Anu issue 28 / A New Ulster

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

Featuring the works of Marie Lecrivain, Sheikha A, Tim Dwyer, Neil Ellman, Joe Urso, Eamonn Stewart, Eithne Lannon, Noel King, Dr Mel Waldman, Christine Stoddard and Stephen McQuiggan. Hard copies can be purchased from our website.

Issue No 28 January 2014

2

A New Ulster Editor: Amos Greig

On the Wall Editor: Arizahn

Website Editor: Adam Rudden

Contents

Editorial page 5

Marie Lecrivain; Glass page 7

Empty page 8

Sheikha A;

Graffitti page10 The Hunt page 11

War page 12

Tyranny page 13

Oh Wintry page 14

Tim Dwyer;

Mo Clairseoir page 16

Speirbhean, Bradan Feasa page 17

Joe Urso; Snow on Christmas Eve pages 19-25

Neil Ellman; Sky Rite page 27 Airpocket page 28 Earth Tie pages 29-30

Eamonn Stewart;

The Whole Nine Yards page 32

Eithne Lannon;

May 28th page 34 Somewhere page 35

High Rock page 36

Things Places page 37

Cross-Over page 38

Noel King; Cleaner of the Restrooms page 40 Grateful page 41

The Bossman page 42-43

3

Dr Mel Waldman; Destiny page 45 The House of Silence page 46

Turquoise Lady pages 47-48

The Night of my Death pages 49-50

Flow pages 51-52

Petricor pages 53-54

Christine Stoddard;

Sonogram page 56

On The Wall

Message from the Alleycats page 58

Marie Lecrivain;

Marie’s work can be found pages 60-62

Round the Back

Press Releases Book Launches page 64

Stephen McQuiggan; Dust by Sunlight pages 66-76

4

Manuscripts, art work and letters to be sent to:

Submissions Editor

A New Ulster

23 High Street, Ballyhalbert BT22 1BL

Alternatively e-mail: [email protected]

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 “Equine Shadows” by Amos Greig

5

“We are what we repeatedly do. Exellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle.

Editorial

Welcome to the January issue of A New Ulster I delayed this issue while I composed

my thoughts on the recent attacks in France there are so many unanswered questions on these

actions. The beginning for me is what is Satire? When is it okay to attack a person’s culture?

Religion? When does satire become hate speech? Is it ever okay to take a life?

Satire is a genre of literature, sometimes graphic artwork and performance arts in

which vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings of government, individuals and corporations

are held up for ridicule the aim to shame these often it is just a form of social criticism. One

of the earliest forms of satire was the Satire of The Trades an Egyptian papyrus which

criticized the various attributes of tradesmen. Aristotle famously said “The aim of art is to

represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” I believe that

there are times when satire can serve a purpose but it can be harmful. Some of the material

that Charlie Hebdo produced bordered on hate speech but I’m not sure if it crossed that line.

The loss of life saddens me just as much as the subsequent violence has been terrible

for those affected. I do not believe in taking life for any cause once a cause requires blood to

be spilt then that cause is lost. Dialogue is a more useful tool for expressing concerns as is art

in every dictatorship censorship is a powerful tool to control the masses. Comedians, writers,

artists and teachers often suffer and face imprisonment, house arrest or worse.

I have always enjoyed Juvinalian satire especially the Satyricon a text which has often

been misinterpreted as being an insight into roman culture. A Juvinal satirist mocks societal

structure and uses their words to exaggerate words and habits to jeopardize an opponents

reputation or power. May those who suffered and died not be used as a spark to start more

bloodshed in their name.

Enough pre-amble! Onto the creativity!

Amos Greig

6

Biographical Note: Marie Lecrivain

Marie Lecrivain is the editor-publisher

of poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles, a

photographer, and is writer-in-residence at her apartment.

Her work has appeared in various journals, including Edgar Allen Poetry Journal, Maitenant, A New Ulster, The Ironic Fantastic, Nonbinary Review, Spillway, The Los Angeles Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, and others.

She’s the author of The Virtual Tablet of Irma Tre (©

2014 Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House), and

she’s the editor of the anthology Near Kin: Words and Art inspired by Octavia E. Butler (© 2014 Sybaritic Press). Her

avocations include alchemy, alternate modes of transportation,

H.P. Lovecraft, Vincent Price, steam punk accessories,

and the letter “S."

7

Glass

(Marie Lecrivain)

I dream of the cut, the separation of you from me. The layers of flesh halved,

soft as a cheese slice. Was there pain? The head says no. My heart says yes. The scar

embedded above my rib cage confirms with a constant ache.

Today, while walking north on Fairfax Ave, I found another clue; a wine bottle

smashed across the wide pavement. Here is the answer to one of my many questions.

Are you angry? The dirty emerald shards affirm this fact, though the neck - still intact

- makes me wonder what other message are you trying to convey?

Carefully, I pick up the neck. The dirty spout is miraculously (or deliberately)

unbroken. I bring it to my eye, careful to not let it touch my face. I stare through the

tiny tube at the shards on the ground and attempt an ad hoc divination. Is this how you

view the world? Through a sharpened lens?

I stare at the wine label. The word “family” jumps out at me. Ah! This is what

I’m supposed to find. I stare at the word until it burns itself into my brain. Family. We

were once that, I think. Are you saying we’re no longer connected? Are you saying

that these shards are “you,” at this point in time, or have always been? Are you saying

it’s too late?

8

Empty

(Marie Lecrivain)

What would life be like if we were still attached? What a spectacle we’d make, walking in tandem down the sidewalk, two abreast, arms around each other’s backs, wearing the most bizarre yet stylish silk dresses, and our hair blowing back in the breeze. People would stare. Women would feel pangs of envy at our mutually-shared confidence. Men would wonder what it would be like to make love to two women at the same time… forgetting of course, that we’d still have separate sets of limbs and vaginas… but, what fun we’d have… what fun…

Everywhere I look. This is me… without you. The jagged scar underneath my shirt pulses with sympathy. I stare at the word until it becomes blurred by my tears… Empty…

Empathy…

Eternity...

9

Biographical Note: Sheikha A

Sheikha A. hails from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her

works have appeared in numerous magazines such as Red Fez, The Penmen Review, ken*again, Carcinogenic Poetry (Virgogray Press), Ygdrasil, A Journal of The Poetic Arts amongst several others. She has also been published in a few anthologies by Silver Birch Press. Two of her poems have been recited at two separate events held in Greece: '100 Thousand Poets for Change' and 'Romantic Poetry Under The Full Moon'. Disinclined to talking about herself, she prefers her poetry fill the gaps for both readers and inquisitors.

10

Graffiti. (Sheikha A)

The walls of this city have dampened

a red that contends with the uncommon

red moon. There is motley of expression

against the white slates, overwritten

like a haranguing debate of moralities.

The black is stark in its generation

of tenuous loyalties, not a speck

of white visible, and the red

an embarrassed copper –

it is hard to read any of the words

on the walls;

as night takes over,

they disappear into their red

blackness.

11

The Hunt. (Sheikha A)

The essence of life is in mobility

and when one stops progressing,

the universe stops to thrum too;

then, there are people like me

who stare through their glassine

curtains at the paper-light moon

and search for time from when

it had been asked to stay frozen;

the Soul that has moved away

from the umbra of the earth,

with shadows of an orbital coup

crowning around the concaving

rims. There is life in the centre,

but having gone ahead too far

too soon in search for answers

the skins of an evolved time hang

in tassels by tenterhooks on a rack

of irrecoverable daylight.

There is neither Soul nor You

as the earth denies the moon

its migration; the hunter bleeds of

cries, time has evolved, the ghosts

of which have turned to statues

and, then, there is the ilk of me

who need no ‘scopes to sight

real miracles.

12

War. (Sheikha A)

The moon is at its requiem again

and I haven’t the novelty remaining

to respond to its call but I allow it

to look at my bare face to find

a moroseness sharper than its facial

striations –

visits from wise men during folly

wrenching nights. The sound of feet

will not elude me into an orange morn,

the light isn’t from an ascending sun;

‘tis nothing but the night walking

into an overrated revenge

with a rusted sword.

13

Tyranny (Sheikha A)

your game of Schadenfreude

laid out on a deck elaborate

with rules of play; winnowing

eyes gaze and avert, combating

traces of a ‘give away’, lest I,

less adroit, read and intercept

a mute machination of my end.

Everything is laid to plan; prop

ping the prize on the rotation,

your rough surfaced palms

hold a deathly grip on my dice.

Austere night, be my rescuer

if not executioner, I will take

you both ways. Bring snow

storm or gusting blizzards; cold

but lull breezes. See my boughs

swathe to a one-sided gamble;

all of your pawns trained to win…

my gullible night, I instruct chance

to help me routinely lose this trade.

14

Oh, wintry (Sheikha A)

winter moon – you are called

amorously. By those bewitched

by your monologue, a crafting

of superior constructed illusions

around the dumb, numb burnt

sky rapturing in your brilliance,

merry in obscurity; seeking none

of ointments for its impaled black

coloratura of scant addressed blues.

The sky stands like assorted infantry

behind your anarchistic aphorisms,

curtsying to orders of war or peace.

Winter moon, you bring me same

nights, one after another to delude

but my head is clean of false fancy,

arrested in sobriety, tracking alertly

your movements across tall mounts

and low-lying vales, of your miserly

dispels of selective illumination –

casting black on sprouting mutiny.

15

Biographical Note: Tim Dwyer

Tim Dwyer has recent publications in the Boyne Berries, Burning Bush 2, North West Words, Ropes 2014, Skylight 47 and wordlegs. His current manuscript is entitled Smithy Of Our Longings: Messages From The Irish Diaspora. He is poetry consultant to Catskills Irish Arts and a member of Irish American Writers And Artists. He is a psychologist at a correctional facility, grew up in Brooklyn and lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State. His parents were from Galway

16

MO CLÁIRSEOIR

(Tim Dwyer)

My Lagan Love

A fine day to meet you

in this rainy mist, the weather of home.

Passion takes the nuance from my words

reaches the high notes of the scale,

fortissimo in volume.

The strum of your voice

and stroke of your hands

brings lulling tunes.

No longer fearing the lush words,

your beatific countenance

and your holy embrace,

as your music finds me.

17

Spéirbhean, Bradan Feasa

(Tim Dwyer)

My sean nós friend sings

of the woman so beautiful

the salmon leaps, wishing to see her

as she walks along the river bank.

I know what the salmon knows-

I will drown in the air

to wend my way with you

18

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.

19

Snow on Christmas Eve

by

Joe Urso

Urso-1

Fifteen minutes before five. Accompanying shadows masquerading as dusk in December

melt in a milky grayness behind Christmas Eve snow clouds. The winter night begins early,

remains cold, finishes long. I am in my day room looking out the window at the

neighborhood animals flying and scurrying home, fulfilling their ancient routines. When I

wake up from my daily afternoon nap I move, automatically, to this window to watch my

world in turn fall to sleep. During the winter months, I pay particular attention to a crew of

crows across the street, perched high in the tall, barren, maple trees like pieces of big black

ripe fruit. They wait stoically for a silent signal. From where it comes I cannot say but it

comes, then they gun-shot fly away into the overlapping night. I do not know where they go,

like death they go, resurrected with the frosty morning. It is not too late. I grab some

peanuts. Forcing open the rusty tongues of the cheap storm windows with a screw driver and

hammer, I drop the peanuts to the ground for the squirrels who live in a burrowed out hole in

the pine tree in the front of my building. They cop and go. I wait to watch them safely home.

It is time to get dressed. I turn on the coffee pot for a quick cuppa. The Christmas lights

wink. They are the only live energy source in my apartment besides my birds, cats, and

coffee pot.

Urso-2

The lights over the fireplace reflect off the crown moulding above like multicolored images

from around the world. I imagine the reflections of the tree ornaments swimming on the

20

hardwood floor as shadows of my ancestors. Did I mention it is snowing. Snow on

Christmas Eve is a good sign for the New Year.

I forecasted snow for tonight. Habitually, without choice, and for the simple sake of

proven effectiveness, sticking my head outside the window in the morning is the best gauge

of the day’s weather. The street is silent. The parked cars straddle the curb one behind the

other like two columns of Patton’s tanks waiting for the signal to rush to Bastogne in the

snow. The accustomed quiet in my apartment is outmatched by the deep silence outside.

Time to cover the parakeets for the night, put on my grandfather’s herring bone winter coat,

visit my mother. My three cats - Blackie, Kitty Boy, and Minnie - walk with me to the back

door. I hesitate in front of the door listening to their tapping feet fade down the hallway. I

stop at the window on the landing. I watch the snow fall. I wait, listening to the silence of

the parachuting snowflakes waiting for tongues to catch them like falling stars looking for the

eyes that wished them falling, eyes seeking silence and solace from the noise and trouble one

day after another delivers. My face inches toward the window pane.

Urso-3

My eyes touch the cold of the snowflakes visible through the veils of the high-intensity, anti-

crime, street lights guarding this ghetto in place of beat cops. I can feel the darkness and hear

the silence of the night as I measure the snow blanketing the street. Darkness and silence are

the only self-evident Truths. They are alpha and omega equal for everyone come from

nowhere go anywhere. Tonight’s darkness and silence once surrounded a Roman outpost on

occupied territory some 2,000 years ago, immutable from then until now, unending from now

until never.

I grab my Uncle Frank’s cane hanging on the ironing board rack on the wall next to the

attic stairs. I did my right ankle in last week walking alone, slipping on the sidewalk. It is a

21

singular experience when you walk alone on an abandoned street, slip on ice, fall into the

snow. No one can save you. Gravity reminds your brain the ground is your body’s only

permanent home. Wait. I forgot the government forms for renewing my mother’s senior

housing application. She lives in a subsidized apartment building three blocks up my street,

over one, a right angle away at St. Vinny’s apartments. I am finally out the back door into

the night.

Snow on Christmas Eve is a good sign for the New Year.

Urso-4

My mother, cradled and clothed in the customs of the old world, believes in signs. Tonight

on Christmas Eve she will see the falling snow as a good sign for us. She will be happy,

happy for an hour or so, for an hour or so is all the time assigned for a Peasant to be happy in

this world. She will be in her window waiting for me to emerge through the snow, but she

will be looking up beyond the snowflakes past the glare of the anti-crime street lights up

through the cold dark air resting her eyes upon the stars. She will see hidden with the stars

she cannot see her childhood in the warm air of Sicily before Mussolini, the Germans,the

British, and the Americans arrived. She will remember roaming her pre-war hills in the

evening pinning her hopes on the first star shining at twilight wishing she will never have to

leave her hills running home before her grandmother’s spit evaporating on the dirt floor tells

the time of her tardiness. Memories sleep in stars and snowflakes like Michelangelo’s David

hibernating inside a block of Carrara marble waiting for a wake up call.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was water. One winter night long, long, ago,

the water ascended into the sky. The water revealed itself to the world as falling snowflakes

arriving after midnight. The snowflakes joined with the earth, waiting until the spring sun

resurrected their atoms into the heavens.

22

Urso-5

Forever after once a year on Christmas Eve, when it snows your memories will hitch a return

ride on the crystalline wings of snowflakes.

Outside the snow is shrouding the street. Silence has defeated all the allies of urban noise.

The Christmas lights decorating the odd house are the only human imprints sniping at this

silence, resisting the darkness. I am looking up at a white sky at night thick with snow

clouds, the snow thick too and gushing down as if it were pouring out of a faucet. Grafted

onto the snow clouds shines a blue-black portal cut into the atmospheric dome like a segment

from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel revealing stars glowing in the eastern sky. The moon

glows too underneath the swaddling snow clouds, pulling my eyes past the gentle snowflakes

into the stars swimming in this blue-black pool. How long have they been waiting for me? I

am alone tonight desert alone standing on top of a mountain at midnight alone keeping

company not with people but with snowflakes and stars breathing not oxygen but silence

dying not from a lack of air but of a surfeit of memories. Utter solitude is walking in the

darkness on Christmas Eve listening to the OM of snowflakes watching stars expand. Snow

on Christmas Eve is a good sign for the New Year.

It snowed always, slowly, gently on Christmas Eve when I was a boy, as if

Urso-6

the weather possessed a heavenly warrant. On Christmas Eve day my mother and I would

lunch at my grandparent’s Diner The Metro, walk across downtown’s busiest street decorated

with oversized red bells and wreaths, then into Murray’s Appliances Store. My mother

always dressed fashionably, the most beautiful woman I could ever imagine merging with the

snow. Murray would escort us through a secret door reserved for downtown v.i.ps and their

23

families, then a quick two-step through an alleyway separating the brick building behind us

from the marble one in front of us. After a knock on another secret door, we would brush the

snow off our coats while hitting our boots on the doorstep before bursting into Myer’s

Department Store. Everyone smiling, everyone happy, the bustle was natural not noisy. A

grand staircase just like the one on the Titantic climbed to the second floor. We took the

elevator. My mother always tipped the uniformed attendant just before we stepped into

yesterday with Bing singing on the second floor, Nat on the third, and Francis Albert on the

fourth. There were no undercover policemen patrolling the men’s bathroom, no unescorted

children impersonating adults while acting like everybody else owed them a favor. Credit

cards, electronic tags on goods sold, unnecessary. My eyelids, coat, boots, even Uncle

Frank’s cane, disappear with the past underneath an inch of snow.

Urso-7

Passing the houses on my street, my ears search for a few refrains of Christmas carols, the

sound of The Pope’s midnight mass, or perhaps the jingle of bells harnessing Santa’s

reindeers. I press my chin to my chest. I tighten my scarf over my ears to protect them from

the collective electrical hum of personal computers, I-pads, tablets, smart phones, and

HDTV’S oozing underneath the front doors, escaping from the cracks in the windows,

seeping into the snow like a dog’s business. I can see the corner of my mother’s street. Stop.

One last look at the bricks of my building separating my home from the vinyl siding of the

others. I mark the rows of houses on my street lined up and down like cars parked one

behind the other at a funeral. The snow has swallowed them up like sleep through the night

swallowing all the pain of the previous day. Rounding the corner of my mother’s street, I

behold St. Vinny’s in profile. The lights in its windows glow warmly on the cold, abandoned

24

neighborhood. It is only a two minute walk away from my apartment, but one star falls

longer and deeper in two minutes than all the miles a million pairs of feet can measure in a

million lifetimes.

What is the power behind this story of a Peasant baby born in an abandoned garage. What

do I name it. Where and from whom does it come from.

Urso-8

The power to reverse the planet’s orbit for a day. The power to clean cars, crack dealers, and

crime off the street for one night like a decree from a king. Would it be the same night if the

baby was born a prince behind impenetrable palace walls, or sent sailing down a river in a

basket to the doorstep of a king. Would it be the same night if the baby was born not near a

desert but near a rainforest, killed as a man not on a cross but hunted like an animal to

appease a god and expiate the sins not of the world but only of his tribe. Perhaps I am what I

am because I have laid my last bet on some Peasant kid born in a broken down shed just off

the route 66 of ancient occupied land. Soon now, much sooner than all the days to pass for a

star’s light to shine on me tonight, my bones will disintegrate into the ground while the

World still celebrates his birth. If I am lucky, I will spend eternity with a convicted felon

who was executed for making waves in the desert. But tonight I celebrate silence. The

silence shared with snowflakes falling. The silence that sits with me and my mother. Where

there is silence, there is peace. When there is peace, love lives.

St. Vinny’s looms above me like a cosmic customs station on the border between two

galaxies. The high-intensity, anti-crime, street lights are flickering. The electricity is losing.

The power of turbines and wires are dying.

Urso-9

25

I watch the street lights blowing out one by one like candles on a cake extinguished by the

flicker of a butterfly’s wings. The digital clock embedded in the granite above the entrance is

as stiff as a corpse. I stand in pre-industrial darkness on the sidewalk. My soul is granted

asylum from tomorrow. The front door to St.Vinny’s opens like a womb, birthing the scent

of Christmas in the 50’s and early 60's. My head draws up to my mother’s apartment

window. I will be with her soon. I will kiss her. I will rub her shoulders that haven’t had

another touch since my father died long ago. She is silent. The Pope on the T.V. is silent. A

radio whispers Christmas carols. Now I am silent too. And yet, I remember silence never

dies because it has no beginning.

THE END

26

Biographical Note: Neil Ellman

Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey. More than

700 of his poems appear in print and online journals,

anthologies, broadsides and eleven pamphlet/chapbooks

throughout the world. He has been nominated twice for

Best of the Net, as well as for a Rhysling Award from the

Science Fiction Writers Association.

27

Sky Rite

(Neil Ellman)

(after a lithograph in the “Stoned Moon” series

by Robert Rauschenberg)

It is enough to watch

the swallows and the swifts

in their rituals of flight

to find a meaning hidden

in their swings and swirls

their curtsies

and their pirouettes

the secret words they spell

in spins and turns

without a trace

upon the autumn sky—

enough to know

that birds believe in the afterlife

and know the meaning

of migration’s rite

along the plover’s path.

28

Airpocket

(Neil Ellman)

(after a lithograph in the “Stoned Moon” series

by Robert Rasuchenberg)

Never clear

no straight line

from here to there

simplicity complicated

visibility obscured

without a map

to baffled eyes

the constant heart

falters, descends

to a restless pulse

the mind betrayed

by pockets in the air

the road worn down

by the hubris

of the journey home.

29

Earth Tie

(Neil Ellman)

(after a lithograph in the “Stoned Moon” series

by Robert Rauschenberg)

For an instant

Icarus flies

flaps soars

a sudden drop

not like a feather

drifting down

but a stone’s

design to fall

with plumb assurance

to the sea.

In that moment

Icarus flew

on swaggering wings

on breathless airs

earth-bent

destiny bound

he fell from the sky

30

to the earth

where he was tied

by the way

of gravity

and by fate.

31

Biographical Note: Eamonn Stewart

Born in Belfast 1964. Trained to be an advertising photographer. Worked in advertising as motion picture cameraman. Studied film history at University of East London. Extensive publication of poems and photos in magazines and anthologies. Presently, working pro bonoin student/indie films.

32

The Whole Nine Yards

From The Loney to The Somme

(Eamonn Stewart)

From The Pound Loney to The Somme:

He brought back the saying

“The whole nine yards”

The war load of the Maxim Gun.

His kids acting-up he called a “Randyboo”

No Loney man could say rendezvous.

To this very day, my family uses it too.

Hr died at the forge, making a hinge.

Did he recall the worst “randyboos”

In the heavy hammers dings

And the sparks that flew ?

33

Biographical Note: Eithne Lannon

Eithne Lannon is a teacher in an Educate Together school in

Dublin. She has an abiding interest in psychoanalysis and identity.

She has a deep love of the natural world and connects with this

through the language of poetry. Part of this expression is an

openness to the complexity of being human in a world full of

intangibles.

34

May 28th

(Ethnie Lannon)

When I looked into your room

that day, I didn’t know

you were on the edge of death.

Your breath went

and came again,

you slept deeply like the child that you were,

the covers covered you.

I woke to changes in the air,

how it moved, where it settled.

In the vivid blue of a May morning

we went from even to odd,

a new number countenanced in your absence,

a new mother

a new father

a new brother

a new sister.

Familiar shapes re-formed

in the breach you created.

For days I circled the minutes taken from your ribs,

the muffled sigh of your insides emptying out.

A red coat lay limp on the chair, I felt the airborne

currents of your longing, your hair

was on the hairbrush still.

This is the way life thinks about death.

How weightless is the last breath.

35

Somewhere

(Eithne Lannon)

At the dunes’ edge we lie on briny threads of grass,

the weft and bind of its sand-lover roots beneath us,

our shared skin tethered loosely to a random sky

and the slight chill wind wrapping its way round salted limbs,

your heat coming off the tangled sand, and belly-ripples

trembling as fingers dip into the soft pith of things.

And to the side, the light on the shoreline,

its intoxicated gleam treading water, the dropping

away edges where sea-skin stops, touchings of salt

and sand, their elemental coupling, a steady

pulse of giving and taking, grounded and in air,

hovering on the sweet edge of somewhere.

36

High Rock

(Eithne Lannon)

The evening air is shedding light,

seaweed lies coiled into wet sand, cormorants fade over a turning tide.

Here and there, rock pools are dense

with ribbed barnacles, nothing shifts

their clinging underbellies, their soft flesh

homed on rock. High in the darkening sky a fingernail moon reminds me of how wholeness breaks down into nothing. I reach towards its hollow curve, its white bridge rests on the crescent of my thumb, binding me into the night sky. I ache for this now,

for its holding, for its leaving.

Night-fall thickens and I am folded into

the inside-out of solitude, where being shifts

from the familiar into otherness, a world unpinned,

expanding into its inner universe.

Nothing clings to vastness, to infinite space:

Here is the seed that breathes through things, and here my heartbeat slows to almost stopping, to time’s disappearance, to light like the day’s final shadows drifting off a sun dial.

37

Thin places

(Eithne Lannon)

Until this day I thought I alone lived

in thin places. The wild meadow weave,

the strand, places of late summer, autumn;

a stone skimming water, suspended in air,

its slow-motion glide punctuated by the drop,

touch, rise of a ghostly presence, this wary

hesitation between water and stone, mysterious

as the rift between music notes in air, unsettling

the familiar light which shudders again with tiny

rainbow bubbles holding air-drops in. And then

the final slide over gravity’s edge, into polished

bottomless depths, beyond the belly-aching

threshold, dropping, ever dropping into the quiet

whispering, the unspeakable tenderness.

38

Cross-over

(Eithne Lannon)

Our footsteps unsettle dust,

disturb a woodloused threshold.

In the mottled mirror forgotten faces mock us,

the wet walls weep a bog-green rot;

a house making strange,

lingering ghosts released

from wilted armchairs, ceilings

of skeletal roof ribs and the gaunt

corners of every room.

They slip through my fingers,

tumble through the ransacked spaces

into the empty air of the long lost.

And through the window an uncanny

sea-light cradles the islands,

something stirs in the whispering drapes,

my goose fleshed skull peeled back and pulled

into this place of your hallowed kin,

of wordless speech and your mother-tongue

reaching to you from somewhere

beyond the aching silences,

a voice resonating outside your skin,

stroking my lips, my mouth, my tongue,

its unearthly presence a temporal

cross-over touch.

39

Biographical Note: Noel King

Noel King was born and lives in Tralee. His poems, haiku, short stories, reviews and articles have appeared in magazines and journals in thirty-seven countries. His poetry collections are published by Salmon Poetry: Prophesying the Past, (2010), The Stern Wave (2013) and Sons (forthcoming in 2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others. Anthology publications include The Second Genesis: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry (AR.A.W.,India, 2014).

40

Cleaner of the Restrooms

(Noel King)

In the mens’ I find a dirty underpants

– must have been on him a week

or more, he mustov gotten lucky

and dashed in here for a splash

and a change after darting into Mark’s

& Sparks (for a clean one).

A green knickers is in the ladies’ bin,

tucked in inside everything

– clean (it is)

except for one small speck of ‘come’

right on the edge of the elastic.

41

Grateful

(Noel King)

The sun’s maid comes out to play

in the garden of our futures

with my son who is autistic.

He plays with her. Our son’s maid

teases him in our garden, darts him in

and out of shadows; trees make shapes

on his face, anchor him out and back

in the shadows, pushes tears

from the backs to the fronts of our eyes.

I don’t release them,

only released them once, when he was new-born.

Now I, well, we, my wife and I

are grateful for him,

grateful for the sun’s maid, our son’s maid.

42

The Boss-Man

(Noel King)

Behind the cash desk the boss-man peels an orange

while peering – through a glass hole, over the shop.

He throws the rinds in the bin, sections the fruit on the desk.

He rings in,

gives change,

eats a section,

rings in,

gives change,

answers the phone,

meddles with his zipper,

rolls round in the swivel seat

impatient for the cashier’s return from tea-break.

He detours nicely past the cashier’s arse

congratulates himself again on the uniform

skirts he – and not his wife/partner – chose for his girls to wear.

His wife/partner is chatting to a woman who smiles

at him, but cocks her nose slightly at the orange smell

and the sight of the short, wet-bald man eating it.

43

His school-uniformed daughter gets the last bit.

She gulps it then asks for money, banters with the staff

before downtowning to buy secrets.

Later in the shop an orange fart escapes

and the boss-man pollutes the air with cigar smoke,

wonders again at the chances of that new apprentice girl

letting him get up on her in the stock-room.

The scowl of that new apprentice boy displeases him.

Maybe he made the wrong choice taking him on:

a little snob, a little shit. In looks the boy reminds

the boss-man of himself at the same age.

He remembers a boy inside his mother’s clothes,

one orange to each cup of a white brassiere.

They sell bra’s in the ladies department,

some night alone he could try one on again,

put oranges to his skin again,

excite himself in the mirrors

tinted for customers to buy themselves in.

He can do that, he can do anything he likes,

after all he is the boss-man.

44

Biographical Note: Dr Mel Waldman

Dr. Mel Waldman is a psychologist, poet, and writer whose stories

have appeared in numerous magazines including HARDBOILED

DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, PULP METAL

MAGAZINE, and AUDIENCE. His poems have been widely

published in magazines and books including LIQUID

IMAGINATION, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW,

THE BROOKLYN VOICE, BRICKPLIGHT, THE BITCHIN’

KITSCH, CRAB FAT MAGAZINE, SKIVE MAGAZINE,

ODDBALL MAGAZINE, ON THE RUSK, POETRY PACIFIC,

POETICA, RED FEZ, SQUAWK BACK, SWEET ANNIE &

SWEET PEA REVIEW, THE JEWISH LITERARY JOURNAL,

THE JEWISH PRESS, THE JERUSALEM POST, HOTMETAL

PRESS, MAD SWIRL, HAGGARD & HALLOO, ASCENT

ASPIRATIONS, and NAMASTE FIJI: THE INTERNATIONAL

ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY. A past winner of the literary

GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a

PUSHCART PRIZE in literature and is the author of 11 books.

45

DESTINY

(Dr. Mel Waldman)

On the vacant road of mind travel,

through a rolling landscape,

around a meandrous passage,

I search for my private truth,

my destiny.

Empty and alone,

on the merry-go-round of inner space,

riding the whirligig of consciousness,

I travel far and always return to the

beginning.

&

now, I whirl around my being,

open my brain,

scatter my brain cells,

&

search for my spirit-my real self-

my destiny-my life’s voyage to

the center of my unfathomable

universe

46

THE HOUSE

OF

SILENCE

(Dr. Mel Waldman )

Gather interludes,

invisible spaces

between

the battered clocks of trauma,

&

retreat to the House of Silence,

a secret place of tranquility,

my inner voice reveals,

&

return to Old Brooklyn,

&

the deep snow,

where my ancient child plays,

looking upward toward the Heavens,

tasting the wet whirling snowflakes

while dancing in the vastness of joy

47

TURQUOISE LADY

By (Dr. Mel Waldman )

Above,

the royal blue sky,

&

the sprawling sun,

the Queen of Opulence;

&

the glowing star shoots and spreads

her jeweled rays onto the pristine beach,

&

the vastness of the ocean,

bathing my olive skin;

&

my gold eyes gaze at the turquoise lady

as she struts across the glittering sand,

wearing turquoise earrings, ring, and cuff,

and a crystal tiara;

&

capture her dazzling profile

48

before she disappears;

&

when the sultry dream dissolves,

I return to Brooklyn and the barren alley

where I sleep, in the deep snow and the

dark winter night, against a wall of gorgeous

graffiti,

beneath

the turquoise lady.

49

THE NIGHT

OF

MY DEATH

(Dr. Mel Waldman)

The night of my death, the sky opened up,

like the womb of a mad woman,

&

the frozen rain, a merciless flood, pummeled

the city, pounding the poor humans trapped

in the storm.

The night of my death, I was out there,

drowning in the ocean that dropped to

earth, in monstrous diagonals, exploding like

a bomb.

&

as I wandered through the rain-battered streets

of Brooklyn, I was blind and lost in a biblical

50

labyrinth, tasting the raw chill of the Flood,

&

the wet shattering of my old self in the tempest

that transformed me forever,

the night of my death.

51

FLOW

By (Dr. Mel Waldman)

Flow through the silence of the night

& the early whisper of morning.

See the soothing glimmer

& hear the soft music.

Taste the crimson sun at dawn

that bathes my olive face.

Rise with crepuscular insects

outside my window,

awakening in the garden.

Inhale the luscious love that

comes into my room.

& after the death that comes with life,

after the shattering of day,

52

& the broken glass of soul,

taste the sultry love

&

flow

53

PETRICOR

(Dr. Mel Waldman)

After the rain,

I smell the sweet earth,

& the lovely petricor

evokes Proustian memories

of my childhood,

& opens my spirit,

a butterfly flower that

releases

papilionaceous visions

into the turquoise sky.

As I inhale the scent of love

in my little garden, a

cornucopia of butterflies

encircle me

& brush against my olive

54

face.

After the rain,

I smell the sweet earth

& taste a swirl of colors,

a phantasmagoria

of butterflies,

dancing with my child

to

the rhapsody of love.

55

Biographical Note: Christine Stoddard

Christine Stoddard is an artist from Virginia. In 2014, she was honored as

one of the media industry’s top 20 visionaries in their 20s at the

MediaNext Conference in New York. Her lit and culture magazine, Quail Bell (www.quailbellmagazine.com), has been featured inTime Out New York, The Washington Post Express, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. The author

of books published and forthcoming, her fiction has appeared in The Feminist Wire and Whurk. Christine’s films, collages, and other

creations have been showcased in the New York Transit Museum, the

Brooklyn Side of Eye Experimental Film Festival, the Annapolis Fringe

Fest and beyond.

56

“The Sonogram”

(Christine Stoddard)

You are a painting of echoes, a masterpiece rendered in shades of gray.

Reflection after reflection of sound waves sung by whales in my womb.

Not even Orsola Maddalena Caccia could perfect you because you,

bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, are perfect—imperfectly so.

Your knobby head is there, floating to and fro, and every limb is in place.

If only you, my little work of art, had a living, beating, laughing heart.

57

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.

Images must be in either BMP or JPEG format.

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

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

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

opposed to originals.

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

E-mail all submissions to: [email protected] and title your message as follows: (Type of work here) submitted to

“A New Ulster” (name of writer/artist here); or for younger contributors: “Letters to the Alley Cats” (name of

contributor/parent or guardian here). Letters, reviews and other communications such as Tweets will be published

in “Round the Back”. Please note that submissions may be edited. All copyright remains with the original

author/artist, and no infringement is intended.

These guidelines make sorting through all of our submissions a much simpler task, allowing us to spend more of

our time working on getting each new edition out!

58

FEBRUARY 2015’S MESSAGE FROM THE ALLEYCATS:

We need more tuna. Arizahn needs more gin. Send tuna and

gin quickly please. And James Bond to work the tin opener, ta muchly!

Valentine’s Day is looming once again…

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”.

59

Biographical Note: Marie Lecrivain

Marie Lecrivain is the editor-publisher

of poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles, a photographer, and

is writer-in-residence at her apartment. Her work has appeared in

various journals, including Edgar Allen Poetry Journal, Maitenant,

A New Ulster, The Ironic Fantastic, Nonbinary Review,

Spillway, The Los Angeles Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, and

others. She’s the author of The Virtual Tablet of Irma Tre (©

2014 Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House), and she’s the editor

of the anthology Near Kin: Words and Art inspired by Octavia E.

Butler (© 2014 Sybaritic Press). Her avocations include alchemy,

alternate modes of transportation, H.P. Lovecraft, Vincent Price,

steam punk accessories, and the letter “S."

60

Bisection by Marie Lecrivain

61

Divino Urbano Nino by Marie Lecrivain

62

Seraph Wing by Marie Lecrivain

63

64

Book One in an Experimental High Fantasy series. Blood and Ashes is a story of migration,

magic and mythology. Part coming of age, part fairy tale, and with a uniquely dark humour, this

novel explores the role of traditional hero figures, finds them wanting and demands that they do

better!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Legend-Graymyrh-Book-One/dp/1503183424

65

Biographical Note: Stephen McQuiggan

Stephen McQuiggan is the answer to that age old question:

What do you call a small, bald Ulsterman? His first novel - A

Pig's View Of Heaven - will be published by Grinning Skull

Press in 2015.

66

DUST BY SUNLIGHT.

(Stephen McQuiggan)

Hunger left him, the way it always did, when he reached her cottage door. It was a

beautiful sunny day and her garden was picture book perfect, with flowers marching

all the way up the path to the shiny red door, and a pond that winked back up to the

sky. But sunlight could play tricks with your eyes. He knew it was no fairytale

cottage. It was a witch’s lair.

Was it too late to pretend to be ill? He would not have to pretend too hard.

Sometimes, when he was sick, mum would bring him a bag of comics and a bowl

of tangerines, and he would hug his chimp Jacko as he ate them, cuddle him close and

stain his plastic face, bleach it with kisses. He wished he had Jacko with him now, but

dad said it was babyish. Dad didn’t understand. It was the smell of the toy that was so

comforting. Part of him sensed that smell would return to him in later life and break

his heart.

‘I want you on your Sunday school best behaviour,’ said mum, wetting her fingers

and attempting to plaster down his unruly hair for the umpteenth time. ‘Do you hear

me Alan? Remember your yes, please and thank yous.’

67

‘Please don’t make me kiss her mum,’ said Alan, hating the whine in his voice but

unable to help it. ‘I’ll be good, just don’t make me have to kiss her.’ Please don’t

make me kiss that horrible old bitch.

She slapped him hard across the back of his legs as if she had read his mind. ‘Don’t

you dare talk about your aunt like that!’

‘Judy,’ said dad, ‘go easy. The kid does have a point after all.’

She glared at her husband coldly. ‘Maybe you’d like to take his place then?’

He looked at his watch as she arched her eyebrows. ‘Love to,’ he said, ‘but you

know I have to pick Tony up at three. He’s expecting me.’

‘It’s funny,’ she said, returning her attention to her son’s fringe, ‘how your little

golf trips always coincide with my visits to my sister.’

‘You know I’d rather be with you. It’s just the way it is. See you later honey.’ He

gave Alan a sympathetic look, one reserved for males in their dealings with women,

then tousled his hair, ruining all her previous endeavours.

Alan sighed as he watched him climb into the car and drive away without a wave.

He felt like crying. It was Saturday. He should be down the pool with Goose and

Andy, or playing football, or spying on Weaver Wright’s big sister, anything but

standing here outside his aunt Gabriella’s.

Outside the lair of the Dust Witch.

68

‘You be nice now,’ whispered mum. ‘You say hello when she speaks to you, and

you look her in the eyes…’ A moment of hesitation as she realised her mistake. ‘You

look at her when you do, and not a tear or a blubber or I’ll give you something to cry

about, you hear me? It’s a pity of that poor soul, shame and disgrace.’

But mum was a hypocrite. As the years passed he could see the sympathy etched on

her face losing out to revulsion. She hated her as much as he did.

She rang the bell and the door opened slowly, releasing a strong waft of lilac and

urine. His heart began to race. She stood half hidden in the doorway where the

sunlight barely licked her. He tried to back away but his mother’s arm acted as a

barrier.

‘Hello Judy love.’ Her voice crackled like an old radio. He supposed she meant to

sound pleasant, but tender words would shrivel and die in that arid throat. He had

heard mum tell dad that a voice coach was working with her, but to Alan it sounded as

if her voice coach had been hijacked and burnt out.

He had told them a million times in school that her name was Durst but they never

listened, she was always just Scabby Gabby Dust, Scabriella Dust, the Dust Witch

and, cruellest of all, Queen Frogspawn. The Dust Witch was always with him, feeding

on his shame. He wished from the bottom of his heart that she would just die and free

him from the endless taunts. I hate her, he thought, I hate her very bones.

‘Hello Gabriella,’ said mum, but her jollity was as forced as her smile.

69

She pushed him in, his aunt looming up before him, a nightmare made awful flesh.

Her face was covered in warts, it looked like a bulging sack of tapioca. A single

hideous eye protruded from her frogspawn skin, bulging out so far its lid could not

lube it properly; tears stained her face like slug trails. She was breathing like a bumble

bee. If she stopped breathing you would be able to hear that flimsy lid scrape over the

jelly surface. He prayed she would never breathe again.

The bombsite of the other empty socket was scarred, folded over into the sickening

pink petals of some carnivorous plant. Looking at her it was easy to believe she was a

witch, one who had cheated the stake and escaped with her face half cooked.

He hurried past her, listening to his mum covering up his rudeness with small talk,

and went straight to the kitchen. The table had already been set, and something was

steaming on the cooker. The clock on the wall ticked rapidly, a sprinter’s heartbeat,

keeping time with his distress.

‘Say hello to your auntie, Alan.’ His mum’s voice betrayed none of the anger that

flashed in her eyes.

‘Ah, don’t worry pet, I know what young ones are like nowadays, no time for

anything,’ croaked Gabby laughing; it sounded like a drunk trying to blow out

birthday candles. ’Sit down Alan love, dinner’s nearly ready.’

He sat down, fidgeting with his hands and with his eyes. Don’t touch anything, he

thought, if you touch something you’ll catch her disease. That’s what they said at

school. Your face will swell up and pimple over and -

70

His eyes rested on the kitchen bin, the skin bin, where she threw out her flesh after

she shed it. He looked away quickly. Above the sink the old net curtain was stained

(by her breath, she breathed on it and it turned) yellow by countless cigarettes.

‘Alan! Your auntie’s talking to you!’

‘Huh?’

Gabby was smiling at him. She looked as if she might eat him. ’Ah, you’re in a wee

world of your own pet. I asked if you’d like a sweetie before dinner?’

He nodded reluctantly to cover his embarrassment and she produced a mint from

her apron pocket; mints weren’t sweets; aunt Tina always gave him Merry Maids.

‘Go on, give us a smile.’

I’ll smile when you die, he thought. He stretched his mouth wide in rough

approximation of appreciation, and Gabby cackled contentedly.

‘Look at his little wrinkled forehead Judy,’ she said. ‘He must have some

humdinger problems to make it crease like that. I think I’ll have to call him my little

walnut.’

Alan just prayed that whatever she was cooking up in her cauldron was dry enough

to slip into his trouser pockets when no-one was looking. He watched her amble to the

cooker, ready to dish up whatever vile contagious muck she had concocted.

71

She put on a hat over her tinder hair, then leaned over the steaming pot. Her

Cooking Hat she called it, but dad said she was bald and that she only wore it to stop

her wig from frizzing. He imagined her in a nylon coffin, her hair sparking a blaze; the

hag was scared of cremation. He smiled for real as she settled the hat on her head. She

had chopped the pom-pom off and it looked limp and tired. It lay on her misshapen

dome like a sullen rag. Someday soon it would become a dishcloth, its final, complete

humiliation.

His mother’s eyes warned him, her mouth a knife slash, as Gabby turned on the

radio and barked along. Under the cover of Country and Western the radio watched

him continuously, the dials on its face a permanent wicked grin. It was her familiar,

her techno-cat. Even the songs it played were in code so that you were constantly

monitored; if you sang along you were only reporting on yourself. His smile faded. He

would have to be careful here.

‘Are you sure you don’t need a hand Gabriella?’

‘No Judy dear. You know me, always fissling about. It’ll be ready in two ticks of a

lamb’s tail.’ She carried a mug of tea over to her sister, and sat a large glass of Coke

down beside Alan. ‘There you go little walnut. That’ll clean the dirty pennies in your

belly.’

Then came two bowls, and Alan thought he might cry or vomit or both.

Only a vampire could eat this blood stew. He watched her wolf it down, her solitary

eye scanning for the merest hint that someone might try to take it away from her; they

72

would lose an arm if they did, and that arm would go straight into the pot too. Anyone

who wants something that bad, dad says, wants it to patch over a hole in their soul.

‘Eat up,’ said Gabby in between gulps. ’Many’s the one would be glad of it.’

‘Eat up son,’ said mum, the order implicit.

But he could not take his eyes off his aunt. She was an angry red, peeling in the

bright sunlight that fell through the kitchen window. She was shedding her skin,

transforming into something else, a creature of unknowable pain. Only her empty

socket remained dark, impenetrable. He felt he could stare through it like a cheap

telescope, stare straight into another world.

He took a mouthful of stew and somehow managed to swallow. It actually didn’t

taste too bad, but that was only because she had cast some sort of charm over it.

He needed to escape; the food, the stilted chat, the awful bulging eye.

‘Can I go to the toilet mum?’

‘Of course, but don’t touch anything.’ As if. ‘And don’t be too long, we have to be

going soon.’

‘Oh, he’s a lucky one that his bowels are working,’ said Gabby. ‘There’s nothing as

bad as constipation.’

‘You still bunged up?’ asked mum. ‘Is it your irritable bowel?’

73

‘Oh, true as turnips! I’m apple bound Judy, you can blame eggs all you like, but it’s

apples that’ll do for me.’

He felt sick again. Why did women always discuss these things? He did not need

the toilet, but now he wondered if he would make it in time. Leaving the kitchen he

ran upstairs, making sure not to touch the greasy banister.

At the top he found a little car but he resisted the temptation to lift it up. The sight

of it made him hate her even more, for he remembered the trap she had set for him

before.

Once he had found a toy soldier in her living room. The room was so tidy he had

been scared to move, and the soldier looked so out of place, like it had crawled over

enemy lines and died. He pointed it out to mum but she had whispered harshly in his

ear, ’Put it down.’ Later he heard her say to dad, ’Gabby’s no kids, she must have left

it there to see if he would steal it.’

He kicked the car out of his way and, holding his breath, passed her bedroom door.

Did he have the nerve to go in there? Would he dare go in and take something? At

school the only way to beat them was to join them, and exaggerate. His stories of

Scabriella always drew a crowd at break time, and because he was her nephew they

were always taken as gospel. If he could just get one of her wigs or, best of all, a glass

eye, that would really gross everyone out.

He put his hand on the clammy handle and opened the door. It was dark in there,

heavy drapes blocking out all the light. Nothing felt real. As his eyes adjusted to the

74

gloom he felt he had walked into a shop window. There was a palpable sense of

emptiness here, a sense that he was the first to have ever breathed here.

There was a small luminous stain of light, like a ghost’s thumbprint, just above the

mirror; she was so ugly, she must have to sneak up on that, he thought. Making his

way toward the window he almost tripped over. The floor was filled with boxes of all

shapes and sizes, laid out in no seeming order.

He pulled back the thick curtains, letting in a single shaft of light. Blurred outlines

became sharper, soft hints of colour pushed and pleaded with the darkness for

recognition. The stain by the mirror revealed itself to be a doll’s eye.

He hated dolls, and now he could see her room was filled with their rigid bodies,

their silence, their unnatural stillness. Behind those pursed plastic lips was barely

suppressed laughter, sly and dry. Their eyes would snap into focus as soon as you

turned your back; he had seen enough movies to know what they were capable of. He

wasn’t fooled by their flowing dresses and pretty hair. He was surrounded by

murderers.

As his eyes grew more accustomed to the light, he realised that what he had thought

were boxes were actually little model houses, with fancy windows and painted doors.

Some were shops, there was even a church, and the dolls were everywhere, hanging

out at street corners, idling in miniature cars.

He almost laughed. He was in Toytown.

75

He stooped to look through the window of a barber shop, with its red and white

matchstick pole, and stifled a scream. The bakers too, and the Post Office.

This was Gabby’s town. These were her children.

All the little dolls had been horribly scarred, their hair burnt down to their shiny

scalps. They stared back passively at the giant in their midst, stared back with one

unblinking bauble eye.

By the mirror, overlooking the town, was the largest doll of all, its single eye the

flash of light he had seen as he entered her domain. As the sunlight spilled its guts into

the room he saw her, Queen Frogspawn on her wicker throne gazing benignly down

on her subjects, and he understood.

This was her world. Her family. Her friends.

They would talk to her, they would listen. They would never, ever judge. Shame

crushed his eggshell heart.

He heard his mum calling him and he ran back downstairs, his hand on the banister;

it wasn’t greasy at all.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked. ’It’s time for us to go. You know your father’s

waiting for us.’ He heard the lie in her voice and reddened for her.

‘Bye Judy love, I enjoyed the wee gabble,’ said Gabby. ‘If I don’t see you through

the week, I’ll see you through the window.’

76

‘Say goodbye to your auntie, Alan.’ She was in as much of a hurry to leave as he

had been.

He walked toward the Dust Witch, and with each step she shed her awful skin,

transforming into a human being, into his aunt Gabriella. He kissed her on the lips.

‘Bye aunt Gabby. Thank you.’ In the surprised silence that followed, he saw a fresh

tear fall from her eye.

Outside his mother gripped his hand, gripped it tightly as if she were scared to

speak and break the spell he was under.

‘Are you crying?’ she asked as they reached the bottom of the path.

He turned his back to her, fiddling with the awkward latch on the gate. ‘It’s just the

light in my eyes.’ The day was very bright, he thought he would get away with it.

‘You shouldn’t stare at the sun,’ said his mother. ‘You can go blind.’

He thought about that the whole way home.

77

78

LAPWING PUBLICATIONS RECENT and NEW TITLES

978-1-909252-35-6 London A Poem in Ten Parts Daniel C. Bristow

978-1-909252-36-3 Clay x Niall McGrath

978-1-909252-37-0 Red Hill x Peter Branson

978-1-909252-38-7 Throats Full of Graves x Gillian Prew

978-1-909252-39-4 Entwined Waters x Jude Mukoro

978-1-909252-40-0 A Long Way to Fall x Andy Humphrey

978-1-909252-41-7 words to a peace lily at the gates of morning x Martin J. Byrne

978-1-909252-42-4 Red Roots - Orange Sky x Csilla Toldy

978-1-909252-43-1 At Last: No More Christmas in London x Bart Sonck

978-1-909252-44-8 Shreds of Pink Lace x Eliza Dear

978-1-909252-45-5 Valentines for Barbara 1943 - 2011 x J.C.Ireson

978-1-909252-46-2 The New Accord x Paul Laughlin

978-1-909252-47-9 Carrigoona Burns x Rosy Wilson

978-1-909252-48-6 The Beginnings of Trees x Geraldine Paine

978-1-909252-49-3 Landed x Will Daunt

978-1-909252-50-9 After August x Martin J. Byrne

978-1-909252-51-6 Of Dead Silences x Michael McAloran

978-1-909252-52-3 Cycles x Christine Murray

978-1-909252-53-0 Three Primes x Kelly Creighton

978-1-909252-54-7 Doji:A Blunder x Colin Dardis

978-1-909252-55-4 Echo Fields x Rose Moran RSM

978-1-909252-56-1 The Scattering Lawns x Margaret Galvin

978-1-909252-57-8 Sea Journey x Martin Egan

978-1-909252-58-5 A Famous Flower x Paul Wickham

978-1-909252-59-2 Adagios on Re – Adagios en Re x John Gohorry

978-1-909252-60-8 Remembered Bliss x Dom Sebastian Moore O.S.B

978-1-909252-61-5 Ightermurragh in the Rain x Gillian Somerville-Large

978-1-909252-62-2 Beethoven in Vienna x Michael O'Sullivan

978-1-909252-63-9 Jazz Time x Seán Street

978-1-909252-64-6 Bittersweet Seventeens x Rosie Johnston

978-1-909252-65-3 Small Stones for Bromley x Harry Owen

978-1-909252-66-0 The Elm Tree x Peter O'Neill

978-1-909252-67-7 The Naming of Things Against the Dark and The Lane x

C.P. Stewart

More can be found at

https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/home All titles ￡10.00 per paper copy or in PDF format ￡5.00 for 4 titles. In PDF format £5.00 for 4 titles.