CAUGHT IN THE NET - Fourteen

MARCH 2003

Editor - Jim Bennett

Hello again.  Welcome to CITN 14.  This edition features poems read at Jim Bennett's Poetry Night at Borders Books, Cheshire in the UK and part one of a selection of Anti Love Poems called The Other Side of Love written as a response to a poetry challenge on the PK List.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed.  Please keep submitting.

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 1000 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

A poem about love
by Jim Bennett
 
I set out to write
a poem about love
thought about you
as I watched you walk
down the page
through four stanzas
 
you changed seasons twice
your smile once
then let a man
wander round a verse
till he fell from grace
and off the page
 
it left just us
lightly bound
in a san serif
proportionally spaced text
to end the final stanza
 
together

Up is like down
by David Irvin

Up is like down
When right becomes wrong

When the nightingale loses
Its cause for a song

When the eagle that soars
Can't take to flight

When the laughter of children
Gives way to fright

When a visitor calls
But I'm not at home

When there's good news to share
But I'm all alone

When the heart in my breast
Suddenly misses a beat

When the love I once had
Passes by inn the street

When the smile on my face
Sadly turns to a frown

For me these all happen when
Up is like down
 

Kissing
by Tim Stone
 
Have you ever kissed in Paris in the rain?
Underneath the trees lining the Champs Elysee
Or by the waters of the running Seine
Or Lying stripped naked on a French bed,
Beneath lead-lined roofs that touch the stars.
Have you ever brushed hands walking on worn down streets
Next to Gitane stoked smokers playing bullets in their cars
Or hugged in among the bouvelards instead.
 
Have you ever smelt your girl
In amongst the flowers sellers
Or plucked a single flower from off its stalk
Laughing between the markets stalls

 

 
City of love
by Tim Stone
 
The city of love sleeps easy tonight
Inside polished clean brick apartments
Snoozing comfortably encased in
It's conscious-protected rooms with their
Chic furnishings and fashioned furniture.
 
Yet on the benches, some struggle to sleep
In the doorways they shiver in the wind
Saved only by those rocking empty bottles
Which have fallen from grimy stained hands.
 
During the day witches with limps and black scarves
Whose bony hands clutching small coins
Aim for you; directly at you
While the sound of accordion music
Drift in among the wheel-beat of the trains.
 
And at night, I sleep, knowing I have filled
Those chic furnished apartments
And in the day walked past the cluttered human debris
Scattered about in those doorways



 

THE OTHER SIDE OF LOVE

VAMPIRE VALENTINE

by Arthur Chappell

Roses are red
Orchids are black
Folk end up dead
When vampires attack
Lovely smooth skin
A fragile membrane
The blood flows within
On its way to the brain
Rip the throat gently
And  swallow the lot
Leave your victim  completely empty
Drink  up quickly before the blood clots.
They  offer their life to let you live
Their love for you goes on forever
What greater gift could anyone give
Than arteries and veins for you to sever
They offer you the gift of eternal salvation
They love you enough to embrace their own damnation.


 

VALENTINE'S DAY 1929

by Arthur Chappell

Violin cases
High speed car chases
We had Lots of love and fun
With the tommy-gun
You gave me for our engagement
I don't have to queue or make  special arrangement
When I want to grab some dough
But sadly, Moll it's time to let you go.
Heartfelt thanks for teaching me how to rob banks,
But now you've started hanging round with Al Capone
It's time for me to start operating on my own
I just saw a bunch of narcs shot full of lead
By gangsters disguised as  coppers in blue
I love you but I Don't want to wind up dead
This massacre was just the sort of thing you would do
So this is goodbye with love and i wish you every sucess
You should skip town too before they send in Eliot Ness
 

 

 

 

fever poem

By Frank Faust

I remember when I wrote it
I read it and revised
line by line
tried to cast my thoughts back
to the very moment
so I could recall it perfectly
write it down
just the way it rewound
in my mind

I made the words
flow across the page
capturing my heat
in drawn analogies
to show the turmoil
as I was on my way
to falling
I dressed them
in small curlicues and flourishes
carefully in a frame
gave them
like a bond
so like a vow
falling in love I was
feverish

~

I found the fever poem today
face down on the table
where I had recycled
an old frame
for a 'bless this house'
wrapped up to give away
and on the bench there it was
the fever piece
returned
as I recall
amid a few old shirts
that no longer fit me
and a 'fuck you'

~

neither sorry nor goodbye
just a 'fuck you' note
padded up with possibilities
and openings
for another time
and place

I didn't read it today
just held it a short while
while I looked away at someplace else
then crumpled it
into the garbage bag
now I guess
there's just one more thing
I need to do
to finally end
this love affair

 

Untitled

Gary Blankenship

if those who said they loved
loved
we would need fewer apples

roses make her sneeze
chocolate causes zits
diamonds are tacky before 23

dutch at the green grocer
home by 9 to watch Joe Billionare

if those who said they were loved
were

 

Poem In Love

by Barbara Philips

 

it weaves verses through trees
traces lines to rising horizons
blush wakened over fields
with proud weighted bellies
dew slipped as buttercups

words hang on stems fine
as rain traced webs in split rail fences
they are ready
to fling choruses
ripe as vine warm fruit

in voices unafraid to shout
or to stream under skies
in concerts with birds on the wing
my love for you is a poem
it waits to be read

 

Anti Love Poem

by Barbara Philips

 

the problem with calling it anti love
is that anti love is not love
there is no anti to love
no antidote
it isn't
or is

Counter-Attack Valentine

by David Taylor


Take my heart? - No - Take my liver
I don't want you in my arms;
Take a walk along that river
Breathe the scent - of sewage farms

I don't want your love - no longer
Twisting, writhing in my bed;
I would sooner dance the Conger
With a solid block of lead.

Farewell sweetie, farewell honey,
Fare thee well, my lump of lard
Go and chase a rabid bunny,
Even you might make him hard!

 

C.A. Daver Lingers
by William C Webb
 
Mr. Daver
had a cleaver
and had to do it
‘cause he couldn’t
leave her.
 
Unfortunately the police
thought the excuse meager,
so at jail Mr. Daver
‘til he rots must linger.
 
Poor Mrs. and Mr. Daver.
Now he’ll never have her.


 

You say
by William C Webb

I never write you love poems
Unless I complain
Or seem to paint
You a little strange.
 
But everyone knows
Love poems
Are hard to write
Without sounding cliché.
 
So I’ll just say,
 
I care about you when we don’t talk,
Worry about you when you’re ill,
Feel sad for you when you cry,
Think about you always when I’m still,
And love you because –
you are a bit strange.
 
As you already know, so am I.
 

READ AT BORDERS

TURMOIL
by Reg Weaver
 
Alone in  a small dark place,
Bound and blind, surrounded by the night.
Why?                  Whither?        Whence?.
Lead me to space and light.
 
Fearful claustrophobia of the soul,
Frantic hands fumbling for the door.
Let me out!,       Let me out!.
Or send me the dawn.
 
Suffer me not to spend my life,
In the small dark room of doubt.
Break my bonds and set me free,
Please send the dawn.
 
Fettered to a world gone mad.
Whirling aimlessly.
Whither?   Whence?    and     Why?.
Premonition go from me.
 
Unbearable birth pangs of the soul,
The soul of a world without light.
Of reason, in the dark room of doubt.
What are these frightful issues?.
Please Help me see the light.

 

 

OF A VISIT

by Maureen Weldon

So I took a photograph
High on the hill cliff top.
Wondering if the memory
Of you and me still lives?
Here in this long sea-grass;
Or dances across the steep- sea - path,
Where we watched a star,
Where the hours melted between
Night and day:
Between your skin and mine...
And all the time
The deep changing sea beneath us,
Calling...
And mermaids sitting on jagged rocks
Passing a golden ball.
But today, in the salt soft air:
Just remembering.

(First published Never Bury Poetry)
 

TO A MIND'S EYE

by Maureen Weldon

I am swimming between deep blue seas,
Alpha and Omega.
On a rock is a shelf of shells -
very pretty. I rest, breath, dive,
swim away.
Overhead the busy world
is whirling, rushing, always rushing
to man-made hours of sleep and waking:
shocked by discoveries, laughing, clapping.
It is not dark beneath these waves
but hazy, hard to grasp.
Sometimes I feel I am Krakatau: exploding
flung in a million particles -
DNA, blood-red or brown.
Now, I listen, hearing nothing,
except, the silver song of the sea.
 

MATISSE AND THE ORANGE DANCERS

by Maureen Weldon


Above the coffee cups
Orange Dancers dance.
Heads up, heads down.
Holding hands, Round and round.
Free in naked moonshine,
a torso, muscle, bust.

The normal coffee cups
steam hot coffee,
swirl, stir, night or day,
or swill in soapsuds.

While all goes round and round
even the nearby river
there in the rhythm of the stars.

On the wall
golden as the laughter of water
on their grass-green bank
above the coffee cups,
the Orange Dancers dance.
 

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 APRIL 2003 - look out for it in the in-tray

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