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CAUGHT IN THE NET 134 - POETRY BY
KRISTINA ENGLAND
Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit -
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My aunt asks the waitress where she's from, how to say "you're welcome" in spanish, then says "Gracias" about nine times. If we were at any other restaurant, she'd complain about poor English, that it's a God-given right to be American.
from; El Bordo by Kristina England |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
Just like that Image Theories of Flight Reporting in from the sky Reporting in from the Grand Canyon Traveling Route I-79 El Bordo Thinking in the Abstract Headline Together
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3 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Kristina England
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing is published
or forthcoming at Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Gargoyle, New Verse News,
Poetry24, The Story Shack, and other magazines.
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2 - POETRY
List of poems sent:
Poems
Just like that
Two boys kill their classmate,
drag his body into the woods,
plan to bury it. Sidetracked,
they emerge to cops standing
over their car, shrug
the truth as if they stole
soda from a corner store,
point the cops
to their murder sentence,
then casually lean back,
and wait.
Image
A piece of debris floats in the Indian Ocean.
France, China, country after country,
take photos through satellites.
Planes soar along the skies,
searching for that one object,
the only possible answer
to a Malaysian mystery,
the disappearance of a flight.
Brothers, sisters, parents,
vanish in the forward
movement of waves.
Theories of Flight
Maybe the plane was hijacked,
derailed for several hours
without any real direction.
No, blame the pilots;
only a professional
could vanish.
They landed somewhere.
They must have landed somewhere...
A mechanical failure?
Too simple.
Too easy to pinpoint.
Catastrophic decompression.
In other words,
they lost oxygen, consciousness,
floated like a paper airplane
through the sky
until there was no more fuel
to carry them home.
And what of the evidence?
Where is the wreckage?
Where is the oil
spreading along water,
veins of a bird
exposed?
And how does theory matter
for the wailing mother,
the waiting wife
when all they see is empty sky?
Nothing to grasp.
Nothing to take in their hands,
fold, give wings,
then let go.
Reporting in from the sky
March 27, 2014
Last night, I forced myself into slumber
as a nine alarm fire left my State in grief,
two Boston firemen perishing in the ashes.
Now, sky-based for five hours,
I click the internet icon on my phone
receive no connection.
Too cheap to pay for inflight service,
I know nothing of the ground,
of my family, my country,
only of what I see -
the periwinkle sky,
my unfinished seltzer,
aircrew maneuvering the aisle,
and my travel buddy, one Deb Fisher,
her head tilted to the right,
arms crossed,
the soft breath of sleep
moving her forward in time.
Reporting in from the Grand Canyon
March 28, 2014
I walk to the embankment, glance down.
My travel buddy, Deb, does the same.
She pauses in thought, then asks
if there's a fault line in Arizona.
I shrug, having doodled through Geography class.
The Earth's ears ring with my obtuseness.
It shudders in frustration, sending
LA into a quake felt for miles.
We continue on with our journey,
treading briefly on Bright Angel's trail,
my thoughts full of life-shattering questions
I'll forget one week from now.
Traveling Route I-79
We head towards Sedona, the palm trees transforming into cacti. I flip through the local news on my phone, discover women are giving birth to babies in the streets of Mexico, refused healthcare due to the color of their skin. I am of Irish descent, quick to burn. I stare out the window as our economy car rattles past the red rock landscape. I take in the beauty of the radiant hues while somewhere an indigenous woman, turned away, succumbs to Preeclampsia on the side of the road.
El Bordo
My aunt loves to eat Mexican food
so we go out for dinner,
order guacamole, flautas, fajitas.
None of it is authentic,
but what is these days?
My aunt asks the waitress where she's from,
how to say "you're welcome" in spanish,
then says "Gracias" about nine times.
If we were at any other restaurant,
she'd complain about poor English,
that it's a God-given right to be American.
My aunt knows nothing about El Bordo
or the displaced people living there,
deported by our government,
left between two countries
in a land full of sewage and trash,
most having lived in America so long
they are unable to speak with Tijuana.
Tired, hungry, they walk the border,
no longer sure which direction is home,
while my aunt, red in her politics,
fills her belly with wine and beans,
stumbles over the words "De nada,"
her language gnarled by barbed wire,
disjointed, misplaced.
Thinking in the Abstract
If the Amanda Knox trial was a piece of art,
it would be Van Gogh's ear,
something you know is lost
but, as with so many amputated ears --
Simpson, Zimmerman, Anthony --
there's no way to hear the truth
through all the muffled questions,
lack of evidence,
ours minds teetering back and forth
like an unbalanced scale,
heads pulsing with the footsteps
of a murderer
who will never be free.
Headline
"Elm Park bridge removed, to be replaced by a team of students from WPI and Worcester Technical High School"
Picture a hundred young adults
stretched forward,
hand in hand,
a footbridge of interweaved bodies,
their bony planks
supporting a park's thru traffic.
How long till they break
from the weight of our actions?
How long till they creak
from the nature of our ways.
We are, after all, a world built
on fear, war, the pulling
apart of people.
Together
Two buildings collapse in Harlem.
People run forward,
dig through rubble,
pull out victim after victim,
thinking not of risk
nor safety,
but steer through the chaos
as one.
3 - Publishing History
Just like that - published by Poetry24, 2014
Theories of Flight - published by Poetry24, 2014
Reporting in from the sky - published by New Verse News, 2014
El Bordo - published by New Verse News, 2014
Thinking in the Abstract - published by New Verse News, 2014
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4 - Afterword
Email Poetry Kit -
info@poetrykit.org - if you would like
to tell us what you think.
We are looking for other poets to feature in
this series, and are open to submissions. Please send one poem and a short
bio to - info@poetrykit.org
Thank you for taking the time to read Caught in the Net. Our other magazine s
are Transparent Words ands Poetry Kit Magazine, which are webzines on the Poetry Kit site and this can be found at -
http://www.poetrykit.org/