FEATURING THE TALENTS OF Mick Strata, Peter Adair, Christopher Moncrieff,

Terry Brinkman, Eugene Platt, Michael Lee Johnson, Patrick Cassidy Noel King, Jessica
Berry and Saeed Salimi Babamri EDITED BY AMOS GREIG
A NEW ULSTER
ISSUE 114
MAY 2022

UPATREE PRESS
 Copyright © 2020 A New Ulster – All Rights Reserved.

The artists featured in this publication 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)

Edited by Amos Greig

Cover Design by Upatree Press

Prepared for Publication by Upatree Press

 CONTRIBUTORS

This edition features work by Mick Strata, Peter Adair, Christopher Moncrieff, Terry Brinkman, Eugene Platt,
Michael Lee Johnson, Patrick Cassidy Noel King, Jessica Berry and Saeed Salimi Babamiri
 CONTENTS

Poetry Mick Strata Page 1

Poetry Peter Adair Page 6
Poetry Christopher Moncrieff Page 14
Artwork/Poetry Terry Brinkman Page 19
Poetry Eugene Platt Page 26
Artwork/Poetry Michael Lee Johnson Page 42
Poetry Patrick Cassidy Page 50
Poetry Noel King Page 58
Prose Jessica Berry Page 64
Poetry Saeed Salimi Babmiri Page 67

Editor’s Note Page 70

 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Mick Strata

Mick Stratta is a British-Italian writer of fiction and poetry. He has published some short stories and is in the
process of publishing his first novel, a story of first love set in the nineties. His non-literary activities include playing
football and guitar pretty badly and fathering two lovely rascals. You might find him talking about writing and other
stuff on Twitter @Mick_Stratta

1
 Teenage Love Ain’t Real

verglas tingles 8 a.m. yawn

light’s debut, soft
boiler hot to trot ping
bird bath crackles
unheard crawl of worms
ice gritty tongues unvoiced

slurp milk wheat crumbles

roll-up curtain jammed like rhubarb
knife scratches wholemeal confetti
words suppressed bitter below

scanning rolling stone with fingers dead

n.4 bus halts mighty - village green Kinks
from row eight Rhi looks my way
teenage love ain’t real, honey, she whispers
in similar fashion to our lips

fleetingly #butcertainly# compressed

(Mick Strata)

2
 Midnight Skater

ice whispers below

opaque blades

she floats alone

a whispered

hieroglyphic of scratches

like a jealous secret:

fairy

of midnight tales

it’s just her

under the neon moonlight

(Mick Strata)

3
 My Grandad’s Blurry Outline

my grandad’s outline

a blurry wave

from the park gates

the face smiles

but I’m mistaken it’s just a

resemblance

‘cos it’s not 1985

and worlds do get forgotten

if we’re not careful

like those VHS in the ripped box

He-Man

and you and me

(Mick Strata)

4
 Hedgehog’s Dilemma

blue ink on the nape of your neck

reminds me of that first dance

into the small hours, that old bar off piazza S. Marco

you breathed intoxicated air into my ear

our tongues twisted as we draped each other

bass thumps embracing us like sandy waves

your eyes blind to the tiny ways in which

i could disappoint you

we hadn’t heard of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma

warmth with thorns – or shivering with empty forms

with lowered castle drawbridges

we swayed to the beat

spines intertwining unseen into our soft sides

(Mick Strata)

5
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PETER ADAIR

Peter Adair’s poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Bangor Literary Journal,
Boyne Berries and other journals. He has a poem in Eyewear’s The Best New British and Irish Poets 2019-2021. An e-
pamphlet Calling Card is available from Rancid Idol Productions. He lives in Bangor, Co Down.

6
Easel

They sip mugs of tea and munch scones

fresh from the oven, then drift to the craft room,
sit at benches nailing picture frames together,
hammering wardrobes almost into shape;
sawdust, drips of paint, their sacrament,
when, through golden light, a dove hovers
a moment over a homeless prophet,
that epileptic haloed like a saint.

Peter Adair

7
Memorial – a found poem

In Z1 Public Plot,
Belfast City Cemetery,
7,863 babies –
stillborn or soon dead –
interred 1943-1996.

I’m lucky. I know where my baby is buried in a copse.

Each tree has a number,

in between are graves;
each grave
hides several babies.

When it rains it’s waterlogged.

A smell of rotting leaves.

Belfast City Council said:

The soil in Z1 is a heavy red
clay and the heavy rainfall
this year did cause difficulties.

Proposed design:
a 150cm headstone engraved with a baby lying on a bed of leaves.

Some mothers are still searching.

Peter Adair

8
Beachhead

Hard not to admire their conquest

of earth, the yellow outposts

that colonise the rocks

on Ballywalter beach.

Like the Romans and British

they’ve built an empire

to last. But when we’ve fled

to some distant planet,

and laid down sewage pipes,

and poisoned rivers,

a few dogs might miss us

but not the imperious lichen.

Peter Adair

9
Leftovers

Once the leftovers from the feast

were stored away in the fridge
for a lunchtime fry next day.
I stirred the lumpy sizzle
of turkey, potatoes and sprouts.
Waste not, want not, mother said.

But what’s left now?

What hot storage awaits me
so late in the day?
The singalong incineration
of bone, brain and gut.
Waste not, want not, mother said.

Peter Adair

10
Homecoming

For many a year I have rooted about

until, at last, I am: I have found my roots,
sunk them deep down in my native soil.

Returning to the farm where I was born,

I grip my brother’s earthed hand:
‘Sure,’ he says ‘it’s like you’ve never been away.’

We sweat in the fields and scythe the hay

or herd the cows along the dungy lanes.
I lower a bucket into the deep well of being.

When he chats in rapid Irish, I turn green,

prod him gently into an English field
where stone by stone we raise a cairn to the dead,

then sniff the spoor to school and chapel,

the children’s museum: pump, anvil, creel.
I have become my own exhibition.

11
II

Back home in the cottage, yonder in Ballinaloob,

I warm my soul at the hearth as the last speaker
of our Doric greets me: ‘Fare fae ye, ye halion!’

Puffing his auld cutty, he pokes me in the ribs:

‘Do ye recall thon day ye ate your first raw eel?’
I choke again at that quaint rite of passage.

Then, misty-eyed, he recites the first words

I scrawled in the hamely tongue, holds up the notebook`
where, aged ten, I rhymed ‘clachan’ with ‘smackan’.

As he spalters off home, he spits on the floor:

‘Why did ye quit your wee bit hoose for thon toun
and caitiff English?’ I fluff my Jacobean lines.

Peter Adair
Cont

12
III

At home in field or cot, I roughen my soft words,

unlearn my deracinated poetry –
too highfalutin for my folk to heed.

And, driving home – well, to my home from home –

I hear the locals mulling over my return,
all sage nods and not one malicious word:

‘He hasn’t changed at all. His head never swelled.

He’s the same wain who kicked a ball in the yard.
You’d never know, would you, he’s a famous man.’

I pity the rootless, pity those restless ones

never settled long enough to have a home.
Yes, I have found my roots. I have come home.

Peter Adair

13
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: CHRISTOPHER MONCRIEFF

Christopher Moncrieff is a European poet, linguist and literary translator from French, German and Romanian
and is descended from the Scots poet, Robert Burns. After professional military service in Europe, Northern
Ireland, the Near East and the USA during the Cold War he produced son et lumièrestyle shows before beginning
to write full-time and has lived for long periods in Paris and Los Angeles. He read Theology at Oxford and has
qualifications in design and on the military staff. A frequent traveller in Central and Eastern Europe, he speaks
several languages of the region. He is an award recipient and Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, was a Writing
Fellow at Cambridge in 2018-19, has mentored young adults on the autism spectrum and takes an active interest
in neuro- and gender diversity. His poetry is published by Caparison Books, Lapwing Publications, the Bucharest
literary review Luceafărul, and online at Militant Thistles and The Recusant. www.christophermoncrieff.com

14
15
Concerning drawing

For those few airless months

when the heat came upon us
like an unrelenting storm of fire,
reducing voices to dry grass,
you sat with her and her easel
in an upper room
whose northern light let in shadows
that played the blues,
eliciting conundrums and confessions
which she wove into your portrait
with a wave of her pale slim hands
like a conductor on whose fingertips
the orchestra hangs until its last exultant breath.
With every arch of her eyebrows
a frisson ran down your spine
like a snake in search of its lost gender
while you imagined what her unseen pencil
might be doing as the sound
of its impious dance across the paper
filled the silences held prisoner
by her silk screen, waltz-tune voice.
During those drawn-out blazing days
yours was an encounter
of two souls out of time,
fellow-travellers on the stony path of art,
bejewelled with talk of palettes,
of summer wardrobes without season,
perfume paraphernalia that hid in the spaces
between the words you never spoke.
And in the end, which may be soon or late,
her supple bony wrists and arching hands
drew you out of yourself
and onto the pure white page
of her imagining.

(Christopher Moncrieff)

16
Eulenspiegel

Across the noonday café terrace

where canal reflections wept
from ivy clustered walls
and became brief echoes,
coffee conversation turned
to the price of pearls;
how to ascertain beyond doubt
which was of most value,
the one that had no worldly price
and, like certain earthlings,
could not be bought.
Yet on the breeze that lifted
the weary pages of your carnet,
played cache-cache with the candles
still burning from the night before,
came hints that this might have been
a game of mirrors,
an espièglerie of pale images
that danced among the flitting waiters, who,
if only you had dared to ask,
might have told you that even as you sat alone
with listless unkempt words
and unkept promises,
your path was soon to cross with hers,
and the mirror then would crack
from side to side,
opening up doorways
to a different world.

(Christopher Moncrieff)

17
Michel-Ange au cocktail

Like a figure
from the far-off celestial ceiling
of the Capella Sistina
she has fallen to earth,
sveltly clad from head to toe
in black and midnight blue,
glass and paintbrush in hand
as if to capture all the grace
of the human form
while sipping champagne
and nibbling one solitary canapé
so as not to compromise her silhouette,
the gracile signature
which she presents to the world,
daring it to object.
And all the while
her pale and lovely hands
are sketching profiles in the air,
conducting the languid crystal notes
of her latina-tinted voice
- acquired, like her linen suits
and paisley scarves
in Firenze’s September side-streets
en route for molto chic Milano.
Each time you glimpse her
or her image in your mind
you are transported,
with a flourish of her sable brush,
back to that upper room in summer
where first the spell began.
But for now she is just here
among the cocktail party guests,
a reminder of how art,
that breath divine,
can open wide our eyes

(Christopher Moncrieff)

18
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: TERRY BRINKMAN

Terry Brinkman started painting in junior high school. He has had painting shows at the Eccles Art Center
and paintings published in the Literary home girl volume 9 & 10, Healing Muse volume 19, (2019), SLCC
Anthology (2020), and in the book Wingless Dreamer: Love of Art. Detour and meat for tea; The Bangor
literary journal Issue 13 and 15, Barzakh 2022 and in Cacosa Magazine.

19
Terry Brinkman

20
Sleepy Whale 218

With a blue white hanker-chief sail

We head to the wine dark sea

Above us clusters of Violet stars

With one white North Star

Mass Priest lick angry spirit juices

From the Mount Olive Press

Red-dress risk of life to save life

Soul’s condiment by bread alone

Besmirched the lily, all his days

Voluntary poverty bitter milk

High life my Moon and my sun

Chief Coffee-House table-licker

Egypt’s plague cavity of a mountain

(Terry Brinkman)

21
Sleepy Whale 249

Unplumbed profundity water lover

Restlessness of its waves, sea bound

Sun dam trench states of sea

In heap, in calm.in sterility

Hydrostatic turgidity quiescence

Circumpolar ice caps indisputable

Primeval based, Godless War

Multicellular, hegemony stability

Lute bed, precious metals

Down-ward-tending promontories

Alluvial peninsulas

(Terry Brinkman)

22
Sleepy Whale 328

Lower, middle and upper class

Passive Osteopathic active hunger

Jargon merely unclear, Violet Confits

Inverted Breakfast Cups, steaming coffee

Sun shined on the daises

Growing in the sprues fridge plateau

Half empty oval wicker basket

Four frog green Jersey Pears

Augmented Irish, Coral-Pink tissue

Swathe of Irish crinkled, shoals of fish

He said over his shoulder

Truth stranger than fiction

(Terry Brinkman)

23
Sleepy Whale #200

Maze of dark Pink Champaign

Storm of kisses from an Ape

Dishonors of their Zoo Escape

The joust of life to sustain

High minded animal migraine

Quacking soul’s Ape in a city scape

Hiding behind the confessional drape

Outcast Ape from Maine

(Terry Brinkman)

24
Sleepy Whale 212

She cries true love today

Lovers under the railway bridge

Blue stars shiver over the sage ridge

Neither know what to say

Eyes weeping, crossed legged sitting on hay

Crying at Cemetery Gates to Saloon Fridge

Loves soul abridge

Sleep over Christmas holiday

(Terry Brinkman)

25
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: EUGENE PLATT

Eugene Platt, an octogenarian striving to remain active in an era of increasing ageism, was born in Charleston,
South Carolina. After serving in the Army (11th Airborne and 24th Infantry Divisions) , he earned degrees at the
University of South Carolina and Clarion University of Pennsylvania as well as a Diploma in Anglo-Irish
Literature at Trinity College Dublin. As a young poet, he was active on the reading circuit, giving over 100 public
readings of his work at colleges, universities, and libraries across the nation. While at Trinity College, he read in
the inaugural Dublin Arts Festival (1970) with Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, and Brendan Kennelly. His
poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review (selected by Eavan Boland), Crazyhorse, Tar River Poetry, Poet
Lore, South Carolina Review, Southwestern Review, etc., and some have been choreographed. He lives in
Charleston with his main muses: Montreal-born wife Judith, corgi Bess, and cats Finnegan and Maeve.

26
27
28
Agony in Egypt — April 8, 1970

Ovens of the Third Reich have cooled,

their stokers interred or hung

or forced into hiding forever.

Perhaps too few were reduced to dust,

but who among us would question

the righteousness of such retribution?

Still, it falls short as a panacea

for the shortcomings of man.

Unspeakable precedents kindled

by architects of the Final Solution

continue to smolder decades later

as a bolder new generation of Jews

takes its own turn at baking bodies.

These somber sons of Moses are militant,

modern, loathe to fiddle with slow-burning ovens

when “Made in USA” bombs

can annihilate fifty times faster.

With grim resolution to strike like phantoms,

they soar over a Red Sea opened in Exodus

when ancestors fled from ancient Egypt.

Alas, judgment impaired by years of animosity

selects an unlikely, unguarded target,

and startled eyes of children at play

29
stare skyward for the split second before

a burst of napalm hell melts their corneas.

Teeth, too, are lost to implement an ancient dictum:

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,

hand for hand, foot for foot,

Burning for burning,

wound for wound,

stripe for stripe.

Vengeance is wrought,

a minaret teeters,

mothers wail in Arabic . . . .

Eugene Platt

Italicized lines are from Exodus 21:24-25 (KJV). Poem was incited by an Israeli air raid on Bahr el-Baqar Primary School
in Egypt on April 8, 1970.

30
How I Escaped the Holocaust

Until age 82 I never knew I was a half-Jew.

Until age 82 and seduced into producing

a vial of saliva for trendy DNA testing, truly,

I thought I was purely one of the Unchosen.

As a young American soldier

after World War II wound down,

I found myself stationed in Munich,

the beautiful capital of alpine Bavaria.

Due to my newly discovered ethnicity,

had I been born in that ancient city,

I might have died in nearby Dachau

or been box-carred to faraway Auschwitz

to slave away day after day after day,

subsisting on watery gruel or maggoty mush

until it was my turn to be gassed and burned

to further the Fuehrer’s satanic final solution.

Whew! Although born in 1939, the fateful year

the hateful despot’s legions daggered peaceful Poland,

I was born an ocean away, not in Munich or Paris

or Amsterdam or any other European city

31
where the lurking Gestapo could have pulled me

from a play pen or snatched me from the street,

beat me, armbanded me with a profaned Star

of David, reduced me to a tattooed number.

Was I lucky to have been born too late to fight

in that wretched war, as some might say consolingly?

Hell no! Knowing now this haunting half of my heritage,

I just wish I had been one of the Greatest Generation.

Eugene Platt

In memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

32
Where We Find Our Fathers

Sometimes without seeking we find our fathers

in unexpected places as ethereal as cyberspace,

or as close as an older cousin’s disclosure

of a rumor heard eons earlier,

unsavory gossip she’d refused to believe

about her mother’s virtuous, sweetest sister.

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places,

and I was already grown when I found my own

in a sterile vial of saliva, so to speak.

Actually, that specimen of spittle

had to be sent away for trendy DNA testing.

Who knew it would show me to be a half-Jew

after so many years of relishing pork roast

and an unquestioned assumption that I

was simply one of the Unchosen?

And how does such a discovery affect the legacy

of an unknowing dad who bears no blame

for the cuckoldry of others?

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places.

33
But, to make a point, one need not make a fuss

about a single spermatozoon’s union

with a fertile ovum waiting in a willing receptacle.

Truly, ever since Adam, the prototypical man, celibate

but curious, wandered around the fabled Garden of Eden

seeking a place to put his strange appendage,

copulation without conscience has been a constant.

As a sage has said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Sometimes we find our fathers in unexpected places

decades after two have dishonored sacred vows,

allowed trust to be trumped by common lust.

Eugene Platt

34
My Father the Philanderer

was not the doting dad who placed

countless whiskery kisses

on my wispy baby hair,

who bounced me on work-weary knee

and raised me from infancy.

My father the philanderer was not

the devoted dad who took me to see

cowboy movies at the Majestic Theater

every Saturday and bought me chocolate

ice cream and comic books afterward.

My father the philanderer was not

the proud dad who saluted me,

by then a young soldier in airborne infantry,

when the silver wings of a paratrooper

were pinned to my tunic.

My father the philanderer was not

the hard-working blue-collar breadwinner

who helped me to earn a degree

at nearby USC, another at distant Trinity,

shortening his health-impaired life thereby.

My father the philanderer was not even a name to me

35
until decades after my dad died and DNA testing

confronted me with an improbable truth:

For better or for worse, my progenitor

was never married to my mother.

What does one do with such an unsought discovery?

Day after day I pray for deliverance,

accepting at last this is just poetic justice.

Alas, living in a glass house of indiscretions,

I know not to throw the first stone.

He that is without sin . . .

let him first cast a stone . . . .

— John 8:7 (KJV)

Eugene Platt

36
Waiting for the Train at Ballybrophy Junction

An American from the Deep South,

a region where tradition trumps trends

and ancestors are still revered,

I remember my gram Moira wistfully saying

some of our own are known to have succumbed

to starvation during Ireland’s horrific Great Hunger.

They are said to have been buried in a bog near here.

If so, long ago their rotted remains may have been cremated

in the peat-burning fireplace of a more fortunate family.

According to a recent census, the number

of Americans claiming Irish ancestry

is seven times the population of Ireland itself.

On Saint Patrick’s Day they wave Tricolor banners

or wear badges that say, “Kiss me, I’m Irish!”

Earlier today I pilgrimaged to this pastoral place

to pay belated homage to their memory.

And now, waiting for the train at Ballybrophy Junction,

I sit and muse about those maternal ancestors:

If only they’d prevailed in the Rebellion of 1798—

or, having failed, they’d taken the train, then passage

on a boat to well-fed America or grand Canada

before the doomed potatoes began to blacken.

37
 The Great Famine began with failure

of the potato crop in 1845

due to Phytophthora infestans.

A deathly sweetness soon perfumed the air.

I sit and shiver in a vertically moving mist,

indeed, a drizzle too light to drench.

So, I know the Irish aren’t insane

to say of such rain, “Ah, but ‘tis soft.”

Because potatoes were relatively easy to cultivate,

prior to the Great Famine the Irish poor

had become overly dependent on them for subsistence.

The average adult male ate thirteen pounds a day.

I sit as the rain stops and, actually, appreciate

having a wait in this quaint corner of County Laois.

Too soon an intruding train will breach its peace

and diesel me back to Dublin.

Nearly nine million people lived in Ireland

the year the Great Famine began.

Within a half-decade a million had died,

another million or more had migrated.

I sit outside an almost empty station,

sharing its serenity with several cawing crows

38
while shadows play chase with patches of sun.

Now, with filial obligation fulfilled, fatigued,

my mind would rather meditate on nothing.

Although the deaths abated, the diaspora continued,

mainly west, enriching the rest of the world

with Irish wit, wisdom, well-being.

Today about seven million live on the island of Ireland,

five in the Republic, another two in the North.

I sit and listen to the breeze humming

through trackside trees as if it were mischievous fairies

bewitching away all the warmth

usually associated with the month of May.

Irish literature has been immeasurably enriched

by fairy tales rooted in spiritual beliefs and superstition.

Their compatibility with Christian tenets is remarkable.

W.B. Yeats, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923,

had a lasting fascination with Irish folklore.

As train time nears and other travelers enter the station,

I stand, joining these melancholy natives

in mourning this stillborn spring,

but diplomatically determined not to challenge

the old farmer grousing about my country’s lunar landings

lousing up their cherished weather, compromising his crops.

39
 Any conversation with an Irish man or woman

is likely to include a mention of the weather;

however, whether fair or foul is in the eye of the beholder.

In truth Ireland has a temperate maritime climate

due to the vast, fast-flowing Gulf Stream.

Temperatures rarely go below 32 degrees or above 68.

Under a faint full moon I venture to say

cordially to the cranky old fellow,

“Well, Sir, at least those landings were a century

too late to have caused the Great Famine.”

And I take comfort in an ancient Celtic blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

the rains fall soft upon your fields.

And, until we meet again,

may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Eugene Platt

From the collection Nuda Veritas, published 2020 by Revival Press, Ireland.

40
In a Butcher Shop in Bushmills

Having come all the way from America to holiday for a fortnight beside the sea,

our spirits already high but wanting to fortify our bodies with the fabled nutrition

of fresh-from-the-field Irish meat, my sweet wife Judith and I decide to forgo for an hour the
serenity of our Ballintoy cottage on the beach and drive to nearby Bushmills for a stop at a butcher
shop popular with locals.

(Bushmills, by the way, may be better known for its Protestant whiskey than poultry, pork, or beef.
In any case it is a lovely little village proud of its crown jewel, the ancient open-to-the-public
distillery, which offers intoxicating samples at the end of every tour. And, truly, a river runs through
it, the River Bush, which not only provides water for the whisky but also, anglers say, good salmon
fishing.)

Inside the surprisingly cheery space of the shop, where even fresh strawberries are on sale, Judith
asks the rosy-cheeked butcher what’s available, and he regales us

with what sounds like a song. “Good lady,” he intones sonorously, “we’ve got gigots of Limerick
lamb and marbled rib eyes from Celtic cows, not to mention the finest fowl in all of Ulster. Any
would be a winner.”

“Indeed,” she says,“ I think any would be good for dinner,” then inquires, “And would you have
anything to make our happy hour happier?” The rosy-cheeked butcher offers, “How about some
artisan salami freshly made from Hibernian hogs raised down in County Wicklow? And pair it, if
you please, with a bit of our garlic-infused Gaelic goat cheddar cheese.”

We leave the shop and wend our way back to Ballintoy in our hired car, driving properly on the left
side of the roadway past a castle and an entrance to the Giant’s Causeway. The August sun is still
high in the Irish sky at six o’clock as we begin our connubial ritual, treating taste buds to sixteen-
year-old single malt and bites of salami and cheese. The setting begets affection. What’s not to like
on this island?

Eugene Platt

41
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MICHEAL LEE JOHNSON

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada, Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area,
IL. He has 254 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries,
several published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net nominations. He is
editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has
over 336 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry
Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.

42
Frogs
By Michael Lee Johnson

"Grow grass,
stone frogs,"
written on bathroom walls.
Hippie beads, oodles
colorful acid pills
in dresser draws,
no clothes,
kaleidoscope condoms,
ostentatious sex.
No Bibles or Sundays
that anyone remembers.
Rochdale College,
Toronto, Ontario 1972,
freedom school, free education.
Makes no sense,
when you're high on a song
"American Women" blasting
eardrums and police sirens come on.

(Note: Rochdale College was patterned after Summerhill School-Democratic "freedom school" in
England founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be
made to fit the child, rather than the other way around.)

43
44
Poetry Man
By Michael Lee Johnson

I’m the poetry man, understand?

Dance, dance, dance to the crystals of night,
healing crystals detox nightmares, night tremors.
Death still comes in the shadow of grief,
hides beneath this blanket of time,
in the heat, in the cold.
Hold my hand on this journey
you won’t be the first, but
you may be the last.
You and I so many avenues,
ventures & turns, so many years together
one bad incident, violence, unexpected,
one punch, all lights dim out.

45
46
97, Coming to Terms & Goodbye
(An atheist faces his own death)
By Michael Lee Johnson

Wait until I have to say goodbye,

don’t rush; I’m a philosophical professor
facing my own death on my own time.
It takes longer to rise to kick the blankets back.
I take my pills with water and slowly lift
myself out of bed to the edge of my walker.
Living to age 97 is an experience I share
with my caretaker and so hard to accept.
It’s hard for youngsters who have not experienced
old age to know the psychology of pain
that you can’t put your socks on or pull
your own pants up without help anymore—
thank God for suspenders.
“At a certain point, there’s no reason
to be concerned about death, when you die,
no problem, there’s nothing.”
But why in my loneness, teeth stuck
in with denture glue, my daily pillbox complete,
and my wife, Leslie Josephine, gone for years,
why does it haunt me?
I can’t orchestrate, play Ph.D. anymore,
my song lyrics is running out, my personality
framed in a gentler state of mind.
I still think it necessary to figure out
the patterns of death; I just don’t know why.
“There must be something missing
from this argument; I wish I knew.
Don’t push me, please wait; soon
is enough to say goodbye.
My theater life, now shared, my last play,
coming to this final curtain, I give you
grace, “the king of swing,” the voice of
Benny Goodman is silent now,
an act of humanity passes, no applause.

*Dedicated to the memory of Herbert Fingarette, November 2, 2018 (aged 97). Berkeley,
California, U.S.A. Video credit and photo
credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4.

47
48
Keyboard
By Michael Lee Johnson

Keyboard dancing, poet-writer,

old bold, ribbons are worn out,
type keys bent out of shape.
40 wpm, high school,
Smith Corona 220 electric ultimately
gave out, carrying case, lost key.
No typewriter repairman anymore.
It is this media, new age apps,
for internet dreams, forged nightmares,
nothing can go wrong, right?
Cagey, I prefer my Covid-19 shots
completed one at a time.
Unfinished poems can wait,
hang start-up like Jesus
ragged on that wooden cross,
revise a few lines at a time;
near the end, complete to finish.
I will touch my way out of this life;
as Elton John says,
“like a candle in the wind.”
I will be at my keyboard late at night
that moment I pass, my fingertips stop.

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 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PATRICK CASSIDY

Patrick Cassidy lives in Toledo Spain where he writes poetry from the heart

50
1. Children of war:

In Russia mothers tell their sons;

"Do not go to war for Putin,"
"You will not come home".
In Ukraine mothers tell their sons;
"Go fight for President Zelensky,"
"You will do your country proud".

In Russia mothers are asking why?

Their sons are being sent to war,
Coming home in body bags,
In Ukraine mothers understand,
That this is their land,
And someone must defend it,
In Russia there is an air of discontent,
Still people fear the Kremlin,
A feeling of trepidation to be Russian,
In Ukraine there is an air of contentment,
The Verkhovna Rada a rally ground,
A feeling of pride to be part of the nation,
In Russia the news is censored,
No one really knows what’s going on,
But they notice it in their pocket!
In Ukraine the people see the headlines,
They know they are not alone,
They know that help is nearby.

Both in Russia and Ukraine,

It is the mother's who suffer,
As they put their sons in the grave,
But when their children stand before the gates of heaven,
God will not ask "Are you from Russia or Ukraine?"
He will bid them enter, release them from their pain.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

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2. Here we again:

Here we are again,

Have we learnt anything,
What have our fore-fathers taught us,
What has history shown us?
Power corrupts!
Gold and silver the root of all evil,
That men are fragile,
When the winds blow strong they are torn from their roots,
That bricks and mortar cannot protect you,
That there will always be a way,
To get rid of you,
That it is the innocent who pay the ultimate price,
Whose children go off to fight.
That Kings and Queens and aristocracy,
Like to wear a medal on their chest,
That they keep their heirs and scion out of harm’s way,
The rich make a profit from death,
That politicians have more faces than a cube,
Their progenitors go to private schools,
Paid for by the common man’s taxes!
That God still does not recognise the wickedness that is mankind,
That we are forced upon our knees by the threat of annihilation,
How one single being can dictate the fate of humanity,
That those who preach have lost all influence,
That peace and love are two words that make people sick,
That their antonym is death and destruction.
And here we are again,
Yet the truth is that we never moved on,
For humankind did not evolve from animals,
Humankind is an evolving animal!

(Patrick J Cassidy)

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3. Man of war:

Oh tongue between the lips,

Make yourself heard,
Do not hide deep in the mouth,
Speak when you are needed,
Say what must be said.

Oh eyes in the head,

Have you been blinded?
Do not you see what goes on around you?
Do not look away,
Instead of confronting the truth.

Oh ears below the hair,

You are not deaf,
You hear it all though it pains you,
It is a sound that you dread,
The music of death.

Oh nose affixed the face,

You smell evil,
The scent of misfortune,
A foul odour upon the air,
Depriving you of breath.

Oh body forged and beaten upon the anvil,

Thrust into the fire,
Until the bones are softened,
Plunged into water,
Left to cool to become a man of war.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

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4. Removed:

Xerxes I was removed,

Phillip II was removed,
Caesar was removed,
Andronikos I Komnenos was removed,
Edward II was removed,
Cardinal Robert of Geneva; a monster that ought to have been removed!
Hitler was removed,
Mussolini was removed,
Franco should have been removed,
Saddam Hussein was removed,
Ben Laden was removed,
Trump was removed through the democratic process,
Xi Jinping if he's not careful might be removed,
But Putin,
Who will remove the beast from the Kremlin?

(Patrick J Cassidy)

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5. Come the dawn:

Come the dawn,

Let the dawn fall,
And darkness blow away,
Let the light filter through,
Rain down upon me,
Wash and cleanse me,
As I rise from my shelter,
Hidden below ground,
Hiding from all the evil,
That surrounds,
All the bad unleashed from hell.
And I am alive,
I give thanks to the almighty,
For his palms have covered me,
Protected me from the debris.
Come the dawn,
Let me taste the new day,
Hear the birds sing,
Fill my lungs with the sweetness that is called survival,
Give thanks that I have weathered the storm,
And I able to step out on my own two feet,
For the morning after,
Defies the night before.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

55
6. When you listen to fools:

When you listen to fools,

Fools reign!
They will lead you by the nose,
To where God only knows,
For what they seek is only gain,
But you can be sure that there will be pain.

When you listen to fools,

There is no need for school,
For school becomes the tool,
Of the same fools,
Who say that they will guide you,
To a just reward.

When you listen to fools,

Who can you blame,
Where will you hide your shame,
Once you realised you have been fooled?
By clever talk,
And scaremongering.

When you listen to fools,

You have already abandoned reason,
Deny your own self-judgement,
Follow the crowd,
Unwilling to think for itself,
That needs to be told what to do.

When you listen to fools,

You will do foolish things,
Believing that they are right,
You will kill and commit crime,
Believe yourself just,
Because some fool has told you so.

When you listen to fools,

You turn your back on Christ,
Hammer the nails deeper into his flesh,

56
You shun peaceful living,
For the glory of war,
Lose all moral understanding.
When you listen to fools,
Your ignorance betrays you,
Your innocence exposed,
Weakest over-comes you,
For you have not the courage,
To say the fool is wrong.

When you listen to fools,

Then you become the fool,
In the company of fools,
And no matter where you hide,
Truth will find you,
For no one can escape the truth.

(Patrick J Cassidy)

57
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: NOEL KING

Noel King lives in Tralee, Ireland. His poetry collections are published by Salmon: Prophesying the Past, (2010), The Stern
Wave (2013) and Sons (2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others (Doghouse Books, 2003-2013)
and was poetry editor of Revival Literary Journal (Limerick Writers’ Centre) in 2012/13. A short story collection, The Key
Signature & Other Stories was published by Liberties Press in 2017. www.noelking.ie

58
Jesus didn’t wash his own feet

Asking why you don’t wash

your feet before going to bed,
you told me you didn’t care.
All day you’d swept around
on the beach, in the caravan park,
on the dirt tracks, the sandhills,
going to the shop for ice-creams
and now, after fourteen hours of fun
you get into your nightie and into bed with filthy feet.

I bathe mine in warm water and soap in a plastic pan

we keep under the sink. That’s just sissy, you say
and jump into that borrowed sleeping bag without a care.

I roll the zip down on my bag and climb in, you are on your own
bunk, start to lip a prayer, let your dark hair
fall on the day cushions with pink pillow-covers.
Soon you are snoring softly, and I dream of you
Mary Magdalene-like washing my feet,
like a good love only could, but that would be a sin
as you – lovely and all as you are – are my cousin.

In the morning we will jump into the sea

again before breakfast, paddle across the water.

© Noel King

59
The Scrap Heap

Mr. Raitt tried to convince her she could

sew them, but hard as she tried Janet
Jones the 2nd, as she was called, couldn’t,

every pair when inspected was faulty,

visited the scrap heap as seconds.
Her mother had succeeded here
but left the career when she got babies.

Mr. Raitt moved her to jumpers, black jumpers.

That was worse; she could manage the main body,
but the close ups of necks and cuffs….. aaahh.

Janet wanted to succeed so bad,

to escape her mother
marry Mickey, her boyfriend
when they’d be twenty-one.

She thought about the bean-canning factory

next door. The girls there knocked-off earlier,
got 20p an hour more, some had their own cars,

or their boyfriends had,

but then in school….aaaah,
Janet was never any good at Maths, stuff in books.

© Noel King

60
On Petticoat Lane

a flower shop proprietor allows

her shaggy white coloured ‘Lassie’ dog

to piss on the floor. She squats right there

inside the glass door on the floor.

The woman ‘tut tuts’ and fetches a mop.

We, my wife and I, on our way to eat

at The Crypt in Whitechapel Church

decide on chocolates instead of flowers

to give the maiden aunt we’re having for lunch.

(c) Noel King

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Monologue V

I have in me a need for a place

that will be everything in

dreams of escape;

a place that

no matter what

will be home,

where I will know

I do not want to come back.

© Noel King

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Your Thumbprint

as you staggered tipsy

nightly to the bathroom

is still on the wallpaper.

In my hand a baby wipe.

For an endless time I study the contours

and map of the soil mark,

wonder if I can find a pattern

that led you to leave me and the kids.

Then I wipe the wallpaper clean.

© Noel King

63
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: JESSICA BERRY

Jessica Berry grew up in the seaside town of Bangor, County Down. She is an English teacher at the Belfast Model
School for Girls - the best reason possible for her to get out of bed every morning!

Jessica enjoys writing songs, short stories, and poetry. During the first lockdown, she began sharing her poems on
Instagram (@jessicaruth.poetry). She is currently working towards publishing her first poetry collection, inspired by
family stories and interlaced with Irish folklore. In 2021, Jessica was placed in Bangor’s annual poetry contest hosted
by the Aspects Literary Festival, and was subsequently published in Bangor’s Literary Journal.

64
Diluted Orange

Aunt M wouldn’t be caught dead letting her

children in second-hand clothes. We visited her, and the neighbour’s kids

were wearing my donated trousers.

Aunt H passed her rebel rouge lip stain and hair rollers

down to a young boy, distracted from bedtime prayers,

playing dress up as the fancy woman.

Sundays with Aunt M were cut into

little triangle chicken salad sandwiches and insipid cups of tea

Sundays with Aunt H evaporated into

shivering fogs of stale blue smoke and yeasty slurries of superstitions.

I went to one house and learnt how to work the Sky remote.

And at the other, we watched John Wayne again on a

pork-crackling screen.

Both brought me in diluted orange for

it was tradition.

And so, this is me:

65
Divided concentrate,

watered down,

not really belonging to anything.

In many ways, my aunts are merely the same.

This is what widens the distance.

(Jessica Berry)

66
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: SAEED SALIMI BABAMIRI

Saeed Salimi Babamiri: Kurdish translator and poet. His published books in Iran are Kurdish translations of “Half
an Apple” and “The Mouse's Wedding” a play and a story in verse, both for children. He has many other
translations waiting to be published. His major long translation from Kurdish into English verse is “Mam and
Zeen” by Ahmad Xanee. It is known as “Kurdish Romeo and Juliet” which is ready to be published

67
A soil house

The world is gravely changing,

It is boring being on earth,

A soil house I'm arranging,

Take my heart in my new birth.

I am not afraid of shadows,

In darkness walls my resting goes,

No sunshine I need any more;

You can possess my eyes for sure.

Then are my hands I hand over,

When digging deep done and over.

When me into my new house they lay,

I do not walk in any way,

So I send you my feet and stay.

In sending all parts of body I do my best,

Keep what you need and burn the rest!

The world is gravely changing,

A soil house I'm arranging.

When alone underground forever,

"I" don't think about "you", never.

Do not disturb my silent peace,

By standing on roof with heart piece!

With my poor eyes do not weep,

Let my hands do rest in a sleep,

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And legs get relaxation deep.

The world is gravely changing,

A soil house I'm arranging,

I do not come back on the ground,

On earth I no more will be found.

By Kurdish poet ; Jamal Najari

Translated by: Saeed Salimi Babamiri

69
 EDITOR’S NOTE

It isn’t always easy to know what to say especially given the unprecedented level of chaos in the world. Prices
keep going up while wages remain fairly stagnant and company profits soar.

Then there is the cost of life both at home and elsewhere people trapped in a conflict and for what? While
the war is part of the global issue so is the weather, we’ve seen heatwaves and droughts which have affected
crop growth and forced several nations to impose export bans in an attempt to stave off the worst of the
economic impact this in turn has a knock-on effect on other nations leading to shortages and price increases,
ultimately those most vulnerable are affected.

Still, it isn’t all doom and gloom there are many people still working producing art, reaching across borders
and treating each other as brothers and sisters.

Happy reading, good health, and keep creating,

Amos Greig (Editor)

70
 LAPWING PUBLICATIONS

‘IN A CHANGED WORLD’

Over the past number of years technology has transformed poetry publishing:
shop closures due to increasing operational costs has had an impact,
to put it mildly, shops are releuctant to take ‘slow moving’ genre
such as poetry and play-scripts among other minority interest genre.
The figures given a few years ago were: we had 5000 bookshops in the UK-Ireland
and at the time of the research that number had dropped to 900 and falling:
there was a period when bookshops had the highest rate of ‘High Street’ shop closures.

Lapwing, being a not-for-profit poetry publisher has likewise had to adjust to the new regime.

We had a Google-Books presence until that entity ended its ‘open door’ policy
in favour of becoming a publisher itself. During that time with Google,
Lapwing attracted hundreds of thousands of sample page ‘hits’.
Amazon also has changed the ‘game’ with its own policies
and strategies for publishers and authors.
There are no doubt other on-line factors over which we have no control.

Poetry publishers can also fall foul of ‘on consignment’ practice,

which means we supply a seller but don’t get paid until books have been sold and
we can expect unsold books to be returned, thus ‘remaindered’
and maybe not sellable, years can pass!
Distributors can also seek as much as 51% of cover-price IF.they choose
to handle a poetry book at all, shops too can require say 35%
of the cover price, which is ok given floor space can be thousands of £0000s
per square foot per annum..In terms of ‘hidden’ costs: preparing a work for publication
can cost a few thousand UK £-stg. Lapwing does it as part of our sevice to our suthors.

It has been a well-known fact that many poets will sell more of
their own work than the bookshops, Peter Finch of the Welsh Academi
noted fact that over forty years ago and Lapwing poets have done so for years.

Due to cost factors Lapwing cannot offered authors ‘complimentary’ copies.

What we do offer is to supply authors with copies at cost price.
We hold very few copies in the knowledge that requests
for hard copies are rarely received.

Another important element is our Lapwing Legacy Library which holds all
our retained titles since 1988 in PDF at £4.00 per title:
the format being ‘front cover page - full content pages - back cover page’.
This format is printable as single pages: either the whole book or a favourite page.

I thank Adam Rudden for the great work he has done over the years
creating and managing this web-site.

71
 Thanks also to our authors from ‘home’ and around the world for entrusting Lapwing
with their valuable contributions to civilisation.

If you wish to seek publication please send you submission in MW Word docx format.

LAPWING PUBLICATIONS

POETRY TITLES 2021

All titles are £10.00 stg. plus postage from the authors via their email address.
PDF versions are available from Lapwing at £4.00 a copy,
they are printable for private, review and educational purposes.

9781838439804_Halperin Richard W. DALLOWAY IN WISCONSIN

Mr.Halperin lives in Paris France
Email: halperin8@wanadoo.fr

9781838439811_Halperin Richard W. SUMMER NIGHT 1948

9781838439859_Halperin Richard W. GIRL IN THE RED CAPE

9781838439828_Lennon Finbar NOW

Mr Lennon lives in the Republic of Ireland
Email: lennonfinbar@hotmail.com

9781838439835_Dillon Paul T WHISPER

Mr Dillon lives in the Republic of Ireland
Email: ptjdillon@gmail.com

9781838439842_ Brooks Richard WOOD FOR THE TREES

Mr Brooks lives in England UK
Email:richard.brooks3@btinternet.com

9781838439866_Garvey Alan IN THE WAKE OF HER LIGHT

9781838439873_McManus Kevin THE HAWTHORN TREE

Mr McManus lives in the Republic of Ireland
Email: kevinmcmanus1@hotmail.com

9781838439880_Dwan Berni ONLY LOOKIN’

Berni Dwan lives in the Republic of Ireland
Email: bernidwan@gmail.com

9781838439897_Murbach Esther VIEW ASKEW

Esther Murbach lives in Switzerland though she also spends time in Galway
Email: esther.murbach@gmx.ch

9781916345751_McGrath Niall SHED

Mr McGrath lives in County Antrim Northern Ireland, UK
Email: mcgrath.niall@hotmail.com

9781916345775_Somerville-Large GILLIAN LAZY BEDS

9781916345782_Gohorry & Lane COVENTRY CRUCIBLE

Mr Lane lives in England-UK and due to the recent death of Mr Gohorry
Mr Lane will be the contact for this publication:
Email: johnslane@btinternet.com

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