Galway Review 8 - April 2020

The Galway Review
8
Published
by
Galway Academic Press

The Galway Review 8
Editor in Chief:
Máire Holmes
Deputy Editor in Chief: Jack McCann
Contributing Editors:
Prof. Adrian Frazier
Eva Bourke
Dr. John Kenny
Gerard Hanberry
Bernard Kirk
Dr. Tony Hall
Trevor Conway
Luke Morgan
General Administrator: Uinseann Mac Thómais
Managing Editor: Ndrek Gjini
Copy Editor: Matt Mooney
The moral rights of the authors and the editors are
reserved.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Galway
Review team. – April 2020
ISBN: 67637315798765
Printed by CL Print
www.thegalwayreview.com
Email: thegalwayreview@gmail.com
All rights reserved
2

The Galway Review
8
3

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Table of Contents
Uinseann Mac Thómais
Preface
9
Anne Marie Kennedy
SNARED
11
N.K. Woods
Risks & Rascals
16
Arbër Ahmetaj
The Dilemma
25
Anna Allen
THE BISHOP AND THE NIGHTDRESS
29
Ian Watson
Blurred Snow
41
Jesse Mavro Diamond
Elegy for Devron
42
Katacha Díaz
Grandfather’s Legacy
48
5

Heider Broisler
Poems Between Bars
50
P.W. Bridgman
THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
51
Matt Mooney
Fugitive Verses
58
Daniel Sammon
Auschwitz
59
Maire Holmes
NOTRE DAME
TOST
62 - 63
Jack McCann
Autistic Senses
The Hug
Precision Translation
Euthanasia
64-67
BIO NOTES
69-73
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7

8

Preface
Ar an drochnuair, cuimhneofar ar 2020 mar an
bhliain a thug stoirmeacha, Breatimeacht, buaic
daoine gan dídean agus an vireas Covid 19 dúinn.
Bíonn misneach ag na Gaeil ag tabhairt aghaidh ar
chruatan. Cothaíonn na dúshláin randamacha seo
spiorad, Spiorad an aiséirithe!
Sé an spiorad céanna a spreagann An Galway
Review eagrán 8 de díolaim a chur le chéile.
Ceiliúradh, le linn Gaillimh2020, príomchathair
cultúrtha na hEorpa, ar thalann, cumas, agus
samhlaíocht ár scríbhneoirí uile.
Gach rath orthu uile!.
Uinseann Mac Thómais
Riarthóir Ginearálta
9

10

Anne Marie Kennedy i
SNARED
The full-grown, plump rat was caught by a back leg and
straight meaty tail in the vice jaws of the metal trap.
His head jerked towards me, coal black pupils
beseeching, frightened jewels blinking from above the
grey-brown, whiskered snout.
My first step should have taken me past the
wicker coffee table, step two should have concealed my
bare feet behind the turf basket from where I would
reach the poker.
I’d do for him if he made for door or chimney, pulling the
trap behind him like a pony – but my feet were welded to
the floor, soles numb against worn stone tiles, neck
sweaty, white cotton nightie fisted in between knees and
thighs.
I thought of a good brother, a decent father, the
avuncular figures, all the male ameliorating forces of my
childhood.
I missed them.
I saw my vulnerable thirty-year-old reflection in the
black, rain-pelted window, listened to my sobs rupturing
the silence, fully realising the sad reality of my life.
I too had been trapped like the rat, attracted too young
to the bait of coupledom.
I had walked up the aisle in a white frock, high heels and
frothy tights, knelt at cold marble rails, said ‘I do,’ ‘I will,’
11

and was bestowed with the religious efficacy of an Irish
Catholic ceremony.
I signed my new name under the unbreakable seal, inkwitnessed,
registered into officialdom, in a backward
culture of judgment, a society that would have no
accommodation for a union failed – you had ‘made your
bed,’ and said ‘until death do you part.’
Eight years later, I walked, smashed hearts and vows
into smithereens and went to live alone in a thatched
cottage.
The owners must have known about the rat but they
saw the desperation in me: a woman alone except for a
dog, two cats, a few red geraniums, hardly any furniture
and too many books. I gave them a bank draft for three
months’ rent, dated the first of October 1991 and
ushered them politely away, needing to wallow with
immediacy in hermetic indifference.
The dampness hovered, clung overhead in the
yellow-walled box room where I put the Word Processor.
Looking out over the half lace curtain into brown fields of
rushes, I typed thick chunks of miserable prose, verses
about the dark dregs of a relationship, a marriage gone
cold, off the boil for years, my untenable hurt and selfdelusion.
The writing allowed me touch the scabrous
parts, lift them, let the wounds heal clean from the inside
out.
After a month, I met a kind-faced farmer on the
briar-laced, stone-walled lane, told him about the frantic
night-scuttling between thatch and rafter.
He came that evening with a trap.
12

‘Rats are bastards, cunts a yokes,’ he said,
reaching into the cab of the tractor.
He had wrapped a piece of hairy bacon around the
tongue-like protrusion and showed me how to set and
release the spring loaded contraption.
‘Will he be dead?’ I asked.
‘Oh he’ll be dead, for sure and certain, dead as a
door nail.’
‘Will it be painful, cruel…?’
‘Ah for the love an honour a God a girleen, cruel
is it? To kill a bastard of a rat, a rat that would take the
eye out of your head, a rat that would go for your face if
you cornered him, rats piss can kill you stone dead, I
know all about them, the dirty bastards,’ he spat, ‘put it
down tonight and if you happen to hear it close, leave it
a few hours, then open the jaws with a spade or a
shovel and tip him into the stove when you’ve got a
lightning hot fire on.’
I set it on the hearthstone and at four in the
morning heard a dull thud and one helpless yelp. The
Labrador sank deeper into the warm space I left, the
cats were in the front room, the stove was stone-cold.
I pushed the trap gently with the sweeping
brush, across the tiled floor, onto the lino in the hall
towards the half door.
I decided it was a female.
She was intermittently still.
13

I had to step over her twice to bring in the spade that lay
against the outside wall.
I swept her gently over the door saddle out onto the
concrete step.
I closed the latch on the bottom half of the door, leaned
out over it, prised the trap’s jaws open with the tip of the
spade and released her.
Illustration by Darryl Vance
Darryl Vance is an artist whose work has been featured
in exhibitions across North America and Europe for over
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30 years. His award-winning design and illustration for
film, television, and print continues to this day.
A proud supporter of the Oxford comma, Mr. Vance lives
and works near Oranmore.
Thrill seekers are invited to visit his
website, darrylvance.com.
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N.K. Woods ii
Risks & Rascals
‘Où sont les parachutes?’
The French voice cut through the hum of Spanish
conversation and made Leo’s hearing aid squeal.
Although the lady who’d spoken was standing by the
front row, he could hear and see her perfectly from his
seat in the middle of the small plane. She pointed
towards one of the propellers, slapped the palm of her
hand off her forehead and sighed in a despairing yet
resigned way that reminded him of his wife, Ginnie.
Looking swiftly away, he leaned across the empty seat
beside him and stared out the window.
Everyone was on board now, except for the young
couple arguing on the tarmac. Very fair hair and red
skin, burnt and sore looking, suggested they’d have
been better off holidaying in Scandinavia than Central
America. A minute later they appeared in the cabin and
the woman stomped to her seat, 5C, directly in front of
Leo, while the man, his T-shirt damp with sweat, trailed
along behind her.
Once the door was closed and everyone was strapped
in, the stewardess pulled on a life jacket. But before she
could make the usual announcements, the fair-haired
woman was on her feet again, fiddling with the overhead
locker.
‘Sit down, babe,’ said the sunburnt man, sounding
embarrassed.
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‘You’re not the boss of me,’ snapped his companion,
with such ferocity that passengers in nearby rows turned
to gawk.
Still in her yellow life jacket, the stewardess marched
down the aisle. Leo was taken aback by how much she
resembled the neon-clad lollipop lady who was forever
holding up traffic near his doctor’s surgery. The woman
from 5C plucked a guide book from her handbag and
waved it like a weapon before sitting back down. Tutting
at her behaviour, Leo shut his eyes but almost
immediately a soft voice close to his ear made them
spring open.
‘¿Está todo bien, señor?’ The stewardess hunkered
down and studied him closely. It was as though she’d
discovered an unaccompanied minor on her flight.
Speaking very slowly, she asked, ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Two days had passed since his last
proper conversation and his voice sounded croaky
through lack of use. He cleared his throat and added,
‘Better than okay. Marvellous.’ She patted his arm,
straightened up and returned to the front of the plane
where she delivered the pre-flight spiel in Spanish and
then English.
The engine roared to life and the propellers began to
turn. Leo’s heart raced with anticipation. He waited until
the plane had taken off and then pulled his battered
satchel out from under the seat and retrieved his diary.
He stroked the leather cover and traced the embossed
1953 with his index finger. Half a century earlier those
numbers had been gilded but the gold sheen was long
gone – worn away like the enamel on his few remaining
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teeth. He turned to a page at the back and his mood
lifted at the sight of the list. He’d felt very alone when he
woke that morning but now he couldn’t help smiling;
seeing the page was like coming face to face with an old
friend. Twenty-eight of the thirty items, written in his own
blocky handwriting, had been marked off but he counted
them all the same. Running through the entries and the
red ticks was like leafing through a photo album in his
head but before he reached the half-way point, the cries
of the woman in 5C intruded on his memories.
‘Christ on a bicycle,’ she exclaimed, slapping her
companion with her book. ‘You said you’d read the
important parts, all of them! So what, you skipped the
travel fact list because the “Risks & Rascals” page was
all your pea-brain could handle? Or did you think flying
on a Category 2 airline would be a laugh?’ She thumped
him again and demanded to know why he had
memorised the paragraph about robberies instead of
organising different transportation.
‘Leave off. I didn’t see that bit. I swear!’ While squirming
to make himself a smaller target, the man dropped his
water bottle but was too busy to notice. It rolled under
his seat and came to a stop by Leo’s feet.
Ignoring the bottle and the quarrelsome couple, Leo
went back to his list and found comfort in the familiar
names. Abu Simbel, Samarkand, Palmyra, Machu
Picchu, Petra, Easter Island…. The pictures in his
mental photo album expanded into a mini-film as he
lingered over the memory of dancing on the beach with
Ginnie while the famous stone Moai, majestic in the
moonlight, stood guard. Hundreds of nights had passed
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since that lovely evening, but it felt like yesterday. They
had hoped to visit more ancient wonders together, but
the trip to Easter Island had been their last before
circumstances put a stop to all thoughts of travel.
Recently, however, his circumstances had changed
again, granting Leo one last chance to see out the list
he’d compiled as a geography-obsessed schoolboy. His
parents, parochial to the core, had scoffed at his dream
of seeing the world, but he’d refused to be deterred.
Hard work and a head for figures had paved the way for
his explorations – and paid for them; but imagination
and creativity were the real keys to his success, along
with a refusal to accept the word no. The charming
bulldozer, that’s what Ginnie had called him, usually
while rolling her eyes. Recalling the name and the last
time someone had tried to say no to him, he chuckled.
‘Absolutely not. You cannot travel,’ his GP had
spluttered. But his oncologist had been more sanguine.
What was the worst that could happen, he asked,
rhetorically. There was still time, a few months, and Leo
was old enough to make his own decisions. That had
made them both laugh.
After retrieving a pen from his satchel, Leo pressed
down firmly on the page and marked off Chichen Itza.
On his visit to the site a few days earlier, and to the
horror of his tour guide, he had slowly ascended the
temple pyramid. The fretful guide had refused to let go
of his elbow on the way up and walked directly in front of
him on the way down. Slippery as soap after rain, the
man had said; he’d earned every penny of his tip, and
the round of applause from the people on the ground
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who’d cheered when both he and Leo reached the
bottom step safely.
And soon Tikal would be ready for its tick, the final stop
on an adventure that had taken a lifetime to complete
and cost Leo more than he’d ever expected. He would
climb to the top of one of the temples there too, if his
legs held out.
‘Mate, hand me that water?’ The man in 5D twisted
round in his seat like a child playing peek-a-boo and
draped his arm through the gap to point at the bottle.
‘You on your way to the rebel base too?’ He began to
whistle a tune which Leo recognised but couldn’t place.
‘Star Wars….yeah? Tikal’s in the first one. A classic.
You seen it?’
Eager to cut off the flow of chat, Leo tapped his
hearing aid. ‘Forgive me but I don’t hear so well
anymore.’ He hadn’t missed a single word but being old
provided a litany of ready-made excuses that people
were generally eager to believe. He made a show of
noticing the bottle and handed it back.
As the minutes went by, the sky outside grew steadily
darker, but the first half of the flight was uneventful, if a
little bumpy. The seatbelt sign never went off so no one
moved around apart from the stewardess. Leo saw her
thrust a sick bag at a passenger near the cockpit.
Almost at once, the unmistakable smell of vomit spread
through the cabin. The sour smell made him long for a
tub of Vicks VapoRub. He never travelled without Vicks
– Ginnie always brought it along, claiming a little dab
under the nose was a lifesaver in stinky places – but this
was his first solo trip in decades and he’d forgotten to
20

pack it. But at least he had his medication. He patted his
shirt pocket and was reassured by the sound of the little
pills rattling around in the plastic bottle. He considered
popping a tablet into his mouth but decided to wait until
he had a coffee to help wash it down.
A male voice crackled across the intercom – the pilot
making an announcement in Spanish. Based on the
rapid retreat of the stewardess and the way she
disappeared into her seat, Leo guessed they were in for
turbulence.
The plane dropped. The fall was so sudden that
someone screamed. Another drop, more severe, soon
followed. Leo gripped his armrest with one hand and
pressed the diary to his heaving stomach with the other.
An overhead locker shot open and a bundle slowly
unfurled. A coat. Its hem caught on the latch and the
dangling sleeves swayed as the plane shook, almost
like laundry on a clothes line. The fair-haired woman’s
handbag fell too. Coins from her open purse rained
down like hailstones. More of her belongings dropped
out and scattered when the bag hit the floor. Hairbrush,
lip balm, mints, wallet, paracetamol, tissues, keyring,
postcards. Leo silently named the individual items to
distract himself. When he was finished, things had
settled and he relaxed slightly, but then the plane
lurched upwards and that was even worse than falling,
as if the laws of gravity were being mocked. A bearded
man across the aisle took out a rosary. His fingers
moved quickly from bead to bead, so quickly that the
only prayer he could have been saying was a one word
plea for help.
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Lightning flashed outside, sending streaks of blue
through the dense mass of clouds. Leo didn’t want to
look but he couldn’t tear his eyes away; the sight made
him think of bulging veins. He gripped the armrest and
his diary with such force that his hands hurt. He’d gone
through so much to make it this far; he had to make it to
Tikal. He wasn’t afraid of dying but it couldn’t happen
yet, not after he’d waited so long for his passport to be
returned. As if to ward off harm by cocooning himself in
pleasant thoughts, he tried to conjure up images from
his travels but his mind seemed intent on revisiting
places he hated: the interview room that smelt of
unwashed bodies and fear, his solicitor’s office, the
hospital, the impersonal flat he’d been renting since the
house sale went through.
More lightning transformed the sky beyond his window.
Another bulging vein, just like the one that had throbbed
at Ginnie’s temple when she threw her wedding ring at
him after learning how their adventures had been
funded.
And then it was over. The extreme buffeting stopped
and the light brightened as the clouds thinned out.
Within minutes the stewardess was on her feet. Even
the seatbelt sign went off.
It didn’t take long for a queue to form outside the toilet at
the back of the plane. Leo needed to go but doubted if
his legs would support him if he tried to stand. They’d
given out once before when, during his weekly visit to
the local station to sign on, he heard from a senior
officer that the case against him was being dropped.
Compassionate grounds due to his failing health was
22

the excuse given; although mention was also made of
how, on reflection, the amount in question, a few
thousand a year, wasn’t worth prosecuting a sick man
over. That day, as he was helped up from the floor, half
carried to a chair and given a cup of tea, the unspoken
verdict had been that becoming an object of pity was
punishment in itself, a lesson in humility, but Leo had
taken an entirely different lesson from the experience.
The fair-haired woman stood, gathered her belongings
and stowed them away before heading for the toilet, but
she overlooked her wallet and lip balm. Both were under
her seat. Leo waited until she was gone and then, with
some difficulty, leaned forward and retrieved them.
Briefly, he held the heavy wallet in his hand, estimating
how much cash it contained. A lot, based on its weight.
Using his satchel for cover, he eased roughly a quarter
of the notes out and tucked them into his diary. Then,
with an effort, he hoisted himself up using the seatback
in front for support.
‘I believe your wife dropped these,’ he said, holding out
the wallet and lip balm.
Pale now beneath his sunburn, the Star Wars fan
grinned weakly as he accepted the items. ‘Cheers.
She’d have had kittens if she lost her spondoolicks.
She’s not my wife, though. I’m still technically a free
agent. What about you?’
‘I lost my wife….’ replied Leo. He left the sentence
hanging, not explaining that Ginnie had left him when,
just shy of his retirement and thanks to discrepancies
found by the eagle-eyed accountant hired to be his
replacement, he’d been arrested for systemically dipping
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into the company’s pension scheme. ‘I’m sorry to ask
but would you mind helping me as far as the lavatory?
My legs are a little wobbly.’
Not only was the man happy to assist, but everyone else
was solicitous too and Leo was allowed to skip the short
queue, past the French lady who declared in excellent
English that her next holiday would be by train and 5C
who stood aside without complaint when she heard
about her wallet. He took his time in the cramped toilet
but when he emerged his assistant was waiting patiently
to guide him back to his seat. The stewardess took over
then, appearing with a pillow and a blanket. After tucking
Leo in and making sure he was comfortable, she asked
if he needed anything else. At first he demurred but then
murmured, ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble but
some coffee might calm my insides.’ He patted his
stomach for emphasis and watched as she left to do his
bidding.
Cosseted under the blanket and the attentive eyes of
pitying strangers, Leo drifted into a daydream about his
next adventure; the rebel base, the last stop on his list
but a place where he felt sure he’d fit in nicely.
24

Arbër Ahmetaj iii
The Dilemma
He called me half an hour after midnight.
‘I had dinner with an ant’, he said. ‘We had a wonderful
time’.
I prevented myself at the last second from laughing. His
voice seemed serious to me and a bit loud. I had the
impression that he had eagerly wanted to finish the
dinner to give me the news and I noticed that he was
looking forward to my reaction.
‘What did you drink? Wine or something else?’ I asked.
‘We started with an aperitif, a bottle of Chardonnay with
some toasted bread coated with olives and dry
tomatoes, some salmon. Then we had a Syrah with a
fillet of veal and vegetable garnish and rounded off the
dinner with a Fernet Branca and ice-cream’, he told me.
‘I hope you enjoyed it’ I said. ‘Did she stay with you after
the dinner or did you accompany her to the railway
station?’.
‘She stayed two hours more. Then I called a taxi’.
I realised that he wanted to close the conversation. I felt
that his voice was losing the certainty that it had in the
beginning. He is my son. He studied theatre in London,
excelling later in two or three performances and in a
film. Lately he collaborated with a TV channel in a
comedy series that had a pretty good echo. Then he fell
into a deep reclusion. It seemed that a girl was the
cause of this gloominess. Together with my wife we
25

called the girl the next day and asked her if she would
like to meet us. She welcomed our proposal and when
we met, she greeted us with a bunch of flowers for my
wife. This left us with a very good taste. The fact that we
went to meet her empty-handed probably left her a with
a bad one. She talked to us all the time about our son,
about the magic of his pure soul, his wonderful dreams
and his outbreaks of genius.
‘For some time, he has been staying away from me’,
she said. ‘In the end I didn’t make much of it. Maybe he
will be back. We were so good together! But he is a
genius…’.
I didn’t want to make the former girlfriend of my son
jealous by telling her that her “genius’ had spent a
‘wonderful night’ with an ant! What we realised was that
our son was the cause of the split with that graceful girl
who was an actress and a script writer in a local TV
station.
When we were leaving, she asked us to do her a favour
by contacting him about a series coming up.
Today, he agreed with us to come to the TV station to
sign a contract with a national television network for a
series in which he would have the main role. He had
promised to come. At the last moment he called and
said that he couldn’t make it. We had to cancel
everything. Our partners were not happy. However, I
understood that he might have a strong reason and tried
to justify his absence to them.
We remained speechless. What strong reason might
have prevented our prince from going to that important
meeting to sign a contract with a financial heavyweight
26

while he asks us for money time after time towards the
end of every month?
I wanted to ask more of Sara, that was her name, but at
the last moment I hesitated. It seemed to me that I
would mess up their relationship and addle my brain as
well. I had never been very clear about my relationship
with my son. He used to leave things half said as if he
was implying something. Our conversations resembled
the muted cracks of ice in a half-frozen pond. In most
cases I had to guess the rest of his unspoken words.
When I tried to reformulate his answer to show that I
had understood him he muttered a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. His
muteness stressed the lack of understanding between
us. Our relationship was sailing into thick mists and I
was not surprised any more that the ship of our
communication, instead of being in friendly harbours,
was drifting towards rocky windswept shores.
These were the things I was wondering about after we
said goodbye to young Sara. My wife was silent but I felt
that she was boiling. It was clear that she was
concerned. I had told her about last night’s
conversation. She had considered it a joke, a word
game, or a metaphor. Probably he had been with
another girl and did not want to worry us because he
knew that we liked Sara. But we liked Sara for him, not
for us! ‘This girl is sweet’, my wife had once said.
We sat in another café plunging in reflections. Then
abruptly my wife’s mobile phone tinkled. She opened it.
There was a message on WhatsApp from our son. It
ran: ‘I’m in a terrible predicament. Mimi gave birth this
morning and two of her five kittens were born dead.
27

Mimi is really sad. Can you come to look after her this
afternoon? I buried the dead kittens with great sorrow’.
Mimi is a stray cat our son adopted several months ago.
After this message we realised how our son had spent
that morning and understood the reason for his failure to
turn up to sign the contract. As a feline obstetrician he
had helped the cat while giving birth and acted as a
psychologist for her as well, consoling his Mimi for the
loss of her two kittens. He had played his part in the
drama of ‘all creatures great and small’.
I remembered that some years ago I had said to my wife
that I needed to go to a psychologist to find a proper
way to communicate with my son but she had
suggested to me that it would be better for me to go to a
psychiatrist. That time I had laughed about it. Now, I had
to take seriously the issue of psychologist or
psychiatrist, for myself or for my son. Whichever one of
us needs one of them most.
Monthey, January 05, 2008.
Translated by Kujtim Morina
28

Anna Allen iv
THE BISHOP AND THE NIGHTDRESS
The front door slammed! The windows rattled! The
mother stomped into the living-room and sent the
twisted up newspapers skidding across the table: The
father’s morning-after-the-night-before blear followed
them till they came to an ignominious halt against the
wall.
‘What’s up love?’ His voice was cautiously blunted
of its usual impatience for the sports’ pages, his eyes
scanning his wife’s face for clues to her mood.
‘What’s up? My hackles, that’s what’s up. Have you
done anything about the breakfast as yet?’
The as was the danger signal, funny how a little word
like as in the right place could set a tone, chill the air. If
it wasn’t already chilly enough! Robbie pulled the yearold
twin girls, a prop on either knee, closer to his chest
and kissed their dark curls, in turn.
‘I’m babysitting, Rhoda darling,’ he said. ‘You go
mass, I mind kids!’
‘I cook, wash, clean, sew, and mind kids all at same
time.’
‘Ah! Not that auld libbers stuff again. I didn’t hear
much about that before you got out of bed.’ He threw
her a tantalizing glance. ‘Remember!’
She blushed and squirmed at the same time. ‘Was I
wearing a nightdress, your Grace?’
29

‘If you were, I didn’t notice,’ he chuckled, ‘anyway
what’s that supposed to mean?’
She burst into tears.
‘What’s happened to put you in this bloody mood?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whimpered. ‘I just don’t
understand!’
‘That’s a change usually it’s me that doesn’t
understand.’
‘All I know is I’m insulted and hurt,’ she said.
‘Has that Priest been going on again?’
‘It’s like I’m an onion with so many skins and
layers…I, the person, seems to have got lost,
smothered along the way.’ Rhoda made a gesture of
helpless innocence, ‘why did God give us a nature so at
odds with what He expects? I feel I want to rid myself of
everything I’ve been told and taught. Find out what-itsall-about
for myself because I can’t live like this any
longer. I need to get right down to bedrock.’
‘Bedrock! For God’s sake woman will you tell me
what you’re on about?’
‘I hate myself. I hate my body. I hate being a
woman. I can no longer cope with being put in these
positions of shame.’
‘Look, just tell me who or what’s put you in this state
and leave out the rest.’
‘I’m speechless with disgust is all I know,’ she said.
‘Oh! I hadn’t noticed. The speechless bit I mean.’
Rhoda threw herself down on the couch and released
her hair from its controlling scarf-hat. The light-brown
mass tumbled to her shoulders glinting in tandem with
the hot-cold blue of her eyes. ‘If you’re unfortunate
30

enough to be a woman in this world, then you’d better
be a… a mermaid,’ she said.
‘A mermaid? That could put you at a bit of a
disadvantage, if I know anything about mermaids, that
is,’ Robbie grinned at his own wit.
‘There you are, you’re no different, all doublemeaning
and… and subterranean.’
‘Subterranean! I understand that alright, buried
alive, that’s what.’
‘Buried alive? That’s me,’ Rhoda said, ‘married with
a houseful of children, you’re still free.’
‘Free! Do you call this free?’ Robbie dislodged a
twin girl from either knee. ‘Mammy’s home, my
lovelies,’ he said strapping them into their twin-pram and
wheeling it into the hall. Rhoda sped up the stairs to
alert the remaining three small daughters their mother
was back from first Mass and on the warpath. They’d
better be getting up, having their breakfasts and
readying themselves for second Mass due to begin in
less than two hours time. Although, considering the way
she felt right this moment about priests, bishops and
even the Pope himself, she was on two minds whether
she ought to let them go. Listening to warnings about
the evils of the “pill” inside the church and then coming
out to the screaming headlines on the Sunday
newspapers had all but put her over the edge.
‘Ah, I see. It’s this that’s turning you on,’ he said
when Rhoda came back into the room.
‘Why the big cover up about sex, childbirth and that
whole area of existence?’ she said continuing her own
train of thought. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t enter the convent
31

after all. It seems the only way women can get respect
in this country.’
‘Ah don’t say that, love,’ Robbie’s voice was matterof-fact,
his eyes burning up the newsprint.
It was a cold morning. The ash in the grate stared
back at the chilly room without as much as a taunting
wink to say it had once been a fire.
‘It’s hard to get it right,’ she said out loud.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ said Robbie on automatic pilot,
his head stuck in the newspaper.
Opening the heavy curtains she squinted through the
melted part of the frosted window where her eyes met
the high wall at the back of the house. A boundary wall
too high to climb over but not too dense to pass
through! That clump of moss, courageously clinging to
its nether regions spoke of a beyond. Her imagination
escaped through it a thousand times a day to occupy
some other world time or space that offered less welldefined
possibilities.
‘Now I know what’s bugging you. It’s this isn’t
it?’ Robbie piped up prodding the newspaper with his
long index finger. Rhoda pulled her eyes from the wall
and its vague promises as he began to read out loud in
an important voice:
‘Some Bishop,’ he looked over the rim of the paper,
‘took such exception to something on that “Late Late
Show” he phoned in, or rather got his secretary to phone
in to object. Something about the colour of a nightdress,
it says here. I suppose you were watching it?’
‘What else?’ she snapped.
32

‘Why is all this upsetting you so much? It’s not
about you, you know. It’s about some silly woman
admitting she was starkers on her honeymoon or
something like that.’
‘Is that what you think?’ Rhoda’s voice was
strained to a screech.
‘That’s what it says here, so what has you in the
flap?’
‘Maybe I’m crazy, but I think it’s about every woman
in the country, in the world for that matter, and
that includes me. Otherwise why would I feel degraded,
disgusted and confused?’
‘Look love, if some auld wan wants to go on TV and
tell the country about being starkers on her honeymoon,
bleedin’ years ago, what’s that got to do with you, us?’
‘It’s as if there was something obnoxious about her
and her naked body and by extension about every
woman. She was on her legitimate bloody honeymoon
and even if she bloody wasn’t…’
‘She should’ve kept her mouth shut, but no, like you,
she’d have to shoot her gob off.’
‘Like me?’
‘Just like you. Trying to be smart and look where it
got her, a bishop having to ring in to complain about
her. I’m glad I’m not her husband this Sunday morning,
the laughing stock of the country. No doubt about that.’
Robbie flicked his fingers against the newspaper.
‘Looking at the stupid papers you’d think she’d
admitted to playing her part in a…in a ménage-a-trios.’
‘A men-a-what?’
33

It’s French for three people living together, intimately. I
think’, she added with less conviction when she saw the
outrage on his face.
‘There’s no such thing as that. Anyway how do you
know about it whatever it is?’
‘I read, whenever I get the chance, and not the
sports pages of the newspapers.’
‘Oh, I know.’ His voice whirred past her ears like a
stone on its way to the flesh of an adulterous
woman. Somewhere out East. ‘It’s those books you’re
getting over from England, I suppose.’
‘Do you see anything wrong with what she said?’
‘If you came out with the likes of that on television,
and you probably would, I’d be mortified,’ said Robbie,
his cigarette dancing between his lips. ‘Morto’ I’d be
and nothing short of it.’
‘You’d be morto, and how would I ever get to be on
television?’
‘No way, I hope. You on television, may God
preserve me. You’d probably bring your soapbox with
you, to tell them about your own sex life.’
‘Sex, sex, sex! It’s the only sin in the book. You can
do anything else you like from robbing a bank to
cheating your employer to back-biting your neighbour to
ill-treating a child but mention the dreaded sex and you’ll
even wake up the priest in the Confession Box. He’ll
switch to red alert in case he might miss something –
really wicked. If sex is so terrible why is it part of life at
all? We didn’t ask for it. At least I didn’t.’
‘God invented it, I suppose, but,’ Robbie hung his
head.
34

‘But what?’
‘I don’t know,’ he threw the paper aside. ‘Maybe I’m
as mixed up as you are.’
‘And it’s not even the sex itself,’ Rhoda went on,
‘because nobody admits to doing it in the first place, it’s
the whiff of it that get’s them going. I’ll bet you a fiver
there won’t be a paper left for the second Mass crowd
on this Sunday.’
‘It’s as well we’ve got ours, so.’
‘If the “Late Late Show” dealt with botched deliveries
and damaged children I’ll guarantee you there wouldn’t
be a mention of it in sight; probably a small paragraph
tucked away somewhere. No, it takes someone
admitting to having sex and doing it in their skin, for
God’s sakes, to really get them going.’
‘This paper is certainly whipping things up,’ Robbie
agreed.
‘Exactly, it’s the 1960s after all. Every woman in
Ireland should be hopping mad at the attitude of that
Bishop. How does he think he got into the world in the
first place?’
‘Ah, but talking about it on television …’ Robbie lit up
another cigarette and added the dead match to the dead
ashes, ‘is asking for trouble. That Gay Byrne should
have more sense.’
Rhoda trained her blazing blue eyes on him.
‘No, it’s that Bishop that needs sense. It’s his head
that’s damaged as well as yours. Every woman in the
country ought to stand up and say, “no more sex until it
becomes respectable; something that women don’t have
to apologise for as if we invented it in the first place.”’
35

‘And didn’t women invent it? Wasn’t it Eve that
tempted Adam?’
‘And isn’t it men who most often come home pissed
demanding their conjugal rights?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake woman, I’m beginning to
wonder about you.’
‘You’re a man. You’re not made feel guilty or dirty
about it all, the way women are. You’ve just said it
yourself. Women are the cause of it all.’
‘Don’t start all that man versus woman drivel, I just
can’t bear it.’ His voice changed gear, ‘are you not
making the brekkie love?’ he said while circling his
stomach with the palm of his hand.
‘Oh, the sheer audacity of it all; ought to be
laughable if it wasn’t so damn serious,’
‘It’s you that makes it serious, love, forget about it.’
‘How can I forget it? I have to live with it. We’re
Catholics aren’t we?’
‘Of course we’re Catholics.’
Rhoda moved up a pitch, ‘and if you’ve any doubt about
it just look at all the kids we’ve got and we’re not even
thirty yet, either of us.’ Her eyes softened as they swept
the contours of Robbie’s boyish head, jet black hair with
a streak of grey right at the front. He was too young to
be in this position and he had the bread-winning on his
shoulders as well. Her eyes moved to the twin pram
while her ears took in the frolicking life on the upper
floor. An acute frisson of mixed emotions welled up
and boiled over. She’d come into the world alone, and
now look how many she was!
36

‘I’m sorry,’ she heard herself say, kissing Robbie on
top of his head. ‘I can’t explain why I’m so upset
because I don’t really know the answer. I’ll have to put
my gut under psychoanalysis.’
‘Later love, when mine is full, woman of the house,
do your stuff, feed your man.’
While the rashers the sausages and the white pudding
whistled and spat upon the pan Rhoda turned the whole
sorry business over in her mind. What really tormented
her was the tainted aura that surrounded the female of
the species. She wasn’t wrong about that because she
felt it now as keenly as when she was a young girl
coming to the conclusion that she was suspect in some
way or other she didn’t quite understand. The roadmap
she’d needed at the time was missing. Judging by the
way she felt now, as a young married mother, the road
map had not yet been found.
To be a virgin obviously had the greatest value and yet
to be a mother, under the proscribed circumstances, of
course seemed fine as well. How to be a mother and a
virgin at the same time was God territory. There weren’t
many Holy Ghosts hanging around down here on wellpopulated
earth. And yet here was she, the mother of
five squirming with a brew of rage and embarrassment
just because she was born a woman and had a body
that could offend a Bishop if she ever allowed it to be
naked. There was obviously a missing link somewhere.
*****
‘You timed that well,’ said Rhoda picking up the
ringing telephone.
37

‘Have you cooled down yet?’ asked her friend Pam
on the other end of the line.
‘How well you know me. Thanks to his Lordship, or
should that be his Grace, I’ve made one decision, that
is, one to start with.’
‘Shoot,’ said Pam.
‘I’m going on the Pill,’ Rhoda announced as if she
was declaring war on humanity itself.
. ‘Oh, you bad woman,’ said Pam, ‘what’s kept you so
long?’
‘I wish I knew the answer to that one.’
‘It’s because you’re waiting for carte blanche from
His Holiness in Rome.’ Pam informed her in that
supercilious voice she used when she felt ahead of the
posse. ‘In this country,’ she articulated following a long
drag on her cigarette, ‘the Pill is permitted as a cycleregulator
only. You remember the rhythm method, my
child? Don’t you? It’s the one that got you the five
kids.’
‘No need to go up that road,’ said Rhoda.
‘Absolutely not; it’s up the garden path for you, every
single time he as much as hangs his trousers on the end
of the bed.’
‘Not any more,’ replied Rhoda. ‘Now that I’ve had
another lesson in how I’m regarded as a woman, I’m out
of season for the rest of my natural life and that’s flat.’
‘But remember’ came the reply, ‘you can’t tell Doctor
Deering that when you ask him for the Pill. He thinks
he’s Christ Almighty. You have to say it’s to regulate
your cycle. On top of that you may have to get your
husband’s consent.’
38

‘That could be the tricky bit.’
‘I can’t imagine why, does Robbie not think you have
enough children, far too many some might say.’
‘Some like me, for instance,’ said Rhoda; but her
heart told her otherwise.
‘You have to have a say in it all, Rhoda. I know
Robbie works hard and he’s a good provider but he’s
out there living his life just the same. He seems
oblivious to your situation with the three girls scarcely
able to tie their own shoelaces and throw in a set of
twins to put the icing on the cake.’ Rhoda could imagine
Pam holding her white telephone, flicking her “Carroll’s
Number One” at the glass ashtray on the half-moon hall
table. She was on her soap-box, watching herself in the
mirror, wrapping her lips around her words like velvet
around a diamond.
‘I suppose,’ said Rhoda running her tongue across
the chap on her own lips.
‘Do you know what, I sometimes catch myself out
thinking about women in that down-graded way. You
know, feeling uneasy about women like Marilyn Monroe,
the Sex Symbol. You know, wondering if there was
some other-worldly influence attached to her death, it’s
as if my thoughts are not my own..’
‘Same as that,’ said Pam. ‘We’re brainwashed,
Derek says.
‘The Pill could give us control over our own fertility,’
pronounced Rhoda as if waking from a bad dream.
‘Exactly, that’s what the hoo-haa’s all about.’ Pam
took another long drag, ‘I don’t give a toss for any of
them. I’ve had my two. I won’t be pregnant again, not
39

for priests, bishops, popes or petty-fogging doctors. I’d
like some little time for myself before I die.’
‘Oh my God, there’s the car pulling up. I’ve spent the
whole of Mass time on the phone. No cleaning done yet
and there’s the dinner to put on, the twins to feed.’
Rhoda slammed down the phone.
She looked towards the boundary wall. The moss
clung firm like a snot to a child’s nose on a frosty
morning. But the portal refused to open.
40

Ian Watson v
Blurred Snow
Slush in January in Berlin.
I pull my wheelie case through grit.
At traffic lights I swing it in a dribbling arc
from pavement to street, street to pavement,
steering it clear of the brown ex-slush
collected in inky puddles.
Heading for the hotel entrance,
I see George Best, alive as you or me.
He walks towards me, with his three-day beard
his kindness and his coal-coloured greatcoat
and the walk that was only his.
He gets to the heavy door before me,
shoves it open, strides through the lobby like
the star he is. So the door swings back and
catches the shoulder not pulling my case.
At the lift he turns and smiles,
the similarity shot through.
No, George, it couldn’t have been you.
41

Jesse Mavro Diamond vi
Elegy for Devron
“That’s what eats you… the sound …It never goes
away.
You’ll always be able to hear that sound.”
–Anonymous Railroad Engineer
In Memoriam: Devron Pittman. 08 February 1994-19
February 2005
I. The Mask:
Invocation to Melpomene
Rise, Muse, from your caskets’ indigo sleep
Shadow me up Echo’s blue-walled tower.
A boy’s home was never further from his feet
than skipping through dusk’s muted, trumpeted hour.
Sing, Bessie, reckless Empress, gravel’s brave, red
flower,
Sing, Billie, Sorrow’s Boo, Old Man Winter’s heat,
Sing, Ella, your silver scat cat over puddles leaps:
A mother’s cup of cream has been forever soured.
42

Pull the black threads through the needle of your throats
Stitch the child’s reft breast, measure by measure,
Lift his gone breath in your skirts’ sheer boat:
Rise, Muses, Up! cradling your sunken treasure.
II. The Club:
Express Train 2253
We sat in the car’s half light,
(what’s known and what is not.)
Without pretense, simple strangers.
We sat as dusk spread its dark sheet
over the small body of day.
Across the aisle a man said it: Suicide.
Then his coda, I’m certain.
That’s what we need. That’s the ticket: Certainty.
Down the tracks we chase the straw hat,
Its radiant ribbon skittish in the February wind.
He was right about one thing. Wrong about another.
The boy never chose to die.
He chose to find his friend at the dollar store,
43

to take a shortcut through the woods,
to cross the tracks behind Battery Village.
Whoosh!
the train wheels sang,
like Hermes’ winged heels.
Of this
we can be certain.
III. The Sword:
Short Cut Home
The instant he was gone, so was I.
I am she: Lot’s wife, Ildeth,
body facing forward, head back,
back to the hissing track,
looking for a shoelace,
a fragment of cuff,
searching the embankment his sneakers slid down.
Listening for the echo of his whistle in the woods.
Searching the kitchen board:
Devron, congratulations on honor roll.
44

Searching the last spring
cherries blossomed in Havre de Grace,
the last September my boy began school.
I face the erased. My body goes forward:
on and on, on and on, on and on–
IV. Cothurnes:
The Walk Back
Since you’re a writer, I’ll tell you.
The engineer’s sitting in the same seat
he was half a second before.
Waiting.
To be relieved.
The others are walking the track. Back.
Several miles. Sun’s sinking. And cold.
They never made a boot
could warm you from that walk.
Government calls it ‘Trespasser Fatality.’
We call it Hell. ‘Cause that’s what the hoghead—
45

engineer—is damned to. Would you?
Ever drive again?
Most guys are fathers, too.
Could a been his boy. Do me a favor:
Find a way to say that.
V.The Crown:
Conservation of Energy
Dear Boy, I am with you now
While you lay curled beneath
a cypress tree.
Lyrical time is the amniotic clock
the measurable delay between
a sound wave and an echo.
Within that interval, actual
as a fertilized egg:
spiritual suspension.
These lines are the tracks.
This keyboard, the high-speed engine.
I am the passenger, a stranger.
46

I am breathing before, during, after.
Each syllable I sing is a cypress leaf
I have entwined them here
into a crown.
I know you are gone.
I know these are merely words.
Words can be unheard.
Words can be destroyed.
But you, Dear Boy,
are eternal.
May my breathing,
may my singing be yours.
47

Katacha Díaz vii
Grandfather’s Legacy
“The future rests with whether we have taught our young
men and women the importance of being noble, the
power of the noble deed. If we have taught them well,
they will understand the importance of honesty and
integrity, two qualities that will define their legacy in life.”
— William H. McRaven, retired US Navy admiral
Reading Admiral McRaven’s words gave me a deja-vu
moment. I was immediately transported back to my
childhood days at my paternal grandparents’ house in
Miraflores, Peru. The family had gathered at Sunday
luncheon to celebrate our grandparents’ return home
from Paris. Papapa had served four years as the
Peruvian Ambassador to France.
My grandfather was well acquainted with France. After
graduating first in his class at the Peruvian Naval
Academy in 1906, he was awarded a scholarship to
continue his studies at the École Navale, French Naval
Academy, in Brest, France. In 1913 he was invited by
48

the French government to train in the use of wireless
telegraphy and astronomic observations for surveying
national boundaries. However, Papapa’s training was
cut short due to World War I and he returned to Peru.
When it was time for a toast, as our family’s first born
grandchild, I proudly stood at the head of the table next
to my eloquent grandfather and listened attentively as
he spoke. In his special and unforgettable toast to the
grandchildren, I remember my dear Papapa’s loving
words of wisdom: You need to always live your life with
honesty and integrity and give back to the community
and help others, regardless of their station in life. Sadly,
a few months after the celebratory family luncheon, my
dear Papapa unexpectedly passed away at home.
As I reflect on my wonderful and privileged life — my
early childhood and formative years growing up in
Miraflores and moving to the USA as a teenager — I am
filled with gratitude.
I am well-educated, independent, and financially selfreliant.
My journey through life has taught me to make
my own marriage and career choices. Even though it
took a long time for me to feel as if I belonged in my new
country, the United States gave me the opportunity to
follow my dream.
49

Heider Broisler viii
Poems Between Bars
The pain of the sentence still pulsed when
The cell door closed carrying far away
The dream of hope that deludes the helpless.
The insignificance of those who have always been
wrecked
In life, did not enchant the frivolous Judge’s eyes;
Empathy and segregation inhabit in the same space.
Affliction is immeasurable even to those who build
Their stories in foul-smelling places full of
Desperate and smiling ragamuffins;
Freedom is the only food of those who have nothing.
Black and White (men and women) of the jury
Did not sensitize with the evidences that should have
thrown the
Innocent back in the abandon cold streets
Defaced by invisible individuals (undesirable) in the
eyes
Of those who did not sank under the game rules.
Prison chooses no friends:
Concrete walls hurt more than indifference.
Violation to an innocent is the worst of all miseries.
50

P.W. Bridgman ix
THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE:
IRISH POETRY RE-IMAGINED BY THE iPHONE
It all began when, having recently come across an
arresting stanza in John Montague’s poem ‘Silences,’ I
decided to text it to myself on my mobile (so as to have
it handy for future study). The stanza reads:
There is a music beyond all this,
beyond all forms of grievance,
where anger lays its muzzle down
into the lap of silence
Users of text-messaging technology will be familiar with
the breathlessly eager and earnest effort that
technology’s inbuilt algorithms will expend in order to be
helpful; they anticipate what one is aiming to say, pop
up their best guesses, and then give you the opportunity
to accept them. Or not. To the extent the guesses are
correct, you are spared some annoying thumb-typing.
To the extent the guesses are close enough, and you
accept them, you cede some control over the
compositional process to the ghost in the machine. The
word ‘insidious’ springs to mind.
When I got to the second line in the Montague stanza—
that is, ‘…beyond all forms of grievance,’—I decided, out
51

of curiosity and nothing more, to let my mobile have its
way with the entire line and see what it came up with.
The result? ‘Best app for our generation.’ I was
gobsmacked.
The transfiguration process in that instance yielded
what, perhaps, is not a particularly surprising
reformulation. As most of us know, artificial intelligence,
though plainly ‘artificial,’ also often betrays a sinister,
commercial ‘intelligence’ working in the background like
the grasping hand of a shadowy, mercantile God.
I wondered: what would some of the Irish poems I know
and love look and sound like if they were to unspool the
way the iPhone text messaging algorithms expected
them to? As if they had been composed by the poets as
text messages and those poets had taken their lead
from the ghost and accepted its guesses. Intrigued, I
then embarked on an experiment. I accepted what was
proposed by the ghost after typing the first one or two
letters of each word in seven favourite Irish poems into
my text messaging app. The transfigurations that follow
represent, collectively, the outcome of that experiment.
The results are, by turns, both distressing and darkly
amusing, bizarre and occasionally surprising in their
lyricism. But more than anything they will reinforce, for
most I think, a healthy wariness about the extreme
limitations of artificial intelligence. AI may well be able to
cause aircraft to take off and land safely
(well, sometimes), but… Crafting fine poetry? I don’t
52

believe that anyone need anticipate the infiltration
(figuratively) of the university creative writing
department, or the garret, by an army of job-killing
robotic arms. No yet, anyway.
The words in the transfigured poems below are all the
ghost’s, but liberties have been taken with punctuation,
capitalisation and the use of italics. The poem ‘So’ is the
iPhone transfiguration of ‘Silences’ by John Montague,
from Speech Lessons (Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 2011).
Similarly, ‘My Internet’ is based upon ‘Moving In’ by
Frank Ormsby, from Goat’s Milk (Hexam,
Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2015); ‘Great’ is based upon
‘Glaciers’ by Sinéad Morrissey, in J. Holdridge
(ed.), Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Vol.
1 (Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press,
2005); ‘No Worries’ is based upon ‘Not Weeding’ by
Paula Meehan, from Painting Rain (Manchester:
Carcanet, 2009); ‘The Best Song’ is based upon ‘To be
Said’ by Vona Groarke, from Flight and Other
Poems (Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University
Press, 2004); ‘The Photos’ is based upon ‘To Posterity’
by Louis MacNeice, from E.R. Dodds (ed.), The
Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice (London: Faber
and Faber, 1966); and ‘What Breakfast Lesson?’ is
based upon ‘Why Brownlee Left’ by Paul Muldoon,
in Why Brownlee Left (London: Faber and Faber, 1980).
All of the subject poems in their original, un-transfigured
state can be accessed easily online to the extent that
53

readers may wish to track them in parallel with the
ghost’s versions.
So
1
Please! I’m at work! And see… because… until
the new (I think) can, only view!
I’m in a position (but unable again).
A small town. But the service!
2
The issue, and my back, and then…
Best app for our generation.
What are large items? More dollars.
I’m taking, like, one soon!
3
Order some bacon. So?
For one? But the only?
And she fell down.
And she may find the time.
54

My Internet
The first and only last information. And now he
is not playing. Let everyone out.
We are having an open discussion about my,
our, early internet: To be called
‘the airport for the last.’
So let all editors use ‘like’ one way!
And internet: not really, even. The issue? That… the…
Our time. Just internet time! The more
I’m coming to your class… if
the weather… and the weather…
Sorry we left internet time. Kind of annoying call,
and all day! And… and… she…
Our best wishes for all the weather coming.
The photos, May! Or look! Have
internet time. Early for…
Great
The issue now. (Should I mention before
the issue?) Now: that can be still
great. Way I am,
love, and going…
Just internet service—
I’m more open. I miss her.
55

No Worries
No. But she probably—
Really? Fun. To be so…
Thanks. We only took back from
my first. Stop early
the early offer to work.
No call. Going!
The Best Song
Love: when the sun was in (and
the best show). And no better use be saved.
Love the weather, too. (Our time.) Please open your
next.
I’m doing call? Love the service. Call you from…?
And then, search. Where? Stuff that becomes you? Day
up!
We have our time, love. You say no?
And then, we’re your very important mother. More?
I’m sad now because…
56

The Photos
We both have all sorts up like that. But I got
and, really, even speak here. But… really?
But… Our last day may work… with… if you
will follow into flight and from the same class as the…
the house for us. For work tomorrow, we find
information. We…
And will you get back? Great, you! Soon? Be…
Order!! Will you be back at work by…?
What Breakfast Lesson?
We both love and we have we.
I am myself even now.
For I am more; she has been coming.
I will have to ask our boss
one… of… Photos from both
(and my all-star). For…
Hi. We love seeing good old things, people.
Our annual membership may be… at… early.
But now both will follow;
they had found an apartment. Was
the last real use… has… posted on both?
Hi, love, my angel! Will!
So, the weather for tomorrow:
For all good, I think. For…
57

Matt Mooney x
Fugitive Verses
Out of reach up in her chambers
windows the blue of a starry sky
high up in the castle tower above
she resides these nights and days
absented from my lyrical forays
probably reclining on her chaise
my Muse no longer mine I swear
sips nectar from a silver goblet
while I choose to idle by this way
on a wingèd steed to glance aside
to receive her smile if she appears
whenever the clouds are cumulus
silently instilling me with wonder
as I pass on a pure white Pegasus.
58

Daniel Sammon xi
Auschwitz
Just as you enter, over the door
There’s a sign that you can see
Though it’s written in German
It means ‘Work Makes You Free’
When we were small kids
We were told all about hell
But the inmates of this place
Knew it only too well
The starvation and torture
That was carried on here
The hangings and shootings
And the beatings so severe
When you had to strip naked
There was absolutely no hope
Your hands tied behind your back
As you faced the hanging rope
After hanging for a while
You were then taken down
Hosed with freezing water
Till you thought you would drown
While you were still alive
You were put up against the wall
The Gestapo called the order
‘Shoot them dead, one and all’
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After more than one and a half years
They couldn’t kill them fast enough
So they built some gas chambers
With the Zyklon B deadly stuff
No matter how hard they worked
Or how hard they tried
Only about four or five hundred!
Poor innocent people, everyday died
So they built more gas chambers
About six kilometers away
And then they were killing
Four to five thousand every day
The commander in charge
Was a man named Rudolf Hoss
When he finally got hanged
Himself, he was a small loss
Kommadant Rudolf Hoss (sometimes spelt Hoess) was
a mild-mannered family man, married with 5 children (2
sons & 3 daughters). He lived with his wife and children
within the confines of Auschwitz where he could see the
crematoria chimney stacks from his bedroom window.
He was the greatest mass-murderer in human history,
by his own irrefutable admissions, during his trial in April
1947.
He denied murdering 3 million people, but admitted
killing only 2.5 million! and said the rest died of
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starvation.
Under his command Auschwitz had the capacity to
exterminate 10,000 people each 24 hours!
He was hanged in Auschwitz on 16th April 1947 only a
few short metres from where he lived with his family,
while he was the architect of evil and madness all
around, the likes of which mankind had never seen
before.
Up to 12 people used to be hanged naked
simultaneously on each iron gallows (like the goalposts
in a soccer field) close to the entrance gates. The
adjoining forest at the edge of Birkenau or Auschwitz 2,
which is a much larger camp than Auschwitz 1 is
inhabited by snakes but no birds are to be seen here,
over this vast area, where millions died.
61

Maire Holmes xii
NOTRE DAME
Lasracha móra ag ardú mar chór ag cleachtadh,
Lasracha ag dul go dion foirgneamh cailiúl.
Scaip an scéala chomh scioptha le gaoth na h-aoise
Chomh dearg le peint a bhíonn ag na héalaíontóirí cois
Eaglaise.
Laitreach tháinig tacaíocht ó na rialtais eagsúla
Iad ag tabhairt cinneadh go mbeadh siad sásta
Gach tacaíocht a thabhairt de bharr an úafáis
S’gan gan aon chaint ar áiteanna go bhfuil bás san
áireamh.
Las na lasracha ionam
Scréach siad don té atá ag fulaingt i Syria agus
Zimbabwe
Iad gan díon ná deontais nó dóchas, gan ársa gan
chabhair
Tuigeann siadsan nach maireann aon rud ach seal.
62

TOST
D’fhan mé leat ach níor tháinig tú chugam
Chonaic mé thú i measc na coillte,
in eireaball mada ag luascadh
i mbláthanna ina dtost
i sliotar san aer
in uisce sa tobar
i bhfuil tobar mo chroí
I súile dúnta.
Rith tú uaim trasna na páirceanna,
Trasna na smaointe
Trasna na spéire goirme chomh geal le carr
Ar an mbóthar mór agus an tiománaí faoi dheifir
Agus gan ceann cúrsa le feiceáil.
Thuig mé ansin nach féidir scaradh le dán
Muna bhfuil sé ionat sa chéad áit.
63

Jack McCann xiii
Autistic Senses
“I have an earthquake in my head”, he said
as he clasped his hands over his ears,
his response – too much noise around him.
He had forgotten his earphones,
protectors of his sensitivity,
blockers of the rumbles that assault him.
So he leaves and inhabits a quiet corner,
removing his hands slowly when satisfied
everything is toned down.
He can now relax and so can we.
A collision with a dose of reality.
I hum a tune – it comes out sad.
He picks it up, smiles and says
“the earthquake is gone from my head!”
07. 01. 2020
64

The Hug
He wanted a hug!
He wanted to hug his mother
one last time.
He says he will never be able to do it again.
The pain is in his face,
the tears in his eyes.
He is a refugee in Turkey,
she at home in Syria.
He had gone back
but was imprisoned,
for deserting his country.
He cannot risk it again,
he now has a wife and children.
His mother will never hold her grandchildren,
tell them family stories,
rock them to sleep,
wipe away their tears.
The tragedy of war!
3. 12. 2019
65

Precision Translation
I tell the interpreter
to say exactly what I say
to the parent of the child.
There can be no rough translation
of the operation to be performed.
The explanation too important,
the resultant questions similarly
dealt with and exhausted satisfactorily.
Hand is put across chest and exchanged.
Their child is now in my hands
with their blessing and dreams.
I want to do justice to their faith and belief.
24. 10. 2019
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Euthanasia
You crossed the dividing line!
Not where you were supposed to go.
You had enough of the concentration camp,
ending it all on the electric fence.
Left there for all to see.
Even the birds were afraid to kiss you goodbye.
20. 09. 2019
67

68

Bio Notes
i
Anne Marie Kennedy is an award winning writer,
performance poet, playwright, freelance journalist,
motivational speaker and creative writing teacher. She lives
on a small farm in rural Galway with her husband and a
menagerie of four legged people. Her blog-from-the-bog is
at annemariekennedy.ie
ii
N.K. Woods worked in financial services for years but left
the world of business behind to study Creative Writing in the
University of Edinburgh. She received her MSc in 2018 and
has since had stories published by Tales From the Forest, The
Galway Review and Queen Mob’s Teahouse. Raised in
Wexford, she now lives in Kildare but loves to travel,
especially to Oxford, home of her all-time favourite
bookshop.
iii
Arber Ahmetaj has published several novels and short
stories. He lives in Sion, Switzerland. His books have been
published in French, Romanian, Hungarian, etc. He also
writes poetry. Some prestigious European literary magazines
have evaluated his books as important contributions to
contemporary literature.
iv
Anna Allen, born in County Wicklow, has lived in
Connemara for over thirty years. Though the idea of writing
nagged and haunted her, having married and started a family
that grew and grew, there were too many other calls on her
69

time. However, the day came when she realised the only cure
for the torture of wanting to write – was to write. Her first
contribution was published in 1972 to be followed by many
more reflecting her views on relevant subjects of the day, in
the Evening and the Morning editions of the Irish
Press. Short Stories came later. When the chance to become
a mature (University) student presented itself, Anna grasped
the opportunity. In 2007 she emerged from NUIG with an
honours BA (English, Archaeology, Sociology/Politics and
Philosophy, followed by an M Litt. in Feminist Philosophy.
v
Ian Watson was born in Belfast but has now spent most of
his life in Bremen, Northern Germany, where he worked as a
senior lecturer in Creative Writing and British and Irish
Literature and Cultural History. His recent publications
include three German books of poetry and short prose:
Kurzpassspiel (Bremen 2012), Spielfelder: eine
Fußballmigration (Bremen 2016) and Bremen erlesen
(Bremen 2018), as well as two English poetry collections:
Riverbank City: A Bremen Canvas (Hamburg 2013) and
Granny’s Interpreter (Salmon Poetry 2016).
vi
Jesse Mavro Diamond ‘s poetry has been published in
many journals in The U.S. Her awards include first place in
Eidos magazine’s international poetry competition for “A
Very Sober Story,” The Tennessee Williams Literary
Festival’s “One of Ten Best Poems in the U.S.” for
“Swimming The Hellespont. She was a finalist for 2014
Lascaux Poetry Prize and included in The Lascaux Prize
Anthology 2014 for “Chetwynd Morning.” “An Elegy for
Devron,” was musically scored by composer Mu Xuan Lin
70

and premiered at Jordan Hall in 2008. For many years, Mavro
Diamond has taught writing courses in Boston area colleges
and high schools. She currently teaches English at Boston
Latin School.
vii
Katacha Díaz is a Peruvian American writer. Wanderlust
and love of travel have taken her all over the world to gather
material for her stories. Her poetry and prose has been
published internationally in literary journals, print and online
magazines, and anthologies. Her most recent credits are:
Ethos Literary Journal, The Pangolin Review, Sleet, The
Galway Review, Voice of Eve, Muddy River Poetry Review,
Harvests of New Millennium, Poppy Road Review. She lives
and writes up in her perch in a quaint little historic town at the
mouth of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, USA.
viii
Heider Broisler was born in Brazil. He is forty-eight years
old. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration
and Legal Science. He grew up and lives in Sao Jose do Rio
Preto, Sao Paulo, where he owns a Legal Consulting
Company for Market Development Construction Companies.
He wrote two screenplays (unproduced); wrote a novella,
drama romance, “Julia” (that portrays the tenuous distance
between happiness and suffering); several poems, among
them: “Smiling” (dark thoughts camouflaged behind a simple
smile) and “Autumn” (the burial of the wife who loved
autumn), both published in two literary magazines.
ix
P.W. Bridgman writes from Vancouver. His selection of
poems, entitled A Lamb, was published by Ekstasis Editions
71

in 2018. It was preceded in 2013 by a selection of short fiction
entitled Standing at an Angle to My Age (Libros Libertad).
Bridgman’s writing has appeared in The Moth Magazine, The
High Window, The Glasgow Review of Books, The Honest
Ulsterman, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Galway
Review, Ars Medica, Poetry Salzburg Review and other
periodicals and anthologies.
x
Matt Mooney. Born in Kilchreest, Co. Galway in 1943, he
has lived in Listowel since 1966. His four collections of
poems are: Droving (2003), Falling Apples (2010), Earth to
Earth (2015) and The Singing Woods (2017). Winner of The
Pádraig Liath Ó Conchubhair Award 2019.
(Filíocht/Poetry). Poems published in: The Amaravati
International Poetic Prism Anthology 2018, The Galway
Review Anthologies, Feasta, First Cut, West 47, Duilleoga,
Striking a Cord, The Applicant, Poetry Breakfast, Poems on
the Edge. One of his poems appears on the syllabus of a
number of UK Primary Schools. His poems have been read
on: RTE Radio, Wired FM, Radio Kerry.
xi
Daniel Sammon recently graduated with a Master’s degree
in Writing from NUIG. It was late in life when he discovered
he had a latent talent or a hidden love of the written word. Not
long after his first book was published he had another five
written, including a book of poetry.
Apart from writing he is engaged full-time as a rental property
manager and a limmo driver taking people on tours all over
Ireland, especially Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher,
Newgrange, Dublin and Killarney. He’s keenly interested in
72

history, heritage and folklore; these together with meeting
people from every corner of the globe keeps him well
supplied with material for his writing pen.
xii
Maire Holmes took part recently in WE ARE THE POETS
celebrating the work of younger poets. For thirty years or
more she has facilitated writing groups nationally, particularly
in Galway, Connemara and on THE Islands. She has an MA
in writing and was recently reappointed Kerry Writer in
Residence 2020.
xiii
Jack McCann. Born in Rush, Co. Dublin, Ireland. He is a
retired Plastic Surgeon living in Co. Galway in the West of
Ireland and was on the European Board of Plastic Surgery.
Some of his poetry is inspired by his Medical work in Ireland,
Albania and Kosovo. Been writing seriously for the past ten
years and attends The Writer’s Res in Spiddal (Maire Holmes)
and Oughterard Writers Group (Pete Mullineaux). Has
published three collections of poetry, Turning on a Sixpence
in 2011, Escaped Thoughts in 2012 and The Child Grows
Up in 2013. He is included in four anthologies, Off the Cuff
(KARA) in 2012, Oughterard Voices in 2013, Whispering
Trees (KARA) in 2015, By the Lake (Oughterard) in 2016
and Shadows (Oughterard) in 2018. He has written plays and
is currently finishing a novel.
73