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CAUGHT IN THE NET 134 -  POETRY  BY
KRISTINA ENGLAND

Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit - www.poetrykit.org
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Submissions for this series of Featured poets is open, please see instruction in afterword at the foot of this mail.
 

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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

 

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.

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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/