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CAUGHT IN THE NET 200 -  POETRY  BY JANE EDMONDS

Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit - www.poetrykit.org
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You can join the CITN mailing list at - http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm and following the links for Caught in the Net.

Submissions for this series of Featured poets is open, please see instruction in afterword at the foot of this mail.
 

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CONTENTS

1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY 

3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY

4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY:  Jane Edmonds

Jane Edmonds lives in the UK. A trained nurse and health visitor, she had a career spanning many nursing and managerial roles, retiring in 1998. Since then, she has been exploring her love of literature and the visual arts. She has lived as a child in New Zealand and as a young adult in Malta and Hong Kong. She is currently nearing completion of a degree in Creative Writing with the Open College of the Arts (OCA). Threads was long-listed in the King Lear Prizes 2021; The Harp and Loom are String Sisters was shortlisted by the Fish anthology 2023; The Shelley Memorial was short-listed in the Writing Magazine Ekphrastic competition 2023. She has two adult children and one grandchild.

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2 - POETRY 

ARETHUSA

I cried to the silver goddess

on the cusp of a river of rain,

rallied around a roadblock,

sprinted away from a net,

screamed in ottava rima.

The waxing moon heard my pain,

when I hid in a cloverleaf cloud.

I became a stowaway wavelet,

cut a swathe through the salted sea,

losing all that I was but my name.

I arose as a sweet water fountain

that plays with a lowly jet

at the fertile Syracuse shore,

where time and the tidal drift

use dolphins and a tale of chase

to create my watery myth.

THE HARP AND LOOM ARE STRING SISTERS

The women move between us with ease.

Their fingers pluck and stop.

They tighten strings and tune

the warp and weft into patterns

of colour, dulcet or harsh,

long or short. We make backgrounds

with popouts to startle and bring

to life, rippling across a room,

expecting attention.

When the barbarians came

the first thing they did was

slash our strings, breaking

the harmonies of living.

It couldn’t last:

they needed clothes

and music to dance to.

THE SHELLEY MEMORIAL – UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD

He lies, collapsed, on a pedestal,

a life size netsuke of a drowned god.

Limbs crossed, strong throat,

his muscles hold a sleeping pose.

His white marble body glows.

He was a wet-bob, rowing through

rivers of love and ruffled lakes

of marriage, whirlpools of infant

deaths and modern torrents of ideas,

thought outrageous by his peers.

This monument encapsulates

his lyric dreaming world of poetry,

too soon cancelled by fire and water -

a funeral pyre after drowning -

and all his friends in mourning.

HALLOWEEN

Blackbird, your bright yellow beak,

pecks at the window until

you see me move behind the glass.

What memory of feeding brings

you here, now this soggy winter

 has no more berries?

Almost I could believe you

some dark spirit driven insistent against glass

where once an open stable door

led to shelter for one of your forebears

and maybe mine.

PTSD

This is my favourite place

where the water is cool

and the wind sharp,

the mood never the same,

reflections are quicksilver,

a breeze moves the water.

I think of other water

in a desperate place.

There was no reflected silver,

cold was more than cool,

days were always the same,

the bayonets always sharp.

Mornings, the shout was sharp:

‘hurry and bring the water.’

Words were always the same:

‘put it in this place,

don’t let it get cool.

you’d never get given silver.’

Sometimes the moon, silver,

softened the prick of the sharp

bayonet and held the cool

remembered feel of water

showering all the places

of my body – not now the same.

On the barbed wire the same

shining pinpoints of silver

showed the shape of the place,

jagged, dagger-sharp.

Torture made us dread water,

though warmer than cold was cool.

Sometimes I can be cool,

though life cannot be the same

after my face drowned in water.

I’d pay a fortune in silver

to stop hearing the sharp

cries of my friends in that place.

It had the cool name of Silver

Waters. Pictures in my mind are sharp

all the same. That’s why I come to this place.

BIO-LUMINESCENCE

Fireflies flit-flitted amongst the stars;

glow worms flashed in the undergrowth

evanescent as thoughts not caught.

Phosphorus in the sea

outlined our bodies at midnight

swimming off Cheung Chau;

when I raised my arms

light splashed on your hands.

HANDS

Now we cannot touch

I think of all the ways

our hands reach out to others:

we shake the hands of strangers,

pat the arms of friends,

hold the hands of lovers,

let grasp the birthing mother

and newborn’s reflex grip,

console a tearful child,

hug a grieving spouse,

and stroke the softened hand

of someone at the end.

THREADS

Who first used a strip of leather

to tie two skins together

to make a shirt or tent?

Who first picked a boll of cotton,

spun it into threads, woven

into cool clothes for heat?

Who first retted the reeds,

pulled the fibres, teased

them into fine linen?

Who first took wool from sheep or goats,

noting the animals’ winter coats,

felted and knitted warmth?

Did a bombyx mori larva fall

into an Empress’ tea? The ball

unravelled into silk.

SEPARATION

Neglected perennial plants

have fringes of healthy leaves,

die in the centre.

Using a long-tined fork,

enormous effort and painful leverage

dig up the clump.

So many roots torn, entangled,

can be gently prised apart

and tenderly replanted.

WISTERIA

I have shaped

in elegant twists

the winter wisteria.

In the spring

it will reward me

with purple drapes of flowers.

All summer long

it takes its revenge

with snaking, waving growth.

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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/