Creative Writing Index Title, Author, Excerpt Mariah II by Claire Dix Once when the sky to the west was the faintest of reds and the sun and the winds were low then from inside its glass walls the Exxon lights were white and strong on the road. I sat there outside it holding my knees and the wind tore grey ash from the cigarette that hung limply between my fingers. The light reached across the road to a shack, half on wheels that sold leather and buffalo skulls and just at its door stood a fake bull with dead eyes that in the half light seemed to drag its hooves through the earth. Over the door was a speaker and the cover lifted off at the top and the side and in the evening it played music, crackling and low. Mariah I by Claire Dix This is the evening and the evening light. These are the kids that hang around and speak and laugh about soft, easy things like tourists running from the warm rain. They clung to each idea and each body as if it were the last and by the evening had clung to newer things with even stronger arms than before. Gary was one night and now it was the next but his hands still touched her face and her fingers as though he didn't understand. Five Hours by Alison Bourke And yet I understood. I always did. I'd made him hate me. I had to go. So I did. The door was no longer a jailer guarding my patterned cell. I'd tried to walk through it a thousand times before, this time succeeding, and I kept on walking. Cowtown by Bernie Furlong When he got back the shouting would start. He would play the piano loudly and out of tune. We would be dragged downstairs to sing songs. I drifted into sleep watching the lights of each car that was not ours raking slowly past my window. I fancied I could see the shadowy outline of a giant's enormous hands poised to scoop up the house and carry it away into outer space. To Dwell Amongst Them by Patrick Martin Frank had no look of an executioner when the room was lit up by Rose. Standing centrally in the room, as though planted in it's floorboards he did not flinch nor did his pupils dilate when the room was illuminated. Rose stared at him and he at his father - neither with decipherable intent.And they stood for some time in these attitudes of fixedness, as though attendant upon some other logic that might explain to them their situation. Or perhaps waiting for action to suggest itself, not unlike actors awaiting the intercession of a prompt from the wings. And perhaps the room itself speculated on all the permutations of what had happened and what would happen. Choking On Tears by Ciara Hickey A layer of sadness, confusion and guilt welled up and clung to his eyes, refusing to let go and start their descent down his face that seemed to have changed, lost something. There was something disturbing in watching my father lose all pride and strength and succumb to tears. There was something troublesome with watching my mother lose control. She was possessed with smothered anger which seemed to have been re-ignited and was inextinguishable. A Declaration by Brian Grant I think I believe in every drug, and I feel like I know them closely. There is plenty for me in what I have tried, and I reach the happy conclusion that I should only move on when the possibilities of what I have experienced have been exhausted. My next thought is that this will make me tedious and unwelcome to change. Then I am convinced of the deep sadness of drugtaking. Then I am sure that this sadness has the sweetest taste. Everything is possible. I only despair that my memory is not the equal of my dreaminess. School Daze by Daragh Field How da fuck are you going to apologise for gogglin at her tits like?, only yer dumb ass would get caught man, I mean, for fuck sake, I've seen the cherries man, the nipples, making tweaking gestures at his own chest. - And I did most certainly, fucking not get caught. 75th Street by Maeve O'Connell Infact there's no telling what might have become of Marge if we hadn't found her that day. But home she came with us and we washed her up real good and left her on our sofa. Now, I can't honestly remember whose idea it was or maybe it just happened, but somehow we figured that we might make a bob or two if we got kids to come in and look at her. And we did. Twenty bucks we made the first day. Mostly they just looked, copped a feel or two and ran out giggling. But some of them, kids of about twelve or thirteen, well they made fuller use of those rubber orifices - it was understandable; those were some ugly kids and Marge was as near as they were going to get a lay for the next seven years.
The Death of Flowers by Patrick Martin Madeline in her grave witness to this change and unhearing little noises like mousegnaws in the dark and the centipedal shuffling of death coming over as in the sussurrous movement of sound through the airwaves or the eerie lament of seawash, the muttering of stones. With knowledge only in the stillened blood as to what it all forebodes. Joyride by Conor Hallahan We hit the ridge - another heart-stopping moment as the tractor threatened to leave the earth, and found a steep downhill slope before us. It was at this point, I think, that I spotted a flaw in her plan. At the bottom of the hill, between us and the sanctuary of the trees, lay the little lake, glinting red in the sinking sun. We screamed in unison. Amanda lunged forward and pulled the ‘engine stop’ knob, very hard. The engine stopped, cutting out abruptly and belching the last of its smoke into the air. The tractor, however, sailed on in silence, and now our screams filled the world. Mirror by Triona Buckley The mirror had been a gift from her Aunt Joan on her twenty first birthday and, like her Aunt, was rather aged and decrepit. “It’s French, you see - very old!” exclaimed Joan as the gilded mirror revealed itself beneath mountains of tissue paper. “And very expensive” mouthed her mother, glancing suspiciously over her shoulder, “so be careful”, but from the first moment Nicole had laid eyes on it’s three faces, she had hated it - it was ugly, almost vulgar in its ornate and blatant call for vanity. Be Special by Aiden Corkery - I'll tell you a decent joke though...how do you know Frankenstein is a Protestant? - Dunno - `Cause he looks like one. Poetry by Siobhan Maguire
Treason The stench is back, Dripping heavily on my head, staining patches play Judas But turn the blind eye, I have.
An Excerpt from Zulu Hotel by Paul Keenan Jerome pushed from his mind what could not be dealt with by wishing and turned his attention to Street's girls. His friend had earned his moniker from the fact that he had spotted the opportunity in hard-up female junkies and started his own sideline in streetwalkers. While other dealers were accepting blow-jobs, Street was creating his own stable and getting the financial returns.
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