CAUGHT IN THE NET - Ten

MAY 2002

Editor - Jim Bennett

Hello again. This is Caught in the Net number Ten and after a few months of really bad technical problems I hope we are now back on a more regular basis. Slight change will be the inclusion of poetry "READ AT BORDERS". This is poetry read at Jim Bennett's Poetry Night at Border Books in Ellesmere Port, which is a small town between Liverpool and Chester in the North West of England.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed, I hope you enjoy this edition of CITN which has a number of poets who are contributing who are members of the PK Poetry List. Because I have included several longer pieces It has been necessary to cut down on the total number of poems published to keep download time reasonable.

POLICY - My thanks go to everyone who has submitted work for inclusion in this issue and my apologies to those I could not include. I follow a policy of publishing several pieces by the same author in order to enable the reader to see the range of the poets writing, but if space does not allow I may publish the same poet in several editions.

Please note that no particular spelling convention has been followed and the spellings used reflect the national usage of each contributor.  We are always looking for new poets and poems for CAUGHT IN THE NET and our other, web based, magazine TRANSPARENT WORDS both of which are hosted on the site of PK POETRY LIST   The PK Poetry List is a poetry workshop and discussion list.  Anyone interested in joining the list or in finding out more can do so at the main PK site which is at -

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/index.htm  

There are already over 950 subscribers to CITN but please feel free to pass it on to your friends.  

Copyright Notice - All the work produced in this ezine is the copyright of the individual authors and cannot be reproduced without permission. All writers have exerted their moral rights to be identified as the author of their work.

Submissions - always welcome - please send to - caught_in_the_net@hotmail.com

Contents

Remembering Birthdays

by Jim Bennett

 

I always remember your birthday

buy a card fill it out sign it

"with all my love, your son"

buy flowers

arrange them by the phone

thats about it really

flowers by the phone

for about a week

and for a week

when I come in

I am met by a floral scent

not unlike yours

 

on your birthday

I visit your grave

clean away the surface weeds

pull up the roots

dig out the tumours

 

I always remember

your birthday

Prodigal
by Gabrielle Lindemann

I

I wander. Purposefully away. From mementoes. From keepsakes. From
places and friends and home. From reminders.

I wander. Aimlessly forward. Into challenge. Into adventure. Into the new
and the blue and the black void that is without you.

I wander. Nowhere. No place. Where worlds are spawned and life is tossed
upon shores. Cast away. Outcast. Spent. Serpent. A snake in waiting.
Flaking. Hoping to shed my love like a skin.

II

I am not alone.

I carry your picture. Etched into my retina. Superimposed. Imposing.
Obliterating all that could be. Could be without you. Blinded by your image
I must go blind. I hurl my gaze toward midday. Toward zenith.
A rendition in light. Paling. Impaled by shafts brooking no shadows.
Burning out. Down to a speck. Eye to eye. I step into the darkness of
beginnings.

And hear your voice. Driving my thoughts. Supersonic. Supreme.
Speeding me along waves of possible conversations. Infinite Permutations.
Down the maelstrom of ifs and what ifs. Toward the barrier of finite
probabilities. To ground. To impact. I explode into absence. Into silence
that does not remember your name.

Why?
(for holocaust day)
by Mick Moss

They came at sunrise
tanks clattered down the street
they woke us up
I looked out and saw soldiers
barricading each end
bullets came through our windows
mamma grabbed me and my little sister
and threw us under the bed
we were frightened and crying
our neighbours were shouting
papa ran into the courtyard
to see what was happening
soldiers burst through the door
and dragged us out
they lined us up and
pointed their guns at us
all my friends were there
everyone was scared
I asked mamma why they were doing this
she told me to keep quiet
I don't know what happened to papa.
    
                    Habib, Ramallah

haunted
by Sherry Pasquarello

old house, just
me
who wanders white
from room to room
just
me, whisper walking
through the gloom, tracing
steps that surely others
tread the
hundred years this house
has stood, keeping council
with it's memories, and
so
there is no ghost, in this
old house, just me who
wanders white from room to
room,
just me

kisses
by Sherry Pasquarello

unwanted kisses
fall from my lips
drifting down
to the floor
making a dusty pile
at your feet

almost a son
by Sherry Pasquarello

copper smelling memory
cardinal red,
the nubby texture of
a blue patterned cotton gown

wet thighed recollection
bloody sheeted dream
the feel of
thin edged panic and pain

needlestick memories, white coated
blurs
in the corners of my mind

all that is left
for me,
left of my

unborn almost a son

City Skyline
by Barbara Phillips

the city is all lit up
skyscrapers side by side
glow like tin lanterns
warning rods on rooftops blink
red spots as jets stream overhead
the waters of the harbour slide
waves of slick vinyl shine that
lure the shore with soft slaps
against concrete walls keeping
the lake out and the city in
stacks belch ghostly gases
under cover of the night as
black as the inside of a raven's wing
the moon rides in a boat of dove grey
gauze misted through with amethyst
strands that weave watercolour
ponds under the full moon plump
as a pampered koi treading water
among reeds in a walled-in garden
and somewhere not far enough away
sirens wail and tear the air
 

Perhaps A Poem
by Barbara Phillips

we
will
always
be
we
could
have
been

words
are beautiful
but
do not
touch
Pluto
regions
of fundamental
analysis

tonight
I am
a
poem
you
wanted
to
write

Virtual Anger
by Barbara Phillips

you are shouting
in CAPLOCKS.
my ears pound
as the furious backdrop flashes
through a heart searing in rage,
pacing a cage of electronic impulses,
keeping you at bay,
turning what you want to say
into strident limpings,
writhing

I fall into the vertigo that churns
behind my splintered screen.
your words so starkly dark
pin me to the frame
that is now,
that is here

I watch and know
you are oblivious to what I say.
I wonder whether I should draw you near
into this space I am in now,
and if I did would you share
this space with me,
or throw fury into a clatter
indecipherable
like keys whose purpose is lost
in dust that settles
on the nail in the wall
mute with longing
 

Cranes
by Barbara Phillips

steel leviathans crush wet muck
through the hole in the makeshift wall
men can be seen in hard hats and caboose
 awkward,large treaded boots
bulldozers and trucks press into
ground gouged open,bleeding
 mud,slick as frogs half submerged
in smooth moon rocked ponds

through rain driven skies,cranes swing arms
concrete constructions dangle,shift
in alien angles over earth lying disembowled
heaving beneath chunks of dirt,scattered
randomly,upended,sinking in pooling
water,a glistening skin torn
under trampings of workers,incursions of machines
while voices and metal clangs punch the burdened air

an old man peers through the peep hole
gazes upwards at the aerial display
he waves a hand in the general direction
of those who play with olympian tonka toys
split infinity from cabs of cranes
raise towers with thickly gloved,sure hands
the old man leans on his cane,squares his shoulders
slowly he walks away,to the queue at the bus stop on the corner

 

HOWARD HODGKIN'S DICK AND BETSY SMITH
by Kenneth Pobo

Planets with temperatures
near absolute zero
fascinate Dick, who looks
there for ballrooms. Betsy

claims life is a garden
and any petal offers
a cool lake, has no interest
in planets or ballrooms.
Dick scoffs, says Eden
made gardens passe.

Both sit in a scent
of melting candles.
Immaculate lamps,
stiff and formal,
plan a takeover.
Magazines keep alert.
Dick and Betsy
fall

asleep, enter rooms
in each other's dreams,
call for each other
as floors fail,
ceilings burst,
wake

without saying
where they have been.

AARON IN PARAGUAY
by Kenneth Pobo

Why am I here?
No sea, no midnight sun
on my shoulders, a yellow
phlox coat.

Arriving was rough.
Hotel pests skitter
up my dreams. The bellhop
sees me as an amoeba
in a terrible experiment.

When it rains I would love
to run out dancing,
but that would be
indecorous. I miss
dahlias scrunched
by my door at home.

I will say this for Paraguay:
I am just a guy natives see
walking--nobody
calls me crazy
for muttering in my sleeves.

WASHINGTON
by Kenneth Pobo

In the Holland Tunnel
at night, small lights
shine over dark cars.
I remember eastern Washington--

an awareness of being in something
beautiful and boring.

 

READ AT BORDERS

Safety in Numbers
by Kendal Eaton

Shows all there
already on the M10
alone
not on the back seat
but a higher one, her eyes
catching everyone else
sitting separately

Over half-way
through the journey, her wavy voice
reconnoitred, "love...
look at the two of us,
strangers
in many ways..."

a little subdued
at first, amused or disturbed
faces looking toward each other
for solace or
some assumed camaraderie

safety in numbers.

And I saw
COLOURS - I've often thought
how nice it would be
if life was just like a musical

where all the mundane
and miserable things
would be in black and white, until
- every so often - life blooms

into COLOUR as someone breaks out

in melody and those within
sight, or hearing,
join in
enthusiastic chorus and dance around
in rhythm,
sympathy, with the mood.

Getting bolder, "Oh I'd do anything...
for YOU dear, anything for YOUR smile,
anything for..." Who?

That's what we all thought -
who was it all for?
I liked it , wanted to join in...
didn't have her confidence
but I hummed along,
she read my mind.

"Happy talkin, talking happy talk,
talk about things you'd like to do...
if you don't have a dream, you've got to...
have a dream, how
are you going to make your dream come true?"

Willing in the words
not wasted words - she hoped, as we reached
a terminus

"And now the time has come, and so
I face the final curtain... er... friends...
I've had a few... de-de-de-de...
TOO FEW TO MENTION..."

- regretful repose -

"...I did it... my ....way.

The words didn't matter!

The words... didn't... matter.

The words always matter! And

the.. .. spaces .... in-between

but no-one applauded
as she trod the catwalk
to her exit

"I hope you don't mind
my singing, it's these bloody pills,
I just burst
into song, I can't help it!"

Safety in numbers, ... you know,

everything was in black and white
until she got on the M10

(From the book "listening to what you don't want to hear" by Kendal Adrian Eaton)

DO NOT BELIEVE ALL
by Maureen Weldon

Do not believe all
you read in history,
it has long - been out of date.

But listen to the wind,
observe the sun, birds,
and wide, wide sky.

And somewhere
on a far off beach,
where ocean grinds and
washes rocks to fine sand;
a pink shell, a periwinkle.
Here history winks her eye.

Now walk and read.

("Do Not Believe All" Read at Borders Thursday 14th March 2002.
Published by Purple Patch, also Poetry Scotland)

MIRROR
by Maureen Weldon

In Winter she places it on a tin,
in the corner of her bedroom,
reflects the moon, and bare coral-like back
of her lover's skin, warm on her eye.

In Spring she carries it to the kitchen,
like a split fertility rite,
places it on the hi-fi stack, to keep watch
on, thighs, back, nape of neck and sky.

In Summer she turns it to the wall,
only returns to see her nipples
now hard and full of honey like the bees;
she smiles, and dreams she is a rose.

In Autumn, a mirror for every room,
so the leaves dance like meteorites;
now her shape shimmers gold in the setting sun:
a beachcomber, a whore, a nun.

( Published : New Hope International, also Poetry Israel. Read at Borders on 9th May.)

Afterword

 

email Jim Bennett - jimbennett11@btinternet.com - tell us what you think.

An archived version of Caught in The Net is available at

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/index.htm  

where you can join the mailing list and the PK Poetry List

 

Thank you for taking the time to read Caught in the Net.

Next edition due at the end of June 2002 - look out for it in the in-tray

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