ISSN 2053-6119 (Print)

ISSN 2053-6127 (Online)

Featuring the works of John Urso, Paddy Mc Coubrey, John Jack Byrne, Alan Garvey, Colin Honnor and Peter O’Neill. Hard copies

can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 22 July 2014

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A New Ulster Editor: Amos Greig

On the Wall Editor: Arizahn

Website Editor: Adam Rudden

Contents

Cover Image “Wishing Well” by Amos Greig

Editorial page 6

John Urso;

Kiss Me Kate Part One pages 10-19

Paddy Mc Coubrey;

Almost Titanic pages 21-29

John Jack Byrne

Conflict page 31

Canvas page 32

Ruins page 33

Alan Garvey;

RIVER ROAD page 35

THE BUTCHER page 36

ANIMAL ACTIVITY page 37

Colin Honnor;

Yews page 39

The Armistice Line page 40

Ahbendphantasie pages 41-44

Mytholmroyd page 45-46

Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall page 46

Crow Fall – Crow Lift pages 47-49

On The Wall

Message from the Alleycats page 51

John Jack Byrne;

Maire’s work can be found pages 53-56

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Round the Back

Peter O’Neill; The Empty Too: Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett

Arthur Broomfield pages 60-64 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/

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Published in Baskerville Oldface & Times New Roman

Produced in Belfast, 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.

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Editorial

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running

with them.” Marcus Aurelius

We start this issue with some news namely a change of address for us of

course such a carried a fair few hiccups most of which we have managed to

overcome. Sadly there are a few issues still affecting us so our Facebook page

will be quiet for a while whilst we get sorted out.

This issue features a short story by Joe Urso the second part will be

featured in next month’s issue as well as an essay by Peter O’Neill. We accept

short stories and essays all are welcome in our pages. A New Ulster is open to

experimental and traditional poetry styles and approaches. Poetry can be a

scapel to lance the poisons of history both personal and worldwide.

This issue features a strong example of experimental and local poetry

from many voices and styles as well as a range of short stories. Come this

September we will have been in production for 2 years. That’s two years as a

semi independent monthly arts magazine/ ezine hybrid. I have plans as we move

towards the future.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

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Biographical Note: Joe Urso

Perhaps writing my own epitaph would be the most

accurate, and concise, introduction: He was 54. He spent

his days earning a living cleaning restaurants and bars

which gave him the freedom to make a life by writing at

night. He was in love with the same woman for 42 years.

Though never married and often apart, they were devoted

to each other.

A few of my stories have been published in The

Penniless Press, Prole, Synchronized Chaos, Subtletea, and

Damazine.

As a writer for so long, sometimes I feel invisible. At

first glance this may look like a poor pitch, but invisibility

is part of the wardrobe of a constant observer. I believe a

story should be written well enough to describe itself. I

spend my evenings attempting to meet this standard.

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Kiss Me Kate Part One

by

Joe Urso

“Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Anyone else but me/Anyone

else but me - no no no/Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Till I

come marching home.”

I am certain that if the Earth survives another 10,000 years and my father’s bones

with it, the technological advances of forensic science will reveal he did not have an

artistic bone in his body. Despite what would be considered overwhelming evidence,

my father sang those popular tunes from the ‘40's; his world when he was a boy.

Before I could read, I whistled. I remember my father’s stories about reading the

Sunday comics and listening to the radio on December 6, wearing knickerbocker

pants, being chased by the girls in his neighborhood as he pulled his red wagon in

search of anything metal. Then he showed me a picture of The Andrew Sisters. I

remember thinking how LaVerne looked just like Aunt Jay from Scranton, one of my

favorite aunts. After Uncle Jackie died, she would take the bus from Scranton and

visit us at least twice a year. I had so many aunts, a few with the same first names, the

city they lived in became their surnames as if they were Princesses from medieval

Europe – Aunt Anna from Albany, Aunt Anna from Brooklyn, Aunt Anna from

Binghamton. When I sit back drinking my coffee, these memories are the company I

keep.

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We lived on Morris St., a working class neighborhood lined with maple and oak

trees in front of homes occupied with two parent families.

Today you would venture a jaunt past pock marked buildings inhabited by crack

heads, the trees replaced by parking spaces, the corners keep company with 2am

Whoers. But in those early days it was our street, our world, in the neighborhood my

father remembered as home during The War. My father was young, virile, singing all

the time. On Saturday and Sunday mornings he would take me to The Park. I have

those photos too, walking hand in hand with my Dad on the tree lined path directly

across the street from our house. Dad bends down on the ground, props me up on his

knee, somebody took a picture.

“Climb upon my knee Sonny Boy/Though you’re only three Sonny Boy”

These tunes rent space somewhere in the back of beyond my brain with the X

Tables and The Lord’s Prayer. When I am 68 and sitting back, drooling, pissing on

myself while my hand shakes like a humming bird’s wings, I will remember 9x7, The

Our Father, The Andrew Sisters, and my father. His face painted with joy as he sings

to me, as I recall how much he loved me.

*************************

After she rang off, I smiled while slowly shaking my head at a 25 degree angle.

She had to be. Only a foreigner would phone an Investigative

Journalist and not the police for justice.

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Justice, like an ancient corpse, is buried deep. If she called a second later, my phone

would have been off and I would have been on my way to the airport. She could have

left a message, but if the number is unknown the message is deleted. When Life

happens like that, when a second and nothing else decides between the left or right

side of the fork in the road, you have to wonder who is keeping Time. You have to

wonder which God is crowning your insignificant ass as important enough to place the

fate of someone else’s life in your hands. Mind you, I really do not care a rat’s ass

about this philosophical crap. I am an instant convert to any religion which prevents

me from taking a jet ride.

–Hello.

–Yes, Mr.___. . . I am sorry. My pronunciation you see is not so good.

–It’s a burden of a surname to pronounce. Call me John. And you are?

–I have forgotten my manners. My name is Lara Avtakin. I apologize John for this

intrusion into your privacy. I hope it is not too inconvenient.

–Not at all Lara. May I call you Lara?

–Yes please do.

–It’s a beautiful name. A beautiful story - Dr. Zhivago.

–Yes. You are familiar with Pasternak?

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–Oh yes.

I was five years old. My brother and sister were wishes incubating inside my

mother’s dreams. It was just the three of us, a summer night at the drive in. Years

later my mother told me I cried so hard they had to leave. I can imagine the tension

shaking down my father’s hands squeezing the wheel. I can feel the beads of sweat

dripping over his face, as if his face was mine and he was the boy wailing away in the

rumble seat. Then his shame, the shame I later witnessed so often in his eyes, shame

as he beat a retreat past the ranks of cars, maneuvering our VW Bug around the field.

My mother. . .I can see my mother turned around in her seat. The disappointment I

later witnessed so often in her eyes burrowed into my memory. She looked past my

me, past my father, searching for one last look at Julie Christie in Omar Sharif’s

arms. My mother told me I started whistling the theme song the following day. It

remains with me. It is the truest sound I ever heard. So sue me. I was making time

with Lara. So did Yuri Zhivago.

–So Lara, though I would like nothing better than to talk Pasternak with you, I assume

you called for another reason.

–Yes. I once read an article you wrote. The piece and your name has stayed with me.

Perhaps you understand this – you read something and it sticks you like a pin and

leaves a little scar you hardly see but always feel.

–What I write is not intended to cause any pain. Not any lasting pain.

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–I assure you no permanent damage was done. Some scars are practical. Later, my

research on this article permitted me to trace it to the newspaper that published it. I

spoke with an editor, a man named Frank Wan-

--Oh yes, Frank. So whatta ya know, an editor now! Just a private joke Lara please

continue.

–I told him my circumstance. He gave me a phone number. He said you would be

pleased to hear from me.

–For once he was right. Now that our connection is established, what can I do for

you?

–It is my son Filat.

***************************

I arranged to meet Lara in The Park the following Sunday. A walk in The Park is

the chaser to a double shot of vodka story.

–Who’s the man with Filat?

–My father Ilari Avtakin. Filat’s father, well. . .

–How about we make a deal. We both let our pasts rest to focus on your son’s

future.

–Agreed John. He looks so happy.

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–For a little boy, I’d say above average happy.

–Well yes, but I was thinking of father.

–Oh yes. They look right at home.

–I imagine fathers walking with their sons in The Park look the same wherever you

live. There was a Park near our apartment in St. Petersburg. My father began taking

Filat as a baby as soon as he could be brought outside. I think Filat’s first memories

must be of The Park – the footpaths bordered by trees and old statues, the great open

space filled with what each day brings into it. There was a lake and a 17th

century

brick boathouse with a pavilion on the shoreline, and a narrow dirt path surrounding

the circle of the shore. And of course his grandfather singing to him. I have a picture

of them. . .see.

–Yes. I have one just like this. Myself with my father.

–Do you-

--I don’t carry it with me. I have it hidden away. Funny, but I never thought I’d have

the chance to show it to anyone. Well, it’s easy to see they are close.

–Immensely. From our apartment window, I would watch them cross the avenue hand

in hand.

I could tell - even in winter through the frost covering the glass - they continued to

sing those American show tunes my father loves. I would ready the tea, then wait to

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hear the metallic echo of their singing bounce off the corridor walls.

Father was a modest civil servant. I never knew my mother. He told me she was an

American who worked at the embassy, and their relationship had to be kept secret.

They could not marry. She was compelled to return home without me. I do not know

why. He never said. I never asked. I have the feeling father never expected he would

see her again. I think in his mind she lives through the songs they sung together, the

songs he now sings with Filat. I cannot say if I ever believed a word he said about

her, even if she was my mother. It makes no difference to me. I never had who I lost,

so I lost no one. He has always been so good to me as a father and now to Filat, I no

longer think the truth matters. Perhaps searching for the truth reaches a point of

diminishing returns. Every family has an empty space in their hearts. She is ours.

Father learned all about The American singers from my mother – The Andrew

Sisters, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra. They would sing together has they took their

walks through The Park. He would sing to me when I was a little girl, now he sings to

Filat, and Filat sings to his classmates.

–He was expelled for singing!

–Not particularly. For kissing.

–Now I remember his story! I didn’t put two and two together.

–Put two and two together?

–When you first told me Filat was expelled, I didn’t add it to the story I previously

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heard in the news about a boy being kicked out of kindergarten.

–Yes I see.

–I am usually quite good at putting two and two together. You have to be in my line

of work.

–Yes I see.

–I’m boring you with my nonsense. I must be getting old.

–Getting old is not so bad. Consider my father.

–How did he take the news about his grandson?

–I have not told him. The only news he listens to is the BBC on the internet, so he

would not hear about it from local media. I could not tell him. He would not

understand. I do not think I understand. Besides it would break his heart. What truth

is worth the price of breaking someone’s heart? The old folks have a saying back

home in Russia: “When a kopeck is placed is someone’s hand there is an empty

pocket in someone else’s pants.” Nothing is free on this planet. Everything comes

with a cost.

So too our bodies have to work for the air they breathe, so why do people think their

lives are free? Now I am the one who is boring you with my nonsense. So too does

Filat not know what happened. He believes he is on special holiday from school. He

is too young, too innocent. I could not think what other to do. I am trying to protect

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my son. I am trying to protect the both of them.

–One day you will not be able to protect Filat, you know this.

–Yes.

–As for your father, I wouldn’t worry too much about him. From the look of him, I

don’t think anything would prevent him from singing. You are right to protect your

son. I say this from a man’s perspective who was once a boy. Even I use to be one

you know.

–And the cutest one in The Park on Sunday afternoons I am sure.

–You are much too kind. . . My father would take me to this Park when I was younger

than Filat you know. We lived right over there, see. . .Well, here’s to fathers and

sons. And grandfathers and sons.

–And to little boys.

–Agreed. Though I would not want to be one in this world today. I think I’d prefer

being a bird, someone who is pushed out of the nest in twenty days instead of twenty

years.

–But such a short life, and so little time with your mother.

–True. I think you should continue to protect Filat. Protect him for this reason – if

the boy knows the truth and believes he has done something wrong, though we know

he hasn’t, he will be scarred with shame that cuts below the marrow. If you believe

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anything I say believe this – it would have been better for the kid to have grown up in

The Soviet Union, church-free and guilt-free, than over here where people litigate for

the right to ruin a little boy’s life over an innocent kiss. A kiss by a five year old boy

can be nothing else. Damn the day it becomes a crime.

I know, a bit dramatic. The story was worth taking to the stage. I am hedging my

bets with God; the impression I leave behind at such a moment might be my only shot

at immortality. So I’m a selfish bastard watching out for my soul. I had my reasons.

My intentions were not heroic. Since my guardian angel is on permanent sick leave

with its Boss, my #1 rule is watch your back. I am not going to be stranded in the

dead of winter on a troika with an Oliver Twist in a Russian accent. To wit, plan A

called for one more move before I left The Park. Saying good-bye and leaving Lara,

I skirted a dirt path - one of two running parallel about twenty feet apart. The one I

walked bordered the street, the other lined a long row of pine trees in between whence

walked Filat with his grandfather. I was searching for the sign that would convince

my back if I hitched a ride with a Russian, I might find myself on the road to my

salvation.

We were ships passing in the night. I was configuring their destination. They were

singing their way back to my point of departure.

“Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Anyone else but me/Anyone

else but me no no no/Don’t give out those lips of yours to anyone else but me/Till I

come marching home.”

This is why the world loves Oliver Twist, the honest boy surviving in a cruel/

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calculating/money-loving/violent/self-righteous city who needs a little bit of help

without having to say please. Not a Judge’s decision nor a Politician’s propaganda

will turn this trick. You will not hear Gary Owen whistling on the wind. The 7th

Calvary will not be coming. And all the guardian angels are hibernating. One human

being is going to choose to save another. Done deal. Simple as that. No vote

necessary. Just one person to climb the cross. Oh no, not me. Thanks for the

thought, but I must disappoint. I will not be the one with splinters up my ass.

Next stop, the other mother with the other little lover.

To Be Continued

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Biographical Note: Paddy Mc Coubrey

Paddy was born in belfast, lives in lurgan

shortlisted for 2012 Desmond O Grady poety contest,

nothing published as yet,

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Almost Titanic

( Paddy McCoubrey )

The April sky was gray and dull,

as dull as the day before.

Through the screaming come a lull,

as Carpathia neared the shore.

From the corner near the Masters clock,

for as far as the eye could see,

the numbers swelled along the dock

as they waited impatiently.

The questions numbered many

but answers they were few,

details were scarce if any,

with no one telling what they knew.

The humming wire was buzzing loud

as the news began to seep,

it quickly inched along the crowd

"that Titanic had sunken deep".

A man from WhiteStar was heard to say

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that all on board survived,

but cautious hope being the only way

till all and one arrived.

Many there said a desperate prayer

for their nearest and their dear,

their poetic words filled up the air

in the hope someone might hear.

Tom Dooley blessed himself again

as he cursed that wrenched ship,

his throughts were of his Martha jane

and why she took that trip.

He buttoned up his tweedy coat

against the early morning chill,

he felt a dryness in his throat

as an east wind blew at will.

The sun above was trying to shine

but could nt break the clouds,

as a gray mist on the waterline

neared towards the crowds.

who watched the ship with focused eyes

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till it reached the weathered pier,

in the air the anguished cries

were mixed with doubt and fear.

Captain Rostron watched the scene unfold

now looking stressed and pale,

thinking of how fate took hold

that began the nightmare tale.

"it was sometime close to midnight

the sea was calm and fine,

we were sailng by the moonlight

all was steady and on time.

I stared up at the late spring sky

till i heard the 1st mates bell,

and whispered thanks to God on high

for all onbroad were safe and well.

Then a belt of coldness broke the air

like a northern winter chill,

it caught us quick and unaware

but we were ready for it still.

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An icy wind filed across the deck

but everything stayed quiet and fine,

till the older lad from the Radio shack

reported ice bergs along our line.

So without delay and little haste

we cut our engines low,

each man knew the threat of waste

and no man acted slow.

For no chances would we dare to take

we double manned the nest,

and if we tried we could nt break

so we changed our course due west.

It was just before the Artic split

when the SOS come in,

it reported that an icebergs hit

and soon sinking would begin.

So the master and the first mate

rallied everyman to call,

as we raced to save Titanics fate

hoping God would save them all.

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We knew where she d been sighted last

so set our course for there,

and every minute quickly passed

as i ordered to prepare.

This was started then forthwith

with a call for everyhand,

volunteers come sharp and swift

from every mother, child and man.

Who cleared the deck and all its lots

as we kept a steady speed,

the engines hit at nineteen knots

closing in on natures deed.

The clock was set on three fifteen

when we saw Titanics flare,

about 4 clear miles were lodged between

our position and where they were.

It was here our courage went beyond

the fear of what we d find,

what we needed when it come upon

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was a clear and steady mind.

Now not a ripple stirred the sea

it was much to calm and still,

it was here that Titanic used to be

and now lost to fates cruel will.

From the darkness come a heavy yell

then another one behind,

so we sounded out the landing bell

as we set about to find.

And we were lucky for the fullest moon

we could ever wish to see,

with sunraise coming on us soon

we were dreading what might be.

The Titanic now was lost from sight

and gone was the Whitestar pride,

all we saw in the growing light

was endless bodies scattered wide.

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Scattered further then we could see

that it strained the naked eye,

but for then we had to let them be

as our prioritys were high.

With engines cut we anchored down

and hoped our prayers were willed,

it hit in deep for what we found

boats were empty and unfilled.

On every face we saw the pain

and felt their anguish too,

each had a scar that would remain

till all their days were though.

Mr Franklin Brown our medical man

a doctor of the highest esteen,

proved vital to our rescure plan

along with his dedicated team.

Who treated the survivors down below

with warm blankets, clothes and food,

from engine one the heatpipes flowed

all running steady as best they could.

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They sat and stirred with little said

for the shock had hit them deep,

of the nightmare hell from which they fled

still the memory they d have to keep.

The Pastor spoke then said a prayer

with his wife and eldest son,

about a grieve we all must share

when this tragic night was done.

But i dont think God really mattered now

for these victums of circumstance,

each one must have wondered how

they ended up in this hell of random chance.

With the streamship California near

we anchored up with speed,

then we consulted with our engineer

and give the order to proceed.

For the flow of icebergs was still a threat

and we had a cold wind blowing down,

our fullest speed and course was set

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without haste for New York town.

We made good along the Boston strait

despite a rain and wind that blew,

all passengers were more sedate

from the ordeal that they d been though.

On the orders from the Whitestar line

we were told to sit at bay,

before docking down at fifty nine

on that dark dull April day."

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Biographical Note: John (Jack) Byrne

John [Jack] Byrne lives in Co. Wicklow ,Ireland he has been writing for almost 6

years mainly poetry; Traditional and Japanese short form and has had some

published success in UK , USA, Ireland in Anthologies, Magazines ,Ezines /Journals

his blog can be found here: http://john-isleoftheharp.blogspot.ie/

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Conflict

(John Jack Byrne)

I see the troops prepare for war

with their rockets, tanks, and guns.

Always ready to start the killing,

these soldiers, humanity’s sons.

I witness the conflict and trouble begin,

with protesters banging their drums,

truly not happy with what they possess,

they face rockets, tanks, and guns.

How many to die when the shooting begins ?

while these soldiers show most willing,

no one will stop to count the cost,

when it’s time to start the killing.

Who will clean the blood from their wounds, ?

pity all these mothers sons

bound to die without a by or leave, ?

by these rockets, tanks, and guns.

Have lessons not been learned at all, ?

by soldiers, humanity’s sons.

They’re about to do what’s been done before,

using rockets, tanks, and guns.

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Canvas

(John Jack Byrne)

You are more beautiful than the night

where I look upon starry skies

wrapped in dark and moonlit bright

a vision as lovely as your eyes

I gaze far out into this space

where time goes on forever

a creator’s work which shaped your face

beyond all human endeavour

Of all the stars that sparkle bright

none shine as bright as you

all gathered in the milky way

your beauty still heads the queue

Come the dawn this canvas wiped

has such beauty faded away ?

but I can sleep and rest assured

you’re beside me night and day

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Ruins [Haibun]

(John Jack Byrne)

I’ve always been one to explore old ruins, and cottage ruins especially.

One place in particular I love, is the hearth or fireside, usually in

this space the chimney is still standing, here my imagination drifts back to the

gatherings which inevitably took place around such areas in the home. The

“cooking over a turf fire, the story telling, discussions about the days happenings ,

plans for tomorrow , the music and singing“.

If ever a place was aptly named it was this part of the house, which was the

centre of the home. I find myself wondering if they got the spelling correct, should it

not be the “Heart” instead of the “Hearth”

replacing the leaves

the moon

Autumn evening

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Biographical Note: Alan Garvey

Alan Garvey’s poetry has been widely featured in magazines and

anthologies. Three collections of his poetry are published by

Lapwing Publications, though he recently self-published his fourth

chapbook of poems, Avalanche of Shadow.

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RIVER ROAD (THE BEND)

(Alan Garvey)

Not that he took

his hands off the wheel

Not that a difference was made

in flats or high heels

Not that the Strip was lethal

from motel to bar

Not that they were afraid

to be driven so far

Not that it wasn’t the simplest

of plans

No trace of them came to light

in his hands

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THE BUTCHER

(Alan Garvey)

“Sometimes you’re nothing but meat.”

Tori Amos, Blood Roses

Roll of breast, ham and thigh,

chestnut, milk or mocha feast

for the famished eye,

seen but untouched,

bunched and crushed

contradiction of flesh –

anyone’s for the taking

but for the gusts of bills

that flutter into a clutch.

Ruffled muchness of round

pounds and ounces, glistening

shoulder & shank, mesh

net sectioning

shaven flesh,

muffled rump pumping

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its way past his windscreen,

parading itself to a wound-

downwindowmeatcounter.

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ANIMAL ACTIVITY (MEDIA REPORTS)

(Alan Garvey)

Rodents will pick at your mother,

nostrils a-twitch, noses glittering

in the underbrush, shank claws flitter

across cracked fragments of femur

crunched for its marrow. They dance

from one end of the stage to the other,

spotlit by a sunbeam as it trickles over

the major notes of your mother’s fingers.

They are learning to watch and record,

to communicate in the simplest of signals

against the ambient hum of a river,

connecting wires and currents

they relay pictures of gravesites and finds

to families saying grace in neighbouring states,

TV in the background as they sit round

and give thanks for their dinner.

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Biographical Note: Colin Honnor

Colin Honnor

Widely published poet in numerous magazines in

print and online ; collections, mostly from small

presses and private presses include From

Underground (Mirabilis 1986); Dante; Cavafy;

The Somme; (Yew Tree Press). A former editor

of Poetry and Audience, he runs a fine arts press

in the Cotswolds.

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Yews

(Colin Honnor)

They are the fig trees of the west

To fruit feed the nest of yearlings

The serendipitous flock

Gothic perpendicular topiary,

Topiary of iron and verdigris

And bitter arils, gnawed,

a language with which the tongue sours.

The horse eats and is skittish

Propinquity of the brood mare

The unloved princess cups the bole

That are the bows length, the arrow's flight;

yellow dye for scapegoat and outcast.

Planted in stone these feathery spars

sign and seal the skies' warrants

fledged longbows arc in the flight of buttresses.

In gardens May service girls in swings

cusps of lore clenching a Roman nail

as armoured, groan under their brittle branch

whose turned shaft measures the length of memory;

the oasis quiet from the fall of Acre

the fall of arrow-shot in exhumed chivalry's

broken fingers from which a tom signature

is confirmed as the wind sighs through their green cirrus.

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The Armistice Line

(Colin Honnor)

How well their names address them!

They yield the grey clay of the buried soil

in a kind of deliverance.

Yearly they surprise from flagged fen

or starred field of poppies....

Sniff the odours of chalk, loam, hot flint

the share turns and taste this bitterness

yellowed almond shaped fragments

fallen from the unredeemable blue

horizon, the barbed faces and the eyes

this chemical crop grimaces

at the field’s edge. And, if you can

watch this twisted field unmoved

stunted shapes hang from the grey bowl

where now evenly we pick from maps

the place names like forgotten rivers of myth

that there is something to inherit after all

not soldiers’ tales or a clutch of medals

underground where the waters darken stone

of this broken armistice line.

42

Ahbendphantasie

(Colin Honnor)

"...like some prehistoric beast

or the tumulii of a vanished tribe..."

W G SEBALD’S The Rings of Saturn

I

Tarred styptics of wood signs its turpentine

from aquium rites lutus shields sheiling

ooze of Ouse, Auld and Orfe snakeskins

unite they retreat castorum quarantined

polymorph you engrave igneous, sediments imperium

become their corals, you coral pebble alios

scatter to vanish, to emerge, spine, molar shingle

rattles a border merging of ocean's artforms

licked label labials gurgle chuckle their sluice

wind blown in the reedy sluice

abandoned into the mud

abandoned to the mud and seabirds

your suave and soigne daughter

photographs as a fresh casual atrocity

conventions of polderlands

outlaw such sophistry

bitumen wood of the Thames barge

they abandoned to the

orts its broken backed keel

it opens on promontories of light

the sun winks and water sings

through gapped ribs we used to sit

here daydreaming of silver and aquamarine

afternoons, as Sutton Hoos rose out of the sea

and a pigeon flies up in the next room

carpenters of sunrise, noon-gold, earth-prism

as the tide works its own passage, nosing

in homage to shingle, to

43

mudflats, courting it will betray

with lifting and taking

shed tribe...."

your daughter on camera video films

the box of Sizewell, hunched

in its concrete mausoleum

of dead waterbirds

they are the grimoire

of this age, feet winged in silt

time-lapse images of flight

their contrails of flight

patterning arabesques

and will have outlasted dinosaurs

saurian, raptreplites bright intelligence

winged-sheathed- lensed eyes

broken wine of sea, brittle ophuiroids spread

their tarry fingers of shale

he seems to slip through grey door of himself

the grey ghost of history, smiles

finger to grey lip

sips the instant

then mists

wiped from eye

their contracts in the sea

that rattles the shingle off Dunwich, and offshore

islands the compact

conventions outlawing

soak and sink, sodden with the weight

of their landfill

the compliant mineral earth

dredged, barged,

tarred wood belches bubbles

from aqueous rancid mud flats

the broken backed keel

the seeping leathers of spilt inhabitants

44

where dawn becomes sunrise and then sunlight

rose to purple blue to gunmetal

in a painter’s light, where they stood

like fisherman to capture the morning lure

where the wind may free

the wind rings freeform its freedoms,

constant from its absences

where the absolute gathers,

filling the space between things

II

No cleansing tides, drowns

the murmer of conversation

from the next windbreak

starred with mineral run off

and the eels

sensing open water,

mussel-bearded elver clutched

hatches to fry and swims.....

45

Mytholmroyd

(Colin Honnor)

I

Their rookery chants

raucuous singenspeil

black crow smoke spreads and flies

into grey-blue, into skies

As I walked out in Heptonstall

coal-burnished crow among the elms

waddled on gravestones, pecked at mosses

in blue-black darks sink hidden

to where only instinct is in its blind eyelights

stared sightlessly out of its element, air

that Jurassic eye invoked its intoxications

scythe-beaked, nodding

at some unanswered question posed

by Homer Lorca Poe or Pound

or by Aeschylus, Frost or Ted Hughes.

As I walked about Mytholmroyd

granite cliffs pinched their brows accusing

of unromantic crimes, unconsidered

that crow dropped, a broken pilot

Tolstoy’s, Mandelstam’s, Akhamatova’s crow

Magri’s crow of the pampas tugging

at his pony’s entrails, or Celan’s smoke-crow

hovering above death-chimneys

envoy to winged-oblivion, of black-silhouette

of Kremlin’s crow-hooded eyes

or Sophocles’ night-watch crow, cawing

to murderous wife and son

the Furies’ crowsfeet above Mycenae.

As I walked out of Hebden Bridge

that crow spreadeagled, cawed, familiar

of hollow skulled Kampuchean, Armenian

Rhwandan, echoes from scree-pike to sheep-fell

46

in dumbed bell of its throat bones

as Homer’s flocked feasting crows

beaks carrion-bloodied like them dead

like Baskin’s Aeschylean crows

carbon-black soaks images in Arches

in feral frown-lines of his honing graver

as primitive-heretical beak stabbing piercing,

mystic-music chorus singing lode-eyed more-than-rage

showers in their ludicrous dance scattering

as late-sown winter wheat feasts living carrion.

II. Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall

These the lost craggy granites and grits tower

dwarf man in his clutched and clenched myths

a feral stink and furred ruff by the roadside mimicked by inscriptions ; wooly tined

dags sharped on burred hawthorn

and the cenotaph of Heptonstall, cold pilgrims seeking significant otherness

firs he 1athes to stones and trees

as you cross a broken stir, fearful, tremble more is instinct with impossibilities of your

nature

emigma to your unresolved lives

and instantly the sky darkens

an ice-cream van plays, come buy the stone clouds fixed in summer's flint-fire .

III.Mytholmroyd II

Gone those chapels, gone the ironies

texts and homilies like wagging fingers

into riverbeds and quarries

where the Wordsworthian peak frowns

the broken lamplighter's clogs

become cobbled streets stretching away

from stone cliff to bone black brow of cliff

admonish you to millstones

the milestones clogs notched

the abundant words like threads flying shuttle

47

from the fanged frame to bury

in linsey and cotton waste

the undifferentiated myth, the odour of tar and linters

God snores in the drifts

of words would come to him

III. Crow Fall

As I was leaving Heptonstall

these snagged branches roused from plumed sleep

in the millennial heartfires

ream burns spilled to outfalls of memory

shingled on pebbles to sigh back their gape-staddles

field spilled bloodied sunsets burn sight carting

yew crying churchyards

weeping

pitiful stones to aggregate

this agglomerate knobs and knurls

far fields spilled their own blood in the sunset

the churchyard cried yew

-- pitiful stones to aggregate humanist

burnt stone, fire in letters

mason’s tink chink water thrush tap

humanist grieve, despair, kneel, but name.

its agglomerate knobs and burls

sobbed back to the black of its glacier

then the crows began to lift like hang gliders

pouring their exclamations from

the mytholmroyds of their own imaginations

their wings from molten light

hardening to blackness

the eels their questions marks, exclaimed

spreading accidental blacks across

cord-bands of new-ploughed snow

raucous singspeil of their rookery chants

their crow language of affront, of attack

48

no compounds, back to excellences

spined as a black book pierced by bookworm

shows a hundred eyes in its bitten boards

the black stars unexplained remained pulsing

their visible red shifts or falling

like a lens consumed by magnification

to a sun’s heat.

he was out of his element air

drinks dew pecks air birch sap twig birchlit

gunmetals of feathered ravens wing

burnished crow

in blue-blacks of its blind eyelights

stared sightless

out of the element air earth water fire

eye invoking as a drunken orgy

silvered rivers trickled among stones

yellow hollows scalpel beak

drogue head snoop head

granite teeth narrow in mouths

moors furrow brows accuse

your rebarbative pathos, pitiful

tug at the entrails of your oblivions

where the successor of end is quark

and the toteriphilgyphum is phage:

smoke-crow hover above

death-dreams smoke chimnney

IV. Crowlift

As I walked out in Heptonstall

I saw a burnished crow among the elms

waddled on gravestones, pecked at mosses

in the blue-black of its blind eyelights

stared sightlessly out of its element, air

eye invoking as a drunk’s, scythe-beaked, nodding

49

at some unanswered question posed

by Homer Lorca Poe or Pound

or by Aeschylus, Frost or Ted Hughes.

As I walked about Mytholmroyd

granite cliffs narrowed their accusing brows

that crow dropped like a broken pilot

Tolstoy’s, Mandelstam’s, Akhamatova’s crow

Magri’s crow of the pampas tugging

at his pony’s entrails, or Celan’s smoke-crow

hovering above death-chimneys

envoy to winged-oblivion, of black-silhouette

of Kremlin’s crow-hooded eyes

or Sophocles’ night-watch crow, cawing

to murderous wife and son

the Furies’ crowsfeet above Mycenae.

As I walked out of Hebden Bridge

that crow spreadeagled, cawed, familiar

of hollow skulled Kampuchean, Armenian

Rhwandan, echoes from scree-pike to sheep-fell

in the dumbed bell of its throat bones

as Homer’s flocked feasting crows

beaks carrion-bloodied like them dead

like Baskin’s Aeschylean crows

carbon-black soaked into virgin Arches

in the feral lines of his honing graver

as primitive-heretical beak stabbing piercing,

mystic-music chorus singing lode-eyed more-than-rage

showers in their ludicrous dance scattering

as late-sown winter wheat, the living carrion.

50

If you fancy submitting something but haven’t done so yet, or if you would like to send us some further examples of your work, here are our submission guidelines:

SUBMISSIONS

NB – All artwork must be in either BMP or JPEG format. Indecent and/or offensive images will not be

published, and anyone found to be in breach of this will be reported to the police.

Images must be in either BMP or JPEG format.

Please include your name, contact details, and a short biography. You are welcome to include a

photograph of yourself – this may be in colour or black and white.

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

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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

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spend more of our time working on getting each new edition out!

51

JULY 2014'S MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

The birds have eaten all of the cat food again!

In other news, Arizahn is muttering about making ANU

into an online only publication, in order to protect the

environment. So anyone who has opinions on this, please feel

free to contact us; your views as readers/contributors count and

Arizahn reckons no one reads this bit.

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”.

52

Biographical Note: John Jack Byrne

John [Jack] Byrne lives in Co. Wicklow ,Ireland he has

been writing for almost 6 years mainly poetry;

Traditional and Japanese short form and has had some

published success in UK , USA, Ireland in Anthologies,

Magazines ,Ezines /Journals his blog can be found here:

http://john-isleoftheharp.blogspot.ie/

53

boring crowd by John Jack Byrne

54

Her Kiss by John Jack Byrne

55

Your Goodbye by John Jack Byrne

56

her scent by John Jack Byrne

57

58

59

Biographical Note: Peter O’Neill

Peter O’ Neill was born in Cork in 1967. After spending the

majority of the nineties in France he returned to live in Dublin

where he has been living ever since. His debut collection Antiope

(Stonesthrow Poetry) appeared in 2013, and to critical acclaim.

‘Certainly a voice to the reckoned with.’ Wrote Dr Brigitte Le JueZ

(DCU). His second collection The Elm Tree was published by

Lapwing (2014), ‘A thing of wonder to behold.’ Ross Breslin ( The

Scum Gentry ). His third collection The Dark Pool is due to appear

early in 2015 (Mauvaise Graine).

60

The Empty Too: Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett

Arthur Broomfield

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

(Peter O’Neill)

The Empty Too is a sentence taken from Worstward Ho, Samuel Beckett’s

penultimate prose work, first published in 1983. The emphasis is on the

definitive article, which in the normal use of language acts as a referent to

perhaps a person, place or thing (s) . The hands, for example. But, in Worstward

Ho, Arthur Broomfield reminds us, language, by Beckett, is not being used in

its normal way. Here, in the text, Broomfield underlines, Beckett wishes to free

language. Empty The of hands – ‘No hands in the-.’1Beckett’s only concern,

Broomfield reminds us, is ‘that language is the real that is haunted by non-

being.’2 It is a refrain that Broomfield continuously underlines in this short

work, which comprises of five chapters, each one, apart from the first, treating a

single work by Beckett (Film, Godot, How It Is are the other works treated) and

runs to just over 100 pages.

In a later text, like Worstward Ho, Broomfield’s point is highly pertinent, and

one of the very real pleasures of The Empty Too is that it, rather forcefully,

encourages the reader to return to the texts themselves in order to explore

further Broomfield’s claims.

The twain. The hands. Held holding

hands. That almost ring! As when first

said on crippled hands the head. Crippled

hands! They were the words.3

1 Beckett, Samuel: Worstwrd Ho, Calder Publications, London, 1999, p. 32.

2 Broomfield, Arthur: The Empty Too, Cambridge Scholars Publications, 2014, p. 81.

3 Ibid.

61

And here we must intervene. The words, not the hands!

Here now held holding.

The words, not the hands, on the page. And here we must draw attention to the

beautiful bold print of all of Beckett’s later texts, whether they be published by

Calder or Minuit, the unusually large printed words on the surface of the page.

At once so different, even physically, to all other prose texts published during

the author’s own lifetime. The great white spaces on the page purposely leaving

room for the reader to breathe; Beckett was always the most generous of

writers, in content and form, his vision encompassed into the very fabric of the

book. In these two publishing houses no author was better served.

For Arthur Bloomfield, Waiting for Godot is the greatest example of the

inherent dislocation of being and non-being, and where, funnily enough, it is

exactly this dislocation between the very real of language and the unreality of

the physical world, or at least that as perceived through the senses, which gives

a lot of the play its most comic moments. In fact, the play, as Broomfield reads

it, is best seen, can only be seen, through this light. Hence the constant play on

doubt which goes on between Vladimir and Estragon, who are, according to

Broomfield, not tramps at all, but astute philosophers, grappling with the very

real of language, unchanging, and so very assuring, to the existential nightmare

of the physical world around them where nothing is permanently valid, and so

constantly up for unending debate. Broomfield is as his most convincing in this

chapter, as it is nothing less than an exposition on what it actually ‘is’ in the

play we find so immensely enjoyable, hilariously enough, even if we have no

real idea why- now we do! And it ‘is’ funny, so wildly comic. Broomfield, in

what is perhaps his greatest gift in the book, elevates Beckett’s humour as it

really is.

To understand that articulated language is interposed

between the void and itself gets to the philosophical

core of Beckett’s thinking, i.e. that language, being the

real, eliminates the void (see chapter 5) . Beckett’s

created dimension in Waiting for Godot is the place

where the real becomes aware of its reality, and this

62

reality is contrasted to the ultimate void over which

non-being, the perceived world, is suspended. (Broomfield, p.41)

All of which helps to further clarify the almost dazed performances of the

actors, in a good interpretation of the play, caught as they all are in this alternate

dimension, to the audience for example. There is a profound distinction being

underlined by Beckett/Broomfield here, a Copernican tilt to the inner tension in

the words, in which the conflict between Being and seeming to be, or non-being,

literally plays out before our disbelieving eyes. For now, when the theatre

curtain opens it is opening upon the void to which we all, as members of the

audience, as readers of the play, are now actively participating in. In theatrical

terms, Godot is the nearest thing we have, in language, to the splitting of the

atom. This is why the humour is so insanely comic. This is why when we laugh

we do so hysterically. Or don’t, as the case may be. Detractors of Godot

relinquish the void back to its ‘proper’ place, over Never Ever Mountain, as

opposed to the crucifying slapstick of the everyday. For the latter would imply

perhaps some kind of moral responsibility. The latter would imply a profound

shift in our understanding of the language within languages.

Arthur Broomfield’s treatment of Comment C’est / How It Is is less convincing

then the analysis of the previous two texts, primarily because he treats this text

only in the English translation, and while his analysis of Godot (also originally

written in French) more than stands up, so many vital elements, other than the

‘language of the real’ are left out in Broomfield’s analysis of this key work that

I was left feeling rather frustrated. Perhaps the difficult lies in the sub-title of

Broomfield’s book – Language and Philosophy in the Works of Samuel Beckett.

This subtitle is so vast, due to the subject’s immense linguistic and

philosophical knowledge, that by inserting such a subtitle after the main, one

expects a complete analysis into all of the linguistic and philosophical ideas

which Beckett evokes, and this is my only problem with Arthur Broomfield’s

remarkable little book. It does not, due to the sub-title, fulfil its brief, and for the

following reasons. Perhaps ‘The Language of the Real in the Works of ’ might

have been a better choice!

63

For, if you are going to write a book about Beckett and language surely one

would expect the writer of such a book to discuss, and in depth, Beckett’s multi-

lingual fluency – the majority of his literary output was written in French, yet he

also treated his work in German. Why? Unfortunately, Arthur Broomfield offers

no reason in The Empty Too. And this is a shame, for surely the case for ‘the

language of the real’, it being so dependent on the notion of non sensory related

input, is a hard case to defend when the choice of language, as determined by

Beckett, is so obviously based upon the senses themselves, particular those of

speech and sound? When one reads the work aloud in French, as one must, and

then one reads the exact same piece of text in English, one can clearly perceive

how the sound of the words alters our very understanding of the piece. We do

not think in the same way when we think in French as we do in English, and this

difference is voiced. The meaning of the two texts profoundly differs. Beckett

himself was intensely dissatisfied with the English treatment of his work,

despite the fact that he himself worked painfully at it for months on end. ‘It

could only be, he wrote to John Calder, ‘at the best, a most lamentable à peu

pré’ (approximation).4

Another aspect to consider; Deirdre Bair, Beckett’s much unfairly dismissed

first biographer, signalled very early on the work’s indebtedness to French

Symbolist poets of the nineteenth century.5 Rimbaud’s Illuminations being a

case in point, Rimbaud being famously associated with his words of

encouragement to other poets advocating ‘ Je dit qu’il faut étre voyant, se faire

voyant.’ / ‘I say one must be a seer, make oneself a seer.’ 6 Rimbaud famously

prescribed a methodology of déréglement de tous les sens/derangement of all

the senses7. If one considers Comment C’est/How It Is from an alternative

linguistic perspective to Bromfield’s, which advocates a language ‘emptied of

non-being’; that is to say stripped of all reference to the world as perceived

through the senses – one is then forced to deny a whole influx of

interconnecting points of reference , or correspondences, which can only leave

one feeling that Arthur Broomfield’s ideas on Beckett’s ‘language of the real’ is

but one entry, or tool, albeit a very important one. As the influence of Viconean

linguistics on Comment C’est/ How It Is is clearly outlined in the tri-partite

structure of the text, corresponding as they do to the three ages of man. The

4 Knowlson, James: Damned to Fame, Bloonsbury , London, 1996, p.495.

5 Bair, Deirdre: Samuel Beckett: Vintage, London, 1990, p.554.

6 Rimbaud, Arthur: Complete Works Selected Letters, Translation and Notes by Wallace Fowlie, The University

of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1966, pp. 306/307. 7 Ibid.

64

work seen in this light makes it his most Joycean, and must send us back to

Beckett’s own early study of the Neapolitan father of hermeneutics.

Here form is content, content is form. You complain

that this stuff is not written in English. It is not written

at all. It is not to be read- or rather it is not to be read.

It is to be looked at and listened to. His writing is not

about something; it is that something itself.8

The whole emphasis “Be-ing” centred around the senses. Surely some food for

thought there?

8 Beckett, Samuel: Disjecta, Grove Press, New York, 1984, p. 27.

65

66

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