When Michael Faraday was demonstrating the newly-discovered effects of electromagnetic induction, one of his audience voiced his concerns. This business of magnets and copper wire was interesting, certainly, but what possible practical use could it have?
‘Sir,’ Faraday replied, ‘of what use is a new-born baby?’ (more…)

Just before spring we must learn to love
the palpable dark, where blue lacy shadows
unfurl extravagantly in hoarfrosted ditches
until there’s only the path shining home.

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Linda went missing after she moved in with Patrick. (more…)

They are here
Still.
They have no choice.

Was there a prayer
Unspoken or unheard?
A voice in fear or anger, or despair?
For still you find
The silence is not dead
The wind is not the wind.
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This week I visited Helen Merrigan Colfer’s Tribes and Tribulations exhibition at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh, and I was wowed by it.
Helen’s sculptures explore the emotions and stresses modern life generates, using a combination of realistic detail and clever symbolism.

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The restless image comes to my unquiet mind:
A child’s cradle, the old-fashioned wooden type
Hand-joined in some grandfather’s tool-shed;

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I cast my fly under Tattenweir Bridge
and as it floats back to me,
overhead, I hear a forty tonner roar
carting packed pallets of “best before”
to vast warehouses of plenty (more…)

I felt my tooth chip. Another piece of porcelain
breaks loose as the dinner plate bounces on the bottom of
the fake jawbox. This single remaining plate, a history
of chips hidden underneath its rim, splattered with
cropped leeks and spotted with burst barley from a
broth. Thirteen moves, two jaw-boxes, twelve
dishwashers and three children, the azure blue
forget-me-not and cherry red honeysuckle now faded
into a late winter. (more…)

The Carlisle Memorial Church, Belfast, is an overlooked victim of the conflict here in the North, situated as it is in an ‘interface’ area where the strident voices of the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Chapel drowned out the often gentler tones of Wesleyan Methodism. Closed in 1982, it fell into disrepair, so much so there was talk of it being replaced by social housing. (more…)

It started with just a few twigs. That’s all a natural-born designer needs, to begin with.
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Dead end job,
Dead friend mob,
Dead fridge slob,
Dead bloody blob,
Dead heart throb,
Numb I watched the surgeon fix me,
Numb I spoke in recommend therapy,
Numb I held the medicine prescribed for me,
Numb I smelled bitterness around me,
Numb I listened as my soul ran away from me,

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It’s morning, the shades have gone
and with them for a while the woes.
Smell the earth, this bouncing place,
listen out for newness, the touch of hope.
Run out into weather and sweet air. (more…)

“Sausages?”

“No sausages.”

“Noodles?”

“No noodles.”

Azure eyes widen, bottom lip juts. “Nanny Nina has noodles AND sausages.”

I see her dad Jason at three – same eyes; no pink dress, just a red and blue Spiderman costume. I washed it so often the threads became web-like. Should’ve stocked up… why have I forgotten everything?

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“Progress from small beginnings. Keep to the Yoga
and eat sensibly.

Meditate. Incantate the prayers you
learned as a child.”

Anon

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On the Road to Damascus, the debut novel by Anthony Viney, former member of Fermanagh Writers, sees its official launch in Enniskillen this April. It will be available in print and as an ebook on Amazon and Kindle.

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