A New Ulster issue 87

ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of Gerard Sheehy, Gavin Bourke, Arsalan Chalabi & Bawar Maroofi, Michael Boyle, Nancy Anne Miller, Susie Gharib, Fred Johnson, Richard Halperin, Gary Beck and Souran Kurdpour.

Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue 87 Decade edition 2019

A New Ulster Prose On the Wall Website

Editor: Amos Greig Editor: E V Greig Editor: Arizahn Editor: Adam Rudden Contents

Editorial Gerard Sheehy;

1. Power Sharing Gavin Bourke;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

The Past is Present Tense Transcending Mind Movements The Breaking Waters of catharsis The Never Heard The Death of the Shepherd

Arsalan Chalabi trans Bawar Maroofi; 1. America 2. I wish, alike the sun, I wouldn’t see the dark nights 3. God Michael Boyle; 1. A Child of the Forties 2. Inkwell 3. I Have Forgotten the Way to Dreenan School Nancy Anne Miller; 1. No One 2. No One Here to Tell 3. Envelope 4. Tooth Fairies 5. Pitch Susie Gharib; 1. Embargoes on Light 2. The Ferryman 3. The Penitent Oscar Wilde: A Reading of De Profundis 4. Refugees 5. In Times to Come II 6. A Dwelling 7. Zenith Fred Johnson; 1. 1941

Richard Halperin; 1. The Death of Dali 2. People in a Dairy 3. Landowska Plays Bach 4. Madly Singing in the Mountains Gary Beck; 1. Motifs 2. Measurements 3. Winter Gift 4. State of Disunion 5. Machine Learning VI 6. Determinant

On The Wall

Souran Kurdpour; 1. Several drawings Message from the Alleycats Round the Back

Poetry, prose, art work and letters to be sent to: Submissions Editor A New Ulster 23 High Street, Ballyhalbert BT22 1BL Alternatively e-mail: g.greig3@gmail.com See page 50 for further details and guidelines regarding submissions. Hard copy distribution is available c/o Lapwing Publications, 1 Ballysillan Drive, Belfast BT14 8HQ Or via PEECHO Digital distribution is via links on our website: https://anuanewulster.wixsite.com/anewulster Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman Produced in Belfast & Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland.

All rights reserved The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 To be identified as the authors of their work.

ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online) Cover Image “Catalina� by Amos Greig

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ” Aristotle Onassis.

Editorial It isn’t every day you get to write an editorial celebrating the end of a Decade but that is exactly what I’m doing. Ten years ago I started my journey into further education and eventually this magazine after attending sessions with a Psychiatrist. They advised that I get out and try to challenge myself as part of my coping mechanism for the Depression, learn something new.

I signed up with an adult learners course at SERC and it was the Access to Humanities option, at no point had I considered following it into University but the support they gave and the encouragement I received especially for my English Literature module led into attending Queen’s University Belfast and eventually graduating with a JS HONs BA Eng Ancient History degree. Technically I’ve graduated four times from Queen’s over the years.

Unfortunately, I also graduated with a permanent debilitating life altering spinal injury which left me in constant pain and needing the use of mobility aids to get around so yes ten years of constant agony isn’t fun. I lost hope several times along that path the pain is at times so debilitating that it can affect mood, suicidal thoughts were a problem. Still I had a great support network and helped see me get through it.

A New Ulster has been running for seven years now and over the last year and a bit there have been some issues getting it out on time, Windows 10 bugs and incompatibility issues with some of the hardware on my computer even though it isn’t that old has seen m losing internet access at the most inconvenient of times. Then of course there have been health issues hospital appointments and so much more that sometimes it doesn’t feel like there are enough hours in the day. Yes this was meant to be the December issue is technically is but it is also the end of a Decade so here it is late but live none the less.

Amos Greig Editor.

Biographical Note: Gerard Sheehy

Gerard Sheehy is from Limerick City. He had a chapbook published by Revival Press a number of years ago. His poems have appeared in a number of publications.

Power Sharing (Gerard Sheehy)

Once sat down and the intimacy of aftershave and tension have been shared words will have to follow.

At first they may all be formal and some still seasoned with spite but perhaps also there will come a day when a certain sentence may stray across the table a sentence spoken in the comfortable language we save for relaxed moments for when we are in the company of friends.

Biographical Note: Gavin Bourke

Gavin was born in 1977 in Tallaght, Dublin, where he lived for twenty-four years. He holds a B.A. Degree in Humanities from DCU and a Masters Degree in Modern Drama Studies from UCD. He has worked in Library Service for twenty years. He has worked in Mobile Library Services for both South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council serving some of our most marginalised communities. He worked as a librarian and outreach manager in Coolock Library for eight years. He was appointed as a Senior Librarian in 2017. He was shortlisted for The Redline Book Festival Poetry Award in 2016. His work covers a broad range of subject matter including nature, time, memory, addiction, mental health, human relationships, politics, contemporary social issues and injustice as well as urban and rural life, both past and present. He is married and lives in County Meath.

The Past in the Present Tense (Gavin Bourke) Wings of black concealing white underneath.

The light went on for a short time, in the window with the steel bars.

Another victim of a bad call, hung-up.

Reminders of the long-gone, barricaded, prevented from euthanasia by the hand.

Blocked from every angle in hard triangles, sentenced to catatonic sedation.

Cold, shivering, suffering in suicidal silence, on a bed of mania’s grips and psychoses trips.

Coming and going spontaneously like a whip’s cracks on the pre-frontal cortex and amygdala.

Psychoses left to suffer together in shelters, legacies of cultural stigmas.

Transmissions of attitudes transcribed, unwritten from generation to generation. without intention.

Waking to nightmares of the mind and reality, misunderstood by the fraternities.

Transcending Mind Movements

To go too far in any way, into dichotomousness.

Movements towards preoccupations with the within, not with the balance of the totality of the within.

A few hundred years of thinking, blinded not to see the self, the life, the struggle, through the eyes of the total totality of everything, within the theme of the overall grand scheme.

Finding solace under silver birches, forgiveness to our bullies?

Outside the in and inside the out.

Protruding through broken brackets on the axis of the spine of yesteryear.

Normal-abnormal, abnormal-normal.

Possible, all said and done before.

Originality at all?

Through the same canals and structures.

Unoriginal originality, a death-like horizon for the price of the journey or trip? Inescapable?

Wastage of time, reacting to the unnecessary, real and imaginary.

From the ground, laid down, to walk again slowly an inch at a time.

A re-ascent from flesh on a skeleton over time, around the course, letting go, of the remnants of old identities.

The Breaking Waters of Catharsis

Water began to drip, flowing into caskets, neither real nor imaginary, but somewhere in between.

Flowed down from the tops of the highest walls, into the nearest rivers, of darkest deepest brown.

Tributaries and tributes in teardrops, unmasked, to peer out over chimney pots into blue skies without clouds.

Nowhere to hide, from the truth of this ride.

No one has their own answers, could have been this, could have been that, if they had done this, that, that, this, if they had not.

Unknown unknowns at best.

Dealing with consequences, circumstances, no quick fixes.

No morphine for the mind.

Grief breaking through cracking breast bones, releasing drops at intervals, through a clenched fist.

Not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning, seeing through new eyes slowly forming.

To relearn life again and again, is to be truly human.

The Never Heard

An aunt of an aunt in Portrane.

An uncle of an uncle in Mullingar.

Never seen, never spoken of.

Never photographed, often imagined, may never have existed.

Numb, struck dumb, beyond the square root of the lowest common denominator.

Down the ghost road, never alluded to, visiting houses.

The Death of the Shepherd (For Seámus Ó’Domhnaill)

A chain without a cross, a cross without a chain.

He could work a scalpel and thread a needle, like the finest of fishermen.

The herd turned upon the shepherd, a hoof at a time, seared through his back beyond imprints.

Hammered like pastry, simultaneously, instantly to absence.

Back to life, memory, remembrance, reverence.

Biographical Note: Arsalan Chalabi translated by Bawar Maroof

Arslan Chalabi, a Kurdish poet and writer, was born in the city of Boukan in Kurdistan of Iran in 1987. The 2 books of his poetry were published between 2009- 2014 in Kurdistan. Now, he is living in Denmark as social and political refugee since 2015.

These magazine published the poem of Arsalan Chalabi: The "Anthologies poétique de Flammes Vives" magazine in France The “A new ulster” magazine in Ireland in January 2018 The “Hvedekornr” magazine in Denmark in 1_ 2019 The “Recours au poème” magazine in French in 2019.

Poems by Arsalan Chalabi Translated from Kurdish by: Bawar Maroofi

1.

America Our hands Have lost the streets independent lines Let us all kill the whole asphalt roads Set fire to the palaces And scratch the US Dollars by our sick fingers!

You are bursting into t e a r s And America attacks your eyes Your eyes, which are now two homeless pigeons!

2.

"I wish, alike the sun, I wouldn't see the dark nights"* I wish I were at a madhouse, my pockets full of butterflies I would present my jacket to the clouds And would ask the moon a cigarette!

I wish I would embrace myself wearing a red scarf And would burst into tears in my shoes! *The title is a verse by Hemn Mukriyani, a prominent contemporary Kurdish poet

3.

God God has influenced streets, neighborhoods, buildings God has embraced cars, taxis, buses, motorcycles, bikes God is aware of polices, thieves, killers, prostitutes, drug smugglers God looks at a girl who sits in the street, pissing God observes men fucking their wives God takes metro with no tickets He shall not pay as He has a pizza at an Italian restaurant He goes to cinemas to watch movies He stands at a speech desk in parliament, approving new laws He goes to voting centres to vote God wears on His suit with a tie every morning and drinks espresso He is a climate activist, collecting plastics in the garden once a week He likes pasta and does not smoke cigarettes He is a Messenger of Peace and ask for peace and welfare for all nations in the world He is an American citizen and a presidential candidate of the coming elections in the United States!

Biographical Note: Michael Boyle Michael Boyle is a native of Lavey in South Derry N.ireland .He has number of poems published in the “The Antigonish Review”. “ Dalhousie Review.” “Tinteain” and “New Ulster Writing.” In 2014 he won “The Arts and Letters” prize for poetry. He is working on completing his first poetry collection “Drummuck.”

Michael is an Irish Language speaker and has also written articles for the Irish language magazine “An t-Ultach In June 2017 he presented a paper in Magee College Derry on the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. In 2018 he gave a talk “Echoes from the Barn Barrel.” to the North American Celtic Language Teachers Conference.

Boyle is an independent scholar and he operates the famous historical walking tours in St.John’s Newfoundland. www.boyletours.com

A Child of the Forties.

(Michael Boyle)

My first breath and cries of a child happened in my mother’s ancestral house “The Burn”in Glenone. After about a week I came to Drummuck for the first time. I wasn’t aware at the time but the mid-forties rationing was still in effect.

There were food shortages of certain items and this continued well into the late forties when things improved.

HANDS When I was about two years of age my grandmother took me out a wooden box that served as my playpen. Then she said. ” Now look at his ever so tiny little hands.”

My father had just come in the back door with a bucket of fresh milks as he had just milked the cows. He continued.

“You know when young Micheal grows up he will be a good help with the hay but I do be thinking he won’t be that much of farmer or even a dealing man.”

So talk about predestination for me I wouldn’t be a farmer but there was never any chat of what I could do. With out strong hands there was little chance of working at construction.

So many jobs required were manual and even today you can identity a persons occupation by looking at their hands, In a sense from the get go there was an air of envibilty So what to do with my life.

TEETH One cold frosty morning when I was about four a cousin of ours from county Tyrone Mrs. Mary Sweeney came to our house collecting money for the African Missions. Even though times were tough after the war my mother gave her a small donation to the cause. Now the kicker came just before she was leaving she looked me straight in the eye and said.

‘Oh my blessed little one you are so special.” Then she turned to my mother “He has a gap in his front teeth and this means that he will travel away from here and he will never be able speak our native tongue.”

My mother was glad to show her the door and was clearly upset enough to ask for her donation back.

HAIR, MOUTH EYES AND EARS. When I was small I was conscious very early in life that I was different. I had blazing fire engine curly red hair. I stood out a mile away. Added to this I had thick lips protruding and large Celtic ears. I had to endure name-calling and later more of a racial taunt and I once heard the N word. Some suggest that taunting of red heads is the last taboo but I must say when I went to local school this was never a problem. We had a large number of red haired families like the Cushleys, Grants and Hamills. We were not a minority and all my classmates respected red haired students. They knew ,of course not, to tangle with my good friends Donard and Joe Hamill and my brother Brian. I had very small eyes and very often I was affectionately called “googley eyes” I have mentioned already about my grandfather ‘Deef” Harry. My mother was always concerned about my hearing and once she took me to a specialist in Magherafelt hospital. The surgeon had a gruff blunt manner and told my mother make sure that youngster washes his ears.

FEET. Many older people have remarked that I never ever did crawl as an infant but I always seemed to run. At an early age I could run jump in my tiny black gutty slippers. Of course this meant I could run away from danger or at other times I could run into an unknown danger just ahead of me. At an early age I didn’t have any idea of looking before you leapt.

Today, as I reflect on the pattern of my life I feel more information and advice would have helped in some of my decisions in later life.

…………………………………………………INK WELL (Michael Boyle)

The oak bolted desks always had the ink well on the right.

Teachers warned southpaws hold tight to their knitting spool, And never ever lean heavy on your nib with all your might.

Inky blobs and blots, smudges and spots. Oh what a sight.

Inspectors report the methods of how to hold pen properly.

The oak bolted desks always had the ink well on the right.

Inky fingers and inky clothes, that inky face- what a fright.

Friday morning monitor fill wells from the bottle with a spout.

And never ever lean heavy on a nib with all your might.

Blackboard, double desks, high windows and fading light.

Chalk and slates, wooden floors, blotting paper, pens and nibs.

The oak bolted desks always had the ink well on the right.

The writing in our transcription books shining blue bright.

Stuffed with paper or gum -but now our own ink well decays.

And never ever lean heavy on your nib with all your might.

Ideas spring from deepest wells on to black ink cartridges.

We will all move like Calvino’s ghost to empty ink well.

The oak bolted desks always had the ink well to the right.

And never ever lean heavy on your nib with all your might.

I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE WAY TO DREENAN SCHOOL (Michael Boyle) I have forgotten the way to Dreenan School.

Blue bells and the wooden style at the Scrog, moss lane with brambles, burrs and blackberries.

Hollow Lane and the slow climb up McCann’s hill.

Got tree branches there for Palm Sunday and juicy apples in the fall.

I have forgotten the way to the Crow’s Nest.

Tall foxgloves grow on either side of the lane.

I have forgotten the story of how Hugh Kelly gave my Uncle Barney two gold sovereigns on his journey to Amerikay in 1929.

Slurped water in my hands from the helmet pump, and how I raced my brothers’ home barefoot on hot July days.

I have forgotten the way to make yellow sparks sliding with hob nailed boots on the road and play ice hurley outside the school gate.

I have forgotten the way to plays cowboys on Kane’s rock.

Hide in the hollow of the tree where the Redcoats hung the priest for saying Mass in penal times.

I have forgotten the way through fog, drizzle, showers and heavy rain. Once I fell in the river and got a bad wetting. No mitts, our hands froze blue, left our soaked coats to dry all day before going home.

Waited mornings for the stove to heat the icy milk bottles.

With the small high windows I have forgotten how dark it got on winter afternoons.

I have forgotten how some students tip toed on Dreenan Bridge wall. I have forgotten how golden the whins bloom in spring along Carnaman Lane.

I have forgotten the way to Dreenan School blue bells and the wooden style at the Scrog. moss lane with brambles, burrs and blackberries.

Tall foxgloves grow on either side of the lane. And how I raced my brothers’ home barefoot on hot July days.

Biographical Note: Nancy Anne Miller Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet with seven poetry collections. Boiling Hot (Kelsay Books 2018) is her most recent. She is published internationally in journals such as Edinburgh Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Salzburg Review, Agenda, Stand, The Fiddlehead, The Caribbean Writer. She is a MacDowell Fellow and Bermuda Arts Council Grant recipient.

No One (Nancy Anne Miller)

No one visits their dead.

Tombstones a reminder of

Moses’ slab of laws brought

to and stuck in earth.

A personal wailing wall

where tears might soften

words carved in the testimonial

to the beloved’s death.

A name left to the elements,

seasons erase like from a child’s s

school tablet, because the numbers

written down don’t add up.

Neither

It isn’t like your tombstone

is the hatchet blade that buried you,

come un-hinged from the force of resistance.

Neither is it when shadowed at twilight,

the hangman's black head mask with

the tip disguising who pushes the lever.

But see it more like a marker for

a car parked, I can’t pretend you

can back out of, turn the wheel around.

No One Here to Tell (Nancy Anne Miller)

The deer and her doe leaped onto Wykeham Road from out of spring woods as if trying to clear the yellow line’s rainbow. Airborne and sudden.

That the coffee plunger’s ring fell off when I pushed it down, and careened sideways, like a wooden cart wheel in mud season.

That a widow told me never to buy a gaggle of bananas now that I am alone. They all ripen at once, fingers in too many pies.

Envelope (Nancy Anne Miller)

The top of the gravestone points up,

stands like an envelope with the flap

opened, below it shadows into an

oblong shape as if death has written me

a letter. I know the contents as I sit in

my Jag, window down, and note the maple

is full blown green. Will send missives

come Fall down on your site, answer

back that life has been sweet, and bright,

full of nuance as every leaf tells,

before it curls up like an Egyptian scroll

then becomes the dust of the desert.

I think of the tips of the pyramids,

their geometric mountains of precision,

slaves like ants at work carry anything

in to fill the void. Packed for the pharaoh’s

journey, a time capsule of a life. I fold

a cotton handkerchief into a triangle, place

in your jacket pocket, make death gentlemanly,

so you can wipe your brow after a long trip.

Tooth Fairies (Nancy Anne Miller)

How can death be made new,

but here your tombstone

boasts of it, as if just fresh minted.

I watched your coffin go

down into earth, a treasure

chest full of the riches of you.

Hidden there, like my secret,

your whereabouts otherwise

unknown. The earth and I

conspiring to tuck you

safely away. Now I know

this place is but a marker,

where the angels came

like tooth fairies hovering

over the stubbed fang

of your gravestone. Came,

wings, fountains spouting

water, to soften hard ground.

Pitch (Nancy Anne Miller)

Gravestones on the Washington Green, make the cemetery appear roomy, a display of headstands for beds in a capacious

furniture store. Each one like the door to the tomb Christ broke open. A gate into the blue summer drift of an afternoon sky.

Tombstones, Christ Church, Warwick, the blade in a cricketer’s bat which cannot forever deflect the pitch of the sun’s ball.

.

Biographical Note: Susie Gharib

Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Mad Swirl, Southlight, The Blue Nib, Adelaide Literary Magazine, A New Ulster, Down in the Dirt, the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, Impspired Magazine, Crossways, and Leaves of Ink. ..

Embargoes on Light (Susie Gharib)

Shortly before our daily power cuts, I switch my bedroom’s lights right off, then close my eyelids with the utmost calm.

The light is extinguished of my own accord.

I think of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, then open my eyes heavenwards.

They can deprive us of shabby lights, confiscate oil tanks and a truant barge, but who can put out a single star, or shroud the moon with a mantle of spite?

Embargoes have not a political goal.

They torture the people whose only fault is having been born by wells of oil.

The Ferryman (Susie Gharib) When ‘Don’t Pay the Ferryman’ Chris De Burgh had sung, he warned against fixing a price to the hooded man before one made it to the other end.

Mine neither charges gold nor cents.

It ascends.

It won’t be Charon when the time has come.

Mine has neither choler nor phlegm.

It neither sails on a river of boiling blood nor ferries visitants to Inferno’s heart of red.

It soars instead.

It will be propelled by thoughts in my head, my yearning to cross the threshold, to transcend, to seek a star in Orion’s belt and bathe in light every celestial second until the end.

The Penitent Oscar Wilde [A Reading of De Profundis] (Susie Gharib)

In prisons, lessons of humility are hard to learn by shut-up inmates for rebellion is bred by infamy and petrified hearts are hard to melt.

Small windows bar the gold and blue that God had exuded from his brush.

Instead, grey creeps weaving more gloom that steals into each ailing heart.

Days become insufferable twins for sameness desperately competing.

Sunless and moonless, they turn and spin in circles painfully excruciating.

Misery with tongue now grown so numb has no discourse of agonies felt.

Anguish sobs, bewailing its lot, while rage is white, quite impotent.

For artists life can't be conceived without their mode of expression but Christ took worlds of muted speech and freed it all from suppression.

Through his eyes, the blind could see.

The deaf were lent attentive ears.

And those with tongues that had been seared his voice gave them utterance.

When 'Forgive your enemies' Christ enjoined, it was not in the enemy's interest.

He wanted to banish festering hate from hearts where love is eminent.

When there’s no solace for those who err,

they into kind nature retreat where rocks with clefts provide havens and valleys refuge to weep in peace.

Water cleanses and fire purges.

Forests soothe with their hallowed hush.

Stars illuminate their nightly sojourns.

Winds wipe footprints with their rush.

Refugees (Susie Gharib) Disowned by what waters seas and leas, a drifting log, a wanton breeze, a box of memories that boasts no keys, a bare idea that's brought to the knees.

Distraught by every joy that flees that heeds no prayers, no pleas or Please, that lingers for a moment but only to tease, a glimpse of what may be but never is.

Disdained by policies overseas, the sordid plagues of racial disease, an alien across the seven seas with no soil or rain to grow one's trees.

In Times to Come III (Susie Gharib)

In times to come, the snow will cease to chill what slumbers on yonder hill, my fluid will, and wings that hate to stand still.

In times to come, the air will breathe with ease, unhampered by industries, insulating disease, wreathing with fragrance the texture that heals.

In times to come, each fire we kindle will roam in forests, at home, illuminating each lawn with the coolness of foam.

In times to come, the earth will cease to boil with floods and oil, with wires that coil tainting its soil.

A Dwelling (Susie Gharib)

When I was a child, I always drew a house with slanting roofs whose red bricks faced south.

A wide, white window overlooked a glade across which a brook cascaded its way.

On pastures, flowers were left un-plucked.

They pleaded with children to touch them not, so their necks were spared the twisting cut.

A tree that craved to embrace the skies diffused its branches to recline on walls, endowing the dwelling with emerald robes.

A cloud, betrothed to an amorous ray, was swathed in gold for the nuptial day while a ring of birds darted from dots, rearing their wings in Vs and knots.

The air, made visible in random strokes, exuded fragrance from lilacs and gorse.

A steed, unbridled, trotted with glee with no wars or races to yoke or fray.

Zenith (Susie Gharib)

What is the zenith of your mind?

Is it next-door, the cosmos, or the womb of a sprout?

A floating yacht on a delusive dream.

A gadget that divines the scheme of things.

A mansion of words, to lure a bird.

A colony of truths, to yoke one’s head.

An incubator that hatches Worldwide Peace.

A New World Order in the Middle East.

Flying saucers for sons and daughters.

A winnable war without any martyrs.

A cruise down the Thames of Planet Mars.

Acres of land but under no curse.

A packet of cigarettes that costs a dime.

A cardboard box, to shelter from crime.

A tiny flat with no burst pipes.

A slum devoid of suicidal drives.

A colorless flag for every nation.

A non-sadistic happy relation.

Biographical Note: Fred Johnson

Fred was born in Belfast in 1951. His most recent collection of poems is 'Rogue States,' (Salmon Poetry 2019.) Fred has lived in Galway for some years, where he set up CUIRT, Galway's annual international literary festival.

1941 It was taken from the balcony, or somewhere in the Gods The line of high-kicking girls is a blur of short-skirt white As if light took its time leaving them, their leggy constellation Rotating with infinite slowness or, arguably, light’s improbable Speed: you can tell her fourth in from the photo’s right, stageGrinning with the rest, a tsunami of wartime rolls washing Over the painted backdrop of a fat-winged comic airplane Trapped in blade-sharp paper spotlights dull as smoke The stage of The Empire Theatre full of ambush and shadows.

He played the Stage Door Johnny, so much he admitted Together in coats blooming like parachutes in the oily wind They’d link arms out of the Stage Entrance alley, take their Time to a scarce taxi, canoodle in the back seat, her make-up Powdering his double lapels, the streets under black-out rules The scent of Mandalay opened his lungs like oxygen, he was Light-headed, unsure; and if not tonight, then tomorrow They’d come over again, grumbly airplanes full of fire and light She’d be lined out in chorus high-step when the bombs fell.

FRED JOHNSTON

Biographical Note: Richard W. Halperin

Richard W. Halperin holds Irish and U.S. nationality and lives in Paris. His most recent poetry collection via Salmon/Cliffs of Moher is Catch Me While You Have the Light, 2018. His most recent collection via Lapwing/Belfast is Sunday Visits. His work is part of the UCD Irish Poetry Reading Archive. Readings scheduled so far in 2020 are On the Nail/Limerick, 6 February; and the Heinrich Bรถll Memorial Weekend,. 1-3 May/Achill Island

The Death of Dali (Richard W. Halperin)

What can I say? Picasso means nothing to me But Dali means some of whatever meaning means.

I’m not sure his death happened. He is still here.

Whatever took place in Figueres may have been For the media. I remember always Salvador and Gala At the Russian Tea Room, and our waiter – my wife’s And mine – a middle-aged handsome man and sympathetic, The model, when young, for Christopher Columbus In the grand mural Dali painted for the back wall of That wonderful restaurant next to Carnegie Hall.

The Russian Tea Room hasn’t died, it arrives in my flat Unannounced. Dali I’m not sure of either. It and he were part Of my life, and here I put question mark, question mark.

Buñuel too, but that’s another poem although his Robinson Crusoe Was an Irishman. I do have to mention the Dali crucifixion At the Metropolitan Museum, Jesus horizonal and feet first Floating in infinite space. Genius, genius, genius. Photographic Detail. Well, Dali, no? I write this at the local pizzeria, Paris.

I think I have to take a taxi home. I live around the corner, But wine has been taken. To take a taxi home. A good Definition of death, hein? – photographically.

We once sat next to Maureen Stapleton in 1975

At the Russian Tea Room and talked with her about A wonderful short-lived play she had just been in, The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild. But I digress. Dali, did I say?

Well, The Russian Tea Room. Feet first, horizontal.

People in a Diary (Richard W. Halperin)

On the train. The man seated next to me Is alertly typing. We pass a glade of young trees.

In the scheme of things, each one a life.

Garbo’s face as Anna Karenina passes through My mind. I open a letter from New York: The Little Foxes – Lillian Hellman; language – Is in for a long run. Certain delights. They arrive Of themselves. People in a diary which I have No need to write. I can face my newspaper now – We’ll forget about whom the first page is about.

Positive things bob in the light. Dickens Was nearly killed in a train crash, pages of Our Mutual Friend went flying out of his hands.

He never was the same after it. Nothing is ever The same after anything.

Landowska Plays Bach (Richard W. Halperin)

Landowska plays Bach She goes straight ahead.

She imprinted her Bach In gum.

We can hear it One hundred years later Which is no time at all In the mind of art.

I hear her play In the midst of Yeats’s rant On Parnell’s funeral Which he also imprinted In gum.

He also goes straight ahead.

He nails it: There is no such thing As an intelligent mob.

Landowska plays Bach.

She dragged her harpsichord with her From country to country as she fled.

Virgil Thomson said To those New York critics whinging about That unwieldy instrument She plays her harpsichord better Than anyone plays anything.

Ditto late Yeats.

I live with them both.

I like things which have No shadow in them whatsoever.

Madly Singing in the Mountains (Richard W. Halperin)

For Paul T Dillon

Arthur Waley and Po Chü-I Are not only ones madly singing in the mountains.

We are all madly pouring forth song.

Madrileños when I was in Madrid in 1985 Started the day at nine o’clock with coffee and a cognac, At eleven o’clock a coffee and a bicky.

It is nine o’clock in the morning, In Paris, in Greystones, and points west.

Biographical Note: Gary Beck Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 21 poetry collections, 7 novels, 3 short story collections and 1 collection of essays. Published poetry books include: Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order and Contusions (Winter Goose Publishing, forthcoming is Desperate Seeker); Blossoms of Decay, Expectations, Blunt Force and Transitions (Wordcatcher Publishing, forthcoming are Temporal Dreams and Mortal Coil); and Earth Links (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to Valor and Crumbling Ramparts (Gnome on Pigs Productions, forthcoming is the third in the series, Raise High the Walls); Acts of Defiance and Flare Up (Wordcatcher Publishing), forthcoming is its sequel, Still Defiant); and Extreme Change will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His short story collections include: Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing), Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing) and The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). The Big Match and other one act plays will be published by Wordcatcher Publishing. Gary lives in New York City.

Measurements (Gary Beck)

I set myself a daily task to prolong continuation as long as I am functional, for I do not wish to go on if all I am is vegetable matter, a mindless consumer of nourishment through tubes keeping me sentient for no good reason save my species reluctance to concede to death, even after life has virtually departed.

So I’ll measure my performance by my arbitrary standard and savor my remaining time, as long as I’m productive.

Winter Gift (Gary Beck)

While snow is falling in elegant ermine, the city is transformed from grey of concrete to brief beauty.

But accumulation impedes travel, so quick removal clears the streets, leaving curbside drifts of black urban filth, yellow doggy urine stains.

State of Disunion (Gary Beck)

Terrible events ravage the land, school shootings, attacks on the elderly, nazis strutting in America denying democracy, in a fractured government.

Intelligent people fear for their children’s future, the not-so intelligent delude themselves with blind hope.

Endless war in the Mid-East, empty stores in every city, while the trumpeter-in-chief rewards the rich, punishes the middle class, abandons the poor, while poisonously tweeting at anyone who opposes him, alienating friends,

provoking enemies, all the while proclaiming all is well.

Machine Learning VI (Gary Beck)

Millions of ‘bot’ accounts impersonating real people roam social media platforms promoting commercial products, attacking political candidates and sowing discord.

Their fake images and news are the envy of our leaders who still mostly mislead us manually.

Determinant (Gary Beck)

Persistence sometimes allows constructive efforts for something meaningful leading to worthwhile conclusions that will benefit others, the value of the contribution measured by how many are helped.

If you fancy submitting something but haven’t done so yet, or if you would like to send us some further examples of your work, here are our submission guidelines: SUBMISSIONS NB – All artwork must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Indecent and/or offensive images will not be published, and anyone found to be in breach of this will be reported to the police.

Images must be in either BMP or JPEG format.

Please include your name, contact details, and a short biography. You are welcome to include a photograph of yourself – this may be in colour or black and white.

We cannot be responsible for the loss of or damage to any material that is sent to us, so please send copies as opposed to originals.

Images may be resized in order to fit “On the Wall”. This is purely for practicality.

E-mail all submissions to: g.greig3@gmail.com and title your message as follows: (Type of work here) submitted to “A New Ulster” (name of writer/artist here); or for younger contributors: “Letters to the Alley Cats” (name of contributor/parent or guardian here). Letters, reviews and other communications such as Tweets will be published in “Round the Back”. Please note that submissions may be edited. All copyright remains with the original author/artist, and no infringement is intended.

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

Biographical Note: Souran Kurdpour

Souran Kurdpour was born in Boukan / Kurdistan of Iran. He draws, photographs and makes short films.

He tries to show his views in a simple silent form that is visible to us, whether in cartoons, photographs or other forms of visuell art.

His drawings/cartoons are and will be published in some countries at various magazines, selected and won prizes in various competitions..

Souran Kurdpour

Souran Kurdpour

Souran Kurdpour

Souran Kurdpour

Butterfly by Souran Kurdpour

Politics by Souran Kurdpour

2019s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

Who would have thought that we’d be seeing the end of a decade and still working away on the magazine. Where does the time fly? It seems like it was only last week when we were busy making the January issue meow!!.

Well, that’s just about it from us for this edition everyone.

Thanks again to all of the artists who submitted their work to be presented “On the Wall”. As ever, if you didn’t make it into this edition, don’t despair! Chances are that your submission arrived just too late to be included this time. Check out future editions of “A New Ulster” to see your work showcased “On the Wall”.

We continue to provide a platform for poets and artists around the world we want to offer our thanks to the following for their financial support Richard Halperin, John Grady, P.W. Bridgman, Bridie Breen, John Byrne, Arthur Broomfield, Silva Merjanin, Orla McAlinden, Michael Whelan, Sharon Donnell, Damien Smyth, Arthur Harrier, Maire Morrissey Cummins, Alistair Graham, Strider Marcus Jones Our anthologies https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_present_voices_for_peace https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_poetry_anthology_-april