Cassandra Voices

Category: Literature

  • Kevin Higgins: The Happy Song of Us

    The Happy Song of Us 

    Okay to buy your grandchild an ice-cream.
    Illegal for them to lick it.
    Fine to bake granny
    a gleaming fruit cake,
    as long as you only email her
    a high resolution photo of it.
    Okay to give your son or daughter
    a bright new football.
    Illegal for them to kick it.
    Permissible to purchase for yourself
    a new set of golf sticks or a tennis racket.
    Illegal to hit anything with them
    outside the confines of your own
    downstairs bathroom.

    You can’t have a friend around for a meal
    unless both of you have been
    fitted with gum shields.
    And should you go for a socially distanced walk
    with a lover
    butt-plugs are now mandatory.

    Every living room is its own flat-pack factory
    singing the happy song of us,
    hammering together our coffins.

     

     

  • Poetry: Fisheye by Nicholas Battey

    Fisheye

    I, smudge in the eyescape of others,
    As my trowel lodges in mulch,
    Palm-sore, snuggle the quiet bulbs
    Into the trickling earth which inhumes us,
    While these, artfully coned, only swoon
    To consecrate a humble bloom.

    The sun paints everslant shadows all day
    In this great sphere of transition
    Centring nowhere, where I witness
    Clattering jackdaws, black hands at edges of vision;
    A pigeon diving to the ancient oak
    Descants over a cloudsong.

    I work head down and I do not care
    About the crunching crowds along
    The path, children puddle-jumping,
    All actions an acting in the long
    Blind sleep of self, beneath the bronze Scots pines,
    Aplomb, adamantine

    Sentinels, setiferous fists raised to the hollow blue,
    Heedless of a conscious cry.
    Hedges patrol, keep watch on me,
    Vain and stretched in fisheye,
    Where the early frost becomes a forest of drops
    On the blinkless, lashy grass.

  • Poetry: James Harpur

    Christmas Snow

    Never came that year, and yet
    It came in other ways, remembering the Light;
    As suds frothing in the Garavogue
    Around bridge arches, a scuttled trolley;

    It fell from lamps in Henry Street
    Illuminating tracer-lines of sleet
    And shoppers gripping rods of sleek umbrellas
    As if playing giant straining fish;

    It fell as stars above the Sugar Loaf
    Lit up as cats’ eyes by the gaze
    Of a farmer standing by a gate
    Above Wicklow and its mercury lanes.

    It flickered as a candle in a window
    In the round tower of Timahoe
    But only some could see the eye of flame
    Protecting sleepers in the graveyard.

    And when the sun emerged from night
    Snow came as seagulls spiralling up
    Like bonfire ash behind a tractor chugging
    Through slantwise fields near Baltimore.

    It came as shoals of clouds held still
    In the reflecting depths of Bantry Bay
    And as three harbour swans
    Turning their backs on the Atlantic;

    And as sheets and pillowcases hung on lines
    In Waterville and Elfin
    By women biting clothes pegs, dreaming
    Of visitors arriving from the east.

    And it was found as ironed table-cloths
    And icing knifed on marzipan
    In kitchens dimming into evening
    In Desert Serges and Kilbree.

    It gleamed as circles of the host
    For worshippers in churches lit at midnight
    Amid cities ablaze like fairgrounds
    Or villages as dark as silhouettes;

    And it appeared in moon-insinuated waves
    Unrolling across Long Strand
    Rearing up like angels made of spray,
    Roaring the word in tumbling syllables

    Then sucking in their breath to whisper
    It’s christmas, christmas, christmas …

     

     The Journey East
    (Winter 2010)

    The car revving up, the three of us
    wiping mist away to find a whiter world.

    Black-ice to Clonakilty –
    cortege of cars behind a spectral hearse.

    Strings of lights in Bandon, sapphire-cold,
    and the stars are moving through the river.

    On Cork’s Victorian viaduct, a train made of snow.
    We steam below the River Lee.

    Cork city crusts behind us;
    three swans on Slatty Water; feathery ice.

    The sun’s last x-ray radiates the trees.
    Lights turn red in Castlemartyr.

    Diesel-slush road. Across the Blackwater
    Waterford has drifted white.

    Inching mile by mile – through Iceland? Greenland?
    Wexford, another country.

    Dungarvan’s glittery square:
    each shop an advent calendar window.

    Beyond the Suir bridge the dark returns …
    but angels are alighting on New Ross.

    Rosslare night; chalet on a ghostly estate.
    Sound of wind in chimney.

    Dawn ferry, sudden vibrations –
    propellers churn the sea to snow.

    The swell-swing up and down and up –
    O let the voyage finish now, and grant us solid earth.

    From Pembroke Wales unfolds in white;
    a postbox in a wall, red as a berry.

    Below the Severn bridge –
    water turned to bone!

    The Somerset Levels, crisp and even;
    the motorway accelerates the dark.

    The night re-icing the Yeovil road –
    not now, not now we’re nearly there.

    Cattistock lumped with snow;
    wood incense, curtains edged with gold.

    A house on Duck Street:
    an outdoor light – a star that’s stopped overhead.

     

    Epiphany

    For twelve days the sky had been obscured.
    The guiding patterns of the constellations
    Lost behind a mesh of haze;
    Our trackprints filled with sifting sand
    Like a softly fading sequenced memory
    Or the healing drift of doubtfulness.
    Ascending to a ridge I saw the torchfires
    Of Ctesiphon burn like streaming hair
    And taken unawares was struck
    By a sudden longing for my country, my people,
    And such a pang for all things cherished
    For the sunlit gardens of my childhood.
    Releasing tears of deep relief – or grieving –
    I heard the other two spontaneously
    Humming a song of Zarathustra
    As we made our way on down the slope
    Away from the dying vista of the future
    Towards our past, closing in.

     

    Seraphim of Sarov
    (After a conversation between Nicholas Motovilov
    and Seraphim in November 1831)

    The day was born in twilight,
    grey above the forest glade,
    the earth deepening with snow
    as snow kept falling from the sky;
    the fields pure white below the hill
    beside the River Sarovka.
    I sat on a stump opposite him;
    all I could smell was fir trees.
    ‘The only thing in life,’ he said,
    is to make ourselves a home
    to welcome the holy spirit.
    Nothing more. All else will follow.
    Our souls use words for prayer,
    but when the spirit descends
    we must stay silent …’
    I glanced at him: imagine
    staring at the centre of the sun
    and there you see someone’s face,
    lips moving, eyes expressive,
    and you hear a voice speaking,
    feel your shoulders being held
    by hands you cannot see;
    in fact you do not even see yourself,
    just a dazzling light, diffusing
    and making the glade luminous
    and the snowflakes layering the snow.
    I felt such peace in my soul;
    no words could express it.
    And such warmth.
    No words can express it.

    Feature Image of Ben Bulben, Co. Sligo, Fellipe Lopes.

  • Poetry – Edward Clarke

    Assembly

    One morning during the first week of Advent,
    _                                   When I was possessed,
    After a birthday’s dark exhilarations,
    _          By a terrible kind of nervousness,
    We saw, on stage, the judgement of our son,
    Before his class, the Egyptian pantheon.

    I was chosen, he said, to be mummified today:
    _                                    My life was cut short
    While I was out in my papyrus boat,
    _            Hunting hippos (a dangerous sport).
    Then they took the brains out of this son of ours,
    And placed his viscera, like pasta, in cardboard jars.

    As in the womb of Advent, I’d put myself
    _                                   In that small space
    In which they shut him, cured and bandaged up,
    _            And pray to God I feel the grace
    Of Christmas, afloat inside its heavily
    Expectant bustle, remote as a vessel at sea.

    And what strange afterlife shall I find there,
    _                                   On stage, when they lead
    Me out, to weigh my heart against its feather?
    _           Wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid
    In this book’s manger, roughly I perceive
    Angels, livestock, and men, the gifts you’ll leave.

     

    Image: Lighting of O’Connell Street Christmas Tree, Garda Band (1988), Dublin City Library And Archive.

  • Vendev’s Contest

    Taking advantage of their last night in the city, Boris and Semyon went to a theatre, something neither of them had done since childhood. But as luck would have it, at some point during the show, Boris’s wallet was stolen. He was upset, and more so when the police officers exchanged glances before giving him little hope of its recovery.

    “You see, Sir, we understand that Vendev was working the crowd last night, and Vendev can’t be caught. He is the cleverest thief who has ever operated in Belarus. Sometimes he works the same place for a week, but no one sees the slightest movement in the crowd when someone shouts ‘Stop thief!’ We’ve had dozens of reports and the leisure to compare them. He works alone and only in one place at a time, stealing a maximum of three wallets an hour. As for physical descriptions, he might be anything from a choirboy to Rurik the Varangian. All we know is his name…if that. His name is rumored about with a strange story of the reason that he steals…”

    The two men from Cosen were not comforted. Next morning, Boris couldn’t bring himself to take his train. Instead, he returned to the Pearl Theatre and sat on the terrace of an adjacent café. It was obvious he would not get his wallet back like that, so he must have been merely mourning it, like the simple-hearted fellow he was. A pure and harmless, even touching ritual. One which Semyon did not savor.

    Semyon was the cleverer of the two. Anyone could see that in a glance at those quicker eyes flickering from his expressive face. Impatient with Boris’s ruminative slowness, you could see him there licking and sniffing, as if smelling the humid soil back in Cosen. He was eager to get that train out of this larcenous, immoral town and begin the fall plowing. But Boris could not sense all the strange city things now tickling Semyon’s nose.

    The well-proportioned man in nondescript brown who sauntered out of the café had pleasant brown eyes, and seemed in his late twenties. Upon seeing Boris, he stared as if seeing an old friend, then strode to their table, taking a chair very near indeed to Semyon.

    “Good morning, my fine fellows! So seldom you get up from the farm! From the north, are we?”

    Semyon did not care to be so acutely read by a stranger, and stiffly replied, “From Cosen, Pán Stranger.” Though nearly on Semyon’s lap, the man addressed his conversation to Boris alone.

    “You are from Cosen! A sweet place, Cosen. But shabby. The manufacture? Why, nothing, Sir. Nothing at all!”

    Boris’s pride in Cosen was equal only to his ignorance of everywhere else. “It is not necessary for Cosen to manufacture,” he maintained loudly with a sweet, ingenuous smile. “Cosen is, as everyone knows, engaged in trade. And while Königsberg is boasted for its trade,” he compared his village to a great Baltic port with utter naivete, “A greater variety of food is eaten at all times of the year by people in Cosen than by those in Königsberg.”

    Semyon fidgeted uneasily, increasingly sure that the stranger was not smiling so broadly with Boris, but at him.

    “And you caught the show last night,” continued the young man in a fashion which was nothing short of uncanny. “How did you like it? What sort of performance?”

    “Oh, Madame Yelisaveta Can-Shay,” returned Boris, smiling to Slavicly mangle her name in what he considered a rendering both cultivated and French. “She does all sorts of things. First she acted a skeet,” he tried to say ‘skit,’ “Which I did not understand at all, but Semyon, there, found it funny. Then she danced with a little dog, looking exactly like a priest’s beard on legs…”

    “Madame, or the dog?” offered the young man, causing Boris an attack of laughter that rattled the table.c

    “And then, behind a screen, she moved puppets which looked like tiny people. And talked for them! She didn’t sound a bit like herself. It was miraculous! Afterwards, the theatre director himself walked out on stage, in a splendid suit, looking like a bridegroom! He thanked her, and we clapped like mad. Semyon and I, I mean, for the others were so shy. These city people! And the director seemed to want an encore very much, so I shouted ‘Encore!’ I was the only one, so it was very fortunate I was there, or the director and Panny Can-shay might have felt so badly. She sang Encore for us, which is a song. And that was all.”

    The young man seemed simply overcome by this gallantry towards Madame Canché, and rose to embrace Boris. For the first time since his arrival, Semyon could move his left arm.

    “But it was all dreadful and we should never have come,” said Semyon bitterly, while the young man showed no more partiality for the previous seat set against his ribs, and sat equidistant between the men, “Because Boris’s wallet was stolen and the police don’t think it will be recovered.”

    “Stolen by Vendev!” exclaimed the young man with enthusiasm, leaning forward with brightened eyes. “He was in the Pearl last night. I read it in the paper. By reports, he took six wallets and a lady’s Lyon silk handbag.”

    “The scoundrel!” cried Semyon, his thin knees involuntarily jerking.

    To which the young man sighed deeply. “Do you know nothing of Vendev?”

    “Oh, the police told us everything.” Perhaps it was that note of childish arrogance in Semyon’s voice, but the young man’s full attention, once all Boris’s, was now his. “They say no one ever sees him, that he takes three wallets an hour, that he looks like a choirboy or Rurik the Vavavian, and something odd about him paying a debt to God.”

    “That’s it!” The young man slapped the table. “That’s Vendev. Listen. You mustn’t call him a scoundrel. It’s the strangest story. Many years ago, Vendev, who was an honest man then, made a bet with God. He expected to win, but lost. Don’t ask me what the bet was, because I don’t know. He had to pay the debt with stolen money. Perhaps because he was too poor. Perhaps those were the terms of his penance. He became the finest of pickpockets, and labors year after year, straining to pay his debt and be free. To be an honest man once again. That is Vendev.”

    The young man looked keenly round on his audience, especially Semyon, waiting to see if either pure-hearted Christian peasant would contest the vile theology and viler blasphemy of the tale. But Boris stared, full of wonder and…good land! There were tears in his eyes! While Semyon’s inexpertly controlled face clearly betrayed that though he found the story revolting, Semyon was afraid to criticize a city gentleman’s morals for fear of being called ignorant and out-of-step with the times. The young man’s smile widened in triumph, and as timid Semyon smiled back despite ignorance of the joke, the young man seemed about to be reduced to helpless laughter!

    Then it happened: Semyon’s hand had been automatically seeking his wallet every quarter of an hour for the past eleven, and did so now. It crawled over the rusty woolen vest like an eager crab to caress his pocket, and froze in disbelieving horror before it felt again, fumbling and pinching. A look like death by poison spread over Semyon’s lined face. The young man appeared to see nothing and twitched Boris’s lapel playfully, asking whether he were married. Semyon’s face had grown hard, his stare on the young man’s back like that of a hunter at a fearsome but cornered bear.

    But the young man knew that Semyon’s ideas of how to deal with a thief were as hard, as rigid and formulaic, as his stare. The young man crossed his legs comfortably and laughed when Boris said that yes he was, praise the Lord, married. A thief must know, better than anyone, the little signs that betray a man, for he has more to lose, and Vendev knew that Semyon, even if he could manage to conceive of a thief who did not immediately dart away, was incapable of calling ‘Stop Thief!’ on a sitting man. He would be equally incapable of announcing a thief with any other cry than the time-honored ‘Stop Thief!’ Just as he was incapable of buttoning down his waistcoat in the new fashion, but felt compelled to button it up to his chin. Vendev knew that for as long as he, Vendev, sat on the chair, he was as safe as if in France, and that he could sit in a chair indefinitely. Whereas if the two hardworking farmers tried to sit on chairs in broad daylight, on a weekday, for more than an hour, they would either die or explode.

    Vendev took out a cigarette, which he then lit and enjoyed at leisure, savoring that first bouquet of smoke, a conscience that had been trained not to bother him, and the pleasant weight of Semyon’s wallet. Won the gentleman’s way. In a contest of wits.

  • Poetry – Kevin Higgins

    Our Posh Liberal Friends
    for Susan

    Whenever I show them the Future,
    they refuse it;
    say: this future has bad hair,
    waves its arms around too much,
    is too Jewish,
    or not Jewish enough,
    too not-a-woman,
    or the wrong sort of woman.

    This Future has a face that one day
    might raise the corporate tax rate
    by zero point five percent,
    and is a little too insistent
    that poor people be allowed live,
    give or take, as long as the rest of us.
    That sort of thing scares the people we dine with
    nights we’re not dining with you.

    I ask the barman for more finger food,
    picture the ocean raging into the restaurant,
    and them still sat there muttering at the chicken goujons:
    the people we talk to won’t vote for
    such extreme solutions. No one wants to live in Cuba,
    one of them says, as she’s washed out the door.

    I pray, when all the futures
    they’ve turned their noses up at
    are safely in the mud
    and the men in boots and leather come
    to escort us all to the Processing Centre
    in the back of a truck
    that I be shot, cleanly through the skull, at the front gate,
    so I don’t suffer their groans
    about the quality of the gruel,
    and how that last beating one of them got
    was clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act
    and worthy of a curtly worded,
    but still civil, letter to The Observer.

    Feature Image: ‘The Temple of the Liberal Arts’, by Jacques Sablet (1749-1803).

  • Open Mike

    Everyone was amazed when it happened and I mean everyone, including Jeffrey. For weeks now Ramona had been hanging around in “Murphy’s,” a pub in Nice where, every Wednesday night, they held an open mike. A real beauty, with auburn hair and glittering eyes, she brought her violin with her, and when she played, there was a hush… because she played so well. And of course, all eyes were focused on her athletic, yet graceful movements.

    “Who is she?” asked Denis, a regular customer. The long-haired barman just shrugged his shoulders. Fortunately, for the small band of regulars, mysteries of this kind don’t last long at Murphy’s.

    An Italian, in her last year at the conservatoire in Nice, the first time she’d showed up in Murphy’s, it was with a young man who also happened to be from the conservatoire.

    Jeffrey was the one who’d started Open Mike. On any given Wednesday, he was the king of what was at best, a shabby pub. The performance space was so small, that in an effort to avoid each other, musicians had to constantly move. In addition, the way to the bathroom was right through that area. So, there was a constant stream of people trying to break through the band.

    But this was exactly what the musicians here were used to. In fact, what better way to perfect, not only their musical skills but the ability to play in challenging conditions.

    All musicians and singers were welcomed here. But most of the regular players belonged to the busking bands. Their specialty was strolling from table to table, singing and larking about the restaurants.

    They had little tricks to delight the audience. Like swapping guitars between two players in mid-song without losing a note. Playing in restaurants and hotels was mostly a publicity tour.

    Although the tips were important, what they wanted was a private gig. That’s where the big money was.

    All the bands got private gigs. Some more than others. Jeffrey knew all the musicians in Nice. Truth be told, he’d trained most of them. Some came from England, Europe, and America seeking the Riviera’s cocktail of sunshine, music and money. Jeffrey was a highly entertaining person with a good sense of humour, but he could also be as twisted and complex as a spider’s web. Lately he was complaining that Pierre was playing the guitar too loud. Not an unreasonable point, but it could have been made in a reasonable manner. Nonetheless, when Pierre was at loose ends, Jeffrey approached him to sit in on a few gigs.

    Jeffrey said, “If you want to play with me, you’ll have to be my bitch! This was vintage Jeffrey. Pierre didn’t like it. He was a macho guy from the suburbs of Paris. It’s fair to say that if you needed Jeffery, you’d need a shrink as well. To patch up your battered ego. But if you survived it, the end result was good. It knocked all the nonsense out of you. So, when Jeffrey saw Ramona, like a peacock, he was quick to fan out his feathers. What he loved more than anything was fresh blood.

    Ramona stood by, watching them perform, while like a neon sign, Jeffrey’s smile flashed. Squeezed into that little space, he played harmonies with Greg and Johnny, kicking his slender long legs in the air.

    Bob was playing the drums as a precariously placed pint of beer trembled, on the window sill behind him. The pub was busy. People were half talking and half listening. Ramona stood right next to the band. Though classically trained, she was totally absorbed in this popular music. Seeing she was on her own this time, Jeffrey invited her, with her violin, to join in on their new song. Improvising, she weaved herself into the session so seamlessly, that everyone was enchanted.

    Then the musicians changed. Ryan came in with the double base and George swapped guitar with Johnny. Jeffrey swapped with Connor, Daniella walked over to the microphone and the new group started to play the crowd pleaser “I’m Your Venus.” Ryan, a large looming figure, who looked not unlike a hairless gorilla was playing the double bass and singing the chorus with total abandon: “I’m your Venus! I’m your Venus!”

    “No, you are not!” retorted a male voice from the bar.

    Jeffrey leaned towards Ramona to say something. Then they went out on the street to sit at a table, where Jeffrey ordered two shots of brandy.

    “You were amazing,” he said to Ramona. “And the way you managed to improvise just now was great! Rolling his cigarette as he spoke, occasionally he raised his head to look at her.

    His constant smile distracted her from those desperate eyes. He was tall and skinny and although already in his 60’s, Jeffrey was still good looking. Ramona’s smile was a bit more demure.

    Later, he raved to everyone who would listen, “She’s got so much talent, and she is only 21!”

    It was already spring, and soon summer would come rolling in like a big wave. Everyone would be gigging somewhere, vocal cords stretched to the limit, as the audiences in private gigs demanded more songs. But still, the musicians showed up at Open Mike. Sometimes to engage extra musicians for a specific gig, or replace a musician that left the band.

    It was a rehearsal of sort, as they all knew most of the same songs. Jeffrey knew thousands.

    “I’ve got a gig in July,” said Jeffrey. “But I’ve got no band.  They left me.” Smiles and rolling of the eyes ensued, as if this was the best thing in the world.

    “Said I was too much of a drama queen,” he volunteered. Elated, Jeffrey was teaching Ramona how to sing and to play the drums.

    “She came over last Tuesday,” he said, “And we practiced for hours. What a voice she has!”

    As he said that, Jeffrey looked at Daniella. He was an expert at double edged sentences, serving a carrot for one person, while he stuck it to another.

    One of the few female singers around, Daniella was a solid performer, but Jeffrey was determined to put her down. After all, she wasn’t his protege.

    For years he’d talked up what a dream it would be to team up with her, but when he finally got the chance, he did everything to derail it.

    But now Ramona was the star. He was showing her the ropes. Telling her which songs worked if you were after a big tip. Jeffrey had extensive experience.

    He regaled his friends with descriptions of how sexy she was. How she acted in his apartment when she came over to practice. “If I wasn’t so much older than her, I would have thought that she was trying to seduce me. The other day, she said that it was too hot in the room and she started taking off her blazer! She had this tiny little top on underneath. It was just too much for me.”

    As the weeks went by, Ramona became part of the scene. She was gigging with Jeffrey. The violin was only used occasionally, because Ramona quickly became a jack of all trades, playing the Cajon, the banana shaker and singing. Jeffrey taught her the song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” which she sang in her charming Italian accent.

    “I really like him,” She confided to Daniella one day. “What do you think”?

    Daniella answered with a look of disapproval.

    “Yes, I know he is much older than I …”

    “MUCH older,” said Daniella, “But that’s not it.”

    “What is it then?”

    “He’s complicated and hasn’t been kind to his previous women.” This meant nothing to Ramona. She was in love! Daniella reflected to herself, “He is only kind when he wants something.”

    But Ramona, at age 21, still believed that she could change things.

    Astounded by his good luck, Jeffrey was beaming. He looked ten years younger. “I’m so in love!” He declared to all. At Open Mike, he didn’t drink his habitual shots of brandy.

    “Ramona has me on a healthy regime. She worries about my drinking.” He explained with pride.

    To be fair, everyone was enchanted. After all, if a fellow who’s nearly over the hill can net such a beauty, there is hope for us all.

    Some even imagined there was future potential for the pitter patter of little feet.

    Ramona received a scholarship to do her Masters at the Paris conservatoire in September. She considered declining, because she was having so much fun. The summer was full of excitement.

    Beautiful Daniella was singing, “Sway with me,” Johnny was on the drums, and spending a lot of time adjusting some buttons on his amplifier, Pierre played electric guitar.

    “Too loud,” said Jeffrey, before he walked out.

    Because Pierre’s band in Paris played instrumental rock, he wasn’t accustomed to accompanying a singer.  All he cared about were the pyrotechnics on his guitar. If it meant drowning the singer’s voice, then so what? Jeffrey had found little success reminding him that the singer was the focus.

    “You have to make the singer sound good”. Pierre nodded his head, but when it came to playing, he defaulted back to his own style.

    Nonetheless, Ramona joined them and played the Cajon. In her new dress, she looked sexy with the instrument strapped to her hip. Later, sitting with the other musicians, she and Jeffrey ordered shots of brandy.

    The health regime hadn’t lasted long. They were invited to a private party in a villa near Monaco. Jeffrey was over the moon, because a young, and good looking, millionaire there asked him, “Where do you find a girl like that?”

    “How can I reply?” He said, grinning from ear to ear.

    “In a Christmas cracker,” someone offered.

    “So, is Ramona going to stay in Nice?”

    “No,” said Jeffrey, “I think it’s important that she does her Masters”. Then he paused and looked around. “It’s ok. I’ll go and visit. She’ll come and visit. We’ll work it out.”

    In October, when summer began to fade, Open Mike, with its surprises and mysteries continued. The musicians’ expectations dropped dramatically, but for hardly any money, they grabbed any small gig that came their way, just to carry on and keep their musical muscles tuned. Bands managed by business minded people did well financially, wintering in Barbados, the Bahamas, St Bart, even Australia. They performed for the richest people on the planet, including but not limited to Putin.

    Ramona came back from Paris a couple of times to join the musicians at Open Mike, playing the Cajon, or the banana shake and the occasional song.

    “Where’s Jeffrey?’ Someone asked.

    ‘Oh, he isn’t well,’ said Ramona, rolling her eyes.

    “She knows how to handle him,” someone said.

    Jeffrey went to Paris from time to time. He spent all his savings going back and forth.

    “What’s it like?” asked his friends.

    “It’s great. While Ramona goes to the conservatoire, I busk under a bridge on the Seine. And at the end of each day, I bring home food for my woman.”

    He insisted on saying how great it was to be able to play what he wanted. Not beholden to anyone. Winter was coming and soon it would be Christmas.

    Jeffrey decided to make a surprise visit to Ramona, but he was a little subdued when he came back from Paris.

    “I think it’s over.”

    “Why? What happened?”

    “She wasn’t happy to see me. Just asked what I was doing there. She spent the whole weekend in bed eating Nutella with a spoon straight from the jar. She was so indifferent. But when I decided to leave and said goodbye, she started crying. There was nothing I could do.”

    Jeffrey’s appearances at Open Mike became rare. He complained that Pierre had taken over and that the music was overpowering. Daniella suggested that they could gig together, inviting him to lunch at her parents’ house. There he met her friend Elena, who also sang and played guitar. Daniella was considering forming a band with her.

    Jeffrey made a beeline for Elena, and spent the whole lunch romancing her. Daniella was none too pleased. But Elena assured her that she had no interest in Jeffrey. He was far too old.

    “Can you believe it!” Said Daniella to her friend Johnny. “Right in front of me, Jeffrey asked Elena to gig with him. He was complimenting her, and telling her she’s the best singer in Nice.

    She has never in her entire life performed a gig. Ok, she is an ok singer and an ok guitar player. But just ok! But you know what the worse thing was?

    How she squirmed and giggled with such pleasure while Jeffrey was basically insulting me.”

    “Well, said Johnny, you know that’s Jeffrey’s specialty, the old divide and conquer. He’s getting Elena on to his side and pitting you two against each other. Don’t be upset. It’s pure manipulation. He does it to all of us. Perhaps he wanted to show Ramona that he could replace her.” Daniella’s dark eyes flashed her fiery indignation.

    “But where is the loyalty?”

    “To be fair, Elena does know a lot of the songs and that makes him comfortable. Because at the end of the day, he is scared. He is scared of not being up to scratch.

    And with her he is still a star, because she can prop him with her guitar playing.”

    When they were back from the gig, Elena called.

    “So how was it?” Asked Daniella.

    “It was fine. They could’ve done without me. I just used the banana shaker. But I still got paid”.

    And later Johnny was heard to say, “Imagine, splitting your money with one more player you really don’t need?”

  • Purchase Cuban Love Songs

    ‘They sang Cuban love-songs and moonsweet madigrals and selections from the best and finest of Italian opera’.
    Flann O’Brien
    At Swim-Two-Birds

    Edited by Ronan Sheehan under the imprint of Cassandra Voices, Cuban Love Songs is a joint effort of the Writers and Artists Union of Cuba (UNEAC) and a variety of Irish writers and poets, including established names and rising talents. Tastefully designed by Kate Horgan, it is an Irish salute to Cuba and a Cuban salute to Ireland.

    ‘Two islands, together in a sea of struggle and hope,’ was the phrase used by Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins when visiting Cuba in 2017, and also in welcoming the President of the Republic of Cuba H.E Mr Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, along with his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza to Ireland in October 2019

    José Martí

    The outstanding figure among the fifty Cuban poets represented in this volume is José Julián Martí Pérez (1853-1895), who is generally referred to as José Martí. The literary-political career of this poet, essayist, classicist, journalist, translator, university professor, publisher, and revolutionary is evocative of the Young Irelanders of the 1840s, or even the organisers of the 1916 Easter Rising. His lyrics for Guantanamera became Cuba’s best known song.

    A widely travelled abolitionist who mourned the death of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Martí settled in New York during the 1880’s and 90’s. There he encountered the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario and possibly our own Oscar Wilde. He believed that Latin American countries needed to gain an awareness of their own history and nurture native literature, a view echoed in the writings of Patrick Pearse.

    Martí died at the Battle of Dos Rios on May 19th, 1895, and is still revered as a national hero.

    Purchase Cuban Love Songs through our Shop Page.

    Ronan Sheehan. Image (c) Daniele Idini.

  • Poetry: Kevin Higgins

    Presidential

    When you finish reading this poem,
    you’ll remember only
    the Black Forest Gateaux
    I bought you once.

    I had no option but to vote for
    that tax on women’s shoes
    but greatly admired the fight you put up against it;
    have kept all the press cuttings,
    especially those that took care not to mention me.

    As you, me, and the mirror know
    I’ve always been a great
    pro-choice advocate;
    that’s why I spent thirty years
    never mentioning the issue.

    When I stop talking
    all you’ll remember is
    the Black Forest Gateaux
    I bought you once.

    When I signed this bill to keep
    what we did to the children secret,
    you, me, and my bodyguards know
    how vehemently I’m against it.

    Trick is: what to remember
    and what not,
    because of a Black Forest Gateaux
    I ordered you once.

    The history books are littered with
    shit I voted for but was against
    in the restaurant afterwards,
    as I eyed the Black Forest Gateaux
    and thought of you.

    And as I explain at length in my book
    ‘The Art of Statecraft’,
    when the Fourth World War descends
    and the division bell rings,
    I’ll have no alternative but to leap up –
    with nothing in my heart but peace –
    and, at best, abstain.

    As you’re vapourised
    you’ll remember nothing
    but the Black Forest Gateaux
    I fed you once.

  • A Background in Science

    Most Saturdays they stood outside the GPO in Dublin. People holding signs bearing slogans both contradictory and confused. “Fake Covid Virus.” “RTE IS the Virus.” “End Barbaric Halal Slaughter.” “Our Irish Catholic Heritage is Under Attack.” “End the Paedophile Cabal.” Weren’t many of them. Sixty maybe. Not enough to be taken seriously. No real threat. Nobody in government yet.

    Seventy-five years ago, the world had said no to fascism. But now, empowered by America’s evil clown of a president, it seemed the right wing were making their comeback. On a global front, our world was at a precipice. It could fall towards the scramble model, one where while they were destroying the planet, the corporations created shortages, and by grabbing everything for a few, left the many to fight, amongst themselves, for whatever crumbs fell. Or to try and make a more equitable world, the people could dismantle those banks, hedge funds and large corporations which reward the greedy and punish the needy.

    With their anti-racist placards, a couple of people would stand in opposition to the anti-maskers, on the island, in the middle of the road, facing the General Post Office, known in Dublin as the GPO, on any given Saturday. The anti-maskers would shout at the anti-racist crew, “Pedo Scum! Off our streets!” Sometimes they’d cross over the road, in order to physically attack the anti-racist crew. It made for a very unpleasant day. Manus resented that he had become embroiled in such an activity. It seemed so pointless. Just because a few people stood opposite them, the anti-mask, sectarian, and anti-immigrant crowd weren’t going to change their minds. So why the hell did he do it? He just found it hard to walk past and not say anything in response. Anti-mask conspiracy theories mixed with sectarian and racist rhetoric is dangerous.

    Sectarian and racist views mildly couched, in that they weren’t necessarily anti-Muslim, but against the “Barbaric halal slaughter.” They weren’t anti-immigrant, just “Sick and tired of seeing Irish people homeless, while immigrants got housed.” They believed that in the Irish government, there existed a paedophile cabal. Anyone who opposed the anti-maskers was, by definition, also a paedophile. Loosely bound together by their angry frustration at the uncertainty of Covid-19 and its effects on their lives, they’d dox people who opposed them on social media, give out their names and addresses, and accuse them of paedophilia.

    As a teenage Catholic male, one living in a Protestant area, during the sectarian insanity of Belfast’s 70s, Manus had often been harassed by other teenagers. Young males wearing tartan scarfs, those keen to prove their manliness through violence, would dunt into his shoulder as they walked past. Spit on him. Call him names. He was in the minority. They were the majority. There was already a sectarian cultural history and an existing sectarian state; so, the politicians who’d gained power and position through stirring speeches, those which also brought sectarian murders to their height, aren’t totally to blame. But neither should their part be overlooked.

    Once, Manus was on the street with four friends when, headed in the opposite direction, two loyalist blokes walked past them. For the first time Manus was in the majority, and he dunted one of them in the shoulder. It’s a funny thing, the dunt. Technically speaking, it’s not quite a physical attack. You simply throw your shoulder into theirs, as though they weren’t there. As if, you refuse to acknowledge their right to occupy any available space.

    “Did that make you feel big?” demanded one of his friends. An inquiry which, at the time, gave Manus pause. He didn’t harbor any ambition to imitate his enemies. He wasn’t out for revenge. What he wanted was to walk the streets without fear of physical or verbal attack.

    And Manus now had to ask himself why he insisted upon standing in opposition against racist rhetoric. The anti-mask stance bothered him, but apart from thinking them foolish, he hadn’t given it much thought. No, it was the sectarian and racist rhetoric, so often thrown in, which troubled him.

    The correct response could be a counter demonstration that via logic and rationale examined and pointed out the right wing’s flawed views. But for whatever reason, Dublin’s Left couldn’t muster a weekly counter-protest of more than half a dozen people. Manus could complain about the lack of organized resistance, but he himself was a solitary man, one who wouldn’t join two bits of string. Couldn’t have organized a piss up in a brewery. And without group organization, it seemed you ended up with half a dozen stood against sixty. With such bad odds, what was the point?

    “To act as though you believe your actions have some effect is foolish. To act as though you believe your actions had no effect is cowardly.” He had read that, or something close to it, somewhere.

    So now, it was Saturday morning. He sat at the backdoor drinking a cup of tea, and not having a fag, while his porridge simmered and settled. Apart from those anti-maskers and the couple of people who would stand to oppose them, there was also going to be an Assange protest today. Protest. Ha ha. Two, three or four people would stand outside the GPO from twelve to one with signs saying “FREE ASSANGE.” Manus hoped to be one of them. But again, he had to ask himself, what was the point? It might be nice for the protestors to see each other. Reaffirm their beliefs. But the effect it would have on the American, English or even the Irish government would be nil.

    Most people on the street didn’t know about Assange. Those that did, didn’t care. Why should it matter to them? How would it effect their real world? One that consisted of going to work, paying their bills and buying the latest app or blockbuster. Just getting paid and getting laid. Funneled into a self-absorbed life style. Assange had attempted to inform people on the street as to what corporate-run governments were doing in their world. Democracies were being undermined or overthrown. Wars waged and climate destruction, all for the short-term profit of a few. But people were too busy consuming corporate media and goods to take much notice.

    Having had his porridge, Manus went to the toilet, and then seeking some self-awareness, he sat for an hour, practicing some techniques that might help him get through the day. At eleven o’clock, he went out onto his own street, to help with the monthly community clean up. He hoed weeds. At the end of an hour, he found himself outside Fergus’s house, where the two discussed pros and cons of weeding.

    “The bees need the weeds and the dandelions, I know people say they’re just weeds, but they’re pretty!” said Fergus, to which Manus agreed. He didn’t mind weeds, and anyhow, hoeing them down only encouraged them. It wasn’t like he could get at their roots. And scraping them away just made deeper ruts for them to grow. Still, it got him out with his neighbours, on the street, and jokingly he added, “As they would have said where I grew up, it made the place a bit more Protestant looking.” Clean, tidy and weedless. He kind of half stalled when he said this, realizing that Fergus was actually a Protestant and had probably faced sectarian shit throughout his own life. Not on the same level as the North yet still Manus figured the man had experienced sectarianism and could have been a little put out by a mocking Ulster colloquialism. But it was ancient history and Fergus just laughed.

    Manus didn’t stay to have coffee with his neighbours, but before he left, received praise for his weeding. It was nice to have neighbours, though the others on the street owned their own homes.  He just rented. It made a difference.

    He’d be twenty or twenty-five minutes late to join with Peter, Ruthy and possibly John who were going to try to make people aware that Assange was facing life in prison for exposing the horrendous crimes of corporate governments. It wouldn’t do much good but it wouldn’t do any harm. They were unlikely to take much abuse too. That was always a positive factor these days. They’d been standing from one o’clock to two o’clock, but the yellow vest, anti-immigrant, anti-maskers and the counter demo had put them off. So now Peter had said they would meet at twelve. Manus had fallen out with Peter the week before.

    Peter had said he was anti-mask. Because of their racist overtones, he wouldn’t be standing with the anti-maskers, but as a rule, he didn’t agree with masks. Said something about “the herd immunity and how we would never get it because we were stopping the spread. And how diverse approaches by governments made no real difference, the virus had a life of its own.” Peter claimed he had “A background in Science.”

    The fact that such views had caused the death of thousands really angered Manus. He respected Peter for protesting about Assange, but his anti-mask stance made him look, at least to Manus, like a conceited, childish fool. Still, you work with the tools to hand, and Manus made every effort to set differences aside when it came to their common protest. Julian Assange getting imprisoned for exposing corporate government crimes stood out as important. How would we even know about the horrendous crimes committed in the name of oil and power, if we allowed whistleblowers to be imprisoned? But today, there was no one at the GPO at noon. Peter and Ruthy must have cancelled.

    Though there were lots of cops on O’Connell street, Manus just walked on by. He bought a samosa from Govinda’s. The same pretty woman served him. He had often wondered about her. She’d been serving him samosas for over a decade. But they’d never had any real communication. Thoughts were as far as his contact with her ever went. He had to take it on board that he was old. He’d lost two front teeth and whatever remained of his boyish good looks had gone with them. All that boy/girl or man/woman stuff was over for the likes of him. No longer did the wild dogs of lust pull him violently any which way they chose. And even if they still nosed around, they’d need some sort of signed statement of avowal, before making a move.

    In spite of Govinda’s seeming a reasonable enough place to sit, he decided against that and exited, samosa in hand, to eat it on the street. His daughter phoned him. She’d been with her mother for the week, and was meant to meet Manus later in the day, but suggested that since she was in town, they might cross paths earlier. She had not only changed her name to Sawyer, but also her gender, to nonbinary. Until his little tranarchist, Comrade Sawyer arrived, he had coffee in the Train Café by the Brown Bull. Amongst others, Sawyer had been part of a black block action that had run into the “Irish National Party” protest and stolen their speaker and microphone one week. However, this week, because of Covid, and because the violence at last week’s counter-protest had put them off, The Left were going to stay away from any counter demonstration. The Dublin Left were such wusses.

    Sawyer texted her mother. Was it all right to stay with her father? But Mom complained she’d seen little enough of Sawyer that week. So, Sawyer said she’d be back in the evening. Hence Manus walked around on his own. Seeing not a soul he knew, that is until he spotted Aisling and Veronica having coffee. So, he stopped beside them.

    “It’s the fuckin’ hard core!” Is what he said. And it was true. They were the hardcore of resistance who stood, every Saturday, against the racist sectarian speeches being made on O’Connell street. They’d both taken lots of grief for their almost constant counter-protests. Both had been subjected to physical and online abuse. They both looked skinny as sticks with worry, but they kept going down on a Saturday to stand on the road island opposite the GPO and take a stance against racism.

    More comrades, Gina and Martin, joined them. Manus was useless at figuring age or for that matter, relationships. On the relation front, Gina and Martin could have been lovers, friends, or both. On the age front, he figured they could possibly be nearly as old as him. Veronica and Aisling were younger. Caroline, the youngest at twenty-nine years of age, also turned up.

    The half dozen counter-protesters went round to the GPO. They stood where the anti-maskers usually stood. Today the anti-maskers were at the RTE buildings, and going to march from RTE to the GPO. The counter-protest group knew there would be a large crowd of anti-maskers. Some of them very keen on violence. The counter demonstrators were sick and tired of being massively outnumbered, threatened and abused. They decided not to stand against them today. They left chalk messages where the anti-maskers would stand. “No place for Islamophobia! No place for transphobia! Anti-maskers are conceited fools! No place for racism! No place for hate!” Not much of a counter-protest, but what can a half dozen people do?  Gina and Martin went off for a pint. Caroline, Ashling, Veronica and Manus went off for coffee. No one felt good about letting racist and sectarian shit be spewed on the street, unopposed.

    The anti-maskers had their march on live stream, so Caroline and Veronica kept looking to see how far the march had got, and what they were up to. The sound of the marchers’ live stream coming out of Veronica’s phone gave Manus the heebie-jeebies. He explained that he couldn’t even listen to mainstream media and why righ-twing media made him physically ill. Manus went on to describe how when he was a kid, he regularly had to walk past groups of young men like the anti-maskers. Almost immediately he found himself filled with regret for making the reference. Too long ago. Too difficult to convey. Big loyalist rallies with people like Paisley calling for defense of their Protestant loyalist heritage against the papist hoards. They used words like “cleansing and liquidation.”

    Did they really say things like that?

    Yes. Yes, they did and afterwards the thugs on the corners would be emboldened.

    After coffee. Caroline decided to go on home. Manus, Veronica and Aisling couldn’t help themselves. They went back round to the GPO. Gina and Martin had come back too. They all laughed at their earlier statements, that they weren’t going to stand here today. It was like being horrified by a car accident, but unable to look away.

    So, there they stood. Five against a hundred, or more. Veronica held her battered cardboard sign. “No to Racism! No to Homophobia! No to Islamophobia! No to Hate!” Aisling had one too. “No to Racism!”

    The anti-maskers have signs “Our Catholic Faith is Under Attack!” “RTE is the Virus! “Fake Covid Virus!” “Stop Barbaric Halal Slaughter!’ Some of them cross the road to the island where the five counter protestors stand. One woman and her son (who reminds Manus of Trump’s kid,) cross over brandishing a banner saying that “The Rosary is the Answer to Ireland’s Problems!” Manus called to the sixteen-year-old boy. “Go on, the Virgin Mary’ll give ya a blow job when ya die.” Manus wasn’t proud of his words. It was just the kid seemed so smug. As he turns to threaten Manus, his saintly little face changes. Aisling kept putting her little cardboard sign in front of their larger banner about the holy rosary. The police tried to move her but she didn’t budge. One of the anti-maskers snatches her sign off her, and they started chanting, “Pedo Scum! Off Our Streets!

    More of the anti-maskers crossed to the island. One man came for Manus. Looked like he was in his fifties. Manus tried to understand the man. On a personal level. Like, wasn’t he a bit old for this type of behaviour? Why was he going for Manus? What did he believe and why was Manus a threat to that belief? The man was staring at Manus. “You and me.” He was saying. “Come on.”

    Why was the man there? Okay, he didn’t believe government or the media. Understandable. But to think both government and big media could cook up an imaginary global virus? Well, that was going a bit too far. The truth was no longer incontestable for this man. And in the absence of incontestable truth, you can just cherry pick facts at random to make up any reality of your choosing. The truth is whatever you say it is. Our earth is flat. Holocaust never happened. There is no virus.

    Or perhaps he’d not proved himself a man, back when such concepts were proved by physical violence?  Did he hope to prove it now? And Manus? Why was he there? Had he, as a kid, run too often? And now figured he was in safe territory? At a place where he could and should make a stand? There were Gards all around them so, Manus saw no reason to engage with this man. Not on his level of “Come on. You and me.’

    Inflamed to violence by the mere sight of Manus, the man didn’t care about repercussions. He was a hero for his cause, and lurching forward, made a swing. Fist connected with neck, but Manus didn’t hit him back. Not that he was a pacifist, but multiple experiences with law enforcement officers, who tended not to be left-wingers, had led him to believe that should he hit back, it would be Manus arrested.

    As the Gards stepped in, the anti-masker’s friends pulled him back. “He’s just punched me, and I want him arrested for assault!” Manus declared but the Garda did nothing. He repeated his statement and another Garda engaged with him, if only to order he “Move over there.” “No!” replied Manus. “Maybe racism is acceptable to you, but it’s not to me.” At this, the Garda turned his back. Another bloke on the island made a beeline for Manus, who touched a female Garda on her arm to say, “Excuse me, but that man is about to punch me. And when he does, I’ll hit him back. So, don’t arrest me afterwards.” The Garda came between them. Identifying Manus as a cause of disturbance, one big fat Garda dunted him out of the road. The counter-protestors parted before the protest had ended.  Touching elbows with them, Manus said, “Good to see you comrades!”

    When he got home, he was weary.