ISSN 2053-6119 (Print)

ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of. Ann Egan, Steve Klepetar, Alan

Britt, Peter ONeill, Csilla Toldy, Strider Marcus Jones,
Eileen Sheehan, John W Sexton, Maria Miraglia, Louis
Mulcahy, Ingrid Casey and Alice Kinsella. Hard copies can
be purchased from our website.

Issue No 49
October 2016

A New Ulster
On the Wall
Website

Editor: Amos Greig

Editor: Arizahn
Editor: Adam Rudden
Contents

Editorial

page 5

Ann Egan;

1. Raindrops
2. Hillock
3. Tractor
Steve Klepetar;
1. Fathers Day
2. Waking After the Rain
3. Burning
4. Update Have Been Installed
5. Grave Lake Reverie
Alan Britt;
1. Empathy
2. Santa
3. Robbery in Progress
4. The Ground
Peter ONeill; & CeeJay
1. Autumn Song
2. Deserted Evenings
3. Poeme pour Peter ONeill
4. Postcard from the Edge
Csilla Toldy;
1. Waves
2. Fire-Bird
3. The Cellist
4. Mirror
Strider Marcus Jones;
1. Childhood Fires
2. The Green Man
3. Standing Stones
4. Mourning Dad
5. Sleep Wine
6. Sliding Down Old Benbulbin

Eileen Sheehan
1. Angel
2. In This New Town
3. Spierbhean
4. Turn
John W Sexton;
1. The Enchanted Cowpat
2. The Willowed Grove
3. Grave of the Unkown Cat
4. Annunciation
Maria Miraglia;
1. Holy Eves
Louis Mulcahy;
1. An Unstoppable Force
2. After Creation
3. Appreciating Flaws in the Familiar
Ingrid Casey;
1. Love: After Nerudas Sonnet XXXIII
2. Erasmus
3. Single Mother
4. Mandible
5. Glock
6. A Belgian town
Alice Kinsella:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Separated
Pigeon House chimneys
Seashell
Bedtime Prayer

On The Wall
Message from the Alleycats

Round the Back

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 Undiscovered by Amos Greig

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. Aristotle Onassis.
Editorial
October has come marking our fourth anniversary looking back I cannot believe how
far we have come since 2012 as well as the poetry scene in Northern Ireland as well. When I
started this venture there was a small number of outlets for poetry in the North however
since we started the number of outlets has risen to include The Honest Ulsterman, Abridged
and The Incubator to name just a few.
What makes our birthday special is that we continue to provide a monthly platform
for poetry, prose and more, we accept work from new and established writers and many of
those who have been published by us for the first time have gone onto to even greater
heights with their work that is something Im proud off as a poet myself I am well aware of
how hard it was to get published.
The social and political aspect of A New Ulster is still of importance to me I believe
that poetry unites and brings together people from different walks of life and with the use
of new technologies makes the world that much smaller. A New Ulster or ANU as some call
it affectionatly has become a global phenomena with readers worldwide as well as
submissions.
I am very pleased with the submissions for this issue indeed we had so many thatIm
working on the 50th issue at the same time Ill still release it next month but 50 issues I am
deeply humbled by that. I hope you enjoy the work within this edition and Im pleased to
saw that one of the poets from our very first issue will be in this one as well.

Amos Greig Editor.

Biographical Note: Ann Egan

Ann Egan, a multi-award winning Irish poet, has held many

residencies in counties, hospitals, schools, secure
residencies and prisons. Her books are: Landing the Sea
(Bradshaw Books); The Wren Women (Black Mountain
Press); Brigit of Kildare (Kildare Library and Arts Services)
andTelling Time (Bradshaw Books). She has edited more
than twenty books including, The Midlands Arts and
Culture Review, 2010. She lives in County Kildare,
Ireland.

Raindrops
(Ann Egan)

Drop after drop falls

with an armys precision,

marches into the soil,

overwhelms, sends warriors far.

Skys footsoldiers skim

downwards and across,

until the flags of surrender

float across bog cotton.

Curlews flee their strongholds.

A new sky is captured.

Hillock
(Ann Egan)

Clumps of clay piled high over

stones fostered from this quiet field,
rise like a song, create a hillock.

A crane flies across,

spreads shadows delicately as
a dancer rising on her toes.

Colours of a breezes undersides

weave a trove of wonder like
a childs reaching for a storys finish.

Peace of the bog beyond blackthorns

soars in plainness of a January morning
dreaming a place where stones and clay soar.

Tractor
(Ann Egan)

Ditchs depths are rich in ferns,

foxgloves, scatterings of wild
dogrose beneath silver birch.

The time of year is come

for the tractor to cut back
all that grows in freedoms wind.

Branches secrets are cast aside,

leave an uncluttered way to
look at the skys ceiling.

Biographical Note: Steve Klepetar

Steve Klepetars work has appeared worldwide, in such

journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Chiron, Deep Water,
Expound, Phenomenal Literature, Red River Review,
Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several
of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the
Pushcart Prize (including three in 2015). Recent collections
include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto and The
Li Bo Poems, both from Flutter Press. His full-length
collection Family Reunion is forthcoming from Big Table
Publishing.

10

Fathers Day
(Steve Klepetar)

When he rose from the lake, my father

looked like an old god tired of heaven

sputtering, shaking his mane of white hair

as droplets caught the summer sun

scattering into rainbow beads.

Three strides and he was on the shore

rubbing himself dry with a blue towel.

Without his glasses, he looked strange

his silence somehow magnificent, as if

a store of languages had been pent up

growing in power as it gathered behind

his tongues resisting dam, a flood

waiting to rage, trees and rocks and cities swept

broken before that tide, down to the embracing sea.

11

Waking After Rain

(Steve Klepetar)

Last night I dreamed I had no face

but in the morning,
with our street wet with rain,

I saw it, misted on the bedroom

window, a round face with a fighters
crooked nose.

How old it looked, staring in at me.

Where did the child go, with his raven hair?
How long since those wings unfolded with joy?

I have flown inside myself, a shadow of a shadow

searching among dark blood for some vestige
of hands that used to burn, some fragment to call my own.

12

Burning
(Steve Klepetar)

I am burning and burning

the leaves of the past,

watching fragrant smoke

rise into soft flesh of clouds.

I have peeled away layers

and layers of skin, laid them

in still earth. I have soaked

my hands with rain. Now I hear

your footsteps descending

stairs in a house surrounded

by fog. Your hair floats on a wind

blowing in from another land,

a country without name or flag

or cities rusting through silent years.

13

Updates Have Been Installed

(Steve Klepetar)

A crows head, mounted on a mirror

in the hall. A waxwork
figure of my uncle, with stolen
diamonds
dripping from his palms.
One of his daughters broken teeth.

The past shudders back to life

in this town where my
cousins hands dangle from her
fathers belt:
the long shadow of an oak
cut down and flung across the yard.

14

Grave Lake Reverie

(Steve Klepetar)

Itasca, Minnesota

Sky stares down through trees

until Im forced to blink,
turn away, feel dead eyes
boring a jagged pair of holes
through the flesh of my neck.

Where has summer gone?

The lake churns in the wind,
stone gray, a photograph
in an old yearbook
or entrance to the shadow world.

Its true that we live uncertainly,

following our feet
to this colorless expanse.
Breath after breath we move
further from ourselves, those husks
made of words and lies and wishes and dreams

15

Biographical Note: Alan Britt

In August 2015 Alan Britt was invited by the Ecuadorian House of Culture Benjamn
Carrin in Quito, Ecuador as part of the first cultural exchange of poets between Ecuador
and the United States. During his visit, he participated in venues all across the country
including the international literary conference sponsored by La hermandad de las palabras
2015 in Babahoyo, Ecuador. In 2013 he served as judge for the The Bitter Oleander Press
Library of Poetry Book Award. His interview at The Library of Congress for The Poet and
the Poem aired on Pacifica Radio, January 2013. His latest books include Violin Smoke
(Translated into Hungarian by Paul Sohar and published in Romania: 2015; Lost Among the
Hours: 2015; Parabola Dreams (with Silvia Scheibli): 2013; and Alone with the Terrible
Universe: 2011. He teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

ALAN BRITT: Library of Congress Interview:

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/media/avfiles/poet-poem-alan-britt.mp3
ALAN BRITT, 233 Northway Road, Reisterstown, MD 21136, USA
(PH: 443-834-8105...EM: alanbritt@comcast.net)

16

EMPATHY
(Alan Britt)

It's not wrong to say it's wrong,

& it's not wrong to worry about it.

It's what it is. Stretch habits as far

as archaic nylon stockings permit.
Remember, bones bear the weight
of a bellyful of atoms.

You want to sparkle in the afterlife,

yes . . . with reformed pharaohs,
quantum engineers & distinguished,
albeit non-celebrated poets,
now, dont you?

So, choose the life you long to live,

arms & imagination open wide.

17

SANTA
(Alan Britt)

If Santa landed today, where

would he touch down exactly?

US, Britain, the Falklands?

Not so much the Far East,

but France, Belgium, Germany,
& most of Latin America?

If Santa touched down, today,

where would he hang his
exhausted cap: the Ukraine,
Romania, or Tampa, Florida,
with grapefruits like five pound
liquid suns?

If only Santa, if only Santa

were nonpartisan.

18

ROBBERY IN PROGRESS
(Alan Britt)

Even though you say it was an accident,

I ask, are you certain you didn't do it
accidentally on purpose? How can you
be sure? As I don't have a farmer's clue
anymore; do you? Hurts my soul, baby,
when I find the key to love. Not what
I had in mind, but I guess it'll do for
a time. My Great Aunt Pearl dropped
biscuits for Civil War veterans while
studying the contorted history of the US,
leaving her red-knuckled legacy to sisters,
sons, daughters-in-law to follow, to carry
on according to recent DNA, according
to John Cameron Swayze slinging a Timex
across the snowy screens of infant television,
proving that post war USA can take a licking
& keep on ticking.

............

Nevertheless, I'll see what I can do;

meanwhile, I'll take that check
in cash, if you know what I mean.
19

THE GROUND
(Alan Britt)

Ground twitches as Preakness

releases another thunderous thrill.
Ground trembles like middle school lunch
trays skittering cashier's left contact,
buffalo nickels grazing her succulent right.

Ground never so nervous as psychopaths

ringing bells for the receding mob barbequing
in cargo shorts & striving for all they're worth
to forgive those who trespassed against them.

Ground broke, bridges fell, & buildings collapsed

upon themselves . . . . . debris unbreathable,
the dream unbearable& all for a future
behind bars with the likes of Mescalero
& White Mountain Apaches, two blue wolves,
& one cigar smoking jaguar enjoying the hell
out of solitary confinement!

20

Biographical Note: Peter ONeill & CeeJay

Peter O' Neill is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently
Sker (Lapwing, 2016) and Divertimento The Muse is a Dominatrix (
mgv2>publishing, 2016). A translator of Dante and Baudelaire, he has
also edited two publications with his publisher, Walter Ruhlmann, in
France for mgv2>publishing; An Agamemnon Dead, an anthology of
early twenty first century Irish poetry and Transverser, issue 81 of
mgv2>datura. The founder of Donkey Shots, a festival of avant garde
poetry held in his home-town of Skerries in north county Dublin, and
The Gladstone Readings. His background is in philosophy and
comparative literature. He was the writer in residence at the
Loughshinny Boathouse Project for a three month period at the start of
2016, a position that was awarded to him by Fingal Arts. He is
currently working on his first novel.
CeeJay, pseudonym for Jean-Claude Crommelynck, is of Belgian
origin and is the author of Bombe voyage, bombe voyage ( maelstrm
reEvolution, Bruxelles, 2014 ). He was the featured poet of mgv2_81
Transverser edited by Peter O' Neill and Walter Ruhlmann, 2015.

21

Autumn Song
A translation of the poem by Baudelaire
(Peter ONeill)

I can already hear the funeral sound of the fallen

Wood ringing out on the paving stones in the courtyard.
Adieu, living clarity of our too short summers!
Soon we will plunge into the glacial darkness.
Like the sun in its polar hell
My heart will only be a frozen red block.
All of winter will enter my Be-ing: anger
Frisson horror, hate and forced labour!
My spirit is like the tower which succumbs
To the blows of the ram, heavy and indefatigable.
I listen shivering at every branch which falls,
The scaffold which we erect has not such a deafening echo.
By being held in its monotonous impact, it seems
That a great coffin is being made for someone.
But for whom? Yesterday it was summer, and now it is autumn!
This mysterious sound sings like a departure.

22

23

24

Deserted Evenings
(Peter ONeill)

An infinity of sadness pours out over the counter

in the form of bottles and drinks.
You stand behind it, the counter, like some stoic deity
with the music wailing over you.
Jazz, blues and opera, it all sweeps over the crowds in tidal waves; an aural
wash.
Though, it is the Hopper moments which you love best;
Be-ing Carson McCullers inhabiting the very hands which dust and polish the
elegant vessels raised aloft on their illuminated, glass plinths;
the bar being completed deserted, full only of the eternal regret which inhabits
certain weekday evenings,
obscuring only the desolation of unlimited mornings,
which you must also rise up to
and replenish.

25

Pome pour Peter O' Neill

Par CeeJay

Le vent lacre en lambeaux les nuages bas sur l'horizon blafard. Linnomm
bouillonnement des brumes ocanes dans ses nasses en tourbillon entrane nos
semblables.
Ne reste qu'un paradis incendi et sanglant.

Postcard from the Edge

after CeeJay
(Peter ONeill)

The wind lacerates the low cloud into tiny strips out on the horizon.
The as yet unnamed bubbles in the darkening oceans,
while in the turbulence of the fish traps
life feverishly pulses.
All that remains is a bloody
and incendiary
view of paradise.

26

Biographical Note: Csilla Toldy

Csilla Toldy was born in Budapest. She escaped from the socialist
Hungary in
1981. For the next three years she lived in many European countries, in
France, Austria and Germany, where she finally settled.
She studied languages and worked as a translator in Germany.
She moved to the British Isles with a writer's visa to work on films in
1995
Her writing was supported by British Screen, Media and Northern
Ireland Screen
She received a Masters Degree in Creating Writing for Film and
Television from
Sheffield University in 2003. She participated in workshops lead by:
Sundance, Arista,
The National Film and Television School
With her scripts she won the Katapult Prize and The Special Prize of the
Motion Pictures Association as the Hungarian winner of the HartleyMerrill Prize
She lives in Northern Ireland in Rostrevor, at Carlingford Lough.
Csilla works as a poet, writer and a tutor of creative writing, teaches
yoga and meditation and writes about it.

27

Waves
(Csilla Toldy)
An opulent sea, velvet
fingertips meander around fading memories
rock to calm alien sensations:
The waving fields gilded with sun flowers
lavender hue dubbed on the horizon poppies rap morphine.
Expansion couples contraction.
The brain peaks with
victory, survival, joy. Having
accomplished the impossible.
In its wake the body replays the act
of labour, not torturous
in the absence of mind,
but when witting of ail
it attacks: beast-like
pulls the strings
in the legs and hips
as if each nerve was strung on a cello.
Out of tune and rhythm
an echo in the hollow
the emptied body reverberates
a distorted, perverse omen:
Paradise lost,
after love comes after-pain.

28

Fire-bird
(Csilla Toldy)

She heard and saw them for the first time

at the age of fifty one: luminous birds
that could engulf her with their wings.
Enamoured, stepping over the borders
again, the woman marked her passage,
tattooed it onto her heart with signs.
She loved the pain the artist caused her,
her blood oozing an overwhelming yes.
The flames engulfed her body like a shield
The wrinkles, creases of time embedded,
waving the fever, all over.
She could have been a witch in another life, he said
waving the fever all over,
the wrinkles, creases of time embedded.
The flames engulfed her body like a shield,
her blood oozing an overwhelming yes.
She loved the pain the artist caused her,
tattooed it onto her heart with signs.
Again, the woman marked her passage
enamoured, stepping over the borders
that could engulf her with their wings,
at the age of fifty one: luminous birds,
she heard and saw them for the first time.

29

The cellist
(Csilla Toldy)

rebelled against death

and destruction
his music saved the dignity
of the dying
restored the hope
of the living
his answer to war was harmony
he says
that with his lifes work done now
delirium can cloud his pain
and his dignity is the freedom
to destroy his body hoping to find
harmony in peace

30

Mirror
(Csilla Toldy)

I want to create images that would touch the viewer's soul to some degree.
Tarkovsky
my soul touched the wind
the wind that blows the rye
the field waves like the sea
you can hear it shshshshsh
the wind sounds like the sea
a man in the frame with his back to me
watches the rye (that waves like the sea)
Its you. Were watching.
the wind touched my soul, the man, the sea
the rye made a sound of shshshshsh

31

Biographical Note: Strider Marcus Jones

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.wordpress.com/ reveal a
maverick, moving between forests, mountains, cities and coasts
playing his saxophone and clarinet in warm solitude.

His poetry has been published in the USA, Canada, England,

Ireland, Wales, France, Spain and Switzerland in numerous
publications including mgv2 Publishing Anthology:And
Agamemnon Dead; Deep Water Literary Journal; The
Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine;
Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; A New Ulster/Anu;
Outburst Poetry Magazine; Amomancies 2015; The Galway
Review; The Honest Ulsterman Magazine; The Lonely Crowd
Magazine; Section8Magazine; Danse Macabre Literary
Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Ygdrasil, A Journal of the
Poetic Arts; Don't Be Afraid: Anthology To Seamus Heaney;
Dead Snakes Poetry Magazine; Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine;
Syzygy Poetry Journal Issue 1 and Ammagazine/Angry
Manifesto Issue 3.

32

CHILDHOOD FIRES
(Strider Marcus Jones)
late afternoon
winter fingers
nomads in snow
numb knuckles and nails
on two boys
in scuffed shoes
and ripped coats
carrying four planks of wood
from condemned houses
down dark jitty's
slipping on dog shit
into back yard
to make warm fires
early evening
dad cooking neck end stew
thick with potato dumplings and herbs
on top of bread soaked in gravy
i saw the hole in the ceiling
holding the foot that jumped off bunk beds
but dad didnt mind
he had just sawed the knob
off the banister
to get an old wardrobe upstairs
and made us a longbow and cricket bat
it was fun being poor
like other families
after dark
all sat down reading and talking
in candle light
with parents
silent to each other
our sudden laughter like sparks
glowing and fading
dancing in flames and wood smoke
unlike the children who died in a fire next door
then we played cards
and i called my dad a cunt
for trumping my king
but he let me keep the word

33

THE GREEN MAN

(Strider Marcus Jones)
i have the green man
growing in his tree
feet to earth
hands in sky
head with heart.
prophetic and pagan
his persuasion
is asking me to be
like the mother who gave me birthbut now,
even how
we go to die
is apart.
his eyes
behind his hair
both stare
at Babylonians
becoming Old Bostonians
changing us from Custodians
leaving the DreamTime
to work in line.
my door,
is always open
in case he comes back in
running half broken
father mine from the mill dripping
stale sweat
on the hearth floor
but i don't forget
him shaping his words and hands
everywhere he sits and stands
so selfless to let me see
how to set my own mind freebreak the blames that blind you
and liberty will find you;
real truth, is not what everyone knows
but in their echoes
unspoken shadows.

34

STANDING STONES
(Strider Marcus Jones)
i can still smell his shirt
when he tramped home from work
and slumped down beside us
in his chair,
lips cracked, shaking cotton fibres
from his tusselled hair.
he was like that:
never wore a vain hat,
or mask to hide the man he was
and what he was
from himself
or anyone else.
he told me my first joke,
showed me how to roll a smoke
in his thick, stained fingers.
oh, how his voice echo lingers
sowing moral ethics
into politicsthrough the night,
like Lenin, in reason and fight,
making Attlee and Bevan's lintels
bridge
the standing stones of Marx and Engels
over my youth.
rising like monolith's
of truth,
opposing the dangers
of privileged
abyss,
i watched, his turned wisdom change us
into opposite strangers.

35

MOURNING DAD
(Strider Marcus Jones)
he is decomposed
from a bramble rose
nowhis thorns
of storms
drow,
foetal curled
in the underworld
faerie peat without plough.
is it fun
with all those comical
musical
jacketed jestersor primplum
suitedrun
by posh ancestorsdoing the same this and that
to keep your spirit level flat
with docile protestors
wired to silicon investors.
i bought this new fedora hat
in whitewashed Mijas
to be my own brown
Romany
see aslet them face their ignominy
when i wear it here in townlike an un-shoed horse
from the roadgorse
prancing right
through their moralless light
brim slanted defiantly down
eyes outsider brown.

36

is it no Left or Right there.

do you have your chair
to sit in.
can you smoke your pipe
gathering stars in its clouds at night
thinking thoughts in nothing.
do you still use words
to help wingless birds
or is it silent
to the violent
fermenting fear
when the truth comes near
just like here.

37

SLEEP WINE
(Strider Marcus Jones)
sleep wine
makes mortal time
divineuntouchable
from the trouble
of worldly rubble.
it is absurd
to be purturbed
by these disturbed
sociopaths
who grasp
your life's path,
and demonise
you with disguised
cruelty and liesyet, we succumb
to being undone
then left forever numbone more scapegoat,
whose sorrow spoke
in a final note:
i curse austerity
imposed by prosperity
with criminal sincerity.

38

SLIDING DOWN OLD BENBULBIN

(Strider Marcus Jones)

the dark emerald green

descends in a dream
that was thin
sliding down old Benbulbin.

the mossy rocks

set, like elemental clocks
don't moveslow time is worn smooth.

then us hive bugs

mortal in summer duds
slide past to the bottom
hanging on before forgotten.

understanding changeothers need to be strange

in it allto repented blame
they go walking in lashing rain

39

some less tall-

back to town
lank hair matted down
in the bar
the same drink too far.

40

Biographical Note: Eileen Sheehan

Eileen Sheehan: Eileen is from County Kerry. Anthology publications
include The Poetry of Sex (Ed Sophie Hannah/ Penguin); The Watchful
Heart: A New Generation of Irish Poets (Ed Joan McBreen/Salmon
Poetry), and TEXT: A Transition Year English Reader (Ed Niall
MacMonagle/ Celtic Press). Her work is featured on Poetry
International Web. Her third collection, The Narrow Way of Souls, is
forthcoming.

41

Angel
(Eileen Sheehan)
He said, I am old and
everything has a bitter
taint and besides
I have only these oddments
to offer; things broken,
unfinished, unused and Im not even
sure why it is that Ive
kept them so long.

But she saw how his body

radiated light and he carried
not just a jumble of wheels,
coils, springs but the very
ones shed been needing to
mend the faltering
mechanisms of her heart.

And his eyes were pure

as a childs
and she knew

from that moment on

42

she was his

entirely

First published in The Shop: A Magazine of Poetry (Ed John & Hilary
Wakeman. From Song of the Midnight Fox (Doghouse Books))

43

In This New Town

(Eileen Sheehan)

The weather here articulates itself

in no set order. Fruits swelling
out of season. Birds of brighter hue
than I am used to: some days I am blinded.

Neighbours grow used to the late hours

I keep, my pale face on their streets
in the mornings. Everyone knows me as
stranger. I only moved here that he might see

my face; that I might grow

to know his features. But I lose sight
of him on crowded streets where ivied walls
reveal, in raised calligraphy, a route

I map with my fingers. I know the park by

scent, by a tremble of grass; its
audible whispers. The mist off the river
clings to my face, my eyes. On

the far bank, my own small house

44

grows visible. The woman who lived there

before me allowed it all run wild. I struggle
to reclaim the raised beds, the network of pathways.

And I have coaxed a gravid stray with

milk-soaked bread: each day she comes closer.
But sky when it speaks tells me
I am not myself, not myself at all.

(From Song of the Midnight Fox (Doghouse Books) )

45

Spirbhean
(Eileen Sheehan)
in memory of Chantal Lammertyn, poet
i whisper a charm for your journey
bright coins for your eyes
a half-crown for your pocket
a songbird as guide
a cloak for your shoulders
a prayer in my heart for you
till you waken to light

In my country this is the month

of the dead. Following in the old ways
I lay an extra place at the table,
in welcome. Come in, sit with us, do,
as I speak your name to my children:
reliving my story of you. My son
is enthralled to hear how he was almost there
when we met; floating inside me
in his world of water: my secret stowaway.

I tell him, Spirbhean

was the name that I gave you: Sky Woman.
46

I named you Sky Woman

from the day I saw you dancing
on the Citadel above Namur
your body swaying to a tune
that only you could hear. Your arms spread out
to catch the drifts of air as a shaft of sunlight
transformed your bright hair
to plumage. At that moment
had you stepped off into nothing
you would have taken flight.

(From Down the Sunlit Hall (Doghouse Books) )

47

Turn
(Eileen Sheehan)

As a poet
you need to be in love
with endings:

the soft turning

of leaves; the turn of the hands
of the clock;

a turn in the weather,

the return of early dark
to the evenings;

the turning away

of faces, turning
of backs.

Nonetheless,
on my walk to the graveyard
I plucked

48

a green caterpillar
from the pitted
road;

as a poet
you need to be in love
with hope.

First published in Soul Feathers Anthology (Indigo Dreams Publishing)

49

Biographical Note: John W. Sexton

John W. Sexton lives on the south-west coast of Kerry and is the author
of five poetry collections, the most recent being Petit Mal (Revival Press,
2009) and The Offspring of the Moon (Salmon Poetry 2013). His sixth
collection, Futures Pass, is also forthcoming from Salmon. Under the
ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with
legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva,
which has been released on Track Records. He is a past nominee for The
Hennessy Literary Award and his poem The Green Owl won the Listowel
Poetry Prize 2007. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine
Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

50

The Enchanted Cowpat

(John W. Sexton)
with his foot he breaks a crusted cowcake
carries the secret over the moonlit meadow
and up the carpet of the stairs unknowingly
prints out sixty steps of greening toe-prints
and kicks off his shoes straight under the bed
falls down onto the mattress fully clothed
the moon still on above the trees he snores
as the shit on the rug turns on its heel
retraces itself down the sixty steps
walks itself out from every blade of grass
a scuttery foot-rise glinting silver
soft currency of green under moonbeams
back up the hill each step of turd untrod
resurrected whole while that fool still nods

First published in Revival

From the collection Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009)

51

The Willowed Grove

(John W. Sexton)

I went down to the willowed grove,

where the river troubles itself with stones,
and met a woman made of shadow
making herself a coat of thorns.

Why do you clothe yourself in thorns,

O strange young woman of the darkest skin?
So that no man can touch my flesh,
only birds and insects enter in.

O pretty young girl, youre as dark as space,

but your beauty outshines every star;
undress yourself of your thorny coat
and Ill be your lover without a care.

You cant love me, you mortal man,

for I am ancient as the sea.
I was unborn before you were made,
and no mans love am I meant to be.

O I went down to the willowed grove,

52

where the river troubles itself with stones,

and met a woman made of shadow
making herself a coat of thorns.

First published in The Burning Bush

From the collection Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009)

53

Grave of the Unknown Cat

(John W. Sexton)
Because I was known to be fond of cats
my father-in-law gave me the task
of burying the dead stray that he had found
in the rush-choked field below the house.
In the evening, under the fading light,
I took the stiffened body and dug a tight
square hole. Into it went the cat, and in
the weakening daylight the hole caved-in
with shadows. I added a few scoops from the spade,
and the following year and in the years to come
watched as the place was finally covered
with the lush swords of feileastram.
And through that graveyard every spring
comes every neighbours tom. Nods
a torn ear to the dead, then moves on.

First published in Podium V, Edited by Noel King

From the collection Vortex (Doghouse 2005)

54

Annunciation
(John W. Sexton)
Mary had fallen, drawn into sleep
by the pages of her prayer-book.
And the television also dozed
into a grey, hissing haze of snow.
When she woke an hour later
the television was a square angel
of light, pulsing in the blue darkness,
its voice the soft vocabulary of snakes
telling Mary it had implanted
its electrical sperm in her brain.
She did not understand a word it said,
but unplugged it, rendering it dead.
In Heaven, though, the ghost of the T.V.
sat at the right hand of God
pondering at the thing it had begot.

First published in Compost (USA)

From the collection Vortex (Doghouse 2005)

55

Biographical Note: Maria Miraglia

Born in Italy, Maria Miraglia considers herself a cosmopolitan, she loves travelling
and interacting with people from different cultures.
She graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures, got a Master's degree in
Evaluation and Assessment; in Teaching of Modern Languages and collaborated
with the Italian Department of Education.
Author of "Le Grandi Opere di Yayati Madan Gandhi"; author and editor of
Antologia Poetica. Maria is the Literary Director of Pablo Neruda Italian Cultural
Association, Secretary General of Writers Capital International Foundation;
Honorary Member of Naziones Unidas de Las Lettras. Her poems can be found in
both national and international anthologies; contributor of many poetry pages both
in Italian and English. Founder and chair-woman of World Foundation for Peace.
Some of her poems have been translated into Turkish, Spanish, Macedonian,
Azerbaijani and Albanian languages
She was conferred several national and international awards and recognitions for
poetry. Two anthologies collecting some of her poems are going to be published.

56

HOLY EVES
(Maria Miraglia)
Chilly the evening air
while the lights untiring shimmer
in the town and the Christmas tree
in front of the old church
gives off bright rays
of variegated colors
crowded the shops
of toys and gifts

And I lonely go
along the town streets while
memories slowly but clear
flow in my mind
the rain sadly follows my steps
the wind tears the last leaves off

Cheerful the holy eves together

now you are there
silent in your dwellings
the dark avenues lined
57

with cypress trees

casting their ghostly shadows

Faint the lights

in memory of your lives
hidden the stars
behind the gloomy clouds and
the far moon up there
once witness of your stories
now guardian of your groves

58

Biographical Note: Louis Mulcahy

Louis Mulcahy is a potter who writes poetry. His work has been
published widely in quality publications and read on RTE1, Lyric
Radio and Radio na Gaeltachta. He has three collections of Poetry
one in Irish and two in English, all published by An Sagart
Publications. He was Founder and Director of the poetry festival An
Fhile Bheag Filochta from 2007 to 2014. He has served as
Chairman of the Crafts Council of Ireland and of Samhlaocht
Chiarra. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the National University
of Ireland. He is married to the tapestry artist Lisbeth Mulcahy.

59

An Unstoppable Force
(Louis Mulcahy)
The seventies and eighties
barely noticed a radio mash
of
jingles, news
and titillating scares
I was lost in trying to be
the potter of our time.
I don't know why, will never know.
But there it was, it happened.
The urge to be the best inexplicable.
I don't regret, but I do wish
I had not toiled the hours,
had raised my eyes to smell the rain
and wind straight off the sea.
I wish I'd been more present
in the lives of those
so caring now for me.
But there it was, it happened.
The drive to be the best irresistible.

60

After Creation
(Louis Mulcahy)
Noting my propensity
for post-natal depression,
friends proclaimed that,
like all babies ever born,
my most fundamental tests
were exquisite works of art.
A celebrated poet
when asked what to do
when invited for a statement
on indifferent work,
replied without hesitation:
you lie.

61

Appreciating Flaws in the Familiar

(Louis Mulcahy)
I turn the pot within my grasp,
searching for a trace of he
who dreamed as we all dream
of reaching harmony.
I wonder had he ever
shivering in his kiln,
crawling, pitting, blistering,
or the gun shot of a dunt?
Numerous are the faults
that beset the artist potter.
Numerous too the joys
when his calculations work.
Lovely the stray finger print,
the perfect spiral undercut,
the well formed shoulder curve,
the balance head to foot,
the calculated throwing rings,
the concave waist support,
the belly and the neck
that swell, retreat, advance again
and burgeoning in beauty
accept the proffered glaze,
to wear it like a brand new coat
awaiting approbation.

62

Biographical Note: Ingrid Casey

My name is Ingrid Casey, I am a poet, teacher, artist and mother based in Kildare. I
have had work published in The Moth magazine, Banshee Lit, Southword journal. I
have a poem forthcoming in Kerrie O'Brien's Looking at the Stars anthology, which
will be raising funds for Dublin's Simon Community. Here is a link to the
website: http://www.lookingatthestars.ie/
I have also had poems shortlisted for Hennessy New Irish Writing.

I also have a wordpress blog, which you can see

here: https://choseninks.wordpress.com/

I commenced writing two years ago, as a

63

Love: After Neruda's Sonnet XXXIII

(Ingrid Casey)
Florica walks behind Inspector, to home where she's not
at-home. Children's eyes and begonias meet
her here, on this threshold, waiting
for her to give them chocolate, water.

Her crushed velvet skirts have followed

his silver through tracts, across karst; Carpathia, Kiev,
Berlin. Now here, to eternal damp and clouded
summers and loved masonry.

He sees the amber of the sun

in her kitchen eyes at day's end; she's
a building that flies without buttress.

He lets her make coffee and listens

to her laugh peal in time to the
boiling water, bells in unison.
64

Erasmus
(Ingrid Casey)

Anwar and Pierre flew to the

university town on this damp
island at the edge of Europe two
months ago. Zarabe and gros blanc,
they are a marbled unit, lines blurred.
She is too cold, he rubs life back into
her but she's not singing any more
Creole love songs because the fruit
here is so shit, she says. She watches
droplets of condensation on the window
with an intent that is also a portent. He
goes out to the chilly garden to play with
that damn cat and it's too-beautiful owner.

65

Single Mother
(Ingrid Casey)

Is a poem I read, once, about a

girl hitting her head, in the dark. But
more than the discomfort of sharing
rooms, is the discomfiture that's got a
rind of dis-ease. Empty rooms; silence,
and you left the back door open on an
August night. Further into the forest now,
than a teen mom with one cute accessory,
there is a gaggle to protect. And, of course,
yourself. Alone with no tribe, in the dark.

66

Mandible
(Ingrid Casey)

Draw this beak, this jaw. It can

susurrate, masticate, oscillate, fellate, well
assist with at least. It forms a well-rounded
chin, which you stick out when petulant or
guarded or inquisitive. Never slack, except
for on one side, the left, which betrays your
emotion. Gristle inside, temporomandibular
tantrum. Too much talking, moil in sleep,
lopsided feelings. You need to speak, write,
execute what is inside, balance the blue
throat chakra. When you walk past trees it
relaxes; tightens in the car, under the duress
of traffic and all the spineclimbing aggravations
the stress, the grubwork of teeth, of gears. Lying

67

on sand can wrap this Hermes-in-the-bones

around on itself. Also hot stones, aromas and
the hands of others sliding along the lines of
para-sympathetic systems, slackening, the
opposite of nervous. Once, a criminal caressed
it, gently and unexpectedly. Out shot colours
from your crown, six or seven weeks. Limning
your outlines, a shaman from the wrong side but
all was yellow then, a clear river. Cock your head
now, cup it in your own hand, remember to choose
to rest. Bird, be free. Sing, speak, sleep.

68

Glock
(Ingrid Casey)
We stood, arms
linked, facing on a fallen tree. Old
words printed inside crowns. The shot
came then; you stumbled back, shame a
soft-needled bed. I stepped off at the end, five
or maybe seven steps later. You'd composed need;
drew me to you. Sentinel acting out love, a post-fact,
hard, liar, perfectly velvet in the greening air.

69

A Belgian town
(Ingrid Casey)

Skirts the diamond capital, but almost all here go without

work. A man is released. Approaches the media, lace windows
will bleed long after the media scrum. My brothers were acting
normally, he says. Mother is devastated, we are peaceful people.

He burns, shame flaming, pin-pricking down to the

moons at his fingertips. Another time, it's the emerald
place, wartime. Teenage son and two comrades, caught.
A bomb on a bike, propped at the wall of a garda station.

A detective on his way to work flings the

danger into the river. Hard labour, refusing
to recognize the State. Imaginable tragedy.

Avoided at the eleventh hour. An Irish city

70

during the Emergency. An almost-man, imprisoned

with Thomas Aquinas, repentant, alive.

71

Biographical Note: Gordon Ferris

Alice Kinsella is an Irish writer. She holds a BA(hons) in English Literature and
Philosophy from TCD. Her poetry has been published in a variety of publications,
including Headspace magazine, The Fem literary magazine, Poetry NI Holocaust
memorial anthology, Poethead, Icarus, The Galway Review, Poethead, The Sunday
Independent. She has work forthcoming in Headstuff, Skylight47, Hungry Hill Wild
Atlantic Words anthology, Flare, and Boyne Berries.
She has been shortlisted in several competitions including Creative Writing Inks poetry
competition January 2016, Fourth Annual Bangor Poetry Competition, Hungry Hill Wild
Atlantic Words Poetry Competition and longlisted in the Over the Edge new writers
competition 2016.
Her first play The Passing debuted as a part of Whats the Story at the Liberties Festival,
it then went on to be staged at Cruth Arts Festival and Templebar Arts and Cutlure
Festival.

72

Separated
(Alice Kinsella)
I know what you are.
You are memories
And photographs
And bones.

You cant define me

And all of my complexity

But I know what you are

You are anniversaries
And withered flowers
A name carved onto stone

Im not like you

We are different kinds now

You are a name

A hushed tone
A question
Remember?

Not me.
I am pure potential.

73

Pigeon House chimneys

(Alice Kinsella)

Granddad would bring me to the beach

Sandymount strand all muddy and cold
No place for togs or sun cream, but wellies and splashing
Wool gloves guaranteed to get wet or shoved in pockets to be withdrawn
Outside home and tell mum Id worn them all along.

He couldnt bend down, even those days

Used his stick to point out seaweed and rivers in the sand
Worn out by the worms and the sea snails who never showed their faces.
Id pick up shells and raise them as close to his eye line as I could reach
Ask the names and hed tell me, and say how many more there were
Back when he was a kid and ran barefoot, swam in high tide,
Not dirtied by any of the muck from the factory,
The skyline still unobscured by the candy cane chimneys.

Theres a photo of us hanging still in Nans living room

Me, hunkered over a splash of sea water,
Fingers pointing and tongue wagging (no doubt)
Granddad stands tall, his stick waving towards
The horizon unmistakable
Where the chimneys are towering alongside him.

74

Seashell
(Alice Kinsella)

The woman is a shell now.

Though not rough or worn by rocks.
No jagged edges or algae stains
Just white and lovely
Filled with echoes of the sea.

Her alabaster cheeks are

Plump like pillows, pale
No throb of waves to flush them.
Her lips rest puckered
No kiss of life to press upon them.

The woman lies empty now.

In a bed of black kelp tendrils
Lids smoothed like summer sands.
She floats only in dreams now,
The sea no longer beats for her.

75

Bedtime prayer
(Alice Kinsella)

There are some things that visit me at night

That whisper secrets long after theyre dead
They do not care that there are stars alight

And blackness is their home, kept out of sight

Wriggle between covers, beneath the bed
There are some things that visit me at night

Theyre thoughts of Armageddon, eternal quiet

The fate of the world when the sun turns red
It will not matter then that there are stars alight

And thoughts of God cannot make things all right

Disbeliefs caused every tear thats shed
These are the things that visit me at night

When priests told me of the deitys eternal might

They never paused to think whats in my head
They did not care that there were stars alight

Burning in my brain, sparking the fright

Going over things that have been said

76

Knowing that there are things that visit me at night

That do not care that there are stars alight.

77

If you fancy
submitting
something but
havent 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
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Please include your name, contact details, and a short biography. You are welcome to include a photograph of
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We cannot be responsible for the loss of or damage to any material that is sent to us, so please send copies as
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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
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These guidelines make sorting through all of our submissions a much simpler task, allowing us to spend more of
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78

Septembers 2016s MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

Theres an accidental theme in this months edition post on the

Facebook Group if you can find it.
Well, thats 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 didnt make it into this edition,
dont 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.

79

80

81

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

82

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 Sen 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.