away in the fridge for a lunchtime fry next day.

I stirred the lumpy sizzle of turkey, potatoes and sprouts.

Waste not, want not, mother said.

But what’s left now?

What hot storage awaits me so late in the day?

The singalong incineration of bone, brain and gut.

Waste not, want not, mother said.

Peter Adair

10

Homecoming I For many a year I have rooted about until, at last, I am: I have found my roots, sunk them deep down in my native soil.

Returning to the farm where I was born, I grip my brother’s earthed hand: ‘Sure,’ he says ‘it’s like you’ve never been away.’

We sweat in the fields and scythe the hay or herd the cows along the dungy lanes.

I lower a bucket into the deep well of being.

When he chats in rapid Irish, I turn green, prod him gently into an English field where stone by stone we raise a cairn to the dead, then sniff the spoor to school and chapel, the children’s museum: pump, anvil, creel.

I have become my own exhibition.

11

II Back home in the cottage, yonder in Ballinaloob, I warm my soul at the hearth as the last speaker of our Doric greets me: ‘Fare fae ye, ye halion!’

Puffing his auld cutty, he pokes me in the ribs: ‘Do ye recall thon day ye ate your first raw eel?’

I choke again at that quaint rite of passage.

Then, misty-eyed, he recites the first words I scrawled in the hamely tongue, holds up the notebook` where, aged ten, I rhymed ‘clachan’ with ‘smackan’.

As he spalters off home, he spits on the floor: ‘Why did ye quit your wee bit hoose for thon toun and caitiff English?’ I fluff my Jacobean lines.

Peter Adair Cont

12

III At home in field or cot, I roughen my soft words, unlearn my deracinated poetry – too highfalutin for my folk to heed.

And, driving home – well, to my home from home – I hear the locals mulling over my return, all sage nods and not one malicious word: ‘He hasn’t changed at all. His head never swelled.

He’s the same wain who kicked a ball in the yard.

You’d never know, would you, he’s a famous man.’

I pity the rootless, pity those restless ones never settled long enough to have a home.

Yes, I have found my roots. I have come home.

Peter Adair

13

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: CHRISTOPHER MONCRIEFF

Christopher Moncrieff is a European poet, linguist and literary translator from French, German and Romanian and is descended from the Scots poet, Robert Burns. After professional military service in Europe, Northern Ireland, the Near East and the USA during the Cold War he produced son et lumièrestyle shows before beginning to write full-time and has lived for long periods in Paris and Los Angeles. He read Theology at Oxford and has qualifications in design and on the military staff. A frequent traveller in Central and Eastern Europe, he speaks several languages of the region. He is an award recipient and Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, was a Writing Fellow at Cambridge in 2018-19, has mentored young adults on the autism spectrum and takes an active interest in neuro- and gender diversity. His poetry is published by Caparison Books, Lapwing Publications, the Bucharest literary review Luceafărul, and online at Militant Thistles and The Recusant. www.christophermoncrieff.com

14

15

Concerning drawing For those few airless months when the heat came upon us like an unrelenting storm of fire, reducing voices to dry grass, you sat with her and her easel in an upper room whose northern light let in shadows that played the blues, eliciting conundrums and confessions which she wove into your portrait with a wave of her pale slim hands like a conductor on whose fingertips the orchestra hangs until its last exultant breath.

With every arch of her eyebrows a frisson ran down your spine like a snake in search of its lost gender while you imagined what her unseen pencil might be doing as the sound of its impious dance across the paper filled the silences held prisoner by her silk screen, waltz-tune voice.

During those drawn-out blazing days yours was an encounter of two souls out of time, fellow-travellers on the stony path of art, bejewelled with talk of palettes, of summer wardrobes without season, perfume paraphernalia that hid in the spaces between the words you never spoke.

And in the end, which may be soon or late, her supple bony wrists and arching hands drew you out of yourself and onto the pure white page of her imagining.

(Christopher Moncrieff)

16

Eulenspiegel Across the noonday café terrace where canal reflections wept from ivy clustered walls and became brief echoes, coffee conversation turned to the price of pearls; how to ascertain beyond doubt which was of most value, the one that had no worldly price and, like certain earthlings, could not be bought.

Yet on the breeze that lifted the weary pages of your carnet, played cache-cache with the candles still burning from the night before, came hints that this might have been a game of mirrors, an espièglerie of pale images that danced among the flitting waiters, who, if only you had dared to ask, might have told you that even as you sat alone with listless unkempt words and unkept promises, your path was soon to cross with hers, and the mirror then would crack from side to side, opening up doorways to a different world.

(Christopher Moncrieff)

17

Michel-Ange au cocktail Like a figure from the far-off celestial ceiling of the Capella Sistina she has fallen to earth, sveltly clad from head to toe in black and midnight blue, glass and paintbrush in hand as if to capture all the grace of the human form while sipping champagne and nibbling one solitary canapé so as not to compromise her silhouette, the gracile signature which she presents to the world, daring it to object.

And all the while her pale and lovely hands are sketching profiles in the air, conducting the languid crystal notes of her latina-tinted voice - acquired, like her linen suits and paisley scarves in Firenze’s September side-streets en route for molto chic Milano.

Each time you glimpse her or her image in your mind you are transported, with a flourish of her sable brush, back to that upper room in summer where first the spell began.

But for now she is just here among the cocktail party guests, a reminder of how art, that breath divine, can open wide our eyes (Christopher Moncrieff)

18

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: TERRY BRINKMAN Terry Brinkman started painting in junior high school. He has had painting shows at the Eccles Art Center and paintings published in the Literary home girl volume 9 & 10, Healing Muse volume 19, (2019), SLCC Anthology (2020), and in the book Wingless Dreamer: Love of Art. Detour and meat for tea; The Bangor literary journal Issue 13 and 15, Barzakh 2022 and in Cacosa Magazine.

19

Terry Brinkman

20

Sleepy Whale 218 With a blue white hanker-chief sail We head to the wine dark sea Above us clusters of Violet stars With one white North Star Mass Priest lick angry spirit juices From the Mount Olive Press Red-dress risk of life to save life Soul’s condiment by bread alone Besmirched the lily, all his days Voluntary poverty bitter milk High life my Moon and my sun Chief Coffee-House table-licker Egypt’s plague cavity of a mountain

(Terry Brinkman)

21

Sleepy Whale 249 Unplumbed profundity water lover Restlessness of its waves, sea bound Sun dam trench states of sea In heap, in calm.in sterility Hydrostatic turgidity quiescence Circumpolar ice caps indisputable Primeval based, Godless War Multicellular, hegemony stability Lute bed, precious metals Down-ward-tending promontories Alluvial peninsulas

(Terry Brinkman)

22

Sleepy Whale 328 Lower, middle and upper class Passive Osteopathic active hunger Jargon merely unclear, Violet Confits Inverted Breakfast Cups, steaming coffee Sun shined on the daises Growing in the sprues fridge plateau Half empty oval wicker basket Four frog green Jersey Pears Augmented Irish, Coral-Pink tissue Swathe of Irish crinkled, shoals of fish He said over his shoulder Truth stranger than fiction

(Terry Brinkman)

23

Sleepy Whale #200 Maze of dark Pink Champaign Storm of kisses from an Ape Dishonors of their Zoo Escape The joust of life to sustain High minded animal migraine Quacking soul’s Ape in a city scape Hiding behind the confessional drape Outcast Ape from Maine

(Terry Brinkman)

24

Sleepy Whale 212 She cries true love today Lovers under the railway bridge Blue stars shiver over the sage ridge Neither know what to say Eyes weeping, crossed legged sitting on hay Crying at Cemetery Gates to Saloon Fridge Loves soul abridge Sleep over Christmas holiday

(Terry Brinkman)

25

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: EUGENE PLATT Eugene Platt, an octogenarian striving to remain active in an era of increasing ageism, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. After serving in the Army (11th Airborne and 24th Infantry Divisions) , he earned degrees at the University of South Carolina and Clarion University of Pennsylvania as well as a Diploma in Anglo-Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. As a young poet, he was active on the reading circuit, giving over 100 public readings of his work at colleges, universities, and libraries across the nation. While at Trinity College, he read in the inaugural Dublin Arts Festival (1970) with Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, and Brendan Kennelly. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review (selected by Eavan Boland), Crazyhorse, Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore, South Carolina Review, Southwestern Review, etc., and some have been choreographed. He lives in Charleston with his main muses: Montreal-born wife Judith, corgi Bess, and cats Finnegan and Maeve.

26

27

28

Agony in Egypt — April 8, 1970

Ovens of the Third Reich have cooled, their stokers interred or hung or forced into hiding forever.

Perhaps too few were reduced to dust, but who among us would question the righteousness of such retribution?

Still, it falls short as a panacea for the shortcomings of man.

Unspeakable precedents kindled by architects of the Final Solution continue to smolder decades later as a bolder new generation of Jews takes its own turn at baking bodies.

These somber sons of Moses are militant, modern, loathe to fiddle with slow-burning ovens when “Made in USA” bombs can annihilate fifty times faster.

With grim resolution to strike like phantoms, they soar over a Red Sea opened in Exodus when ancestors fled from ancient Egypt.

Alas, judgment impaired by years of animosity selects an unlikely, unguarded target, and startled eyes of children at play 29

stare skyward for the split second before a burst of napalm hell melts their corneas.

Teeth, too, are lost to implement an ancient dictum:

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Vengeance is wrought, a minaret teeters, mothers wail in Arabic . . . .

Eugene Platt

Italicized lines are from Exodus 21:24-25 (KJV). Poem was incited by an Israeli air raid on Bahr el-Baqar Primary School in Egypt on April 8, 1970.

30

How I Escaped the Holocaust

Until age 82 I never knew I was a half-Jew. Until age 82 and seduced into producing a vial of saliva for trendy DNA testing, truly, I thought I was purely one of the Unchosen.

As a young American soldier after World War II wound down, I found myself stationed in Munich, the beautiful capital of alpine Bavaria.

Due to my newly discovered ethnicity, had I been born in that ancient city, I might have died in nearby Dachau or been box-carred to faraway Auschwitz

to slave away day after day after day, subsisting on watery gruel or maggoty mush until it was my turn to be gassed and burned to further the Fuehrer’s satanic final solution.

Whew! Although born in 1939, the fateful year the hateful despot’s legions daggered peaceful Poland, I was born an ocean away, not in Munich or Paris or Amsterdam or any other European city

31

where the lurking Gestapo could have pulled me from a play pen or snatched me from the street, beat me, armbanded me with a profaned Star of David, reduced me to a tattooed number.

Was I lucky to have been born too late to fight in that wretched war, as some might say consolingly?

Hell no! Knowing now this haunting half of my heritage, I just wish I had been one of the Greatest Generation.

Eugene Platt

In memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

32

Where We Find Our Fathers

Sometimes without seeking we find our fathers in unexpected places as ethereal as cyberspace, or as close as an older cousin’s disclosure

of a rumor heard eons earlier, unsavory gossip she’d refused to believe about her mother’s virtuous, sweetest sister.

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places, and I was already grown when I found my own in a sterile vial of saliva, so to speak.

Actually, that specimen of spittle had to be sent away for trendy DNA testing.

Who knew it would show me to be a half-Jew

after so many years of relishing pork roast and an unquestioned assumption that I was simply one of the Unchosen?

And how does such a discovery affect the legacy of an unknowing dad who bears no blame for the cuckoldry of others?

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places.

33

But, to make a point, one need not make a fuss about a single spermatozoon’s union

with a fertile ovum waiting in a willing receptacle.

Truly, ever since Adam, the prototypical man, celibate but curious, wandered around the fabled Garden of Eden

seeking a place to put his strange appendage, copulation without conscience has been a constant.

As a sage has said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places decades after two have dishonored sacred vows, allowed trust to be trumped by common lust.

Eugene Platt

34

My Father the Philanderer

was not the doting dad who placed countless whiskery kisses on my wispy baby hair, who bounced me on work-weary knee and raised me from infancy.

My father the philanderer was not the devoted dad who took me to see cowboy movies at the Majestic Theater every Saturday and bought me chocolate ice cream and comic books afterward.

My father the philanderer was not the proud dad who saluted me, by then a young soldier in airborne infantry, when the silver wings of a paratrooper were pinned to my tunic.

My father the philanderer was not the hard-working blue-collar breadwinner who helped me to earn a degree at nearby USC, another at distant Trinity, shortening his health-impaired life thereby.

My father the philanderer was not even a name to me 35

until decades after my dad died and DNA testing confronted me with an improbable truth: For better or for worse, my progenitor was never married to my mother.

What does one do with such an unsought discovery?

Day after day I pray for deliverance, accepting at last this is just poetic justice.

Alas, living in a glass house of indiscretions, I know not to throw the first stone.

He that is without sin . . . let him first cast a stone . . . .

— John 8:7 (KJV) Eugene Platt

36

Waiting for the Train at Ballybrophy Junction

An American from the Deep South, a region where tradition trumps trends and ancestors are still revered, I remember my gram Moira wistfully saying some of our own are known to have succumbed to starvation during Ireland’s horrific Great Hunger.

They are said to have been buried in a bog near here.

If so, long ago their rotted remains may have been cremated in the peat-burning fireplace of a more fortunate family. .

According to a recent census, the number of Americans claiming Irish ancestry is seven times the population of Ireland itself.

On Saint Patrick’s Day they wave Tricolor banners or wear badges that say, “Kiss me, I’m Irish!”

Earlier today I pilgrimaged to this pastoral place to pay belated homage to their memory.

And now, waiting for the train at Ballybrophy Junction, I sit and muse about those maternal ancestors: If only they’d prevailed in the Rebellion of 1798— or, having failed, they’d taken the train, then passage on a boat to well-fed America or grand Canada before the doomed potatoes began to blacken.

37

The Great Famine began with failure of the potato crop in 1845 due to Phytophthora infestans.

A deathly sweetness soon perfumed the air.

I sit and shiver in a vertically moving mist, indeed, a drizzle too light to drench.

So, I know the Irish aren’t insane to say of such rain, “Ah, but ‘tis soft.”

Because potatoes were relatively easy to cultivate, prior to the Great Famine the Irish poor had become overly dependent on them for subsistence.

The average adult male ate thirteen pounds a day.

I sit as the rain stops and, actually, appreciate having a wait in this quaint corner of County Laois.

Too soon an intruding train will breach its peace and diesel me back to Dublin.

Nearly nine million people lived in Ireland the year the Great Famine began.

Within a half-decade a million had died, another million or more had migrated.

I sit outside an almost empty station, sharing its serenity with several cawing crows 38

while shadows play chase with patches of sun.

Now, with filial obligation fulfilled, fatigued, my mind would rather meditate on nothing.

Although the deaths abated, the diaspora continued, mainly west, enriching the rest of the world with Irish wit, wisdom, well-being.

Today about seven million live on the island of Ireland, five in the Republic, another two in the North.

I sit and listen to the breeze humming through trackside trees as if it were mischievous fairies bewitching away all the warmth usually associated with the month of May.

Irish literature has been immeasurably enriched by fairy tales rooted in spiritual beliefs and superstition.

Their compatibility with Christian tenets is remarkable.

W.B. Yeats, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, had a lasting fascination with Irish folklore.

As train time nears and other travelers enter the station, I stand, joining these melancholy natives in mourning this stillborn spring, but diplomatically determined not to challenge the old farmer grousing about my country’s lunar landings lousing up their cherished weather, compromising his crops.

39

Any conversation with an Irish man or woman is likely to include a mention of the weather; however, whether fair or foul is in the eye of the beholder.

In truth Ireland has a temperate maritime climate due to the vast, fast-flowing Gulf Stream.

Temperatures rarely go below 32 degrees or above 68.

Under a faint full moon I venture to say cordially to the cranky old fellow, “Well, Sir, at least those landings were a century too late to have caused the Great Famine.”

And I take comfort in an ancient Celtic blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields.

And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Eugene Platt

From the collection Nuda Veritas, published 2020 by Revival Press, Ireland.

40

In a Butcher Shop in Bushmills

Having come all the way from America to holiday for a fortnight beside the sea, our spirits already high but wanting to fortify our bodies with the fabled nutrition of fresh-from-the-field Irish meat, my sweet wife Judith and I decide to forgo for an hour the serenity of our Ballintoy cottage on the beach and drive to nearby Bushmills for a stop at a butcher shop popular with locals.

(Bushmills, by the way, may be better known for its Protestant whiskey than poultry, pork, or beef.

In any case it is a lovely little village proud of its crown jewel, the ancient open-to-the-public distillery, which offers intoxicating samples at the end of every tour. And, truly, a river runs through it, the River Bush, which not only provides water for the whisky but also, anglers say, good salmon fishing.)

Inside the surprisingly cheery space of the shop, where even fresh strawberries are on sale, Judith asks the rosy-cheeked butcher what’s available, and he regales us with what sounds like a song. “Good lady,” he intones sonorously, “we’ve got gigots of Limerick lamb and marbled rib eyes from Celtic cows, not to mention the finest fowl in all of Ulster. Any would be a winner.”

“Indeed,” she says,“ I think any would be good for dinner,” then inquires, “And would you have anything to make our happy hour happier?” The rosy-cheeked butcher offers, “How about some artisan salami freshly made from Hibernian hogs raised down in County Wicklow? And pair it, if you please, with a bit of our garlic-infused Gaelic goat cheddar cheese.”

We leave the shop and wend our way back to Ballintoy in our hired car, driving properly on the left side of the roadway past a castle and an entrance to the Giant’s Causeway. The August sun is still high in the Irish sky at six o’clock as we begin our connubial ritual, treating taste buds to sixteenyear-old single malt and bites of salami and cheese. The setting begets affection. What’s not to like on this island?

Eugene Platt

41

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MICHEAL LEE JOHNSON Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada, Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 254 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, several published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 336 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.

42

Frogs

By Michael Lee Johnson "Grow grass, stone frogs," written on bathroom walls.

Hippie beads, oodles colorful acid pills in dresser draws, no clothes, kaleidoscope condoms, ostentatious sex.

No Bibles or Sundays that anyone remembers.

Rochdale College, Toronto, Ontario 1972, freedom school, free education.

Makes no sense, when you're high on a song "American Women" blasting eardrums and police sirens come on.

(Note: Rochdale College was patterned after Summerhill School-Democratic "freedom school" in England founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around.)

43

44

Poetry Man

By Michael Lee Johnson I’m the poetry man, understand?

Dance, dance, dance to the crystals of night, healing crystals detox nightmares, night tremors.

Death still comes in the shadow of grief, hides beneath this blanket of time, in the heat, in the cold.

Hold my hand on this journey you won’t be the first, but you may be the last.

You and I so many avenues, ventures & turns, so many years together one bad incident, violence, unexpected, one punch, all lights dim out.

45

46

97, Coming to Terms & Goodbye (An atheist faces his own death)

By Michael Lee Johnson

Wait until I have to say goodbye, don’t rush; I’m a philosophical professor facing my own death on my own time.

It takes longer to rise to kick the blankets back.

I take my pills with water and slowly lift myself out of bed to the edge of my walker.

Living to age 97 is an experience I share with my caretaker and so hard to accept.

It’s hard for youngsters who have not experienced old age to know the psychology of pain that you can’t put your socks on or pull your own pants up without help anymore— thank God for suspenders.

“At a certain point, there’s no reason to be concerned about death, when you die, no problem, there’s nothing.”

But why in my loneness, teeth stuck in with denture glue, my daily pillbox complete, and my wife, Leslie Josephine, gone for years, why does it haunt me?

I can’t orchestrate, play Ph.D. anymore, my song lyrics is running out, my personality framed in a gentler state of mind.

I still think it necessary to figure out the patterns of death; I just don’t know why.

“There must be something missing from this argument; I wish I knew.

Don’t push me, please wait; soon is enough to say goodbye.

My theater life, now shared, my last play, coming to this final curtain, I give you grace, “the king of swing,” the voice of Benny Goodman is silent now, an act of humanity passes, no applause. *Dedicated to the memory of Herbert Fingarette, November 2, 2018 (aged 97). Berkeley, California, U.S.A. Video credit and photo credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4.

47

48

Keyboard

By Michael Lee Johnson Keyboard dancing, poet-writer, old bold, ribbons are worn out, type keys bent out of shape.

40 wpm, high school, Smith Corona 220 electric ultimately gave out, carrying case, lost key.

No typewriter repairman anymore.

It is this media, new age apps, for internet dreams, forged nightmares, nothing can go wrong, right?

Cagey, I prefer my Covid-19 shots completed one at a time.

Unfinished poems can wait, hang start-up like Jesus ragged on that wooden cross, revise a few lines at a time; near the end, complete to finish.

I will touch my way out of this life; as Elton John says, “like a candle in the wind.”

I will be at my keyboard late at night that moment I pass, my fingertips stop.

49

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PATRICK CASSIDY Patrick Cassidy lives in Toledo Spain where he writes poetry from the heart

50

1. Children of war: In Russia mothers tell their sons; "Do not go to war for Putin," "You will not come home".

In Ukraine mothers tell their sons; "Go fight for President Zelensky," "You will do your country proud".

In Russia mothers are asking why?

Their sons are being sent to war, Coming home in body bags, In Ukraine mothers understand, That this is their land, And someone must defend it, In Russia there is an air of discontent, Still people fear the Kremlin, A feeling of trepidation to be Russian, In Ukraine there is an air of contentment, The Verkhovna Rada a rally ground, A feeling of pride to be part of the nation, In Russia the news is censored, No one really knows what’s going on, But they notice it in their pocket!

In Ukraine the people see the headlines, They know they are not alone, They know that help is nearby.

Both in Russia and Ukraine, It is the mother's who suffer, As they put their sons in the grave, But when their children stand before the gates of heaven, God will not ask "Are you from Russia or Ukraine?"

He will bid them enter, release them from their pain.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

51

2. Here we again: Here we are again, Have we learnt anything, What have our fore-fathers taught us, What has history shown us?

Power corrupts!

Gold and silver the root of all evil, That men are fragile, When the winds blow strong they are torn from their roots, That bricks and mortar cannot protect you, That there will always be a way, To get rid of you, That it is the innocent who pay the ultimate price, Whose children go off to fight.

That Kings and Queens and aristocracy, Like to wear a medal on their chest, That they keep their heirs and scion out of harm’s way, The rich make a profit from death, That politicians have more faces than a cube, Their progenitors go to private schools, Paid for by the common man’s taxes!

That God still does not recognise the wickedness that is mankind, That we are forced upon our knees by the threat of annihilation, How one single being can dictate the fate of humanity, That those who preach have lost all influence, That peace and love are two words that make people sick, That their antonym is death and destruction.

And here we are again, Yet the truth is that we never moved on, For humankind did not evolve from animals, Humankind is an evolving animal!

(Patrick J Cassidy)

52

3. Man of war: Oh tongue between the lips, Make yourself heard, Do not hide deep in the mouth, Speak when you are needed, Say what must be said.

Oh eyes in the head, Have you been blinded?

Do not you see what goes on around you?

Do not look away, Instead of confronting the truth.

Oh ears below the hair, You are not deaf, You hear it all though it pains you, It is a sound that you dread, The music of death.

Oh nose affixed the face, You smell evil, The scent of misfortune, A foul odour upon the air, Depriving you of breath.

Oh body forged and beaten upon the anvil, Thrust into the fire, Until the bones are softened, Plunged into water, Left to cool to become a man of war.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

53

4. Removed: Xerxes I was removed, Phillip II was removed, Caesar was removed, Andronikos I Komnenos was removed, Edward II was removed, Cardinal Robert of Geneva; a monster that ought to have been removed!

Hitler was removed, Mussolini was removed, Franco should have been removed, Saddam Hussein was removed, Ben Laden was removed, Trump was removed through the democratic process, Xi Jinping if he's not careful might be removed, But Putin, Who will remove the beast from the Kremlin?

(Patrick J Cassidy)

54

5. Come the dawn: Come the dawn, Let the dawn fall, And darkness blow away, Let the light filter through, Rain down upon me, Wash and cleanse me, As I rise from my shelter, Hidden below ground, Hiding from all the evil, That surrounds, All the bad unleashed from hell.

And I am alive, I give thanks to the almighty, For his palms have covered me, Protected me from the debris.

Come the dawn, Let me taste the new day, Hear the birds sing, Fill my lungs with the sweetness that is called survival, Give thanks that I have weathered the storm, And I able to step out on my own two feet, For the morning after, Defies the night before.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

55

6. When you listen to fools: When you listen to fools, Fools reign!

They will lead you by the nose, To where God only knows, For what they seek is only gain, But you can be sure that there will be pain.

When you listen to fools, There is no need for school, For school becomes the tool, Of the same fools, Who say that they will guide you, To a just reward.

When you listen to fools, Who can you blame, Where will you hide your shame, Once you realised you have been fooled?

By clever talk, And scaremongering.

When you listen to fools, You have already abandoned reason, Deny your own self-judgement, Follow the crowd, Unwilling to think for itself, That needs to be told what to do.

When you listen to fools, You will do foolish things, Believing that they are right, You will kill and commit crime, Believe yourself just, Because some fool has told you so.

When you listen to fools, You turn your back on Christ, Hammer the nails deeper into his flesh, 56

You shun peaceful living, For the glory of war, Lose all moral understanding.

When you listen to fools, Your ignorance betrays you, Your innocence exposed, Weakest over-comes you, For you have not the courage, To say the fool is wrong.

When you listen to fools, Then you become the fool, In the company of fools, And no matter where you hide, Truth will find you, For no one can escape the truth.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

57

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: NOEL KING Noel King lives in Tralee, Ireland. His poetry collections are published by Salmon: Prophesying the Past, (2010), The Stern Wave (2013) and Sons (2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others (Doghouse Books, 2003-2013) and was poetry editor of Revival Literary Journal (Limerick Writers’ Centre) in 2012/13. A short story collection, The Key Signature & Other Stories was published by Liberties Press in 2017. www.noelking.ie

58

Jesus didn’t wash his own feet Asking why you don’t wash your feet before going to bed, you told me you didn’t care.

All day you’d swept around on the beach, in the caravan park, on the dirt tracks, the sandhills, going to the shop for ice-creams and now, after fourteen hours of fun you get into your nightie and into bed with filthy feet.

I bathe mine in warm water and soap in a plastic pan we keep under the sink. That’s just sissy, you say and jump into that borrowed sleeping bag without a care.

I roll the zip down on my bag and climb in, you are on your own bunk, start to lip a prayer, let your dark hair fall on the day cushions with pink pillow-covers.

Soon you are snoring softly, and I dream of you Mary Magdalene-like washing my feet, like a good love only could, but that would be a sin as you – lovely and all as you are – are my cousin.

In the morning we will jump into the sea again before breakfast, paddle across the water.

© Noel King

59

The Scrap Heap Mr. Raitt tried to convince her she could sew them, but hard as she tried Janet Jones the 2nd, as she was called, couldn’t, every pair when inspected was faulty, visited the scrap heap as seconds.

Her mother had succeeded here but left the career when she got babies.

Mr. Raitt moved her to jumpers, black jumpers.

That was worse; she could manage the main body, but the close ups of necks and cuffs….. aaahh.

Janet wanted to succeed so bad, to escape her mother marry Mickey, her boyfriend when they’d be twenty-one.

She thought about the bean-canning factory next door. The girls there knocked-off earlier, got 20p an hour more, some had their own cars, or their boyfriends had, but then in school….aaaah, Janet was never any good at Maths, stuff in books.

© Noel King 60

On Petticoat Lane

a flower shop proprietor allows her shaggy white coloured ‘Lassie’ dog to piss on the floor. She squats right there inside the glass door on the floor.

The woman ‘tut tuts’ and fetches a mop.

We, my wife and I, on our way to eat at The Crypt in Whitechapel Church decide on chocolates instead of flowers to give the maiden aunt we’re having for lunch.

(c) Noel King

61

Monologue V

I have in me a need for a place that will be everything in dreams of escape; a place that no matter what will be home, where I will know I do not want to come back.

© Noel King

62

Your Thumbprint as you staggered tipsy nightly to the bathroom is still on the wallpaper.

In my hand a baby wipe.

For an endless time I study the contours and map of the soil mark, wonder if I can find a pattern that led you to leave me and the kids.

Then I wipe the wallpaper clean.

© Noel King

63

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: JESSICA BERRY

Jessica Berry grew up in the seaside town of Bangor, County Down. She is an English teacher at the Belfast Model School for Girls - the best reason possible for her to get out of bed every morning!

Jessica enjoys writing songs, short stories, and poetry. During the first lockdown, she began sharing her poems on Instagram (@jessicaruth.poetry). She is currently working towards publishing her first poetry collection, inspired by family stories and interlaced with Irish folklore. In 2021, Jessica was placed in Bangor’s annual poetry contest hosted by the Aspects Literary Festival, and was subsequently published in Bangor’s Literary Journal.

64

Diluted Orange Aunt M wouldn’t be caught dead letting her children in second-hand clothes. We visited her, and the neighbour’s kids were wearing my donated trousers.

Aunt H passed her rebel rouge lip stain and hair rollers down to a young boy, distracted from bedtime prayers, playing dress up as the fancy woman.

Sundays with Aunt M were cut into little triangle chicken salad sandwiches and insipid cups of tea

Sundays with Aunt H evaporated into shivering fogs of stale blue smoke and yeasty slurries of superstitions.

I went to one house and learnt how to work the Sky remote.

And at the other, we watched John Wayne again on a pork-crackling screen.

Both brought me in diluted orange for it was tradition.

And so, this is me: 65

Divided concentrate, watered down, not really belonging to anything.

In many ways, my aunts are merely the same.

This is what widens the distance.

(Jessica Berry)

66

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: SAEED SALIMI BABAMIRI 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

67

A soil house

The world is gravely changing, It is boring being on earth, A soil house I'm arranging, Take my heart in my new birth.

I am not afraid of shadows, In darkness walls my resting goes, No sunshine I need any more; You can possess my eyes for sure.

Then are my hands I hand over, When digging deep done and over.

When me into my new house they lay, I do not walk in any way, So I send you my feet and stay.

In sending all parts of body I do my best, Keep what you need and burn the rest!

The world is gravely changing, A soil house I'm arranging.

When alone underground forever, "I" don't think about "you", never.

Do not disturb my silent peace, By standing on roof with heart piece!

With my poor eyes do not weep, Let my hands do rest in a sleep,

68

And legs get relaxation deep.

The world is gravely changing, A soil house I'm arranging, I do not come back on the ground, On earth I no more will be found.

By Kurdish poet ; Jamal Najari Translated by: Saeed Salimi Babamiri

69

EDITOR’S NOTE It isn’t always easy to know what to say especially given the unprecedented level of chaos in the world. Prices keep going up while wages remain fairly stagnant and company profits soar.

Then there is the cost of life both at home and elsewhere people trapped in a conflict and for what? While the war is part of the global issue so is the weather, we’ve seen heatwaves and droughts which have affected crop growth and forced several nations to impose export bans in an attempt to stave off the worst of the economic impact this in turn has a knock-on effect on other nations leading to shortages and price increases, ultimately those most vulnerable are affected.

Still, it isn’t all doom and gloom there are many people still working producing art, reaching across borders and treating each other as brothers and sisters.

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

70

LAPWING PUBLICATIONS ‘IN A CHANGED WORLD’ Over the past number of years technology has transformed poetry publishing: shop closures due to increasing operational costs has had an impact, to put it mildly, shops are releuctant to take ‘slow moving’ genre such as poetry and play-scripts among other minority interest genre.

The figures given a few years ago were: we had 5000 bookshops in the UK-Ireland and at the time of the research that number had dropped to 900 and falling: there was a period when bookshops had the highest rate of ‘High Street’ shop closures.

Lapwing, being a not-for-profit poetry publisher has likewise had to adjust to the new regime.

We had a Google-Books presence until that entity ended its ‘open door’ policy in favour of becoming a publisher itself. During that time with Google, Lapwing attracted hundreds of thousands of sample page ‘hits’.

Amazon also has changed the ‘game’ with its own policies and strategies for publishers and authors.

There are no doubt other on-line factors over which we have no control.

Poetry publishers can also fall foul of ‘on consignment’ practice, which means we supply a seller but don’t get paid until books have been sold and we can expect unsold books to be returned, thus ‘remaindered’ and maybe not sellable, years can pass!

Distributors can also seek as much as 51% of cover-price IF.they choose to handle a poetry book at all, shops too can require say 35% of the cover price, which is ok given floor space can be thousands of £0000s per square foot per annum..In terms of ‘hidden’ costs: preparing a work for publication can cost a few thousand UK £-stg. Lapwing does it as part of our sevice to our suthors.

It has been a well-known fact that many poets will sell more of their own work than the bookshops, Peter Finch of the Welsh Academi noted fact that over forty years ago and Lapwing poets have done so for years.

Due to cost factors Lapwing cannot offered authors ‘complimentary’ copies.

What we do offer is to supply authors with copies at cost price.

We hold very few copies in the knowledge that requests for hard copies are rarely received.

Another important element is our Lapwing Legacy Library which holds all our retained titles since 1988 in PDF at £4.00 per title: the format being ‘front cover page - full content pages - back cover page’.

This format is printable as single pages: either the whole book or a favourite page.

I thank Adam Rudden for the great work he has done over the years creating and managing this web-site.

71

Thanks also to our authors from ‘home’ and around the world for entrusting Lapwing with their valuable contributions to civilisation.

If you wish to seek publication please send you submission in MW Word docx format.

LAPWING PUBLICATIONS POETRY TITLES 2021 All titles are £10.00 stg. plus postage from the authors via their email address.

PDF versions are available from Lapwing at £4.00 a copy, they are printable for private, review and educational purposes.

9781838439804_Halperin Richard W. DALLOWAY IN WISCONSIN Mr.Halperin lives in Paris France Email: halperin8@wanadoo.fr 9781838439811_Halperin Richard W. SUMMER NIGHT 1948 9781838439859_Halperin Richard W. GIRL IN THE RED CAPE 9781838439828_Lennon Finbar NOW Mr Lennon lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: lennonfinbar@hotmail.com 9781838439835_Dillon Paul T WHISPER Mr Dillon lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: ptjdillon@gmail.com 9781838439842_ Brooks Richard WOOD FOR THE TREES Mr Brooks lives in England UK Email:richard.brooks3@btinternet.com 9781838439866_Garvey Alan IN THE WAKE OF HER LIGHT 9781838439873_McManus Kevin THE HAWTHORN TREE Mr McManus lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: kevinmcmanus1@hotmail.com 9781838439880_Dwan Berni ONLY LOOKIN’ Berni Dwan lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: bernidwan@gmail.com 9781838439897_Murbach Esther VIEW ASKEW Esther Murbach lives in Switzerland though she also spends time in Galway Email: esther.murbach@gmx.ch 9781916345751_McGrath Niall SHED Mr McGrath lives in County Antrim Northern Ireland, UK Email: mcgrath.niall@hotmail.com 9781916345775_Somerville-Large GILLIAN LAZY BEDS 9781916345782_Gohorry & Lane COVENTRY CRUCIBLE Mr Lane lives in England-UK and due to the recent death of Mr Gohorry Mr Lane will be the contact for this publication: Email: johnslane@btinternet.com

72