Anu issue 41 / A New Ulster

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

Featuring the works of Richard Halperin, Gary Beck, Gordon Ferris, Peter O’Neill, Tim Dwyer, Namtha Varma-Rajesh, David Loring, Trevor Conway, Jack Grady, Anne Tannam, J.S. Watts, Nina Lewis and Maire Morrissey Cummins. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 41 February 2016

A New Ulster On the Wall Website

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

Editorial

page 5

Richard Halperin;

1.

2.

3.

4.

Purple Flowers 2 The Other Bridge They got up and walked out of the gallery Blue Vase

Gary Beck; 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Ruling Class Buying Spree Cultural Gap Social Media Shutter Bugs

Gordon Ferris; 1.

Silent Thoughts Peter O’Neill; 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The Mistress Mr Martin The Devilon the Mount My Dark Lady The Serpent Coitus

Tim Dwyer; 1.

By The Abbey Remains 2.

Good Morning 3.

Preparing for the Day Namitha Varma-Rajesh; 1.

Unfinished kiss 2.

The Second Look 3.

Metaphors 4.

Pickled David Loring; 1.

Fickle Fate 2.

Hush 3.

Of You

2

Trevor Conway; 1.

Atlantic 2.

Hey, Poet!

3.

Lining the Pitch 4.

Inspired 5.

The Heart Speaks Out 6.

Stalingrad Jack Grady;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Nebula Prospecting Ellaghmore Never Again Aphrodite Bones of an Affair

Anne Tannam; 1.

Hidden Treasure 2.

Seven Signs of Love J.S. Watts; 1.

The Letter 2.

Love Poetry – Counting The Ways 3.

Falling Away Nina Lewis; 1.

Netted Love 2.

Calibrated 3.

Memory Art Michael Leach; 1.

The Everyday Artist and The Everlasting Muse Maire Morrissey Cummins; 1.

The Moon in your Eyes

On The Wall Message from the Alleycats

page 53

Round the Back

3

Manuscripts, 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 Digital distribution is via links on our website: https://sites.google.com/site/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 “Ripples� by Amos Greig

4

“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey ” Byron.

Editorial I would like to thank Arizahn for the concept of In All The Write Places looking at the many ways we use literature to record and depict romantic gestures. For some this has been sonnets, romantic poems, fiction and more.

We have work from Richard Halperin, Gary Beck, Gordon Ferris, Peter O’Neill, Tim Dwyer, Namtha Varma-Rajesh, David Loring, Trevor Conway, Jack Grady, Anne Tannam, J.S. Watts, Nina Lewis and Maire Morrissey Cummins.

Each issue of A New Ulster wouldn’t be what it is without the poets and artists who submit their work each month and this issue features some very strong material as well as some first time writers we also have some established names for you.

I’m a gatekeeper and today the door is wide open once more for everyone to share.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

5

Biographical Note: Richard Halperin

Richard W. Halperin's third collection for Salmon, Quiet in a Quiet House will appear early in 2016. His most recent short collection for Lapwing (there are three others) is Blue Flower, 2015. He urges readers to visit the sites of these two publishers - very fine lists - and buy something, hard copy or electronic! Many fine poets are waiting there - you don't have to buy a Halperin - to have their wares purchased, for yourself or as a pressie for someone, for less money than a simple meal at a neighbourhood restaurant.

6

Purple Flowers 2 (Richard Halperin) I gave you a bunch of purple flowers.

You were not there to receive them.

You took them graciously.

‘You never gave me flowers before,’ you said.

‘No,’ I said, ‘because you were here.

It would have been ridiculous.

You had no need of them.

I give them to you now because you have no need of them.

But I have need to give you them.’

I had picked them in another poem.

Not a Hopkins poem.

I didn’t want you to suffer As he had suffered.

‘You picked them from where I suffered,’ you said, ‘Thank you.’

Later I couldn’t remember the poem and still can’t.

‘That is what I wanted,’ you said, ‘That is your gift to me this day.’

7

The Other Bridge (Richard Halperin) I am the other bridge.

If you find me You are on me.

There is a kingdom Of chrysanthemums..

Many I knew live in it. *** My wife is sailing in a ship in the sky.

‘You are dreaming.’

Then don’t wake me. *** An ant has great personal beauty.

It is all brain and no thought.

To watch one is better than reading Proust. *** April.

Just saying the name Gives one hope. *** My parents divorced when I was six.

The courthouse Seems very small now.

8

‘They got up and walked out of the gallery.’

(Richard Halperin) For Karl Bohan

A young friend tells me that a passage In Of Human Bondage about weaving One’s own life while others are weaving theirs Changed his whole life. Masterpieces do that.

Hundreds of pages hard to get through, Then one’s soul notices. I had not noticed The passage, I had noticed many others: Philip and Mildred, Philip out of work

And starving, Philip’s childhood – All carried forward by That Prose..

The I Ching is not the only book alive.

There are many. They tell you who they are.

9

Blue Vase (Richard Halperin)

A blue Chinese vase in the house of a friend in Greystones

it helps on a hot day very far away

when I revisit the friend I see that the vase is not blue

fissured yes small yes but blue and white speckled

I am far now though not as far as the vase is from China

or from the monk 10

or the slave or the princess who made it

I love my friend I do not love the vase

neither has anything to do with death

thank you, mismemory

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Biographical Note: Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays (Winter Goose Publishing). Perceptions, Fault Lines and Tremors will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Blossoms of Decay will be published by Nazar Look. Resonance will be published by Dreaming Big Press. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) Acts of Defiance (Artema Press). Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). 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. He currently lives in New York City.

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Ruling Class (Gary Beck)

We thought the people owned America, but our mega-corporations sent our jobs abroad abandoning millions in their search for more profit, regardless of the harm suffered by our citizens who cannot compel consideration for a humbler way of life that does not crave super yachts, Picassos, just a nice home, decent income, education for the kids to give them opportunity, at least as much as Mom or Dad, who didn't have it too bad, 13

until greedmongers traded us in for cheap foreign labor, indifferent to the devastation to the land that nurtured them, left to rust away by the lords of profit.

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Buying Spree (Gary Beck) Foreign shoppers are more urgent as the weather turns cold in welcoming America offering bargain prices for winter garments more expensive at home, lacking the benefits of imports from China.

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Cultural Gap (Gary Beck) Tourists come to New York City eager to sample American culture, publicly derided but secretly admired, visiting art museums they never go to at home pausing for a few seconds to gape at a masterwork they cannot understand, whether Van Eyck Triptych, or Warhol 'Soup Can', each equally alien to the slightly evolved peasantry.

16

Social Media (Gary Beck)

Electronic innovation makes personal devices available to all, providing instant access to endless information, instant communication for business or pleasure, most transactions social exchanges, consuming energy in mindless texting.

17

Shutter Bugs (Gary Beck)

Although summer has departed the tour buses still roll around Manhattan streets in armadas, tourists poking cameras at everything they pass, briefly blinding New Yorkers with flash bulb shocks, in an urgent, insistent assault, recording anything that moves to insure they miss nothing in the misguided search for titillating experiences.

18

Biographical Note: Gordon Ferris

Gordon Ferris is a 58 year old separated Dublin man living in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal on and off for the past thirty years. He has had poetry published in a Sligo magazine as well as A New Ulster

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Silent Thoughts (Gordon Ferris) Silence, with the volume on the TV turned down there was silence at last, time to think. But for Dora sleeping upstairs I was alone. First thing on the agenda, the fridge, check out the fridge. All unhealthy foods must be removed and consumed; it’s for my big sisters benefit.

She is trying to lose weight after giving birth just ten months prior to today, nothing to do with my having an extreme sweet tooth and not wanting to share. It’s purely an altruistic act on my behalf for the benefit of those who live in this house. Thank god Dora doesn’t eat solids yet, I would feel compelled to bring her down and share these delights with her. But she can’t have any, she’s asleep.

I put my feet up and have the food resting on my chest, the TV down low. I’m being ignored for now. In all the distraction of my usual Friday it had escaped me the fact that it had been my last day at school. It felt no different, no sudden change of priority or responsibility, no suddenly waking up with a fully grown beard.

I had a little bit of doubt in the back of my mind as to if I was making the right decision in finishing school. I could still change my mind, I had until September, that’s provided I passed my inter cert. I was thinking I had done better than I expected to do, so maybe I could surprise everybody.

I may put those thoughts in the back of my mind until September. Start looking for a summer job on Monday, ye that’s a plan. My attention now was drawn to a marriage photo of Mauve and Dave. I remember there reception, my first experience of an adult event involving alcohol. I remember them dating, there had been one or two before but none lasted, Dave soon became a regular feature around the house.

20

I had good memories of Mauve growing up; she looked after me as a child and seemed to like taking me out for the day, out from under my mom’s feet she used to say. My Ma struggled to hold down a part time job and look after six of us. She was doing almost everything in the house herself, as my three sisters got older they helped a bit. The older they got they resented having to do all the chores in the house, while myself and my older and younger brother did as little as possible.

As it turned out, Mauve took a shine to me and used to take me to all sorts of places, I remember when I was about ten, she had got a job in Tele Rentals and every Thursday after getting paid she would bring home loads of sweets bought in Woolworths on her way home.

Other days she would bring me into the Savoy cinema in O Connell Street, never to see films that I would like, always to see Elvis Presley films, she was mad about Elvis.

Other times in the summer, when dry, she would take me on the bus to the Zoo or just for a ramble around the Phoenix Park. There’s one time in particular that sticks out in my mind.

She took me and my younger brother and sister into St Stephens Green for a day out. We were a right handful that day and she just about managed us without losing the plot all together.

I remember her efforts trying not to swear in front of us, using the word flip instead of another F word. She got us chips in Fortes in O Connell Street first then we headed across the bridge, up Dolores Street and up Grafton Street to Stephens Green where we sat on the grass watching the throng of people go by and wondering at the funny talking Americans who end every sentence with, “everything is just, wonderful. “ We wondered what exactly was so wonderful.

Near the end of our outing, I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I ended up waist high in the pond with a gang of young boys and girls pointing and laughing at me. I was 21

playing with my two siblings trying to get away from them when suddenly I realized I was heading for the water and couldn’t stop. Maybe I thought the floating leaves were solid and I could step across them to reach the pretty purple flower that grew in solitary splendour on the edge of the foliage. Or perhaps I just thought I could walk on water. For whatever the reason that’s where I ended up.

I made my way out as fast as I could and rushed over to where we were sitting; Mauve embarrassed, but staying calm, began gathering our stuff together and had us depart as quickly as possible, telling me not to worry about it at the same time. The journey across town was hurried, down Grafton Street, on past Trinity College, Dolere Street and instead of going down O Connell Street we headed down Marlborough Street to avoid the crowd. On now to where we were to get the bus in Abbey Street.

Standing Self-consciously at the bus stop between The Metro and The Shakespeare pubs where the bus drivers went for their liquid breaks, leaving the doors closed and passengers standing in the cold and rain. My trousers had dried a bit from the brisk walk across town; they no longer dripped leaving a trail of water after me.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity the driver emerged from the Metro humourlessly getting on starting a rush towards the door. Mauve paid the bus fair, paying just for herself, saying the kids were under age, staring into the drivers eyes with a smile, the driver let her away with it. We got a seat on the long row inside the door and before long the bus was full and we were on our way.

I was relieved to be on the bus and on the way home and settled into my daydreaming. But it wasn’t to last long with the ranting of this fat breathless old bat standing in front of me. She was sweating in her winter heavy coat, her grey hair emitting droplets of water onto her nose.

22

She moaned about how the youth of today had no manners letting a lady stand while they took up a seat.

Mauve tried to explain to her that she wouldn’t appreciate the seat, but the big women just wouldn’t listen until Mauve fed up listen to her made me stand up saying to her, “there you are now, I tried to tell you that the” but before she could finish the women cut her off scolding me for not giving her the seat. Mauve just told her she’s welcome with a grin and a wink towards me.

I moved out of the women’s sight in the pram well at the middle door, behind an old man smoking a Sweet Afton, I knew it was a Sweet Afton because my dad smoked them. I could see the women sitting proud in her seat, nothing strange yet, but suddenly I could see her shift in her seat, slight movement at first, gradually showing signs of more discomfort as she realised there was a reason for me not giving her the seat. I was looking straight into her face when she suddenly looked in my direction with disgust in her eyes, as if I was dirt she had trod in.

I smiled in her direction and her face seemed to turn purple and she got up in a rage to depart the bus at Glasnevin, “Getting off already, hardly worth your while sitting down, was it.”

Mauve said, with a friendly sarcastic smile, “you knew rightly that seat was wet” the women said, but Mauve said “well I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen, serves you right, you might listen in future”.

She went on her way and before long we were home. I could hear Dave and Mauve cheerful entrance, the muffled chatter, the held-in laughter, trying not to wake Dora from her peaceful slumber. But it was the smell of the fish and Chips smothered in salt and vinegar that roused me from my reflections.

23

I jumped up from my stretched out position on the couch into a seated position expecting there entrance at any minute. They went straight through to the kitchen, trying to wind me up knowing I’d be sitting up in excited expectation, or maybe I never a caused them a thought. I went straight in to them through the adjoining doors; Dave was taking his brown pin striped jacket off and throwing it on the hooks on the back of the door leading to the hall. Mauve was brushing her wind tossed blond hair with a Rothman cigarette in her mouth.

“Ah, there ye are, thought you were gone to bed! Did madam wake?” she said without looking at me, not wanting to spill the ash on the table as she brushed her hair. “Not a sound out of her, not after I hit her with the wooden mallet” I said, waiting for the good humoured telling me they’d kill me if I dared.

She told me if I wanted bread I could get up of me arse and get it myself. She said this through a mouthful of fish or chips or both. There was a bag of chips and a bit of fish there for me so I got two slices of batch loaf and buttered it thick to build up cholesterol for my future heart condition.

I joined the two of them in the living room where we munched in silence while we watched TV muted, not knowing what we were watching. I reminded Mauve of the invitation for dinner on Sunday. To which Mauve corrects me, “she’s coming out for a drink on Sunday, ma and da are going to the club on Sunday, not for dinner, ya eejit ya.” “Oh, I know that, just testing you”.

There was a few moments silence now, just the sound of falling and rising jaws in the process of eating ecstasy; funny how all pleasurable consumables' are bad for your health.

Some music on tv so Dave puts some volume on, not to loud, just right, so we could still talk, he asked what time I was going home on Saturday , if I had time I could give him a hand with a car he was fixing.

24

I was secretly delighted with this, but didn't show it. An extra pound in the back pocket, although me Ma would go mad if she knew I had accepted payment for assistance given to family. One thing me Da thought me growing up, was never to say no to money, because if you get a reputation for saying no to money, people might stop offering it to you.

I could feel myself getting tired now and after yawning, Mauve suggested I go up to bed. I needed no second telling, in minutes I was in bed replaying the day over in my head. It still hadn't sunk into my head that this was my last day in school, from now on it was to be a new world. I should be leaving all childish things behind now and start living the life of the long trouser ones, and then there was blankness, sleep had caught up with me.

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Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill

Peter O' Neill was born in Cork in 1967. He is the author of five collections of poetry, most notably the Dublin Trilogy comprising of: The Dark Pool ( mgv2>publishing, France, 2015 ), Dublin Gothic ( Kilmog Press, New Zealand, 2015 ) and The Enemy, Transversions from Charles Baudelaire ( Lapwing Press, Northern Ireland, 2015 ). In his review of The Dark Pool, the critically acclaimed American poet David Rigsbee wrote: Peter O' Neill is a poet who works the mythical city of Modernism in ways we do not often see enough.' ( A New Ulster )

He holds a degree in Philosophy and a Masters in Comparative Literature, both awarded by Dublin City University. In 2015 he edited And Agamemnon Dead, An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry with Walter Ruhlmann for mgv2>publishing, and mg 81 Transverser. He also organised Donkey Shots; Skerries First International Avant Garde Poetry Fest in May, this year and he is currently hosting The Gladstone Readings once a month in his home town of Skerries.

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The Mistress (Peter O’Neill)

There was a lot of cruelty, Contempt and dismissive ness were tones readily deployed by your voice.

I can still hear it, thinking about you,

Holding the very measure of me in the palm of your hand, and the appraisal ongoing, weathering again one of your scornful looks.

Such are some of the details which contain

memory, their deep impact resonates still.

Torturer and victim, swing the eternal pair, and our respective roles we knew them well.

You had no need of a death's head for your cap, while your eyes surveyed my emaciated form.

You never went in for self-parody.

27

Mr. Martin (Peter O’Neill)

With a singular eye on the specimens, deeply concerned with the subject of breeding; these gentlemen, the matter at hand, yet just how gentle? And the all- determining

factor, their place in society? 'He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her.1' And, while he sang their eyes fell upon the figures in a frieze,

Centaurs and nymphs seemingly at ease! “ All is about to end...� the shepherd sang.

His voice sounded clearly in the high ceilinged room.

It seemed to echo, as if in a cave.

And, as the fire threw shapes up about the walls, through the parlour door voices freely were heard in the hall.

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The Devil on the Mount É una tempesta anche la tua dolcezza. ( Montale) (Peter O’Neill)

There is a violence to human warmth and emotion, sensitivity and tenderness, which can be as traumatic as any explosion.

Christ is a very good example of this, how he met and terrorised the devil with all his talk of brotherly love.

I speak from my own experience, as such is how you came, bringing all your terror to me, there on the mount.

Your kind voice whispering in my ear.

Its gentle warmth un-manning me, so that I was seemingly so defenceless.

So vulnerable. That was your greatest EVIL, to so decidedly disarm me.

29

My Dark Lady (Peter O’Neill)

It was all about death that summer.

The signs were every where, out on the lake.

You then my dark lady, my odalisque, Down on all fours in the pristine clinic.

The novel - a first edition which I Had purchased in Murder Ink, and had so Lovingly packed in my travel bag; Bore the word requiem in the title.

Now then, there we were! Just weeks away From your immaculate conception.

The nephentes had sucked me in, swallowing me whole.

Above the boathouse a lone jet flew.

As I waded into the pristine film, The trauma of the wound held me still.

30

The Serpent (Peter O’Neill) Voluptatem praesagit muta cupido - Lucretius

It entered slowly and langorously, a limb of such exquisite beauty; fashioned, its shape and form, with such rigour and longing so as to captivate.

And while I was getting over the shock of its violence upon my me, another, its twin, aligned itself also obscuring, completely, my vision.

Then, the two limbs marched ahead of me and both my two eyes became transfixed.

One on one, I gave myself up to them.

As if in a trance then I followed them, the sinuous limbs enveloped in scales of hose, led me on to my utter destruction.

31

Coitus (Peter O’Neill) fututa sum hic – anon

Soundings, triple vowels on the tongue.

Co.. it.. us inscribe the mind with the sound, latinate; to in-still presence with the sense of it... your Pompei!

The act historic, with all of your re- Visions.

Blue out in the indingos and azures, their riot of cobalt, perfecting the skies.

No earth bound outreach, but you two

Jupitering together. The lofty domes, air-ward with the head, your cathedrals and Saint Louis's, Elizabethan carnations,

bouganvilles, plants, animals, cherub too.

Your sacred union, the fuck of two!

Now curl up, and experience a little death.

1Austen, Jane: Emma, Penguin Classics, London, 1996, pp. 25/26.

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Biographical Note: Tim Dwyer

Tim Dwyer’s recent book is: Smithy Of Our Longing: Poems From The Irish Diaspora (Lapwing Publications, 2015). His poems have appeared in journals including A New Ulster, Boyne Berries, Cork Literary Review, The Stinging Fly and Stony Thursday Book. His parents were from East Galway and he currently lives in Stamford, Connecticut.

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BY THE ABBEY REMAINS County Down, 1990 (Tim Dwyer)

More painting than photo, girlish beauty, flow of your skirt, you sit contentedly upon the Abbey wall.

Young daughter, a pastel dress highlights her strawberry hair.

She perches on the edgeenchanted by a view beyond this scene.

I will find my way into this picture, where I fall in love

and decades later, look back on that day by the Abbey remains.

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GOOD MORNING (Tim Dwyer)

Signal from the train horn rises along the ridge, reaches our kitchen window.

From the garden, you announce the foxglove has appeared-

no, you are appearing, announced by their yellow bloom.

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PREPARING FOR THE DAY (Tim Dwyer)

In the kitchen while preparing breakfast, this scene comes to mind-

my mother smiles from the other world as she chats on the phone with my beloved.

Now at the kitchen table having their tea, catching up on news from home,

while I craft a past to walk hand in hand with the past I have lived.

36

Biographical Note: Namitha VarmaVarma-Rajesh

Namitha Varma is a media professional based in Bengaluru, India. She is a voracious reader, a music enthusiast and an opinionated social observer. She has publishing credits in three anthologies and over 30 literary journals including Sahitya Akademi’s journal Indian Literature, eFiction India, CafÊ Dissensus Blog, Hackwriters, MadSwirl, Gone Lawn, and FIVE Poetry. She blogs onnarcissistwrites.blogspot.com and tweets via @namithavr.

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Unfinished kiss (Namitha Varna-Rajesh) A moment crumpled into an unfinished kiss – a half-moment of nervous anticipation, all senses concentrated at the mouth – tantalising memories on lips, half-touched, half-felt, half-imagined – tingling smells of your skin dancing around my mouth, waiting for me to snatch them – closed eyes trailing the contours of your face, watching the silhouette of your smile through the lids – the moment passes, deceiving the senses, the magic shatters, the body crumbles the lips are betrayed.

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The Second Look (Namitha VarmaVarma-Rajesh) You wait for men to give you a second look lusty hopeful flirtatious the evil grin your grandmother mother elder sister aunt warned you of then you realise you are no longer twenty – face no better than a blobfish tummy boasting of its meetings with the beer and cheese and chicken and a computer-driven work thighs a standing testimony of lack of exercise; you are no longer worth that second look all you have is the man you took your vows with. you woman that always got a second look‌

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Metaphors (Namitha VarmaVarma-Rajesh) I ache to find new metaphors to embellish my poems and hang them out to dry in the warm winds of your love.

Pickled bits of you and me pickled in brine; you’re sour, i’m spicy you’re green i’m yellow we mix well, they say, complementing each other, completing each other – but we’re pickled, darling, pickled – not ourselves, not what we are, just preserved to last long.

40

Biographical Note: David Loring

David is a grandfather of 4 and has been writing poetry for several decades. David lives on the west coast of Ireland in Mayo with his partner Anne.

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Fickle Fate (David Loring) What powerful force is this that grasps my heart And binds it in a vicelike grip of iron.

What rapturous torment tears my very soul apart And punctures every hope that I rely on.

I cannot see, for I am surely blind And deaf to all but love's eternal song.

I cannot feel for numbness strikes my mind And leaves me weeping for the hearth where I belong.

Ah! Fickle fate you deal a cruel blow And leave me gasping in the atmosphere of love.

So place me in an earthen rest below I can no longer stand the pain above.

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“Hush�

(David Loring) Hush, and tremble with excitement at this touch That slips quietly through the fevered mind And spreads its powerful presence to the corners of the soul To lie quiescent 'til some other point in time Pause, and savour both the pain and pleasure of this state As calm resumes and order fills the fractured brain.

And listen carefully to the inner voice of this perpetual dream For surely traveller you will come this way again Wonder, at this touching of two souls, for this is love That marks the passing of a former stage And brings you forward into that eternal peace of mind Which knows no boundaries of body or of age.

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Of You (David Loring) By playful streams and laughing waterfalls, And soft green ferns in moisture gently bathed, I think of you.

In summer meadows filled with sun and flowers While listening to the cheerful lark's bright song I think of you.

Warm and cosy in my bed of sleepy down Locked pleasantly away from all my cares I dream of you.

And as the clouds drift slowly 'cross the timeless sky My weary soul is lifted up as ceaselessly I dream of you In the lonely quiet before the dawning of the day As to the world I now return again I long for you.

And in the evening as I linger on our favourite songs And reminisce beside the crackling fire I long for you.

In everything I do each day, in every simple task I make it something specially for you and thus I live for you.

For all that has between us passed, is passing now And in the future far before us lies I live for you.

Firm in purpose, strong in spirit, loving in your way I hear your voice and see your face and know I love you Because you are the person that you are, and care, And fill my heart with joy and soul with light, I love you.

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Biographical Note: Trevor Conway

Trevor Conway, a Sligoman living in Galway since 2005, writes mainly poetry, fiction and songs. Subjects he’s drawn to include nature, creativity, football and people/society, especially the odd ways in which we look at the world. His work has appeared in magazines and anthologies across Ireland, Austria, India, the UK, the US and Mexico, where his poems have been translated into Spanish. He has an MA in Writing from NUI Galway. He is a contributing editor for The Galway Review, and his first collection of poems was published by Salmon Poetry (http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=374&a=278).

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Atlantic (Trevor Conway) Today, I touched America, Felt its sweat wash over me.

I became metallic blue, Slipped into the cool chill With the smooth, neoprene skin of a seal: Delicious.

The world was a thing behind me.

Under water, you’re inside a bottle Quilted with the jostling clink of waves.

Nostrils fizzle.

We are pre-born fish, But I, too, hang like the seagull, Held at the hips as though Lit into the air.

(Applaud.)

Taste with your skin.

I was ragged, flat and limp, Philosophical or dead.

All the birds must’ve thought me strange.

Commerce, culture, communication – All were skeletal things, Faces coated in metal and glass.

I saw shadowy figures on the sand, And was part of history, unrecorded.

Continents came and spoke to me.

Breathing daily through my window, I hear it, a heaving animal.

I touched it yesterday, too.

The foam, engorged brown and red, Dripped like silk from my limbs.

I had been beaten, Saved.

The salt on my lips made me long For something I’d tasted before.

I think it was – in fact, I’m sure – Deep-fried potato.

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Hey, Poet!

(Trevor Conway) Consider words: Each one you invite Strolls onto the page, Precise in its effect.

You’ll find your mood In the music between, Through the movement Of changing your mind.

Repeated, they clash Like two women in the same dress.

All in all, There’s a lot of noise.

Paradoxes – pretentious guests Redeemed if given a subtle charm; Ambiguous phrases you can never trust, Whispering with a furtive glance.

Some come together like kith and kin – Completely and utterly superfluous.

I’m bitter to see a perfect couple Through a neighbour’s window.

Others insist on getting in, Though you know they don’t belong.

To see them printed is like a photo You never wished an eye to find.

Be cautious of the first to arrive.

Though it’s easy to open your door To anyone who throws a smile, Keep it closed till all’s prepared.

By morning, you want to hear Thriving talk of your success, But all the words are slurred And everybody’s tired.

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Lining the Pitch (Trevor Conway) Moist ground, yielding stick, Taught by string to bend; Slow steps, a bald, pinkish head, Stained boot and jeans, He plants the other end, Runs the lime along the line, Lifting its nose where it shouldn’t take, Barrow squeaking bird-like Through dull Saturday light.

Shorter lines and sharp turns, The string replants to measure land.

He dips the brush, hangs to drip Its white blood over dirt, A shallow sacramental pool.

Beyond the lines, a cigarette Winces bright as it wanes.

The smoke rises, a dim puff.

He sees the trees, houses, plastered hills, Cracks of green like crumbled cement, And knows that in a short while there’ll be Emotion, sweat, creativity Between these measured lines.

One last plume To distant geese Flying v-shaped against the sky, He twists the butt into the dirt.

The centre circle weighed by wits, He shapes his steps, angles out, Nearing the curve of six o’clock.

On the turn for goal A slick slower, more sleet than rain, Arrives at a stiff angle.

Shelter by a shivering bush, There’s time to think of weekend plans Until the air grows faint, strained.

Watery lime spreads, running lateral roots.

Aside the string, he joins the endline, 48

Traces the cobweb curve of the corner And wheels away at a tilt.

Green blades bend speckles through white; All silent till wheels gather And skinny legs with lime-licked boots Are watched by heads in heavy coats Standing beyond the line.

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Inspired (Trevor Conway) All the best ideas Are conceived at ease.

I’ve written sonnets over coffee, Drifting with its aroma From face to glancing face, Or sitting on a rock, Its mossy coat foam-tipped, As a river whispers.

Stories have emerged By fire and TV. At half-time, I penned a lament: Milan 3 – Liverpool nil.

A blank book lies by my bed.

By morning, the sheets are filled.

From falling apples, Great theories have formed.

Idle hours at a patent office Cast revealing light, A king’s dilemma solved In the steam of a public bath.

I have no great theory, Just words, Like an old friend returning In new clothes.

Some day, I’ll sit with paper by my side, A strain on my face As I reach for the pen, To set the seeds Of the Great Irish Novel.

Word will tumble on word, Each letter a stamp of gold, The touch of fire in my blood.

Then, I will flush.

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The Heart Speaks Out (Trevor Conway) I renounce all pretence of romance, In relation to my existence.

I am a pulsing fist of muscle, Enticing blood from lungs, Sending its nutrients to brain and liver, Bone and nerve, strong as an arched sail.

I draw it from tired cells, Feed it with new purpose, Throbbing incessantly under the skin, Each beat given all my force.

When I miss my cue in another’s presence, It is the brain that instructs me.

Ribs have deemed me worthy of protection, Though I’m no more precious than liver.

A million litres pass through me, So don’t cite me when talking of love.

I am not its representative: Dangle that accolade from another organ.

But there’s a kind of romance in how I work.

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Stalingrad (Trevor Conway) So cold that thousands of bloodied German soldiers Freeze stiff on vast piles of rubble, And buildings stand in name only, Their souls ghosted away like insects’ empty husks.

They’ve blocked their own advance With crumble-cluttered streets.

Now, Russian heads have perfect cover, Peering over cement entrails.

Eye-to-eye, every German inch gained Is measured in blood.

Victory seemed imminent before, But a city strangled by starvation Now fights back.

Weather and guns ground German supplies Once dropped from the sky like autumn seeds To germinate weeks of war.

Soon, they suffer, surrounded In this foreign place, pounded And pierced with blades that come out red.

The Russians talk of victory, But the Stalingrad streets reek of death.

When night comes, the dogs of this city Plunge into the Volga river and swim From the hell of smoke and fire And men’s cries, Their ears shaving the water Loose as unmanned oars.

So human, this place, That the river is orange at night.

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Biographical Note: Note: Jack Grady

Jack Grady is a founder member of the Ox Mountain Poets, based in Ballina, County Mayo.

He is a past winner of the Worcester County (USA) Poetry Contest, and his poems have been published in literary journals in Ireland, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, including Crann贸g,The Galway Review, Poet Lore, A New Ulster, The Worcester Review, North West Words, Mauvaise Graine, and The Runt, among others, as well as in anthologies such as And Agamemnon Dead: An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry, Voices for Peace, published by A New Ulster, and21 Poems, 21 Reasons for Choosing Jeremy Corbyn.

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Nebula (Jack Grady) I awaken, and I watch you in your black-panther hair slumber like the purr of a sleeping jungle, dark as a new moon while it waits to wax into a glowing disk.

I am like the sun a-roar with tongues of fire.

I just dreamed of enflaming every molecule of oxygen to reach you, to irradiate your skin, race through the caverns of your strata, swell your veins of ore, erupt in your blood.

I want to replenish your core, make it molten.

And, when volcanos sprout in the sparks of your eyes, yielding fields of maize and wheat, I want to shout your name to all the neighbouring stars in the heavens.

And, when our end at last arrives, I want to expand beyond myself faster than light to consume you in our final conflagration so our dying consolation will be the vast nebula we paint on the blackboard of space in brushstrokes of luminous orchids.

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Prospecting (Jack Grady) The sun kisses bones of the snow.

Tears wash the awakening grass.

Specks of dust in the light Salt your hair With hidden jewels.

My eyes are hungry spades Digging for a treasure My hands dare not touch; But, beside a stream In my dreams, We draw together, Panning for gold.

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Ellaghmore (Jack Grady) I long to pick again the choice blackberries of her hedge, even if I bleed on her thorns, to leap like a spring lamb when she steps out into dawn to greet me and suffers my craving for the efflorescence of her garden and reflections of buttercups on her cheek in her field of Ellaghmore, there, where each fragrant pore in her skin wafts a wild lure to my hunger to explore the landscape of her body, to claim like Columbus a New World and map my discovery; then crown her my domain and adored sovereign of our El Dorado, our Ellaghmore.

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Never Again (Jack Grady) After André Frénaud’s ‘Je ne t'ai jamais oubliée’ Never again your chirping of my name in the nest I made for you, Never again the soft tone of your voice in the way you asked "what?" (cute and conquering as a fledgling), Never again your neck or your eyes, Never again your hair or your complexion, torn from the soaring of my desire by the flight of your living image to false but remembered vows, to the counterfeit of our tears' profits.

Free of you now, I am as free as a zombie, drifting among headstones and abstractions.

If my shadow should fall upon the breasts of another, what I will lie upon is your absence (I, the living corpse who staggers in the memory of your passion).

Never again your name or your face, Never again my heart, Only my cage of bones, Only my songless beak.

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Aphrodite (Jack Grady) If I had the power of Poseidon, Dionysus, or Zeus, I would take your heart and hold it aloft.

I would prize it like a chalice of first-growth wine.

I would savour its bouquet.

I would examine its colour and stare in wonder at the largest, most scarlet strawberry in creation. My lips would press to it with delicacy; then, grow wild as a firestorm in a city under the wings of saturation bombing.

I would drive it through frenetic spirals to the apotheosis of ecstasy until its cries exploded and burst every barricade on your street.

But you would triumph over Death itself and reign upon a sea-shell throne.

I would name you Aphrodite.

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Bones of an Affair (Jack Grady) Yesterday, I was a beast who fed you.

Do I dare to remind you I led you from the soup kitchens of your lust?

Today, I am a bag of bones discarded with the rubbish tossed behind in your bin – bones of a chicken, bones of a steer, or bones of a fish not to be mentioned in the place where you are returning.

If these bones were dust, you could sweep them under the carpet, but they are not; and my ribs are not fit to hang beside his shirt in your wardrobe.

Am I, then, the bones of a pig?

In this Muslim land in which you have left me, pork, like gratification, is forbidden, though desire is not.

What will remain after our parting?

In the desert, tears are without tracks.

This poem? – Burn it to ashes before the shrine you have made of his aftershave.

What, then, will whisper of our contract and its secrets?

Bones swept up, swept under and through – bones swallowed by the sand.

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Biographical Note: Anne Tannam

Bred, buttered and living in Dublin, Anne's first book of poetry 'Take This Life', was published by WordOnTheStreet in 2011. Her second collection is forthcoming in Spring 2017 with Salmon Poetry. A spoken word artist, Anne has performed her work at Lingo, Electric Picnic, Cuirt and other festivals around Ireland and is co-founder of the Dublin Writers' Forum..

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Hidden Treasure (Anne Tannam) To locate gently cup the back of a grown man’s head.

Slowly so as not to alarm him move your hand down over bony ridges unyielding plains until heel and palm sense a falling away.

Let fingertips take over now obeying curve and inclination until they reach the hollowed tender spot where he sleeps cradling his boyhood dreams.

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Seven Signs of Love (Anne Tannam) Age 22

1. A declaration of flowers at the airport 2. The gift of an inscribed fountain pen 3. Letters written on both sides of the page and posted the next morning 4. The sound of the telephone ringing at precisely Bang on the button 5. The song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 6. Table for two 7. The world inside one sleeping bag

Age 44

1. Bicycle repaired 2. Precious files thought lost forever, retrieved 3. The smell of barbecued food coming in the kitchen window 4. The question How was your day?

5. Two chairs beside a hospital bed 6. Table for six 7. The world inside a sleeping house

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Biographical Note: J.S. Watts

J.S.Watts’ writing appears in publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the States and has been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. She has published four books: a poetry collection, "Cats and Other Myths" and a multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet, "Songs of Steelyard Sue", both published by Lapwing Publications and two novels, "A Darker Moon” - dark literary fantasy, and “Witchlight” - paranormal romance, published in the US and UK by Vagabondage Press. A new poetry collection, “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, is due out from Lapwing Publications in 2016 See www.jswatts.co.uk for further details.

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Love Poetry – Counting The Ways (J.S. Watts) “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

If, instead of ways, you count published love poems, you’ll come to the conclusion that an awful lot of people love an awful lot more people in an amazing variety of ways.

There’s been some beautiful poetry written on the subject of love and an impressive amount of it has developed iconic status within the canon of English language poetry. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet “How do I love thee?” is just one such poem. There are also any number of Shakespearian sonnets, though “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate” probably has the edge.

I’ve always had a soft spot for John Donne’s tender song of parting “Sweetest love, I do not go/ For weariness of thee”, but the man wrote a wide range of vibrant love poems, both soulful and gloriously carnal, before turning his attention to God. It has been argued that his Holy Sonnets are just more love poems, but with God as the object of adoration, rather than his previous assorted mistresses. Love poetry is a broad genre and there is ample room for the romantic, the raunchy and the religious within it. There is even room for the anti-romantic.

In this category, one of my favourites is Dorothy Parker’s brief but biting “Unfortunate Coincidence”, which opens with the apparently romantic line, “By the time you swear you’re his,” but ends on the telling note, “One of you is lying” – a wisecracking and cleverly jaundiced take on the reality of romantic love. I also can’t help but reference the English language translations of the Roman poet Catullus; like Donne, a writer of both romantic and graphically carnal love poetry.

The century and the original language are irrelevant. As in our own times, the course of true love did not always flow smoothly back in Catullus’s day, “the words of a woman to her ardent lover should be written on the wind and the fast-running water.”

Even I’ve been known to write the odd love poem: Painted Eggs* Empty and hollow as a blown egg 64

Because you are not here.

Painting me up in pretty colours Can’t disguise my fragility, My want of guts.

Only your presence can provide that; Pivot and substance of my universe, Big nest.

The poem is a lament on the absence of a loved one and, I admit, I am not inured to the siren call of romance, but, I also confess, my natural sensibilities lean more to Dorothy Parker’s view of things. “Lycanthropist”, a poem from the same collection as “Painted Eggs”, describes an unusual way of breaking free from a failed relationship – “On nights such as this I feel the wolf within me” and culminating in, “But one bright night I shall heed the summons;/ Shed clothes and skin.”

Although not poetry, I’m also conscious that the ageless love affair at the heart of my first novel, “A Darker Moon”, is a black and complicated thing, not conducive to happy outcomes, but then the novel is a dark, literary fantasy, so it would hardly be appropriate to centre it on a relationship that was all red roses and puppy dogs.

For all my self-proclaimed cynicism, I’m as moved as the next reader by poems such as Philip Larkin’s “Arundel Tomb” (even if the sentiment ascribed to it, isn’t quite what he intended) – “What will survive of us is love” and Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” – a melancholy and lengthy sequence of poems, lamenting lost love and friendship, but which avows, “’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”

So there we have it: a range of forms, styles, subjects and sentiments, but regardless of when these poems were written, humanity’s fascination with love is what fuels them. There are many ways to express love in poetry and many types of love to be expressed, but whether dark and bitter or light and hopeful, it always comes down to our need to be loved.

* “Painted Eggs” was first published in the literary magazine “Envoi” and appears in the poetry collection “Cats and Other Myths” by J.S.Watts.

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The Letter (J.S. Watts) I am expecting it.

It is no shock as it flops through the letterbox like a beached cod.

Still, I greet it like a Cheshire Puss, all smile.

The bloom of the morning opens its pale petals lovingly to the sun, blessing today.

So opens my heart with the pages of your letter.

But once, not long ago, the petals unfolded to reveal decay and bloated maggots; their pallid promise, sickly pallor of death.

That time, the smile vanished, leaving poor puss behind with her nose-wrenching prize.

Not long ago, but it was not yours, that putrid memento.

He who sent it has gone, as dead as his goodbye.

At last the stench went too; not memory.

That lingers with me, scenting this rosy dawn.

I see it on the mat beside your sweet token.

Decay starts from within, unseen without.

What of your greeting.....?

I am expecting it.

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Biography: Nina Lewis

Nina Lewis is a poet from Worcestershire. Her poetry is published in a range of anthologies and magazines including Under the Radar and Abridged. Her work is also available in e-book anthologies from Fairacre Press. Her poetry has appeared in an Art Installation at the MAC Arts Centre and on the Wenlock Poetry Trail. Nina has performed at Wenlock Poetry Festival, Stratford Poetry Festival, Poetry of Swindon Festival, Worcester LitFest and was commissioned to write and perform at Birmingham Literature Festival. Nina works with young writers for Writing West Midlands. She is currently working on her first collection.

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Netted Love (Nina Lewis)

The first gift, a small silver knife with bent tip pointed like an old fashioned can opener.

The second gift, a pair of blue latex gloves, the third gift is in the garden.

A large cardboard box stands on brown parcel paper, held down with stones.

A trinity of presents, a shipment of vacuum-packed oysters, you taught me how to shuck on our last road trip.

I reveal akoya cultured pearls in black, cream, grey, not one baroque, all perfect ovals or better, round spheres of light.

Held gently between thumb and index finger, I admire them. For hours I shuck oysters, whilst you voicelessly prove your love.

The devotion of this gesture, the planning – blueprint bliss.

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Romantic bones beyond the wonder of grit in an oyster shell, a master at showing, rarer than a natural pearl, worth more than beauty.

Without warranty you sustain our love, your faith in a feeling, a promise. A shell.

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Calibrated (Nina Lewis) When we first met you wrote notes to yourself to aid your memory, used torn up white paper, I bought you small notepads you continued to use your scraps.

The ones I saw had things like 'lunch', or 'bins' codes for allotment gates, times for TV programmes or important dates not to be forgotten.

I had no idea there were more.

The ones I didn't see had dark lined secrets etched across diagonal folds. You didn't know me like we know each other now, second guessing was just organised blinkered vision.

There is no way of securing such knowledge, the part time teaches. Hearing whispers, knowing signs, telling with a look or a smile, Back then we were strangers hoping to make it to more.

For a year everything I ever circled with my finger 70

in glossy paged magazines, anything that came from a Sunday Supplement for this season, things I spotted in shops magpie mistress of glistening jewellery, extravagances I wouldn't allow myself, scents to wear, scarves to hide behind.

That first Christmas we shared every box I opened contained something I had seen that year.

Objects of my affection lost to my own memories were strikingly real in yours, recorded on torn paper.

A way to mend my heart, not re-establish my faith, but to allow myself to believe in you.

Gift giver, listing a year of desires.

I know the soft heart inside my stone man and love that sometimes on the table in the morning I will find a note on torn paper for me to remember an amount of bill money or a date 71

or something you think I might forget.

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Memory Art (Nina Lewis)

Some days after our first date you presented me with a tower of tea lights in glass holders, text typed and taped to the side.

The original tea lights melted as we sat on your wooden floor drinking wine and talking about everything in the universe that mattered to us.

You gave me your bed.

Let me wake in my own time, called through a closed door about coffee and breakfast.

After our meal out, I planned 73

to go home, a first date and I came home with you.

The pull was strong enough to diverge something as simple as driving away.

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Biography: Michael Leach

Michael Leach is a health researcher and wordsmith. Michael is currently completing a PhD in Pharmacy at the University of South Australia, working as a freelance academic editor/proofreader, and pursuing a passion for creative writing. His creative writing, including poetry, is published or forthcoming in The Copperfield Review, The Medical Journal of Australia, andMedical Humanities.

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The Everyday Artist and the Everlasting Muse (Michael Leach)

He builds He lights

a bluestone pedestal for her imminent ascension. her sculpted face to give her undivided attention.

He speaks

like an actor from a modern-day television drama.

He creates

a social mask for her piercing eyes to see through.

He plays

improvisational guitar solos, mostly to impress her.

He scribbles

her curves, lines, and angles in A4 lecture books.

He dances

with her guitar-shaped body in all shades of light.

He paints

pretty pictures of her one-of-a-kind psychology.

He makes

her long playlists of his all-time favourite songs.

He folds

her funny origami using napkins at quaint cafes.

He pens

haiku about their reciprocal love on red Post-its.

He writes

her witty texts when circumstances keep them apart.

He composes

short prose in which she is both damsel and heroine.

He spray paints

her star sign on the walls of buildings in Melbourne.

He tags

her in sweet Facebook posts re getaways to London.

He paints

realistic pictures of her unparalleled psychology.

He photographs

her eye-catching beauty in all shades of light.

He scratches

her initials on the walls of caves by the sea.

He draws

her pop culture symbols in homemade lattes.

He types

heartfelt vows for her on his notebook computer.

He speaks

like a thespian from a realistic theatrical production.

He rebuilds He sculpts

her bluestone pedestal years after her ascension. his muse’s face to give her everlasting attention.

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Biography: Maire Morrissey Cummins

Mรกire is Irish, married with two adult children. She lived abroad for many years, and bides between Wicklow, Ireland and Trier, Germany at present. She loves nature and is a published haiku writer.

Mรกire retired early from the Financial Sector and found art and poetry. She is really relishing the experience of getting lost in literature and paint.

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The Moon in your Eyes.

(Mรกire Morrissey-Cummins)

Wrapped in the warmth of a June night under the light of scintillating stars, you point to the Milky Way, my gaze follows yours as I catch the moon in your eyes.

We walk hand in hand on the beach, our whispers sprinkle the dim light.

Your smooth embrace tickles my face, tumbles my hair, tingles my toes beneath an ebony sky.

The candy-sweet scent of Valerian weaves with the salty sea breeze.

It entangles our love, unravels it into the pulsing waves and binds us forever in the surging surf.

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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!

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February 2016 MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS: We hope you enjoy the alleycats decision ☺ Like the tide the last few months have had their ups and downs but like cats we bounce back and land on our feet.

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”.

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Lapwing Publications

List of works published during 2015 978-1-910855-16-4 As I Was Pulled Under the Earth x Grant Tarbard 978-1-910855-15-7 Lucky x Graham Buchan 978-1-910855-14-0 Mice at the Threshing The Memoir of Richie Roe x Arthur Broomfield 978-1-910855-13-3 Impromptus for George Erdmann & The Good Samaritan x John Gohorry 978-1-910855-12-6 Ventriloquist's Dummy x David Andrew 978-1-910855-11-9 Forms of Freedom x Sam Burnside 978-1-910855-10-2 At the Edge x Kate Ennals 978-1-910855-09-6 Annals x Martin Burke 978-1-910855-08-9 Glencree Riverain x Judy Russell 978-1-910855-07-2 The Enemy: transversions from Baudelaire x Peter O'Neill 978-1-910855-06-5 Escape & Other Poems x Nina Sokol 978-1-910855-05-8 Assassins x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-910855-04-1 Blue Flower x Richard W. Halperin 978-1-910855-03-4 Fifty-Three Poems x C.P. Stewart 978-1-910855-02-7 Fault Line x Paul Mortimer 978-1-910855-01-0 Fathomable x Jane Morley 978-1-910855-00-3 I heard an Irish Jew x Gerry McDonnell 978-1-909252-98-1 The Last Fire x Helen Harrison 978-1-909252-97-4 Speck: Poems 2002 - 2006 x Alice Lyons 978-1-909252-96-7 Smithy of Our Longings x Tim Dwyer 978-1-909252-95-0 The Trouble with Love x Fern Angel Beattie 978-1-909252-94-3 Broken Hill x Keith Payne 978-1-909252-93-6 Frequencies of Light x James R. Kilner 978-1-909252-92-9 Conversations in the Dark x Valerie Masters 978-1-909252-91-2 He Robes me Royally x Helen Long 978-1-909252-90-5 Landscape of Self x Aine MacAodha Available at £10.00 in UK £15.00 outside UK (due to UK international postage rates) 978-1-910855-13-3 Impromptus for George Erdmann & The Good Samaritan Is in A4 format and £15.00 UK £20.00 outside UK 978-1-910855-14-0 Mice at the Threshing is a memoir Buy direct from publisher via our website:- lapwingpoetry.com or e-mail address:- lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com Lapwing Publications is a not-for-profit publisher

and is not grant aided by the Arts Councils in the UK or Ireland.

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