Anu issue 42/ A New Ulster

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

Featuring the works of Chitralekha Sreejai, Eithne Lannon, Mari Maxwell, J.S. Watts, Amy Barry, Marthalyn Seavey, Marie Lecrivain, Neil Ellman, Peter O’neill, Strider Marcus Jones, Michael Leach, Al Millar, Michael Minassian, Jack Grady, Darren C. Demaree, Jim Lewis and Fran Mulhern Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 42 March 2016

A New Ulster On the Wall Website

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

Editorial

page 6

Chitralekha Sreejai;

1.

Spring

Eithne Lannon; 1.

2.

3.

resonance glendalough Our silence

Mari Maxwell; 1.

Robins at Castlerock 2.

Dancehall Fever J.S. Watts 1.

2.

3.

Arachne in Love Sister Logic (previously published in Femmewise Cat) Wild Child

Marthalyn Seavey; 1.

The Story of Her Marie Lecrivain; 1.

In the bonds of Qliphoth 2.

Sue Storm at 55 3.

The Case Against Reincarnation Amy Barry; 1.

Mother’s Magic Neil Ellman; 1.

The Jungle 2.

Suspended Disbelief 3.

Atomic Kiss 4.

The Furniture of Time Peter O’Neill; 1.

Waiting 2.

Ballybaa 3.

Dwelling 4.

Rabelias 5.

The Godot Tree 6.

Mare Nostrum 7.

Sansperata 2

8.

9.

10.

2001 – At Italo’s Democracy and Freedom La petite morte

Marcus Strider Jones; 1.

Monacle 2.

Mavericks 3.

Rejecting Ovid 4.

Even After Tomorrow 5.

Rejoice To Late to Sleep

Michael Leach; 1.

A Villanelle vs-a-vis Jeanne D’Arc

Al Millar; 1.

Run Close wee Sitka, run close Matt Duggan; 1 Hermaphroditos 2 City of Light 3 Jarrow and Bull 4 Venice at Night 5 The Heart That Had Two Eyes Michael Minassian; 1.

The Breakup 2.

Blake’s Tyger 3.

Three Days After the 4th of July 4.

Eyes On Their Shoulders 5.

White Horse Through Fog Darren C. Demaree; 1 Warm #1 2 Warm #2 3 Warm #3 Jack Grady; 1 Mata Hari Meets Shiva’s Revenge 2 Louise the Red She-Wolf of Montmartre 3 The Quiet Centre 4 My Safe Return Jim Lewis; 1 Walk Me Home

3

On The Wall Message from the Alleycats

page 53

Round the Back Peter O’Neill; 1 Review of Mother’s Day Fran Mulhern ; 1 Fighting Will Self

4

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 “Full moon� by Marie Lecrivain

5

“Although only breath, words which I command are Immortal ” Sappho.

Editorial

Welcome to the International Women’s issue of A New Ulster we have a massive issue for you to read over a hundred pages of poetry and prose. Many familiar faces and some new one’s sharing their work in a celebration of women.

I’ve decided to keep the theme of starting with a quote this time from Sappho a renowned poet, mother, wife and teacher in her day sadly the majority of her work is destroyed and only fragments survive. Why wife? Sappho was married and her husband supported her writing and teaching methods they had a daughter together and Sappho considered that the greatest gift several of the surviving fragments are about her husband Cercylas a merchant and daughter Cleis named after her mother. "I have a beautiful child [pais] who looks like golden flowers, my darling Cleïs, for whom I would not (take) all Lydia or lovely”

Classical poetry and history is something I’ve always been interested in especially the women’s voice and how often it seems to be overlooked feel free to share your opinions on our facebook group or page and enjoy the following work.

We have prose and traditional poetry formats for you to explore I am just a gatekeeper and today the door is open once more.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

6

Biographical Note: Chitralekha Sreejai Chitralekha Sreejai is an aspiring writer with a deep passion in eastern and western literature, art and music. She published her first book of poems titled 'The Divine Hand In The Dark ' with India books, Kerala. Her writings have appeared in some of the widely popular Indian magazines like Woman's Era and Alive (Delhi press magazines), online issues of The Khaleej Times (UAE), The Galway Review, Eastlit and Writer’s Ezine. Her poem in Writer’s Ezine was chosen for their 'Exceptional poem award’. She currently resides in Letterkenny, Ireland with her family. She earned her PhD in Sanskrit from India.

7

Spring (Chitralekha Sreejai)

The spring is here, cutting the last sheet of ice, Bringing a bloom, a fragrance and a song for every heart.

My mind wanders in bliss, in these green grasslands, Where the wild yellow blooms shivered in the morning chill; The mist had blinded my heart, my thoughts and my sight, Till the slant of the sun knocked it over and filled my eyes.

The dainty white daisies smiled in a half daze And dandelions burst and flew in the blind blue sky.

The mind now reflects like a mirror, The colors that drowned in last night’s sorrow.

I saw the cherries finally burst their heart in love And flush the fair face of the country road: Deep unspoken love, held in a sadness That lingered in each other for a very long time!

A leaf stood brown by the edges, clinging, Past the fall, past the hard winter; I breathed slow, lest my breath should bring, The courageous leaf rattling down.

As if from another life, a home stood alone on the hills, 8

Eyes notice things unnoticed before, The hedge behind flowers, an untrodden road, The sting of familiarities, the imprints of lives!

I looked at my reflection in the clear crystal lake, Often forgetful of how it looks like, It looks still as deep and strange as long ago!

To me, other faces are remembered easier; Some seem familiar from across other lives But no one seems such a stranger, As the one that looked at me from the lake.

The wind died, the mist and the small rain; The light waned behind the thick pines And the cry of the cicadas filled the evening.

I saw the chrome buds sleep on the chest of the hills And the old tree gnarled and twisted, With a single crimson bloom pressed within its heart.

The clouds hid behind the high perch of the mounds And disappeared into the deep green ponds.

I leave them, etched somewhere, these satiating spirits of nature; I wrote like a child and hoped they would grow on me someday, To reminisce sometimes when the pall of gloom fall, When there is a little mess of everything And I want to lose my way amidst the green of the spring And the love of the cherry blooms.

9

Biographical Note: Eithne Lannon

Eithne Lannon is a native of Dublin and teaches in Kilbarrack. She has had work published in Skylight 47, Issue 6, A New Ulster, Issue 28, and in the anthology, Agamemnon Dead. She does regular open mics and has cohosted the Gladstone Readings and read at Skerries Soundwaves Festival, September, 2015

10

resonance (Eithne Lannon)

to talk with you, opening the sea of your body into the spaces spread between us; word-openings to bring water creatures not yet born into breathing air, passing through memory-dust beyond the enormous bowl of darkness, into the sound-waves that vibrate you this resonance is ours.

11

Glendalough (Eithne Lannon)

There’s something new in the rainmist morning, an earth-washed feel to the moist water-light hanging in slow levitations, drippling in small surface ripples onto a wide lake like weightless mayflies toeing water.

A wet air gleam bathes your face and rain begins to fall, to gather and slide over rucked skin, a steady drop stopping on your nose, your chin, it fills till its weight slithers it down through thick gliding air, a brim filled spilling over vanishing thresholds, bodies raptured in slow-falling water, prayer in motion and the wide open godness of all.

12

our silence (Eithne Lannon)

is an old friend we share our eyes our fingers our hands we are alone together

13

Biographical Note: Mari Maxwell Mari's work is forthcoming in Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women (Kasva Press, Israel) in April 2016. And, All Ages Poetry Anthology: Short Poems Ain't Got Nobody To Love. She placed second in the 2015 Dromineer Literary Festival Poetry Competition. Her work was longlisted in the 2015 RTE Guide/Penguin Short Story contest. She has been published online and in print in the USA, Ireland, India, Brazil and the UK. She was chosen to attend the 2015 John Hewitt International Summer School. She is working on a poetry collection honouring her late mother; a short story collection; and, her first novel.

14

Robins at Castlerock By Mari Maxwell

There’s a robin I see.

Breast as red, red can be.

In and out the hedgerow it dips and dives.

It’s cheeky.

Perky.

Pip in its wings.

Zip in its feet.

Lightly it trips, turns, then begins again.

Body no bigger than my palm, and the cherry pulsating chest.

Imagine my surprise to find you here – Mom. • • •

In that spry robin.

In the miles and miles of unravelling waves.

Images in the seafoam; you and me on a

Wexford beach.

•

Atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington.

15

•

You gazing at me in consternation that final month:

“You’re so kind.”

We have travelled so far, you and me – Almost six years on – death by elder abuse, anguish, and trauma of broken Irish systems.

Systemic corruption.

We fall, pick up, and begin again.

Women power.

Now I soak in our memories.

Lather in the sea foam, mist, and wind.

Inishowen lighting my way.

Tucked in Lough Foyle’s embrace with Mussenden overseeing it all The Great Atlantic.

You make me smile, Mom. Again.

16

Dancehall Fever

By Mari Maxwell

Milly loved the slide of pantyhose against pantyhose. Bernard loved the heels. The high stilettos, bright shiny red and her sheer black hose. And on the dance floor it was magic.

Milly’s ramrod spine, the swing of arm, leg and thigh. Tango. Foxtrot. Rock Around the Clock.

And they did.

The travelling music man sang the country blues, twanging electric guitar. Rockabilly has-been, playing his weekly gig.

Milly didn’t care. It was the music that moved her. So yes, she took her Bernard by the hand. Disjointed fingers and jittery gait. Let the music lead. Heel to toe – stuttering gliding with practised ease.

Oh, that man still had it. high stilettos, bright shiny red and her sheer black hose. And on the dance floor it was magic.

Milly’s ramrod spine, the swing of arm, leg and thigh. Tango. Foxtrot. Rock Around the Clock.

And they did.

The travelling music man sang the country blues, twanging electric guitar. Rockabilly has-been, playing his weekly gig.

Milly didn’t care. It was the music that moved her. So yes, she took her Bernard by the hand. Disjointed fingers and jittery gait. Let the music lead. Heel to toe – stuttering gliding with practised ease.

Oh, that man still had it.

17

Cheek to cheek they owned the floor. Tango 3 o’clock turn, quarter to the hour and twist. Fifty years of turns, dips and slides.

“Not bad for some auld wans,” she said.

“I could have danced all night,” Bernard crooned.

And oh, my! Milly still felt a warm rush of love.

18

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 March 2016 See www.jswatts.co.uk for further details.

A r a c

19

Arachne in Love (J.S.Watts) Eight clenched fingers in a tight black fist, a Gordian knot of frustrated desire.

I have hidden from myself in this silken tomb, crying my hope with the skill of a liar.

I have spun and spun till my body ached, until salt tears dried and the pattern broke.

Shrouds and shadows I have made coloured by love, tainted by hope.

And so I’ve waited through the weaving of time, in gossamer cobwebs of a life's unbraiding, always doubting your distant voice could share my song or be my saving.

Your music unpicked the self-loathing I'd made, dusty and black, to veil myself in, as one day soon the world will unwind to unmake me into what I have been.

So killing time, I smile as I weave and spin more songs from the body's love.

The notes entwine with the music you bring to form a silk that will never give.

And though far from me, wherever you go, harmony kisses this thread that we've made.

Your gentle threnody caresses my pain, teaching me patience in this silk hung grave.

20

SISTER LOGIC (J.S.Watts) Too many nights I have lain awake counting sheep instead of lovers.

Listening to peewits calling their lost children across empty fields; to a lonely wind hunting through the trees.

All I can do is hug my yearning to my chest and wait for morning.

But some nights she is there, in the shadows, across from my bed.

Standing, patient, waiting for the tears to subside.

Not helping, only watching.

She will not sully herself with my chaos.

Hers is a humourless face: cold grey eyes, a steady hand.

She has all the passion of a nun.

In truth, she could pass as such; her greyness as much a habit as her calm.

A sister of solitude, not of mercy.

No, not of mercy.

Hers is no tortured god, bleeding his passion on a crowded hill, demanding love in return for his death.

She would never tolerate such confusion.

Her only god is reason. Where there is knowledge there is no room for faith, or doubt. Or love either.

So there she stands, counting tears instead of drying them, while my world falls apart yet again.

Each tear drop reflecting her dispassion, while her eyes only show me my pain.

Yet for all this we are sisters, this paragon and I.

21

But she remains a stranger, this sister self.

Two sides of a double mirror, both reflecting outwards.

One side cracked and darkened, the other side reflecting with painful clarity.

Two sides of the same whole. but only one is crying.

22

WILD CHILD (J.S.Watts) In the darkest hour of night I sometimes hear a voice crying.

She rails against the failings of the light, A dream that is dying.

Although still young she has already met despair And, real or imagined, emotions beyond my knowing.

She breathes in anguish as others breathe in air, Harvests sorrows that others have been sowing.

Her pain grows from a need she cannot name, A yearning she will not voice.

I sense there is no one else to blame For, if truth be told, she has a choice.

The pain is hers, she has built it, Nurturing, like an oyster with a bitter pearl.

She could learn to walk instead of run towards it.

She could turn away and learn to face the world.

A wild child, child of the night, She longs to love but will let no one hold her.

She is scared of the dark, but fearful of the light.

She wants to laugh, but lets her tears enfold her.

Whatever lessons others learn, She remains a child in thought and heart.

I am already old beyond my years.

How can I hope to take a part, To share her joys or calm her tears?

I envy her her times of glory, Cannot begin to understand her fears.

There is no order to the thoughts she suffers.

There is no reason to the thing she has become.

I cringe at the words she utters, To her rampant joys remain quite numb And maybe it is me who is lacking, And maybe hers is the world to come.

In the darker hours of night I sometimes hear a voice crying.

It rails against the failings of the light But I do not know whose dreams are dying.

23

Biographical Note: Marthalyn Seavey

Marthalyn began writing poetry in the late 1970’s as a personal journal, without any intention of publishing her work. After a ten year marriage ended in divorce, she was left alone to raise her two young children in 1978. She realized the importance of her continuing education went back to the University of Southern Maine and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1988, thus beginning a new journey toward her selfhealing and personal growth as a woman becoming.

24

The Story of Her‌ (Marthalyn Seavey) the child knew them round and real red tempers caustic hot searing tongues sharp metal words flashing gnashing colliding crashing she felt their scorn and watched it castrate all her dreams and natural senses with physician precision until far too late there was nothing left but the fractured fate of her childhood lost time and space has changed her place she can see them now like etchings flat and frozen blue they cannot move nor make a sound like paper-doll-cutouts flimsy and worn torn into pieces without any form‌ the child has gone and in her place a woman’s song rises up on high with power strong and gentle wings her soul takes flight above it all she can finally see her own full nature 25

and her own identity and it has made her forever free

26

Biographical Note: Marie C Lecrivain

Marie C Lecrivain is the editor of The Whiteside Review: A Journal of Speculative/Science Fiction, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and writer-inresidence in her apartment. She's the author of several works of poetry and fiction, including The Virtual Tablet of Irma Tre (Š 2014 Edgar & Lenore's Publishing House), and Grimm Conversations (Š 2015 Sybaritic Press).

27

In the bonds of Qliphoth (Marie C Lecrivain) "You want to know where they are?

They are not with us. If we can get what we want, we know where they are, we will get them."

(Boko Haram Commander, on the missing 200 girls, “Vice” 2/5/16) I. Devolution, happening in real time, on screen, the throaty chuckle that precedes your boast, the horrific grin the blur can't quite mask. It was astute of you to request anonymity. I can see the journalist, caught between expose and that other ancient instinct to protect the heart’s treasure has the good sense to sit - and be silent.

II. That the world contains creatures like you continues to astonish me. I have no moral compass by which to measure you. Though evolution has given us the same accoutrements, I take into account your possible formative years - child of war and chaos, pure hell imprinted on you from the moment you drew that first shaky breath and tasted death What could I know of you, the forces and dogma that shaped and reshaped you into a harbinger

28

who regards all those outside himself with no exceptions - as the enemy?

III. No. This intellectual examination has not made me feel better or dissolved my disgust. No. I must be truthful; there’s hatred in my heart, a common thread between us.

The desire to see you blasted down to a bit of bone, a bloody stain absorbed into the earth Yes, this makes me smile, and comforts me in a way that leads to a good night’s sleep.

I see we are brothers, beasts to the very end.

I hope you die first.

29

Sue Storm at 55 (Marie C Lecrivain)

Light has its uses, as do the shadows whose cooling effect I use on a daily basis. From girl to woman, I suppose it’s time to admit the daily Supergal regime doesn't agree with me anymore. I want to relax, ditch the spandex and heels, and be free to wear sweatpants, let my hair gray, and wax poetic about the good old days when I could defeat Doctor Doom with one psionic flick of my wrist. And then, I want to gamble, drink wine, and have fun.

What will happen when I disappear?

I’ll get my life back. I’ve nothing to fear.

30

The Case Against Reincarnation (Marie C Lecrivain)

There were-at first- the signs and sighs that escaped her lips like dissidents from a gulag.

And then there were those achingly familiar moments when his warm hand, draped over the back of her neck, became a collar that tightened against The questions she tried to ask: Why was she here? And when did love become a punishment?

At night, his body reeked of apnea and privilege, and polluted her dreams with a fog so dense that not even dawn could dissolve from her memory.

Once in a awhile she'd almost catch it in the sick smile that spread across his face at the sight of her tears‌ the cruelty, so dear and forbidding.

Almost - but not quite.

31

Biographical Note: Amy Barry

Amy Barry writes poems and short stories. Her poems have been published in anthologies, journals, and e-zines, in Ireland and abroad.

Travels to India, Nepal, China, Bali, Paris, Berlin, have all inspired her work. She lives in Athlone, Ireland.

32

Mother’s Magic (Amy Barry) She wields a kitchen knife with the deftness of a skilled chef, paring back the skin of lobster.

Mother cooks by estimation, not measurement, adding and multiplying flavours as they fuse in the pan.

She tastes, then adjusts the seasonings scooping up spoonfuls of mint green mango, lemon grass and pineapple.

The rice bubbles in the pot, she tilts her coffee brown eyes and licks her lips, sensuously, like Nigella Lawson Mother’s hot chilli lobster explodes in the mouth.

33

Biographical Note: Neil Ellman

Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published more than 1,200 poems, many of them ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern art, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. His latest chapbook, Mind Over Matta (Flutter Press, 2015), consists of poems based on the abstract-surrealistic art of Chile's Roberto Matta Echaurren.

34

The Jungle (Wilfredo Lam, painting) (Neil Ellman) No quiet jungle in this exuberance of life a gathering of fish, flesh and fowl having come to feed as children of the selfsame god who gave them breath to recreate their kinds in perfect harmony and then to die in each other’s jaws.

Suspended Disbelief (Wendell Castle, sculptured furniture)

From a particular perspective a slab of steel appears a rose but it isn’t a rose, of course, anymore than an actor in purple robes on a proscenium stage beneath wash lights is Henry IV himself.

We know that there are differences between a rose, a monarch and a slab of steel, we think for one brief moment that the steel is alive and can breathe and grow like a genuine rose and is no slab of steel suspended as we are between belief and disbelief In the mindless stupor of an audience watching our lives pass by on the thrust of a stage as if it would never end as if it were as true as a slab of steel.

35

Atomic Kiss (Joan Rabascall, painting) (Neil Ellman) At critical mass on soft earth, soft sky like parted lips open to promises and deceits a tongue on fire a beginning, the end, all possibilities of heaven and earth explodes in a cloud of light.

36

The Furniture of Time (Yves Tanguy, painting) (Neil Ellman) I We should have known there was nothing out there among the ruins of the ruins bitten to the marrow of their bones by wind and rain by a trinotate of spiders ants and rats a skeleton of a time that was forgotten by the history told in the yellowing pages of half-read, forgotten books that survived the fire and the eating frenzy of the past.

II We have come to this place with no where else to go ordinary travelers on their way to wherever the road may lead without the hope of deliverance, salvation or grace, we will take any form, any shape assume any countenance survival may demand.

III Ours is the journey from nowhere to here from the shape of a spoken word to the incoherence of wind in a world without a grammar of its own.

37

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 )

As well as being a regular contributor to A New Ulster his writing has appeared in : Abridged, Angle (UK), The Bogman's Cannon, Bone Orchard, Colony, Danse Macabre ( USA ), Deepwater Online Literary Review, The Galway Review, Levure Littéraire ( Fr ), Outburst, One ( USA ), Paysages Écrits ( Fr ) Poetry Bus, and The Stony Thursday Book.

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.

38

Waiting (Peter O’Neill)

Your voice caught the blade and lightning in the sky, its gentle tremors made the girls cry, while illuminating the firmament above the copse of trees on the hill.

Up there where the billowing clouds pass appearing as if from some factory, while below a couple of wanderers stroll, off on some divine quest, some sacred comedy; out from the wood of Grimm, which begot some dark, terrible thing.

Not ever seeing the cloud from the wood but only ever this solitary tree, your vision being framed by it as it stands outside your apartment window, where you are waiting, still.

39

Ballybaa Trahissons, trahissons, la traĂŽtre pensĂŠe.

Beckett

for Judy Hegarty Lovett

And Molloy stood there in the field, looking at the shepherd with his flock like some old bollocks. And, as he did, images of transhumance flooded his mind, sweet and gentle tales of Cain & Abel and Co. bringing about a Beethovenean calm, before the storm.

That is, of course, before the fixed con Moran appeared, with his pitiful offspring.

The pair a travesty on bicycle, lost in a wood una selva oscura, camped innocently there without an apparent beast in sight, but for the sheep grazing, like lambs before the slaughter.

40

Dwelling (Peter O’Neill)

Up on the raised plateau, the habitus, a two-bedroom apartment with a singular tree planted before it like a standard into the earth; an elm not olive.

This bolt-hole, your hideaway in the unending storm. All about you the panoramic vision. The Irish Sea to one side of you, the Black Hills to another. And up above you the wood in Ardgillan, where Dante and Virgil wandered, and where you must now follow them in; such is your next task.

Now that a new year comes, bringing with it further opportunity and fresh disaster.

Di quibis imperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes .

1

41

Rabelais (Peter O’Neill)

From Gilgamesh to Beckett, literature is full of atrocious family stories.

In fact, one could be so bold as to say that literature is but the entire atrocious story of the human family. The story of Jesus being a prime example; what is he but a physical embodiment of the idealism of Socrates and Plato – the greatest good, the superlative!

The impossible ideal of realisation.

Metaphors are downright dangerous in the minds of the wholly unimaginative.

When you're full of shit, literally, best accept it.

42

The Godot Tree (Peter O’Neill)

The Godot tree has roots in blood.

It stands alone planted in the field, a talisman or banner of despair of hope ever hoped for ever-after.

As solitary as a Steinway upon the stage, within its wood play the sonata for suicides unlimited, their unconcealment.

While around it joke the eternal pair.

Dante & Virgil meet Totò and Fabrizi.

The whole Greco-Roman -Judean farce.

Words turning in on words, their unending possibility, their divinity.

43

And ours which is contained in the silence. 1. You gods, who hold the domain of spirits!

You voiceless shades! Virgil: Aenied, Book VI, line 264. Translated by H. R. Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard, 1999.

Mare Nostrum (Peter O’Neill) nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentis umoris longo in spatio pertundera saxa?

Lucretius Your silence envelopes me like a sea, particularly when I sit at the kitchen table.

It rushes up against me in currents, holding me fast to the leather chair.

Hands bound, arms tied, with duct tape on my mouth, I try to cry out but all I can manage to hear is the thin sound of graphite, scripting its way across the sheets.

How long can I thread water like this?

I have no idea. Like stone I endure, weathering the oncoming waves. Erode.

Our death will be piecemeal. The slow almost imperceptible annihilation of memory, like water dripping, down through millennia, upon stone.

44

Sansperata After Sciola (Peter O’Neill)

Rimbaud called for the systematic Déréglement de tous les sens – colouring the vowels, which you read and later heard, echoing through the stones of the nuragi.

The sonority of granite whispers to you with all of the tenderness and softness of the flesh of the peaches of Sansperata, where I wish to hear again

the stony lament in the basalt of the pips embedded in the hill of stone structures, echoing above the silence about your lips.

This rock retains walls of sound, its spectre, just as your hands press inwardly upon the untraceable braille of your love.

45

2001 - At Italo’s In memorium (Peter O’neill)

It was high summer, the Emperor’s month! the temperature down on the street was in the mid-thirties. We walked in the shade, I following carefully your every move.

When we arrived at your father’s apartment your whole family seemed to be there.

The television was up full volume, Berlusconi’s beauties flew high on the trapeze.

Old and young alike clamoured.

I took a seat to sit back from it all, the casino.

Count Ugolino’s castle winked at me from its hill.

When your grandmother, almost a centenarian, approached me with a glass of grappa.

We raised glasses before she said, “Here’s mud in your eye!”

46

Democracy and Freedom (Peter O’Neill)

Power is fluid, such is Foucault.

The body being politicised; the zones of contention are highly eroticised: the anus, phallus‌

and the clitoris, and breasts.

Such are the hotspots, the fleshy fields of Armageddon. We stand together at the frontier, our guns in hand.

The tension is fraught with possibility.

Submission and domination, who gets to rule and be ruled?

Hence our obsession with role play.

Power is fluid, the body being politicised.

Your clitoris and breasts, the keys to my deliverance.

47

La petite morte (Peter O’Neill)

The resolution of violence is a preoccupying theme, dictating as it must issues such as sex, love and the many forms of death.

These days you think more often than not of la petite morte, or the little deaths, upon climaxing; the head goes limp only to nestle upon your shoulder.

Nature’s ergonomics. Vitruvius In extensor! Designer living.

The perfect symmetrical fits.

Yet, such a death should be imbued with the whole struggle to realise it; body and soul being exhausted with the effort.

48

Biographical Note: Strider Marcus Jones

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and ex civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wo rdpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between forests, mountains, cities and coasts playing his saxophone and clarinet in warm solitude.

49

MONACLE (Strider Marcus Jones) remote ramblings, stepped and spoken; like gamblings that bloomedonly to be broken, wandered and roomed, waited on quiet landings like squandered perfumeleft open. marxist marches. mithril kisses under gothic archesrole playing elf and cleric in cold caves removed from Berek the Halfhand's chronicle, seem mesmericwhen seen through monacle. but the other eye looks back too, inside this rhapsody with you; and the lightswitched off. switched on. off, and on, loving day and nightthrough prose phases and shared phrases of captured sun and moonlike mellow yellow, stroking white witches broom; knows nature's laws has moods and flaws in her quietudesthat reason cause, and fathom clues.

50

MAVERICKS (Stider Marcus Jones) you taste of cinnamon and fish when you wish to be romanticand the ciphers of our thoughts make ringlets with their noughts immersed in magiclike mithril mail around me stove dark forest, pink flesh sea touchings tantricmake reality and myths converge in elven riffs of music, so we dance itsymbols to the scenes of conflict, mavericks in dreams that now sitlistening to these pots and kettles blackening on the fire of rhetoric and murderous mettlesbefore we both retire to our own script.

51

REJECTING OVID (Strider Marcus Jones) the fabulous beauty of your faceso esoteric, not always in this placebeguiles me. it's late, mesmeric smile is but a base, a film to interface with the movements of the mind behind it. my smile, melike Thomas O'Malley the alley cat reclining on a tin bin lid with fishy whiskersturns the ink in the valley of your quills into script, while i sit and sip your syllables with fresh red sepals of habiscus, rejecting Ovid and his Amores for your stories.

52

EVER AFTER TOMORROW (Stider Marcus Jones) throw all your dreams in a bottle of riverso they can sink and drag you down slow; pick out their seams, make them gone from the giverover the brink, but dont let it show. drowning, just drinkyou're a spectral forgiver, shades have the means to laugh at each blowlife is to think, it is for the beginner, but less than it seems ever after tomorrowthe cover of sleep screams awake and gives her love with body, scribed with ink inside a rainbow.

53

REJOICE TO LATE SLEEP (Strider Marcus Jones) my speech, isnt gold or new, but it does reach, reach for you; and it smiles, subtle, like lunar lightthrough the miles to you, tonight. my voice, isnt smooth or deep, but you are its rejoice, rejoice to late sleepas this ash, old atoms of renown from smoked cigarettes, blows away, burned downlike old regrets. our conversation laughs out of its midden, on two converging paths whose journey has been hidden. my promises, are not bold or bright, but their nuances hold in natural lightthe glimmering in your tape of dreams, turning, then shimmering as they become real scenes.

54

Biographical Note: 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 A New Ulster, The Copperfield Review, The Medical Journal of Australia, and Medical Humanities.

55

A Villanelle vis-à-vis Jeanne d’Arc (Michael Leach)

Jeanne d’Arc’s virtue is an enduring motif.

It keeps the pristine pages turning In a timeless story of courage and belief.

Jeanne was a humble French girl from a rural fief Who boldly voiced her divine yearning.

Jeanne d’Arc’s virtue is an enduring motif.

Jeanne spun wool with her mother and then turned a leaf.

Her role changed despite the male spurning In a timeless story of courage and belief.

Though her stint in Charles VII’s army was brief, Jeanne helped keep the kingdom from crumbling.

Jeanne d’Arc’s virtue is an enduring motif.

Jeanne rode, bore a pure standard, and spoke like a chief.

Inspired French soldiers kept returning In a timeless story of courage and belief.

Jeanne stood firmly by France and her Christian beliefs, Even when her chaste flesh was burning.

Jeanne d’Arc’s virtue is an enduring motif In a timeless story of courage and belief.

56

Biographical Note: Al Millar

From Donegal, lives and works in north Antrim. Loves English language used well. Keen interest in Scots vernacular poetry in Ulster. In 2014, edited with biography and introductions 'Frae the Causey to Apolaypse' the poems in Ulster-Scots and English by John McKinley of Dunseverick.

Enjoy writing poetry and prose in English and vernacular, and both together. Outside of literature hobbies include climbing hills in Antrim, Donegal, in fact any beautiful hill anywhere, also politics, and eating nice food.

57

Run close wee Sitka, run close

By Alan Millar Run free wee doggie, run free, On the path by the river, run free, Gambolling ahead, bounding ahead, Run free wee Sitka, run free.

So supple the trunks of our Alders, Slender sensations of sway Spritely she dashes between them, The Sitka dog is away.

What comes, wee doggie, what comes?

Harsh growl frae the north, what comes?

November’s blast, is closing fast, It comes, wee Sitka, it comes!

Blow, howling dreich frae the north, Hurling caule rain through the Cutts, Straight up the flooding grey Bann, To sporting wee Sitka, and us!

Run close wee Sitka, run close, On the path by the river, run close; Spooked by the trees, the thunderous breeze, Keep close wee Sitka, keep close!

58

Our Alder wood tree tops are roaring; The gale convulses the grove, The sleet howls in like a mad dog, Driving Sitka out of her rove!

Keep tight young Sitka, keep tight, On the path by the river, keep tight; Her tail driven down, by the ‘terrible’ sound, Keep tight wee Sitka, keep tight.

Our shared awareness of danger, Excites as we pass underneath, How easy these ‘swaying sensations’, Could crush our doggie beneath!

You’re safe young Sitka, you’re safe, The tholing young Alders stay safe, No cracks or breaks, just creaks and shakes, We’re safe, young Sitka, we’re safe.

Some blast swept in, in November, Twas pantheism majestic supreme, Run free our sitting room Sitka, Sport, with a touch of ‘extreme’!

59

Biographical Note: Matt Duggan Matt Duggan won the Erbacce prize for poetry 2015. His poems have appeared in many journals and magazines such as The Seventh Quarry, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The New Ulster, Section 8, The Dawntreader, Roundyhouse, Poetry Quarterly, Illumen, Yellow Chair Review, Jawline Review, Carillon, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Vagabonds, Lunar Poetry Magazine, The Screech Owl, Message in a Bottle, OF/With, IANASP, The Stare’s Nest, The Cobalt Review, Sarasvati, Expound, Ex-Fic, Trysts of Fate. Matt created and hosts a spoken word evening at Hydra Bookshop in Bristol U.K called ‘An Evening of Spoken Indulgence’and is also the co- editor with Simon Leake of a political poetry magazine called ‘The Angry Manifesto’. Matt can sometimes be found scribbling poems on bar-matts in the dark shadows of some Bristol pub or wandering the Quantocks for the perfect view.

60

Hermaphroditos (Matt Duggan) Idle oak that twists grey sky; like clouds towering in a ruin.

A young boy strolls in evening shade where the water screams for angelic sin; Simmering pool the tones of a feminine cry, he swam in the waves of her hymn in the warm water of his seductress, she had pleaded with GOD to be with one.

Their bodies combined cursing the water, an androgynous curse that would become entwining in both of their breaths; as beautiful daughter and dutiful son.

61

City of Light Lungs are tired - eyes weeping from grey fumes rats scurry across the rails where words are minimal looks rare; I see this madness in future cities our circular day - hours on repetition, camera rotates from pathway to aluminium towers – where we all walk in uncomfortable unison.

Though we see and watch the pristine mirror Reflections of the spotless and clean, We can and will see beyond the immediate a crack in the program - a digital extreme, that within the split of mirror are the true views of a city besieged; We smell only gutters of excrement and odour hurtling blue lights choking the canvas of evening, Where screams of madness bellow from top floor flats vinegary eyes blinded by black urine, a moon chalked in the sky like a gargoyle stares at the closed gates, chained onto iron lips - a seer injured by man-made daylight.

62

Jarrow and Bull This corruptible soul of the sown earth will spoil the wick of man’s cracked whip, through forest and raptures curse, shed the manacles of man’s ownership.

Milk the soil – freshen the lips, we will all march again in the name of Jarrow and Bull never for selfish or political means; No longer the programme inside the digital Eden that they control, we will all march again in the name of Jarrow and Bull.

Prozac trooper – the sociopathic trader are all under patriarch rule when man strips away his flesh unwiring himself from the looking glass; Where the gate keeper rests in the mirage of this unhinged paradise, we will all march again in the name of Jarrow and Bull.

63

Venice At Night Arriving in the darkness into a city on water under rialto hooks – Rustic charm of houses like concrete faces on stilts; I walk alone in this city beneath salt Where at night I move through thin alleys bleached with half-lite gas flames, a Jetty like swirling ice cream cones, I am that stranger pacing the slurps of San Marco the eye bestriding a black ripple of canals, where one short wave resembled the whiteness of bones.

64

The Heart That Had Two Eyes How the heart has split partly sleeping in the shade awake on a bed of auburn caught in the light; Inside a house that has a heart with two eyes.

My darkest retreats are those guilty pleasures – eurythmic bones and sinews exercised without any words from a siren that duplicates sweat from a stare, though my heart excites and grows as I’m never sad when I leave her bed; knowing that over each shoulder we’ll both be looking into the rear view mirror for someone else’s fragile heart.

My lighter retreats are the warmth and comforting essence that my heart receives in wondrous fulfilment like the eye of heaven uninterrupted; How the heart has split partly sleeping in the shade.

65

Biographical Note: Michael Minassian

MICHAEL MINASSIAN lives in San Antonio, Texas.

His poems have appeared in such journals as The Aurorean, The Broken Plate, Exit 7, Poet Lore, and The Meadow. He is also the writer/producer of the pod cast series Eye On Literature. Amsterdam Press published a chapbook of poems entitled The Arboriculturist in 2010.

66

THE BREAK UP (Michael Minassian) You told me that love felt like a pair of handcuffs; the reasons are not clear even to me; you are too old for this seeming teenage angst.

Last night, you fell asleep on my couch after we came home from dinner; you told me that love felt like a pair of handcuffs.

I watched TV and massaged your feet, but you pushed me away when I touched your breast; you are too old for this seeming teenage angst.

Instead of sex, I listened to you snore; you woke up once and belched then fell asleep again.

You told me that love felt like a pair of handcuffs.

“Is it still raining?” you said in your sleep; I didn’t need the whole rain forest, just one leaf. you are too old for this seeming teenage angst.

In the letter you complain, twice, that I have not called, but I stopped caring long before that; you told me that love felt like a pair of handcuffs; you are too old for this seeming teenage angst.

67

BLAKE’S TYGER First, my students want to know why he misspells tiger; then they complain that tigers don’t have wings.

“Why shoulder? Why art?” they cry.

The notion of the blacksmith shop baffles them even after I explain Blake used it to represent the creative process, which they reject as just another annoying self reference, although they give him credit for not mentioning himself in the 3rd person or using the annoying I of the confessional poets.

“The stars stand for angels?” they question; “Why are they carrying spears and not automatic weapons – surely if its God’s army, they are not limited to a temporal time line or primitive weaponry – doesn’t God have access to all future armament?

This is a very confusing poem, professor, and didn’t he remember he used “could” in the first stanza?”

68

THREE DAYS AFTER THE 4TH OF JULY

Three days after the 4th of July there are no signs of rebellion, only a rain soaked dawn, the air as thick as wet bread, the sky the color of black tea.

Across the street, a door flies open; my neighbor in shorts, t-shirt, & flip flops walks in circles on his lawn, spilling whiskey & scattering ice cubes like precious stones along the path leading to his garage.

He waves at me like a drowning man signaling for a life jacket.

“Hey,” he yells, “don’t write this shit down.” And I want to tell him to write his own life backwards if that will help, to pass the point where he can see the future.

“One more nail in the coffin,” my neighbor yells as he lights a cigarette and I retreat indoors, pretending to surrender, waving my notebook like a white flag, spreading across the wide continent.

69

EYES ON THEIR SHOULDERS The Anthropophagi return from their voyage claiming not to know me, but I can tell they are lying by the way they shrug their headless shoulders eyes shifting right and left.

All winter long they gather firewood for snow bound barbeques and grow fat with what others will not eat; in spring, they shave their eyebrows and crook their arms appearing like midwives carrying babies as they lull their victims to sleep, singing: “summer is for lovers, your flesh baker’s loaves.”

70

WHITE HORSE THROUGH THE FOG Late one night on a Fresno highway, I’m on my way to a bar to meet a girl named Shirley: the fog is so thick I have to peel it from the windshield.

Up ahead, a shadow moves across the soup of my headlights – suddenly a white horse emerges from the fog, its breathe coming in ivory curls from flaring nostrils black with fear.

I slam on the brakes – It is like something in a Neruda poem Or a movie by Bruñuel: Le cheval blanc.

Later, in Shirley’s bed, I put my head on her breast as she squeezes me with her thighs, and her breath comes in short invisible manes.

Amid the knocking of her heart, I can hear the hoof beats of other rider less horses racing to roads that lead to this night of fog and fire I have placed like discarded dreams along the highway of these cool white sheets.

71

Biographical Note: Darren Demaree

Darrens poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including the South Dakota Review, Meridian, The Louisville Review, Diagram, and the Colorado Review.

He is the author of "As We Refer To Our Bodies" (2013, 8th House), "Temporary Champions" (2014, Main Street Rag), "The Pony Governor" (2015, After the Pause Press), and "Not For Art Nor Prayer" (2015, 8th House). Darren is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology.

He currently lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

72

WARM #1 (Darren Demaree)

Turned to the seed & free to be a hawk, I roll on my back

in the middle of gravity’s weight & I drop the would

be crop back to the earth, not because I don’t need

it, but because I am happy to find it all over again.

73

WARM #2 The sound is the hinge & with grease a song!

How often while waiting do I think there will be no steel in the notes, but there is always more frame than I planned.

I expect too much from the swing of the world.

74

WARM #3

On the occasion the afternoon is caught bedspreading over my face, I hear the giggle & almost touch of my internal landscape & I know that the precision of the deep work is going to spill all over me.

75

Biographical 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 Crannog,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 the anthologies 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.

76

Mata Hari Meets Shiva’s Revenge (Jack Grady) “The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.” ― Mata Hari

He was, night after night, with his slut his slut who danced in the temple his slut whose grace could gyrate his lust and make him more drunk than his true loves – his gin and scotch

And I watched her, my husband’s slut dance the gandrung in the village and the beksan putri for the Dutch though I never danced either myself I saw enough to invent my own dance to vamp

something brazenly better something to put sweat on a man’s brow in winter something to put steam on his monocle melt ice on his boots

77

Where I once had an unfaithful and brutal husband who battered me at his whim I traded him for a hundred men turned a hundred men into philanderers and slaves a hundred wives into cuckqueans a hundred rival dancers into a silent gamelan gong

If the men weren’t mine when I began my dance with the fans they were as yoked and helplessly mine as the statue of Shiva when my body, nearly naked and dancing in Paris climaxed in its impotent arms

Men of means lavished me with jewels Generals and marquises offered me mansions if I would dance for them privately if I would let them stroke me from legs to lips if I would deign to fulfil their wildest wish while I lived in their homes or the homes they gave me

Russians, Germans, Italians, French they were all mine, my humble retainers save the Frenchman I most trusted who framed me as a spy and I heard in the wind the forgotten 78

laughter of my husband

when I could no longer dance when I was still as an ovum and awaiting the firing squad’s aim the stiff bullets’ penetration the god Shiva’s revenge

79

Louise the Red She-Wolf of Montmartre (by Jack Grady)

I have seen criminals and whores And spoken with them….

You to whom all men are prey Have made them what they are today.

– Louise Michel (1830-1905)

The red she-wolf of Montmartre, daughter of a maidservant and a chateau’s master the red she-wolf raised by a grandfather who read to her Rousseau and Voltaire

the red she-wolf who introduced the children of the poor to nature the red she-wolf who gave them pride and hope for the future

the red she-wolf always eager to sacrifice her life for strikers and workers the red she-wolf with the red carnation on the battlements and barricades of Paris

80

the red she-wolf for France and its people for neither money nor class the red she-wolf against the invader domestic or foreign

the red she-wolf who opposed the monarchists and their sell-out to Kaiser and Bismarck the red she-wolf who would never surrender the flame of justice and rage

the red she-wolf ever rekindled from the ashes of the Commune and the blood of the massacred in Père Lachaise

the red she-wolf, friend of the miners of NoumĂŠa and the Canaques enslaved on the island of her exile

the red she-wolf who snarled at every empire even the empire of France the red she-wolf a bullet was helpless to silence

the red she-wolf reincarnate 81

in an awakening Europe the red she-wolf, her fangs bared for bankers’ blood

82

The Quiet Centre (by Jack Grady) in memoriam: Edith Henrich

How from the quiet center, not the rim, each man and animal and plant must grow

--Edith Henrich, ‘The Quiet Center’, 1947

Where is the metaphor to explain it? …to say nothingness on such a scale?

--Edith Henrich, ‘Uranium 235’, 1946

She was in hospital when I walked her dog as far as Marblehead’s Fort Sewall, sat on a bench and watched ocean unroll the only road beyond

and its surf in the last light of evening launder with its foam the rocks beneath us, felt the sound of the sea’s mantra launder as well my rudderless self,

adrift too long in the grip 83

of life’s pelagic madhouse, and I pondered what destiny marooned this mick in the aristocratic town of a blind Yankee poet.

A desk, a large desk were the words she had used in the ad for a room with attached shower, a place to sit and write, grow and aspire from the quiet centre.

She told me the Hiroshima bomb made her blind, that its shock waves hammered without mercy in her head, knocked down every post that propped up her marriage, every strut and beam that kept it intact

when she discovered what her husband Louis had done in the project they called Manhattan.

First, her marriage vaporised, then her eyes died from the conflagration,

followed the thousands of disembodied souls and snuffed-out screams through her sympathetic amaurosis into the adumbral void of the unseeing unseen.

Marblehead, her haven, was her quiet centre, even in her blindness, even in the world’s darkness; 84

and a desk in a room there was mine.

My Safe Return

by Jack Grady for my mother, in memoriam

We say goodbye once more.

We say it with our eyes in a flash we both recognize that tells us this is our final goodbye.

I believe it is I who am leaving, not only to a land of endless sand and searing heat, a place thousands of miles away, a desert I read in her eyes

I will never reach, as if a war will bury me in a nameless grave or my life will end in a plane shot down by fate;

and, though she always worries 85

whenever I go for so long that she will see me no more, I am sure this time I will never come back.

Yes, I see in her eyes my death, only to learn later hers will confirm for my safe return.

86

Biographical Note: Jim Lewis

j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. When he is not otherwise occupied, he is often on a kayak, exploring and photographing the waterways near his home in California.

87

walk me home (Jim Lewis) black and white photograph small boy seen from behind one hand held out walking a dusty path oblivious to the future to danger and disappointment to delights bigger than he

you project onto him your own tired journey yearn for that moment in life when you were trouble free

but i know that boy because i am that boy who knew even at four that something was missing that an empty hand on an unknown road is terribly wrong

88

If you fancy 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!

89

March 2016’s MESSAGE MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

March has arrived and with it the storms perhaps a petition to change Spring to winter and winter to OMG where’d all the rain come from?

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”.

90

91

92

Biography: Peter O’Neill

Patrick Goodman has been involved in Star Trek RPGs and also the Shadowrun revival he is the author of several novellas

Patrick has got two novellas currently on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, ANOTHER RAINY NIGHT and SAIL AWAY, SWEET SISTER. He has a short story called “Thunderstruck” in an upcoming SHADOWRUN anthology entitled A WORLD OF SHADOWS, which is at the printers now and should be available in the very near future (perhaps by the time this issue releases). And he is wrapping up work on his next novella, RED RAIN, which should be out early next year

93

Mother's Day – Song of a Sad Mother's a novel by Carmen-Francesca Banciu, translated from the German by Zoe-Annmaria Hawkins and edited by Catherine J. Nicely, PalmArtPress, Berlin, 2015.

I brought flowers. But Mother wasn't used to flowers.

I am not dead yet, she said. I didn't know what to do with them. The fleshy roses suddenly seemed obscene.

She said: Throw them away if you can't think of anything better to do with them.

So the opening paragraph begins of this extraordinarily crafted novel by CarmenFrancesca Banciu, the second in a trilogy yet the first of her books to be translated and published in English. The translation of Banciu's tantalisingly minimalist German prose is beautifully rendered here by Zoe-Annamaria Hawkins. Also, a word of praise must be made to Catherine J. Nicely for bringing together such a finely edited volume.

The attention to the detail of the spacing of each of Banciu's carefully crafted paragraphs not only aids the reading of this unique work, but further challenges our very perception of how texts should be aligned on the page. There is no contents page, however. If there were one it would read so:Flowers for Mother, Mother's Cheeks, Mother's Neck, Mother's Feet, Mother's Womb, A Day in the Life of Mother etc.

Almost every part of Mother's anatomy is deserving of an entire chapter. It is as if the writer wishes to physically build Mother up, body part by body part, in her book.

There is even a prayer, Our Mother, in which Banciu would seem to attempt to subvert the Hail Mary, which is very apt as there is something almost biblical in Carmen-Francesca Banciu's Mother's Day – Song of a Sad Mother, in both its conception and its execution.

Beckett once said that poetry was a form of prayer, and I was reminded on more than one occasion of Beckett while reading Mother's Day, particularly Molloy and some of the later prose. Each chapter reads like a poem, or prayer. And so the second title, Song of a Sad Mother, is brought into relief. As Mother's Day questions the very structure and form of the novel on every page, thus rendering it, as Milan Kundera reminds us, of the origin of the very meaning of the term novel in the first place; that which has something new, or novel about it.

94

One is struck immediately upon opening the book of this singular quality, and it is the sign of all great writing, so that as one reads every single sentence one is reminded, at every single turning of the page, that this in no ordinary story that one is embarking upon. No. For there is something much more important going on, though story there is. It is more the way of the telling of the story that is the story, if you see what I mean. This is a form of scripture. Yet, one that has at its roots the element of subversion. But of what?

If one returns to the paragraph which opens this review, one can already identify the problem. Mother wasn't used to flowers. In this single sentence, the second in the book, the reader already senses a deep unease at all that is to follow. For are not flowers the very embodiment, or symbol, of motherhood? On Mother's Day are they not the very first thing one considers giving them in recognition for merely Be-ing!

Mother's Day, as the very title would imply, is a forensic examination of the whole theme of Motherhood, and Banciu is unflinching in the task at hand.

Set in post- war Romania under the Soviet imposed Communist regime, Banciu, with the rigour of a pathologist, dissects the corpse using the body of her heroes mother as a locus in which to do so.

NietZsche famously adhered to historic accuracy in order to generate metaphor, being a poet philosopher how could he do otherwise? Through such historicity only, he contested, could one generate enduring metaphoric truths, which could reveal ourselves to one another – unconcealment to phrase Heidegger, who in a sense although notoriously betraying his mentor in many astonishingly despicable ways, was without any doubt the only German thinker to take up the baton. Why mention this? For, Carmen-Francesca Banciu's approach to her subject is nothing less than an ontological exploration, one which corresponds with both NietZsche's ideas on metaphor, and Heidegger's thinking on unconcealment, both of which spawned the French schools of existentialism and deconstruction which came into being after the war. For Banciu's study on Motherhood is a study also in non-being; non-presence.

That is to say Being There only physically, the almost unforgivable crime of god only knows how many parents.

95

Biography: Fran Mulhern

Fran Mulhern has recently graduated from Lancaster University with an MA in Creative Writing, and is currently working on his second novel. His first is currently at the query stage with a number of agents. Fran’s prose has previously been published in The Honest Ulsterman, and his non-fiction in The Belfast Telegraph and The Irish Times. Originally from Belfast, he moved to England in 1995 and has, sadly, been here ever since. It's bittersweet.

96

You know what creative writing courses are?

A load of bollocks.

Brett Easton Ellis, the American Psycho bloke, once said that workshops are where you start to hear people saying stupid stuff about your writing. He’s not wrong, those workshops are the egoists leading the illiterate.

Trust me. Chances are anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you one so you can pay their wages while they work on their next novel about two men and a duck or something like that. You can’t teach genius but you can reinforce mediocrity and give people delusions of grandeur, and that’s what most of these courses do.

But, well, you know – whatever. I stopped teaching creative writing last year, after this here story I’m about to tell you. One thing led to another, and because of everything that happened I was able to move into screenwriting for TV. You’ve got a great sense of humour, they told me. You’re fucking hilarious, BJ. They doubled my salary, though, to get me to move from teaching into screenwriting full-time. Twenty nine grand a year, they used to pay me. Twenty nine grand! I know, I know – I’m definitely worth double that. Triple, maybe – I’m probably still underpaid.

But anyway, this story about me and your man Will Self.

It was near the end of term last year. Syria was in flames, the Russians were in Ukraine and the world was slowly flooding. And me, I’d tried to escape the monotony of marking by going to the pub with Emma. She was – still is, haven’t killed her yet – a lecturer who taught land law to first years at my university. I know, right? A lawyer and a writer – who’d have thought? But there we were – friends, with the occasional hint of something else that, even though the hint never lasted long enough to do anything about it.

It was towards the end of May, and around the time that Will Self had made the comment about George Orwell not being a very good writer. To be fair, I never really liked Orwell either, Animal Farm is a load of shite – but the enemy of my enemy and all that. So there we were, Emma and me, sitting near the front corner of the pub on little wooden stools by a little circular wooden table designed for half a person. The students had monopolised the nice tables. Bastards.

‘Oh look,’ I said as I read The Guardian. ‘There he goes again.’

‘Who?’ She didn’t look up at me.

‘Will Self. Wanker. Going on about how George Orwell is shit.’

97

She lifted her face to me. ‘You don’t like George Orwell.’ Face back in the book.

Nathan Filer’s The Shock of the Fall, if you must know. It’s about some bloke who’s, well, a bit mental. It won the Costa Book of the Year award in 2013, and it’s not bad. I once had a book considered for that award. I mean, I didn’t make the longlist – but it’s all politics, right? They thought about me though, cos I mailed them a few times to ask.

I looked up from the paper, and Emma must have sensed me staring at her because she looked up again. Right at me.

‘I know I don’t,’ I said, ‘but you’re missing the point.’

Emma pulled that face with her lips – you know the one, where people make a gesture with their mouth as if to say, go on.

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. ‘Well, yeah. I mean, no – I don’t like George Orwell. But he’s not an obnoxious twat. Will –’ ‘It’s hard to be obnoxious when you’re dead, BJ.’ ‘Ok, fair point. But Will Self isn’t dead, and he seems to find being a prick very easy.’

‘Yeah, well go tell him that.’ Back to her book.

And that’s how it started, see. Right there.

Go tell him that.

‘Okay, then,’ I said, more to myself that Emma. ‘I will.’

‘Will what?’ She didn’t even bother looking up this time.

‘Tell him. I’ll tweet that bastard.’ I pulled out my phone.

Now she looked back up, and for a second I wondered if I was in some kind of head looking competition.

‘What?’

‘Tweet him. I’ll tweet Will Self. I’ll tell him he’s an obnoxious prick.’

Emma just smiled at me as she shook her head. ‘You’re ridiculous.’ Back to the dead tree.

I fingered my screen.

Silence for a bit.

98

‘There,’ I finally said. ‘Done.’

Emma closed the book and looked right at me, like a woman who’d suddenly realised she might have left the oven on. Like a mad woman. Like my old stepmother.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did you say?’ She tilted her head and gave me a suspicious look, as if she’d caught me doing something with one of the characters in Orwell’s books. @wself You’re not fit the lick the boots of George Orwell.

‘Let me see,’ she said. I turned the screen towards her. ‘Oh, that’s not so bad.’

And she was right, it wasn’t. It was a very sedate comment. I say much worse in my sleep.

We started talking about other stuff – the novel I was still struggling with, The Camel At The Back Of The Garden That Keeps Asking Me For A Glass of Milk. It’s about a midget who lives alone in a big house until the local circus accidentally leave a camel behind one day. It’s a commentary on the state of politics in this country.

After about five minutes, my phone shouted to me that I had a Twatter notification.

Turned out it was from the bastard himself. @BJLynch I don’t WANT to lick the boots of George Orwell.

Emma laughed when I read it out.

‘Twat,’ was about all I could mutter. Then more fingering, cos I’m a fingering master, see. @wself Did you know an anagram of Will Self is Obnoxious Wanker?

I know, I know. But I couldn’t resist. Then the conversation between the two of us took on a life all of its own, back and forth, back and forth, like a donkey trying to hump a horse, or Oliver Cromwell punching a priest. @BYLynch Your profile says you’re a lecturer. Come back to me when you’ve had half the success I’ve had.(He said) @wself I don’t want half the success you’ve had. Because then I’ll be half the prick you are.(I said)

99

@BJLynch Charming. If it wasn’t for me then people like you would have nothing to talk about.(He said) @wself Really? Get off Twatter, your head needs to go back up your bum for a while.

Sometimes I get carried away. I’m the first to admit it.

‘Okay,’ said Emma as I kept her up to date over the next twenty minutes. ‘You can stop now. Probably best not to piss the powers that be off,’ she said, referring to the university management –people who made a living from peddling half-baked hopes and dreams.

I set my phone on the table and just stared at the book she was holding. She went back to reading. I just sat there staring at her book but staring at nothing.

I started to imagine I was a spy and Will Self was a KGB agent. It would be like that scene in the Borne Identity or whatever, and I’d beat Will Self to death by smacking him in the face with his own books until his head exploded. I muttered absentmindedly.

‘I’d like to punch Will Self in the face.’

‘He’s taller than you,’ Emma said without looking up. ‘But you could probably punch him in the balls.’

‘That’d work.’

‘What are you doing?’ From the corner of her eye, she saw me pick up my phone again.

‘I’m going to invite Will Self to a fight. You know, like in school.’

‘Jesus. Don’t. Really.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I won’t. Hang on a second.’

I continued playing with my screen for a bit, then put it back down.

Emma tilted her head at me again. ‘What did you do?’

I picked my phone up again, turned it on, opened the Facebook app, went to my latest status update and handed her the phone.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she said. ‘You’re going to get into trouble for that.’

‘No I won’t, don’t be silly. This isn’t fascist Spain. Even Spain isn’t fascist Spain anymore. ‘ 100

‘You will.’

‘Nah.’ ‘Fuck sake, Batterjack, you will.’

That’s my name by the way. Batterjack. Batterjack Lynch. I know, I know – it’s a ludicrous name, but my parents were weird. Dad used to insist on people calling him Blackbeard, even though his name was Willie. I could have understood, except he didn’t even have a beard. Bit mental, the ‘oul Da. And they didn’t realise people would shorten my first name to BJ. But anyway. It’s a name – Batterjack - that should belong to some big six footer, not someone who barely managed to get past five feet five.

‘Well, we’ll see if I get into trouble,’ I said.

Oh yeah. You’re wondering what my Facebook status said.

Batterjack Lynch Just saw Will Self’s comments re George Orwell. Someone needs to punch Will Self in the face. If this update gets just 500 likes, I’ll do it.

That was it.

I didn’t think anything of it for the rest of the night. Frankly, if I’d not been drinking I probably wouldn’t even have posted it, but there we go. Emma and I left the pub around ten, and to be fair I was pretty bladdered. I went home to my two bedroom house on Argos Road. It’s a terraced house, nothing very exciting – two up, two down but really one up and two down as I never used the spare room. But it was only a few miles from the university, so was convenient. Not long after getting home, I fell asleep on the sofa.

The next morning, my Facebook status had received over 200 likes – including a number of students and staff from the university. There were over twenty comments, and the general consensus seemed to be that Will Self was, indeed, an arsehole of the highest order.

There was a message on my phone too, from Emma. What the hell, BJ?, it said. Have you checked your Facebook?

I responded, told her that I had and that I was feeling quite smug about it. I was willing to bet that if Will Self had put up a post on his Facebook saying he’d offer to 101

fight me that he wouldn’t have gotten 200 likes overnight. Fuck no. Or if he did, most of the likes would be from fake Facebook accounts he set up himself.

Suddenly, I had an awesome idea.

It took me a few minutes to work out how to do it. Take a screenshot. Upload somewhere in the internet. Get link. Shorten link so it can fit into one hundred and forty eight characters and leave room for some taunting. Post link to Twitter, with message to Will Self. @wself – Here you go. Let’s have a fight, like in school. How about a boxing match?

For charity? It’ll be fun.

I put the charity bit in to try to sweeten the deal, and it was Will-Self-evident that Will Self wasn’t going to agree to a street fight. I then headed to the university – I much preferred working from my office there than from at home. If I’m working from home chances are I end up watching tv or napping or doing other stuff I shouldn’t be doing.

Yeah. That.

You see, that’s the thing with writing. People – non-writers – think writing is a pastime, that it’s something that’s, well, a bit of a hobby. But it’s not a hobby for writers, it’s a job – and like any job it’s better to separate home from work where possible. It’s definitely a job though – if writers only wrote when they felt inspired to write, well… how well would you do your job if you only did it when you felt like it?

Exactly.

I checked my phone again by the time I got to the university and, as well as a message from Emma (You’re mad), my Facebook likes now numbered over three hundred – and it still wasn’t even ten in the morning yet.

‘Hey BJ,’ said one of the undergrads as I walked into the department. ‘Heard about your Facebook thing. Brilliant.’ He walked past me before I had a chance to say anything. I admit his comment took me unawares – I really wasn’t expecting news of my offer to hit the university so quickly. But then I suppose that’s the problem with social media: once one person knows, everyone knows. @BJLynch You’re mad, and a bit mental. @wself Don’t be jealous. Hundreds of people on facebook want us to fight. Give the people what they want, William.

He didn’t respond after that, and my day continued as normal. 11am class then back to my room just after midday. Two one to one tutorials, then I settled down to chill.

102

As normal, that was, until 3pm when Derek – the Dean of English and my boss – walked into my room. Didn’t even knock. I was very busy reading a Simon Scarrow book (artistic merit, I promise), and so I didn’t see him until his long skinny face was leering over me like something from a Pink Floyd music video.

‘Derek,’ I said, surprised. I almost lost my place.

‘BJ.’ ‘Derek.’

‘BJ.’ ‘Derek.’

The silence arrived, and we faced off like two people who don’t each know what the other’s thinking.

‘What are you doing, BJ?’ Derek looked at me like I was a bit mental.

‘Reading Simon Scarrow.’ I held my book up for him to see. ‘It’s really good.’

‘Simon Scarrow’s shite, but that’s not why I’m here, I’m here because – ‘ ‘If your missus sent you, tell her I can’t tonight, I’m busy.’

Derek smiled – that always did the trick for him. Probably for his missus too, but I wouldn’t know. Never met her.

‘BJ, what’s this whole Will Self thing?’

‘Oh balls,’ I said, laughing. ‘I forgot about that.’

‘And?’ ‘I invited him to fight me. I was a bit pissed and –.’

‘I know you did,’ he said, but leaving aside the fact that you’re a fucking midget, there’s also – ‘ ‘I’m not a midget, I’m just a few inches shorter than normal height.’ I stood and stared right up at Derek to prove my point. ‘ – there’s also the fact that this makes the university look bad. Jesus, BJ, you teach this shit – it doesn’t look good if one of our lecturers invites Will Self to a fight, does it?’

‘Depends,’ I said, flopping back down into my seat.

103

‘Depends? What the fuck, depends? How does it fucking depend?’ His eyebrows were snuggling up to each other and his bottom teeth were trying to eat his top lip.

‘Come on Derek, think about it. Think of the publicity the department will get.’

Derek just stared at me, and I think he was trying to work out if I was making it up as I went along. Of course, I was, but I wasn’t going to tell him that, was I? ‘Lots of people don’t like Will Self, it’s not just me. You don’t like him, for a start.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve not offered to have a fucking punch up with him!’ He was furious now. His eyebrows had gotten divorced and his whole forehead seemed to be stretching backwards. He looked like he was having some kind of weird half-second orgasm.

‘That’s true,’ I said, breathing deep to banish that image. ‘But don’t forget, it’s not a punch up. It’s a boxing match.’

‘Yeah, it’s a fucking punch up with the world watching.’

‘Ah, Derek. Come on, if we can arrange this then it’ll go down really well with the media and we’ll be like Mecca for people like us.’

‘What the fuck has the bingo place got to do with this?’

‘No, no, fuck sake Derek. Not the bingo hall. Like the city. We’ll be like Mecca for people like us.’

‘Like us?’

‘Yeah – people who think Will Self is a prick.’

‘Oh.’ He was thinking now, but I could tell I had him on the ropes that weren’t actually there. Metaphorical ropes. The kind of ropes Will Self likes.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We can do this, it’ll be fun. Maybe we could even get him to donate some money to charity if I beat him.’

‘You’re three foot fucking nothing,’ he said. ‘You can’t beat your way out of a paper bag.’

I was indignant.

‘I’m not three foot fucking nothing. I’m five foot six, and that’s just under a foot shorter than Will Self. Element of surprise, Derek. Element of surprise.’

Derek sighed, and I could tell he’d surrendered, given in.

104

‘And just so you know, I’ve beaten my way out of loads of paper bags, you cheeky bastard.’

‘Ok,’ he said. ‘But do me a favour.’

‘What?’

‘Just leave him the fuck alone for the rest of the day. I’ll need to run it by the VC’s office. But yeah, it’s not a bad idea if it’s done right.’

‘See? Told you you’d come round,’ I said.

‘Yeah. I fucking hate you sometimes.’ He turned to walk out of my office.

‘How’s your missus, Derek?’

‘Fuck off, BJ,’ he said without looking back. And with that, he was gone.

If I’m honest, the rest of the day was a bit of a blur, and I’ll admit I was a little excited and a bit erect, if you know what I mean. It’s hard not to be when you’re becoming famous for wanting to fight Will Self.

I did as I was told. I left Will Self alone, and continued on as normal. I didn’t take my Facebook status down though, and it hit a thousand likes before the end of the day. I even got an email from the BBC asking me if I’d like to do an interview with BBC North West for the following night’s news. I checked with Derek, and he asked me to wait until he’d checked with the university Vice Chancellor. An hour later, Derek told me I could do the BBC interview but I had to keep it clean. Right you are then, I thought.

They arrived the following morning at seven thirty, and although we initially talked about doing something at my place, we decided that – frankly – my place looked absolutely shit and didn’t pass muster for being worthy of appearing on television. My living room looked like it might have a few refugees living in it.

We decamped to the local park.

The interviewer, a local reporter, was tall and skinny, with bad skin and weird looking teeth.

‘BJ,’ he said, ‘thanks for talking to us.’

‘Thanks for having me.’ I smiled, though I was later told by Emma that on TV it appeared I was taking the piss. Well……

‘So you’re a lecturer at the University of Kendal.’

105

‘I am,’ I fake smiled.

‘And you’ve started this social media campaign to fight Will Self?’

I shook my head and puffed my cheeks out, like when a plumber does to tell you that fixing the toilet is going to cost three times what you expected.

‘Weeeeelllllll,’ I said, dragging the word out to show he wasn’t quite right. ‘I didn’t really start a social media campaign, as you put it. It was never a campaign, it was just a Facebook status that seems to have taken on a life of its own.’

The interviewer did one of those arsehole smiles – one of the smiles I do sometimes now when producers ask me to change something I’ve written. It’s a ‘you’re a bit weird but I’ll pander to you’ smile.

‘Ok,’ he said. ‘It’s taken on a life of its own, and now has over five thousand likes on Facebook.’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling but slightly embarrassed like a scientist who’d just been asked if he just cured cancer.

‘But,’ said the interviewer as he laughed and shifted position, ‘what I don’t understand – what our viewers will want to know – is this. Why?’ ‘Why what?’

‘Why on earth would you want to fight Will Self?’

‘I don’t want to fight him. Five thousand people – so far, I should add – want me to fight him. That’ll probably go up, too. It’ll probably end up at least double that, and that roughly the number of troops the Normans had when they invaded England.’

‘What?’

‘The Normans,’ I said. ‘The Frenchmen who came over in 1066 and decided to stay.’ I mean, they weren’t really French, but that’s another story and one I didn’t feel like getting into right then.

The interviewer looked at me, and I could tell he was trying – and failing – to see the link.

‘Imagine,’ I said, ‘ten thousand Frenchmen getting the ferry over and saying they want me to fight Will Self. That’s enough people to take over England.’

‘Oh.’

106

‘Plus, it’s not really a fight. I mean, it’s hardly a street fight. It’ll be a boxing match, with gloves and stuff. And rules. Rules, too.’

The interview leaned towards me, as if he wanted to make a comment that only he and I and the television audience would hear.

‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ he said, ‘aren’t you a little shorter than Will Self?’

He laughed as if he’d just made a really funny joke, and I sort of fake laughed to make him feel better. Twat.

‘This is true,’ I said, ‘but it’s just under a foot. He’s 6’4, I’m 5’8 and – ’ ‘You’re 5’8?’

I sighed. ‘Yeah. Listen, it’ll be alright, I’m confident I can take him.’

‘So there it is. Local academic wants to fight Will Self. Let’s see how Will Self responds.’

Then he handed over to the weather and they said it was pissing it down.

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. More comments from people at work, and I almost couldn’t get a single thing done for the amount of calls coming in from news outlets which interrupted my reading my book. Eventually the university PR machine got involved, and – finally – at just after 7pm Will Self’s agent called the BBC to confirm he was up for a boxing match – for a charity of his choice, she added. The fight was set for 4pm on the Saturday afternoon at a boxing gym in London called Rooney’s, by London Bridge.

Rooney’s. Made me think of that Ray Donovan TV show, with your good looking bloke in it, whatshisname.

It had a nice ring to it, I thought, like something from a Hollywood movie. If I could beat Will Self anywhere, it would be at a boxing gym called Rooney’s.

If I'm honest, the rest of the week passed quickly. I went running a few times, did a couple of press ups, watched Rocky twice. Then I decided there was no point watching the sequels because, let’s be honest here, you can’t teach what I’ve got.

Balls.

You can’t teach balls.

107

Before I knew it, Saturday arrived and me, Emma, Derek and a few of the staff and students had decamped to London. I would have gone alone, but they were desperate to watch me punch Will Self’s face in. Emma took it upon herself to be my coach in the corner of the ring, and I didn’t mind because I’d already watched Rocky. Who needs a coach? Balls and oomph. Balls and oomph.

I’d created a JustGiving page, and Will Self had promised to match whatever donations were received. That annoyed me a like, because it meant he could show the world what a generous bastard he was. Still, I at least had the chance to punch him in the face.

If I’m honest, Rooney’s wasn’t what I expected – it was small and a bit smelly and if you stuck your tongue out you could almost taste the sweat (Emma seemed to like it though). It was just like a regular boxing gym, with bags round it and some big beefy blokes doing sit ups in the background. There was one bloke doing a chin-up with just one arm. I mean, he had two arms, but he was only using the one. As he moved up and down, I wondered if he was lifting his chin to the bar or using his strength to move the whole planet up and down and he was somehow just sitting still in space.

I thought they’d put some seating in, maybe sell a few thousand tickets, but no. Self obviously wasn’t worth that, I thought to myself as I looked around my arena. They had a single television camera, set up just behind one of the corners. I was tempted to argue with them, to tell them I wasn’t putting on a show unless they had at least three cameras, since I thought I was worth at least that many.

Just as I was about to say something, Will Self walked in.

‘Alright dickhead?’ I said as I walked up to him with my chest puffed out, like Stallone in Rocky. I figured if it was good enough for Sly. ‘You what?’

‘I said, alright dickhead?’

‘Oh,’ he said, looking around him, ‘you must be Batterjack.’

He looked down at me and extended his hand, saying something I’d not heard since I was a kid in Belfast.

‘How are you, little man?’

108

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t annoy me. I once called my dad little man and he punched me in the face. Wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t in a wheelchair at the time. So yeah, it annoyed me but I knew it was just mind games. I gave him my stare, the stare I do when I want people to know that they’ve insulted me and that, although no immediate action will be forthcoming, the insult won’t be forgotten. It’s a stare I picked up from the movie Goodfellas, it’s always worked quite well in the past.

He’s a big bastard, Will Self. You don’t realise just how big until you meet him but, well, he’s over six feet tall. When you’re my height, five ten is tall so he was positively giant. As I looked at him, I consoled myself with the idea that the bigger they are the harder they fall. I ignored the fact that the bigger they are the harder they hit. Will Self was never going to hit me, I promised myself, because I’d be too fast.

Lightning fast. Lightning fast for someone 5’6 fighting someone 6’5.

I could do this, I told myself. If anybody could do this, it was me. I had a plan.

The referee called us to the centre and told us to make it a fair and clean fight. ‘No punching in the balls,’ he said, ‘or you’ll be disqualified.’ He was looking right at me as he said it.

Fuck sake, I thought. There goes my plan.

Back to our corners we went, and Emma whispered in my ear.

‘Make you a deal,’ she said. ‘If you beat this twat, you can feel my tits when we get home.’ This wasn’t what I needed to hear right then, but I’d be lying if I said it was unwelcome. I’d never felt her tits, though I'd occasionally caught them eyeing me up.

‘Really?’ I asked, like a child being told he can have another Easter egg if he’s good.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Really. They’re nice, too.’ She smiled at me with a look at once innocent and filthy, like a nun in a bad porn movie.

‘Jesus. I don’t think I can fight when I’ve got an erection.’

Ding, ding.

That was the bell, in case you’re wondering.

When you’re as big as Will Self, you’re a bit slow. I mean, you can’t really move very quickly. You might be able to if you’re about to be mugged, but he probably wasn’t expecting to be mugged by a midget, was he?

109

It’s hard to give a blow by blow account of a boxing match if you’re the one receiving the blows, but by the end of the first round I was feeling quite good about myself. He hadn’t managed to knock me down yet, and I had him right where I wanted him.

Admittedly, my short arms meant I was struggling to land a punch on him, but at the same time I’m sure it was killing his back every time he reached down to punch my face – I was beginning to think that my face might just hold out longer than his spine and that I’d win by default.

The bell went for the end of the round, and I half stumbled, half ran back to my corner.

‘Your face is a mess,’ said Emma as she lifted the towel towards me.

‘Did you mean that?’

‘What?’

‘Earlier. About your tits.’

She smiled again, the smile of a horny angel or a Bangkok hooker during a stopover.

‘Yeah, course I did. You have to beat him though, and that means actually punching him.’

‘I’m playing the long game.’

‘You’ve only got three rounds.’

‘I’m going to make him chase me til he has a heart attack,’ I said just before Emma put my mouth guard in to shut me up.

Ding-a-ling.

Sadly, round two was very much like round one, and within about thirty seconds I’d temporarily forgotten about Emma’s tits. Self continued to come over and reach down and punch me, and his punches were starting to take their toll. I was getting a bit tired, it’s true. I finally managed to land an upper cut at one point, when he had me in a corner, but it made me realise how a fly feels when it tries to bite an elephant’s arse just as the elephant farts.

It had absolutely no effect at all, and just left me feeling sick.

By the end of the round I was too tired to even think about Emma’s offer, and I think that at some point during the round I’d decided that I’d ask for them anyway, irrespective of the result. Emma just smiled at me with a vague look of concern. I mean, her look of concern wasn’t actually vague, I was just beginning to be unable to focus.

110

Everything was vague.

Ding ding.

It happened at the start of round three. If I’m honest, he caught me unawares. I don’t mind admitting that, it’s happened to better men. Like Napoleon or Saddam Hussein or Jesus on the cross. As I walked towards the centre of the ring, I’d already started to notice there was something a bit different about the look on his face. He looked determined. He’d stopped looking like Will Self the obnoxious prick, and started looking like Will Self the Scary Fucking Bastard. Then he did it.

As the bell went, I noticed him get off his stool, stare right at me and drop his guard. It was just like he couldn’t be arsed anymore, like he thought fuck this, I’m gonna miss The Walking Dead if I don’t finish this soon.

He walked right over, batted down the punch I threw. I got scared. I felt my lips tremble, and I could feel my chest heaving. He spat out his mouthguard.

I felt myself starting to cry.

‘Schadenfreude is so nutritious!’ he screamed as he brought his fist back.

‘What does that even mean?!?’ I mumbled through my tears, though I knew what was coming. I think I thought I felt some wee come out.

The bastard punched me. Hard. On the chin. My teeth screamed. My sub-conscious thought bollocks to this and threw me to the floor.

One. Two. Three.

Four.

Five Oh, fuck off.

Six. Seven.

Christ, Emma’s tits. The prospect of them was fading into the distance like a DoverCalais ferry on a cloudy, wintery November Sunday at two o’clock in the pissing rain.

I needed to do something.

111

Eight.

I lifted myself to my knees.

Nine.

The crowd roared. Emma’s tits clapped and egged me on.

‘You okay?’ The referee asked as he examined my face.

I waved at Emma’s twins.

‘You ok?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I said, shaking my head to clear it.

There comes a moment in every man’s life. Well, probably several, but this was one of those moments. I was down but not out. Bloody but not beaten. Beaten but not unbroken. Eye of the Tiger, I told myself. Eye of the fucking Tiger.

The referee reminded us to keep the fight clean. Will was ahead on points, so I had nothing to lose. I was like a man possessed, possessed by the thoughts of Emma’s breasts, bouncing up and down on my face.

Trust me, men possessed by the thoughts of tits are the most of determined men.

Vikings didn’t set out thinking, they’ve got some nice slippers over there. No, no.

They thought, woooo, titties, row faster.

As the referee cleared us to go again, and with about thirty seconds left, I rushed towards that big bastard. He threw a punch at me, coming in from my left – but this time I ducked it with room to spare.

Finally!

Finally, I was inside Will Self. Well, not inside – you know what I mean. Inside his reach, and he had to try to step back to get back far enough that his back dangly fucking arms could hammer me again. But he was too slow.

The ferry of Emma’s tits was almost over the horizon, and I needed to do something. I did the only sensible thing I could think of.

I punched Will Self in the balls.

112

He groaned, sounding like I’d imagine a hippo sounds when he’s having an orgasm in a mud pit. For half a second I wondered if his groan might have split the fabric of space and time.

I’m afraid I don’t really remember what else happened as I was too busy focusing on the image of the ferry of Emma’s tits doing an about turn and steaming back from France, the clouds parting as the twins and Emma’s mouth all sang to me in unison.

I was vaguely aware of the following. Will Self on his knees, sobbing, holding his balls. Someone saying Fuck, I think he punched Will’s balls up into his stomach. A pool of liquid I was lying in. Emma running over and holding me to her bosom.

‘God, BJ, that was fucking amazing,’ she muttered. But as I lay there, as Emma’s tits stood on the front of the ferry like that girl in Titanic, waving and clapping, I was just thankful it was all over.

113

LAPWING PUBLICATIONS RECENT and NEW TITLES 978-1-909252-35-6 London A Poem in Ten Parts Daniel C. Bristow 978-1-909252-36-3 Clay x Niall McGrath 978-1-909252-37-0 Red Hill x Peter Branson 978-1-909252-38-7 Throats Full of Graves x Gillian Prew 978-1-909252-39-4 Entwined Waters x Jude Mukoro 978-1-909252-40-0 A Long Way to Fall x Andy Humphrey 978-1-909252-41-7 words to a peace lily at the gates of morning x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-909252-42-4 Red Roots - Orange Sky x Csilla Toldy 978-1-909252-43-1 At Last: No More Christmas in London x Bart Sonck 978-1-909252-44-8 Shreds of Pink Lace x Eliza Dear 978-1-909252-45-5 Valentines for Barbara 1943 - 2011 x J.C.Ireson 978-1-909252-46-2 The New Accord x Paul Laughlin 978-1-909252-47-9 Carrigoona Burns x Rosy Wilson 978-1-909252-48-6 The Beginnings of Trees x Geraldine Paine 978-1-909252-49-3 Landed x Will Daunt 978-1-909252-50-9 After August x Martin J. Byrne 978-1-909252-51-6 Of Dead Silences x Michael McAloran 978-1-909252-52-3 Cycles x Christine Murray 978-1-909252-53-0 Three Primes x Kelly Creighton 978-1-909252-54-7 Doji:A Blunder x Colin Dardis 978-1-909252-55-4 Echo Fields x Rose Moran RSM 978-1-909252-56-1 The Scattering Lawns x Margaret Galvin 978-1-909252-57-8 Sea Journey x Martin Egan 978-1-909252-58-5 A Famous Flower x Paul Wickham 978-1-909252-59-2 Adagios on Re – Adagios en Re x John Gohorry 978-1-909252-60-8 Remembered Bliss x Dom Sebastian Moore O.S.B 978-1-909252-61-5 Ightermurragh in the Rain x Gillian Somerville-Large 978-1-909252-62-2 Beethoven in Vienna x Michael O'Sullivan 978-1-909252-63-9 Jazz Time x Seán Street 978-1-909252-64-6 Bittersweet Seventeens x Rosie Johnston 978-1-909252-65-3 Small Stones for Bromley x Harry Owen 978-1-909252-66-0 The Elm Tree x Peter O'Neill 978-1-909252-67-7 The Naming of Things Against the Dark and The Lane x C.P. Stewart More can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/home All titles ￡10.00 per paper copy or in PDF format ￡5.00 for 4 titles.

In PDF format £5.00 for 4 titles.

114