Outburst Magazine #3

Art, Design and Literature
3
Welcome
to Issue
R
ather than actually writing
an editorial this month, we
decided to take the outlandish
approach of mapping the
vagaries of our consciousness as we
thought about writing an editorial.
We recklessly discarded comments
about style and theme as we
plumbed the depths of our collective
consciousnesses. We got momentarily
sidetracked thinking about the mystic
significance of the number three in
folklore and mythology.
Eventually we got back on track and
with a final push we came to the heart
of the matter. Outburst is a place where
2
veterans and previously unpublished
writers come together to share their
work. This, more than anything else,
is what makes working on Outburst
seem worthwhile to us.
We would like to take this
opportunity to thank all those who
have contributed to the magazine so
far, for without your excellent work
Outburst would be little more than
a spectral form lingering outside the
boundaries of realisation.
And to you, venturesome readers,
we throw open the gates and bid
you enter.
See you next month.
Issue Three, July 2010
12
The Dark
The Singing Bamboo
Breaking the Rules
Poetry
18
Contributors’ biographies
4
7
8
3
Ciaran Hourican
Eamon Cooke
Mitch Lavender
Ger Feeney
Arthur Broomfield
Tommy Murray
Michael Fogarty
Keith Walsh
Sally Gamgee
Siobhan Kingston
Ciaran Hourican
I
spend most of the day sleeping fitfully
in the shed at the back of my mother’s
house. The birds are singing when I wake
up and I envy them and their ignorance of
everything that’s happened. When I finally get
up it is already dusk. I concede to myself that
I have to make the journey to town as I’m out
of food. I feel dizzy and weak and it’s been
almost a month since I’ve washed.
I bring my torch and the heavy steel bar that
never leaves my side. Glanmire is empty as I
walk through it, like a holiday resort in winter.
It astounds me how a population can make
itself so scarce. There is no one around but I
am certain of eyes watching me as I walk, all
trying to decipher whether or not I’m a threat.
I keep the bar slung across my shoulder
so people can see it. I’m not as scared of
Glanmire as I am of town.
At this point I know that most of the
supermarkets have either been cleared out,
or are being protected by the armed private
security firms which showed on the news
before the dark out. There were rumours
that town had become too dangerous even
for them.
The Lower Glanmire Road is littered with
cars. Fires burn lazily in the middle of the
road. Some of the cars have been torched
and are black and still smoking. The trees and
pathways on either side of the road make me
5
nervous; I could easily be amubushed. Some
of the car’s doors still jut open and I see the
ghosts of people fleeing. I wonder if they
were screaming. I listen and walk slowly along
the road through the ruins of our civilisation.
Weeds grow from the tarmac. I keep my
finger poised over the button of my torch.
The moon is bright tonight, totally unaware of
the gloom it illuminates. My stomach catches
each time I think I can hear a sound mingling
with the rustling of trees and debris.
My anxiety heightens at the Silver Springs
Hotel. Fires burn around its grounds and
from the smashed windows of hotel rooms.
Far off to the left of the flames I see the faint
red glow of someone smoking a cigarette at
the smashed window of another room. The
burnt out remains of two garages simmer and
crackle like modern day shipwrecks. I walk
along the docks past a partially submerged
ship; the railings at bow jut up above the
placid water. I move more slowly now,
hearing shouting in the distance near the
city centre. The lights of the Elysium are still
out and pockets of flame wink up over the
skyline. Off up in Mayfield, a faint glimmer
of fire coughs sheets of smoke up into the
silvery night. The rest of the city is horribly
dark; each street is like a giant trench, the
buildingslooming up on either side of me like
hugeblocks of darkness.
I decide upon the Spar shop on McCurtain
Street. I don’t want to venture too close to
the city and risk the mobs. I think of mouldy,
or at least stale, bread, some biscuits and
chocolate; I wrestle away thoughts of
meat. At the foot of Summerhill I stop and
look around. Cat sized rats lurk along the
footpaths. Crushed paper, torn plastic bags
and sweet wrappers skitter gently along the
ground. An empty coke can rattles across the
concrete making a tinny echo. I start to wade
through the rubbish slowly, alert to every
sound. The street curves slightly, and
I am unable to see the entrance to the shop.
I peer around the corner at the LV and up York
Street. It is lined with parked cars and more
rats mill about. I move forward.
A croaking sound, like a burped gargle
comes from the doorway of the LV. I turn as
it ascends into a roar. Hands reach for me. A
large figure lunges forward and we crash into
the street. Darts of adrenaline shoot through
me. The roar becomes a wild scream. I land
on my back and feel his hot breath on me. I
wonder if this is it, the culmination of all that
I’ve been through. A thumb presses into my
eye causing me to cry out. He screams still as
though trying to communicate through some
madness. I feel his teeth sink into my cheek.
The pain is sharp and urgent. I roar, smashing
my torch into his head. Once. Twice. I hear
it break on the third strike. He falls to the
side of me and I scramble to get the steel
bar. Turning to face him, I see that he is back
on his feet already. He comes toward me
growling, blood seeping from his forehead,
his eyes flaming with the benign contempt
of a madman. I swing the bar before he can
come at me and it connects horribly. His skull
seems fragile and soft as the bar makes a dull
dinging sound. He crumbles to the ground,
his energy flooding from him suddenly. Blood
spills across the tarmac mingling with rubbish
and half eaten food.
I run for the shop, worrying that our
altercation will attract others. The doors loll
open. Most of the shelves are empty. I find
a hard loaf of bread high up where the rats
can’t get to it. I stuff bars of chocolate into a
bag, along with bottles of coke and water. I
find a box of cereal and some biscuits. I storm
out of the shop back along the street, past the
body of the man I have obviously just killed.
I run until I’m out along the lower road. My
breath heaves as I stuff bread into my mouth.
It tastes like sand and I know it’s mouldy but I
don’t care.
I light a fire and boil the water in the back
room, upstairs in my mother’s house. The bite
mark on my face stings as I dab it with a cloth.
I wash my hands and face, it feels unusual
and I can’t remember the last time I washed. I
go through my usual programme of thinking.
It’s like a television schedule at this stage. I
think of Eileen and the kids and wonder if I’ll
ever see them again. I wonder about what
could have happened to my mother. Then the
questions start. Where the hell is everyone?
They couldn’t all be hiding in their homes. Is
6
there a plan under way? Has the government
dissolved? What don’t I know? I long for an
in date newspaper or a radio bulletin. Then
I delve back into that dull Tuesday evening
when life changed forever, as though by
thinking about it I might untangle the horror.
It all began with the recession. I had scoffed
at all the sensationalizing of the media. They
talked as if it was the apocalypse. I never took
a single word I read seriously. My parents
had worried away their best years mumbling
about Khrushchev and the Cold War. I had
read 1984 and that had never happened, at
least not overtly anyway. I cringed reading
words like ‘anarchy’ and ‘abyss’ in the paper
every Sunday, resenting them and never
believing a word of it.
I left work and everything seemed so blandly
normal. Then Bob texted me.
“Get to an ATM immediately and take out as
much cash as you can. Anglo has gone under
and brought the whole system with it.”
I scoffed as usual. Bob was a graphic designer
for The Examiner and had been drinking with
too many highly-strung journalists. I would
slag him regularly.
“Any sign of the four horses yet Bob?”
“Go on ya langer.” He’d laugh.
At Turner’s Cross I’d seen the first queue
snaking across the car park and out along
the footpath. The people all seemed restless.
Someone swore at the machine when it
was their turn and stormed off. The queue
dissolved urgently; some people ran and
other clambered frantically into their cars.
I still didn’t believe it. A man stood with
his back to the bank looking around him as
though he needed help. I saw terror on his
face like the shine of sweat from someone’s
brow. My breathing grew quicker. Shock
seemed to swallow most of my panic at first;
it kept it at a distance. The radio in my car had
been broken for weeks. I wished now that I
had bothered to fix it. I suddenly felt blind
without news. I tried to call Eileen but the
network was jammed. Then I tried my mother
even though I knew I wouldn’t get through.
I drove around. The Tramore Road.
Ballyphehane. Barracks Street. Town. There
was bustle and urgency everywhere. Car
horns began to sound. The streets were
busier than at Christmas. A van crashed into
the side of a number fourteen bus with a
flat bang. There was shouting but nobody
stopped and stared. Some shops began to
put down their shutters early. The multinationals like Gloria Jeans and Burger King
stayed open, but they were empty. Everyone
looked so elusively afraid.
No money, I suddenly heard my mind
exclaim. I pulled in at the end of Patrick’s
Street into an empty taxi line. My hands were
trembling. I wanted to hear what the news
was saying. But first I decided to get food.
Now. Before it got any worse. I had thirty
Euros in my wallet. I had to coax myself
through my shock. Get to Tesco. Buy food.
Get home. Talk to Eileen. Watch the news.
Keep the kids calm.
A grown man bumped into me outside the
Crawford Art Gallery. Our knees clashed
making me grimace. He didn’t apologise and I
could feel the fear coursing though him. I kept
moving.
It was loud in Tesco. The word anarchy
occurred to me. A woman was weeping in the
fruit and veg aisle. The staff at the checkouts
looked nervous and security guards milled
about restlessly. I got what I wanted but I
didn’t feel like I could handle an hour standing
in a queue. I walked out through the middle of
7
the self-checkouts. Nobody seemed to notice.
I passed a security guard trying to send a text
message on his phone.
When I got back to the car I wondered about
checking in on my mother or bringing her
out to the house with me, but I got into my
car and drove straight home. When I reached
Wilton, the shopping centre was a deluge of
cars. They were lined up two deep on the
footpaths and completely surrounded the
bus stop. People pushed shopping trolleys
along the street towards their homes. An
army of Garda cars lined the perimeter of
the shopping centre. Guards stood sentry at
the doors and as I passed, I saw two paddy
wagons with sirens wailing approach to join
them. I wondered what everyone else knew
that I didn’t.
Eileen’s face looked like glass when I got
home. The kids were playing quietly in
the corner and both ran towards me. They
searched my face for clues to the feelings of
anxiety that they could obviously sense. I sent
them back playing and went into the kitchen
with Eileen.
“Have you seen it?” She asked.
“No. Bob just texted me,” I replied, stopping
short of begging her to come out with it.
“The world’s financial system died.” She said,
her voice reminding me of sandpaper.
“You mean crashed.” I said, feeling stupid.
“No, they said died not crashed.”
We were silent.
The kids stopped playing and looked to me,
their faces reminding me of dead relatives.
I tried to make light of things for my own
sake as much as theirs. They looked at me
nervously, sensing the panic that stalked my
every move.
A tearful looking Sharon Ni Bheolain
anchored a special edition of Six-One. Cowen
appealed for calm in a stilted address to the
nation. He used the phrase ‘financial flat line’.
Enda Kenny announced a suspension of party
politics. “We’re in this together now,” he said.
They showed disturbances at supermarkets
throughout the country. The Garda
Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, appealed
for calm and assistance in maintaining order.
Chillingly, he asked that Gardai remain in their
posts as much as possible. Scenes of rioting
in New York and London followed. The same
is happening in Berlin and Copenhagen. Bush
declares martial law in the U.S. McCain and
Obama appear together and jointly suspend
their campaigns until order is restored.
Sharon Ni Bheolain states that people are
being asked to remain in doors and avoid
public areas as much as possible. I sat in
silence with Eileen once it was over. It was
as if 9/11 had crawled out of the television
and into our front room. We had become the
news along with the rest of the world.
Later that evening the lights began to
flicker. The television signal weakened. As
the days rolled on the atrocity deepened.
Looting became rampant throughout the
country. Corporations drafted in private
security personnel to protect their interests.
Pictures of armed mercenaries stationed
around Tesco were shown. Stories of home
invasions and mob rule came to dominate
the news. It showed gangs of young fellas
wearing tracksuits with scalded looking faces,
prowling the streets like human piranhas.
Rumours of dissenting civil servants began to
emerge. The Gardai were looking after their
own families and had stopped showing up
for work. Anarchy began to spread. The lights
continued to flicker making me nauseous. Sky
News showed a sleepless looking Gordon
Brown saying that civilization had begun to
unfurl. The lights began to dip and lurch. The
dips became longer and then the television
died with a ‘zoot’.
That was when the dark came. Our house
was enveloped by it. Far off in the hills there
was only the vague outline of farmhouses,
seemingly blinded and devoid of any winking
lights. But the big silence came from the
news. We lost all perspective. Our immediate
surroundings came to replace the larger
world. The radio only transmitted static.
The phones never returned. I thought of my
mother and hoped that she was okay. The
notion of the mob kept me from sleep. The
fridge no longer hummed or clicked, and
the standby lights of the television and DVD
8
to their faces. I expected deserted roads
and scattered debris, like a heavily littered
Christmas Eve. For the first time I saw
abandoned cars with their doors still open.
Some had smashed windows. I realised that
most of them ran out of petrol. I parked the
car by the viaduct and stole along the old
Bandon Road towards Bishopstown.
player were out. The display on the alarm
system was blank.
Days passed in this horrible limbo; we lived
in blinded silence. The kids played and still
laughed at times, but their innocence seemed
dampened. Eileen and I worried quietly. We
spoke little. The food began to run out and
still there was no power and no word from
anyone. I came to realise how dependent
I was on the news. It seemed to give me a
sense of control, directing my resources of
worry to specific areas. Now it is just a big
mass of the unknowable, an edgeless blanket
of fevered imagination. The roads are empty
but for the occasional whoosh of a jeep in the
dead of night. Joy riders I think, enjoying the
fruits of the chaos. I waited hungrily for news,
but after five days none arrived.
I decided I must go to check on my mother
and find food. I tried to ignore the horrible
indignity of having to scavenge for my
family’s survival. Eileen appeared tired
and stretched as I kissed her goodbye. I
hugged the kids but couldn’t bear to look
A Super Valu lorry was jack-knifed across
the road near the grave yard. The cab door
yawned open and the trailer’s doors clanged
loosely against the wind. I wondered if it was
an attempt by whatever authorities remained
to block the road. The idea cooled me. Then
I saw a man lying face down in the weeds at
the side of the road. It was like coming across
a coiled snake. Blood glistened from the back
of his head, thick and oily. It was the lorry
driver. I crouched down behind the ditch; I
was peering over, struggling to get my breath
back. Anarchy I thought. Mayhem. Death.
Thoughts cluttered my mind. Eileen and the
kids. My mother. That man is dead. Murdered.
Reality descended on me like a haemorrhage.
We’re alone. There’s no hope.
I wake up screaming in the back room of my
mother’s house. The fire’s light dances lazily
among the shadows. I clutch at my metal bar
wielding it madly at the empty room. I gasp
for air, nearly choking on my own breath.
Being in the house makes me uncomfortable
I am unable to see my larger surroundings.
Is there someone in the next room, or
outside? It feels horribly similar to not having
any media, to being without context, but
remaining helplessly stuck within it. The
shed in the back garden gives me a better
perspective. I can see what’s coming there
and hear the immediate world better.
I struggle to get up. My body rattles with
panic, my diet of sugar and cereal making me
jittery. My face throbs reminding me of being
bitten. I remember that I am a killer now and
it gives me a weird sense of strength. I think
of the madman whom I have killed. He is one
of many that I have seen since the dark came.
People gripped by a fevered desperation have
become a regular part of this hell. I imagine
the papers having articles concerning the
alarming rise in such cases of madness in
recent months. I long for the voice of opinion
and analysis to help me tease out my own
thoughts on the situation. I crave context.
I wonder about the mobs patrolling the
city and whether or not they will eventually
annihilate each other. Fragmented memories
9
of my bare survival after leaving Eileen
and the kids come back to me. I
remember all the hiding and breathing
quietly in ditches and behind walls and
under abandoned cars. I hear the frenzied
cawing of the mob and the choked screams
of that old man I watched them rip from his
car and kick to death. Perhaps madness has
descended upon us all.
I stamp out the fire and walk into the hallway.
The house, which I’ve known since childhood
is drenched in darkness. Slabs of light from
the street, which used to hang on the walls
and stretch across the floor are absent. I
hear shuffling coming from downstairs. The
stairway is black and I can’t see down it. I
listen, hearing my own blood thumping in my
ears. Voices whisper and I see the shadows
alter slightly. Fear steals my breath from me.
Someone is in my house.
There is the faintest rustle of movement
beside me before something cold and
metallic connects with the side of my head. I
tumble violently down the stairs, descending
into the shattered silence. My body smashes
into the phone table at the foot of the stairs.
I make to get up but shards of pain in my
back warn me against it. The steel bar
seems redundant in my hand. Three figures
approach me, walking slowly within the
darkness. I hear mumbled voices void of all
empathy, ‘warriors’ I catch myself thinking,
or perhaps just madmen. They pause above
me, cold and uninterested. A second blow
connects with the top of my head and seems
to bring more darkness with it. I surrender
internally, losing the fight, the tormented
energy in me slipping away. Eileen and the
kids flash across my mind, as do images
of my mother, and my friends. I push the
thoughts away as I have learned to do.
An easefulness consumes me. I hope they
remain unaware of me and my death, if
in fact they have managed to survive this
long. My passing won’t make the news. It
will go unreported, swallowed up by the
chaos, the dark silence its only witness.
My consciousness starts to slip away, my
thoughts scattering like sand into the wind.
I follow civilization into its voiceless
resting place.
The
Singing Bamboo
Eamon Cooke
T
he 1950s were a dark time in small
town Ireland, though not alway so.
Revolving, whirling, ecstatic - the
Carousel theme on lunchtime radio. It was
Saturday. Jeremy, aged ten, was reading a
bumper Donald Duck comic about the Duck
family on vacation. Vacation – that’s holiday,
he thought. Donald was on a gondola in
Venice singing “O Sole Mio”. Jeremy would
soon be getting his own school holidays.
They had marched up the Gallows Hill and
over by Killymooney Lake. At the blare of
accordions and drums, cattle came racing
across the fields to the hedges. Green hills,
blue sky, and white clouds said it all. Later
he had asked Johnny if he was going to the
matinee on Saturday.
After a hard year with Brother Robert it
seemed a brilliant prospect. His friend,
Johnny Monaghan, at the scout’s band
practice the previous evening had reminded
him: “Just imagine. In a couple of weeks we
will be camping in Enniscrone. All that sea
and waves and sand hills!”
Johnny was probably right. Everyone enjoyed
a good cowboy or sword fighting film, but
at love films the younger children got bored.
They ran around the cinema and in and out of
the toilets. Also, he was slightly concerned for
Johnny, who sometimes became afraid in the
cinema and had to leave.
“Valley of Diamonds!”
By the time they got to the Magnet’s box
office, with its sepia toned pictures of Nelson
Eddy and Jeanette Mac Donald, it was after
three o’clock. While they were finding their
way to the seats, the screen showed African
women crossing a river with large bundles on
“Valley of the Setting Sun!”
“It’s hard to believe.”
“Sure is.”
10
“Ah, I don’t know. I think it’s a love film.”
“Mightn’t be so bad.”
their heads. That was enough for Johnny. He
started crying and ran out of the cinema.
Jeremy decided to stay. At the start of the
Tom and Jerry cartoon he broke his penny
toffee on the seat in front. A black and white
Riverbrook short featured a small village in
England with a church and churchyard that
had some association with a king or queen.
A single car drove down the quiet street. He
always found these films strangely enjoyable.
The main film was ‘Pagan Love Song’. It was
in glorious technicolor. Howard Keel arrived
on a south sea island; exhilarated, he cycled
on an open road singing in the morning sun.
Later he was with Esther Williams in a small
house made of bamboo canes. They got
musical notes by hitting the walls with sticks
and joined in a duet about their house of
singing bamboo.
By the time Jeremy came out to the glaring
light he had concluded that a love film was
not so bad after all. Even a pagan one.
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asn’t meant to
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.
up to a $60,0
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ry
cry
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ntia
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and began to
a state penite
r way. He wip
e to let them
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m
five years in
b
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t
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d the
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amber on
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ve to
g up to
away the te
Rule 3:
know this ev
helter. Walkin
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hecked the a
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the family in
ighborhood.
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sign
and two c
another o
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o
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help
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left the home
and nothing
you only did
to be called to
t
ld
s
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a
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e
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5: Im
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someone
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loved by
u
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re
s
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R
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.
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a
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p
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ti
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d
ep
evic
n’t
ople, an
change for th
complete the
tprint; we ca
is things for pe
o
e
fo
h
S
n
.
o
d
rb
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ke
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s
a
r
s
l
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ere are thing
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y?” a little gir
But it ’s like o
th
ry
ta
t
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s
v
u
e
e
b
w
,
l
h
il
rt
w
a
e
g the
“Where
the glove
.
stop damagin
volver out of
re
e
th
that damage
k
te
o
a
to
ig
it
d
n
m
o
m
to
d
o
E
we can d
ears old.
maybe five y
’t answer. He
Edmund didn
11
Even in Pissing Rain
By Ger Feeney
Even in pissing rain
Family Law Court
- Kilkenny Castle
By Ger Feeney
You’ll find him
They used to hang people
Creak from his tractor
up those steps
Like Tinman on his
Mr Icebreaker
Yellow brick road
my solicitor
Old arthritic hips
Distracted me from
Yearning to seize up
My compass point
Facing north
But there’s no time
Breaking my ice
For seizing up
When cows need tending
While my estranged
Or minding
On her compass point
Or herding
Facing south
Or whatever old men do
Was having her ice broken
With cows
And a stick
Thawing us out
Even in pissing rain
To be
Hung
Drawn
Quartered
13
Fazed
Handyman
The Roadside Tavern.
By Arthur Broomfield
By Tommy Murray
By Michael Fogarty
It may have been in his blue phase,
You will recognize him
in the way that things make sense to us eventually,
From the sack bag
the white-skimmed cones that he
Of bits and pieces
later called peaks were high enough to be trivial,
that he pondered the absence of detail,
the formlessness of the chora.
And the saw sticking out
He will have the box plane
He inherited from his father
And a villainous looking nail bar
All this matters, he thought,
Boxwood rulers
as he gazed at the blue haze,
from these beginnings.
And hickory handled squares
And a punch drunk spirit level, that
It was then he saw the light
Has long since lost its certainty
it may have been sun taking issue
He will have a bradawl
defining the mountain top
scrubbed and shaping
To double as a pipe cleaner and
a reality that made him
A length of shelving with about
feel at home.
Nine pence worth of knots+
And there will be an urgency
About his every step
14
He pulls the pint with expert skill
And the man-with-taps has only been.
They let the bubbles rise to just before
The name Guinness on the glass.
They drink it fast the men of old
- 3 glugs is all it needs to set a soul
And poets free.
Take it back
By Keith Walsh
I stand alone on a broken rock,
Anything you may have wanted to say.
And as I strained to find an answer,
Gazing out to a sea of waves,
You just gazed into my eyes,
To what had just transpired,
That seem to be whispering to me,
With tears running freely.
You turned to me and spoke,
your very name.
I said to you then,
“Time for you to wake up now,
My mind is cast back,
“My name is Keith” and asked,
For this is just a dream,
To a time once before,
“Would you like me to leave?”
And in reality you are the bastard,
Whilst I am surrounded,
But you just turned away from me,
Who did this to me.”
By this lonely shore.
And once more stared out,
Just then my eyes blazed open,
A sight to behold my heart jumped tenfold,
At that empty sea.
My heart beating fast,
But composed myself I did.
At this stage I felt pretty sheepish,
Until,
For alone you had stood your shoulders so bare,
But I was never a defeatist,
I regained my surroundings at last,
As a cold wind whipped through your hair.
And so I just stood close by,
And realised I still stood standing,
Exposing your cheek just long
enough for me to see,
Until a dark cloud appeared,
On that broken rock alone,
And a new breeze was born,
Facing the sea.
Sweeping across the beach.
And the waves were angry now,
Your arms crossed,
Just like me.
You clasped your shoulders and shivered.
Angry at the memory of what had come to bear,
I removed my jacket and placed it around you,
And what would never be.
But you just let it fall away.
Thanks wholly to my,
And I thought that strange.
Insanity.
A teardrop flowing free.
I watched as it fell and the sand drank it deep,
Till no more of it could I see.
Then I looked to you again and said “Hello,”
Expecting a startled response.
Instead you turned slowly,
Your lips withholding,
15
For it did not happen that way on the day.
The Rocks and The Sea
By Sally Gamgee
An Orange balloon
The setting sun, so beautiful,
Bobs around the Green rocks.
Creates a magical sky
The horizon, so far away,
It looks trapped.
But still seems almost tangible.
Like it can't escape to explore the world.
Would it be possible to reach it?
Or perhaps
It's resting?
Bobbing out to sea,
Maybe,
All directions but backwards touches it,
It's taking a break
That magical world of impossible dreams.
from a full day of unforgettable experiences?
Everything there, ready to be reached,
In come the white horses
Every way, a path to that horizon,
Threatening to wash it away,
Just one last question,
To take it from the safety of the shore.
Which way to go?
Or is it giving it the push to start
It's next adventure?
16
Judge, Juror and Executioner
By Siobhan Kingston
Awaiting verdict
Darkness fills in the shadows
In the wooden box
And streets quieten
Crouched on cracked tiles,
She shivers in her ripped schools tights,
A shaking hand reveals
Silently she boards the bus,
A pink line.
She glares at her reflection,
She is her own juror.
Hating every imperfection,
She'll be the executioner.
Her breath rises against the fading sky,
Her feet brush the clay soil,
I watch her closely,
She swings higher and higher.
Her future cloudy.
She doesn't want to stop,
It'll be blown out of proportion,
The window fogs in icy smears
But can she deal with abortion?
And she disappears.
She is her own judge
17
About
our
contributors
3
18
Dr Arthur Broomfield is a Beckett scholar and poet. His poetry has been published in
Salmon, Cyphers, The Honest Ulsterman and Sunday Tribune, among others. He is writing a book
on the works of Samuel Beckett at present, which he hopes to have published in early 2011. Arthur
teaches with County Offaly VEC.
Eamon Cooke has had work published in several Irish journals. His collection, ‘Berry Time’ was
published by Dedalus in 2002.
Ger Feeney was born in Waterford but has lived in County Wexford for over 20 years. Ger
has previously had work published in a number of magazines in Ireland and the UK including
The Stinging Fly, Inclement, Quantum Leap, Tandem, Poetry Nottingham, The Limerick Poetry
Broadsheet, The Waterford Review and Cobweb amongst others.
Michael Fogarty is a 20 year old poet living in modest circumstances in Dublin. He sleeps
too much and enjoys skimming stones, in his spare time he can be found at
btweenpoetry.blogspot.com
Sally Gamgee is a 22 year old UCD graduate of Irish and German. Having performed on stage
from the age of 6, she is now focusing on writing and producing for the theatre
Ciaran Hourican completed his degree in English and Politics at University College Cork
in 2009. His literary heroes are Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Philip Roth, Alice Munro and George
Orwell to name but a few.
Siobhan Kingston is an eighteen year old aspiring writer from a small town in the heart of
WestCork. Having been born in London, where her parents migrated to in 1985, she moved to
Ireland at the age of 5. She was instantly captivated by the freedom the country side provided for a
true tom-boy. Her love of the outside and the beauty of nature became the main inspiration for her
to begin writing at very young age.
Mitch Lavender lives with his family in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, USA. He likes cake. He
does not like zombies or clowns, even if they have cake. Breaking the Rules is his first published
fiction. He hopes to see more of his writing published and have lots of cake. Or at least, have lots
of cake.
Tommy Murray has won numerous awards for poetry; his work has been published in a
number literary publications including Fortnight, Riverine, Revival anf Crannog. His work has also
featured on the UTV documentary, ‘Valley of the Kings’ and on RTE’s Nationwide. His latest
collection,’Counting Stained Glass Windows’ was published by Lapwing belfast
Keith Walsh was born in Dublin, Ireland. He has been writing since old enough to hold a pen
and construct a sentence. He lost his passion for writing due to work responsibilities. He is now
one of the many unemployed in Ireland, and has decided to come back to his passion and put his
full effort into it. ‘Take it back’ is his first published work, and one, he hopes of many to come.
Thank you
for reading
Issue Three of
Outburst
Magazine
19
O
utburst magazine is
currently accepting
submissions for the
foruth edition. Our focus is
on short stories (up to 2,500
words) and poetry (up to 40
lines); if you have written
a longer piece, we may be
willing to publish it in serial
form. We like to keep an open
mind, so we may publish
articles/works beyond what
has been mentioned. Feel
free to get in touch, or send
in your work to:
submissions@
outburstmagazine.com