Wrong way birds, taxidermy, and morally bankrupt leprechauns.

It was my blood and the language

That has been spoken into my blood.

 

I decided to explore

This wild place.

 

from Disappeared Language by Duane Locke 

A new issue of Moloch is now available to view online: http://www.moloch.ie/html/issue3/cover.html.

For the last few months we have been plagued by constant repetition of the 'R' word on the airwaves, and scandal after scandal surfacing. You can't turn on the radio or take a taxi without hearing about the abuse by the Israelis, the US army, the Iranian government, and the British army, innocent people going to prison, politicians on the take, horrendous murders, about all the bankers who dragged us into a whole lot of mess, about the builders being bailed out and the regular people who have lost their homes.  Around the corner there is always another ism to deal with.

Moloch was a mythical figure to whom people sacrificed newborn children in the hope of wealth and success.  Nothing could seem more horrifying to most of us today, and yet every radio station and newspaper tells us that the future generations have been sacrificed for transient treasures to a modern-day Moloch. It is an endless wave that can become an obsession and at times make you feel completely and utterly powerless.   It is in times like these that language becomes at once threatened and vital. 

Moloch is an eclectic journal of the eccentric and the conventional, the politician and the romantic, the psychiatrist and the mentally deranged.  It does not adhere to one style or voice but grabs sounds and colours from all walks of life. 

This issue of Moloch deals with progress, with all the dirty dealings of modern society,  offering a contrast between the natural world of bogs and beaches and that of aeroplanes,  televisions, and petty theft.  It deals with the beautiful and the lighthearted, with some of the more pleasant things in life.  It is true, as the cliché goes, that art holds up a mirror to society; but it's also a wonderful way to flip it off its feet, to stick red potatoes in our ears, dive into pink water, scream and create something a little more interesting, and a little less repetitive.

My tune is a chain saw symphony with crickets, with fish,

with wrong way birds that can’t read music,

all of this is home for me now.  Like rain

that doesn’t rain.  They make mattresses specially

for rooms at the centers of houses, to protect from

 

flying glass.  From tornados.  I sleep on a

mattress like that.

 

from Crazy by L. Ward Abel

 

Moloch is an Irish based e-journal of art and writing edited by Ailbhe Darcy and Clodagh Moynan. Tying different art forms together in new and refreshing ways, Moloch aspires to allow artists and writers to find inspiration in each other and, in doing so, add new dimensions to each others’ work.

The current issue contains writing by L. Ward Abel, Claire Askew, Patricia Byrne,  Niamh Campbell, William Doreski, Noel Harrington, Alan King,  David Kowalczyt, Duane Locke, Geraldine Mitchell, Jackie Morrisey, Kenneth Pobo, Sean Ryan and Peter Schwartz

Artists include Oisín Byrne, Conor Callan, Nessa Darcy, Carol Eakins, Derek Fitzpatrick, Gareth Humphreys, Laura Knowles, Sarah Quigley and Damien O'Reilly.