Submissions, please!

AvantAppal(achia), a new ezine for the avant garde, was founded by Sabne Raznik and Kodi Mullins. They are currently looking for experimental visual art, short stories and poetry from around the world. The deadline for the first issue is May 31, 2016.

Submission details can be found at  http://www.avantappalachia.com/submissions.html

With the wonderful objectives of bringing Appalachia to the world and the world to Appalachia, I wish them every success. 

In an old bar

All afternoon a fly dragged its buzz,

a clock its tick,

and the sun, dumped on the counter,

had the dust swimming silvery.

A white-shirted barman,

herring-boned temples,

glinting ginger down his arms,

was deep-buried in the Independent.

.

I sat behind my pint, followed

the fitful buzzing below the ceiling

while the city traffic guffawed

outside and beyond.

I, the centre of contentment,

seeing beauty in this cosmos of small things,

was God: all seeing, all knowing;

all that and more: nothing.

Unwelcome Meeting

I wish I could remember who inspired this small poem. In fact, I've no recollection of writing it at all.

Many years ago, when I  first started writing and submitting poems for publication, I was told by a friend that I had a poem published in the magazine Cyphers. I  had no memory of submitting a poem, and did not believe the report. But after one or two other people mentioned it, I  went into a shop to check. I remember quite clearly reading it and concluding that it was far better than anything I could write and concluded that there was another Michael O'Dea writing poetry. In fact, I concluded that the gulf  in the standard of the writing was the reason that I would never be published. Later I realised that the subject matter was very familiar to me, and, that all things considered, it had to be mine.

A drink too many, I think, and so it seems nothing's changed; and I'm not sure that Cyphers would publish this.

 

 

Unwelcome Meeting.

 

Smile:

my bracelet snaps.

 

Speak:

chicken bones.

 

Touch:

                             a dusty rug for shaking.

Loneliness

At One End Of A Bench.

 

At one end of a bench

an old man wearing Winter clothes

regards the fountains and Summer

through melt-water irises.

 

He needs my ear to be a conch

 

so that he can call to the past

 

down these auditory canals.

And when he calls, his wife and son

 

will resurrect, return, reverse

 

like filings into a family.

 

It is mid-morning in Stephen's Green;

the usual sounds: clacking fowl

 

and fountain symphonies, and beyond

the thrash of traffic and voices. 

In that moment: two strangers on a bench

 

 

are travelling backwards to Mayo;

elsewhere a beggar has recreated himself

 

in a bank window and somewhere,  in a kitchen,

 

a woman is conversing though the voice

 

that answers has not been heard for years.

A Surprising Image

A number of people have commented on how the chance arrangements of  magnetic words on a fridge door have prompted fresh ideas or modes of expression that they could use in their poetry. Indeed, maybe as good a way as any to come up with a new poem.
Images too can have unexpected origins. I was surprised when burnt larks arrived into the poem below. It came from an old cook-book, Mrs Beeton's; somehow it had stayed in my head  from childhood. (My mother had the book). I searched online, but couldn't find it: a roasting tin or dish with an array of roasted larks on it.
I found these instead,  there just might be a poem our two lurking somewhere in  these delectable-looking pies. If you find one please send it here for posting.

 

Mrs Marshall’s The Cookery Book (London: 1885)

 

 

Tired.

  

Tired,

tired words

burst like plastic footballs.

 

Waiting on this sand-paper plain,

I am no more than a skull

propped up.

 

With biro for harpoon,

I remain still

in the little pool of my shadow,

 

turning questions over

on the spit of my mind;

I have burnt larks on my plate.

 

Historic Walk around Rathmines and Cathal Brugha Barracks

If you’re at a loose end this coming Tuesday (March 15^th) afternoon, you might really enjoy the free guided walk around Rathmines, including the historic Cathal Brugha Army Barracks, which is leaving Rathmines Town Hall at 2.15 pm. The event is sponsored by Rathm ines College as part of its Proclamation Day, (a special day in which colleges and colleges commemorate the 1916 Rising), programme of events.

It is particularly poignant to stand in the small exercise yard behind the barracks guardroom where Francis Sheehy Skeffington was murdered on April 26th 1916. The brick below, now part of the National Museum Collection, is embedded with one of the bullets fired by the firing squad on that day.

Today the guardroom is a small museum with some very interesting artefacts, particularly some memorabilia that belonged to Michael Collins.

 

 

Child with Gun

Footage of child soldiers is always frightening.  Such barbarity.  Do a search in Google images, ‘arabic child with  gun’ and be appalled.

Now search  images of ‘american child with gun’. Be appalled. ‘But they’re not killing people’, you might say. Of course not, the US is not in a war zone, which makes some of these pictures even scarier.

The Washington Post reported  in relation to the  U.S.: “ At least 265 children under the age of 18 picked up a firearm and accidentally shot themselves or someone else with it in 2015, according to numbers compiled by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety……………………………That works out to about five accidental shootings by children each week this year. Of those, 83 ended in death…………..”

A Moment Certified by Lovers

 

It's a certifiable moment

a punch-drunk second

a pulse's high tide.

 

A dog eats grass

a water drop shivers

a barrel fills to its brim

an apple falls           

a body drifts 

a face buckles

a lover screams.

 

At the tip of an orgasm

passion powders;

the creek turns to dust.

Gung Ho Politics Does This

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.”

U.S. historian Howard Zinn 

(video uploaded from Alejandro Salas Munoz channel on Youtube)

International Incident in Connemara Lounge

 

Early twenties, long fair hair, attractive, blue-jeaned; Dutch maybe. Camping on the beach, I'd say. Sitting with her travelling companion at the next table. 

He’s at the bar, shimmying, the local Ronaldo. Thirty-five-ish, pint in fist, massaging with his left a roll of  belly overflowing between t-shirt and jeans. Outlining a game-plan; the trio around him, “ gwan horse !”                  

Then full-sail on the open sea,  he crosses the floor to where she’s sitting.

 On the dance square he’s doing a jive-waltz-dribble sort of thing, breaking it occasionally to lob the odd word down her ear-hole. And of course there’s twirl, lots of twirl. The locals know the story, little smiles on their faces.  

Back at the bar, anticipation-pricked, he’s warming the lads; his shimmies becoming daintier, more intricate like. 

Now he calls another pint......and a glass. The glass crosses the floor, the pint too.

Stool patted, down goes the arse and it’s chat, chat, chittidy, chattedy,chit chat; belly massaged and then another pint. 

 

“Glass ?” 

“No thanks.”  

Back at the bar, collecting his pint, horn-filled, brimming. Rono, ya beauty! 

She sees her chance to bolt.  

“Hey........where the fuck……. ?” 

“Fucking bitch. Outa my way."

 

Thunders across the lounge,  he goes roaring out the door; and the boys scattered, astounded feathers behind him.

Disturbance

The whole countryside’s afluster:

a tree is screaming,the meadows quivering,

boulders have clapped hands over their ears.

 

The word is that the stars have been burgled,

a stream’s stolen the silver,

and a cave, (whisper it), has swallowed the moon.

Films in your face

 

I am watching the film in your face:

your enjoyment crinkling

at the corners of your eyes,

teeth catching your lower lip,

blood draining from the pressure,

draining back as soon.

 

Furrows on your forehead,

I am smiling at your absorption,

want to stub them out with my thumb

but you catch me looking

so I turn back to the screen

till your face is mine again.

 

The words on my lips

remain unsaid. There will a time

when, not having words,

I will wish I had spoken; a time

when love being tested, I could say

I used to watch films in your face.

Neolithic Knowledge

Concentric lives of universe, earth and animal;

wheels turned in wheels.

Gods in their spirals,

their centrifugal powers pent  

to spring on interference:

a sun-burst of exploding circles.

The knowledge  in those shapes:

an unpossessable earth;

life being its gift to us,

we must flow over the ground like water.

Fifteen Irises from my Black Humour to You

Fifteen Irises from my Black Humour to You.

 

The mallards go off like a shot gun;

each a storm of wings

and black as a keyhole.

 

The pond, empty now,

is gripped in a glacial sulk.

 

Fifteen irises from my black humour to you,

their shadows only;

the pond will part with no more.

Stone Art

 

 

 

 

                            Stone at Newgrange photo by Johnbod. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnbod.

 

 

A man is carving shapes:

spirals, lozenges, chevrons;

the sun is looking over his shoulder.

Below, in the valley, the Boyne passes

 with a glint from its teeth,

the whitethorn is in full bloom,

the daylight hours are long. 

 

His hands are leather from handling flint;

a wave traverses the stone,

arcs toss on the crests,

they tip left then right;

tonight the moon is tipping left;

in three weeks daytime will be at its longest.