CAUGHT IN THE NET - THREE

JUNE 2001

Editor - Jim Bennett

More new contributers this month together with new work from familiar names. Once again we have a collection of quality poems all given freely by their writers. My thanks go to everyone who has submitted work for inclusion in this issue and my apologies to those I could not include.

I also 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 will publish the same poet in several editions.

Please note that no particular spelling convention has been followed and the spellings used reflect the 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 900 subscribers to CITN but please feel free to pass it on to your friends.  

To join or leave the CITN mailing list or to change settings http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/citn.HTML

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

THIS IS NO POEM; IS NO PAINTING

by John Birkbeck

 

This new day another fragment,

this unfinished work

never to be seen by distant editors

or dealers in foreign galleries,

shapes unformed on a palette--

a dab of impossible blue here,

an irregular verb-ending there,

added in afterthought;

gallant flourishes hinting

subtly toward a lost future;

ghosts from dreams spin

conjugations of colour-endings

and echoes of smells and

tastes from childhood,

languagemusic melting on the tongue;

paradoxes from eight of the Seven Seas;

we wonder why we conjure these things

forth from the blank surfaces

from where they came,

knowing that some things must remain

mysteries if we are to go on living;

not asking why because answers

are not needed for the marvels

to pass on to others behind us;

we do it in the luxury of our solitude,

we do it for joy

because we can.

 

See more poems by John at; http://poets2000.com/poemfields and http://www.thepoeticlink.com

THE "J"s OF YESTERYEAR

By John Birkbeck

 

 

There is no more Judi

blowing on her nails

and no Jaqui nor Jani

with their cats and

their African Violets

and Joni is gone; back

to the inskirts of her

dream city on the river

where Juli herself is

with her collections

of ceramic owls

and Jeani is adrift

in her endless reverie

of riches and fame

and I wonder if names

begining with "J"

will run out before

I start on the "K"s

See more poems by John at; http://poets2000.com/poemfields and http://www.thepoeticlink.com

Spooked Horses

by Janet I. Buck

 

I had a dream that washed

away these forming ones.

I couldn't cross the plates of wheat,

wind the grisly mountain roads

to meet you in the Middle West.

All because I'd come too close

to needing you, and leaving would

unsand a desert, pitch it in my open eyes.

Sitting sober over meals,

watching the water clear

in fountains of perpetuity would spook

black horses of my past, strip the blinders,

pull the wheels from carriages.

 

We would drink fresh lemonade,

sugar it with being there

in ways thick conches of my ears

have met unsheathed dismissal rites.

I was born in secret caves

of wars with grief that called

for only shiny shields and bantering,

washed down with liquor's fire and ice.

No matter how it circled souls,

mended fences of an hour,

became canoes without an oar,

we worshipped it incessantly.

 

I had a dream that washed

away these forming ones

like acetone removes fresh paint.

Crimson sunsets ruddier

on patios the rain of exit hasn't stormed.

I would not own the strength to go.

My veins would just explode in joy,

open like a tulip's cup

that breathes the message of the spring,

a saxophone that never hit a note before,

but leaves its case and cannot

fathom this entrapping,

velvet lined with dollar bills,

black tie this and pouring that,

warping every rising moon.

See more of Janet's work at

http://members.aol.com/jbuck22874/whatsnew.html

Application Form

by Arthur Chappell

 

 

Your names, those by which you can be summoned.

Address (Cellar, swamp, castle) When beckoned

To do your master's bidding do you come

Free or at terrible cost? How loathsome

Are you? Be ye schooled and skilled in black arts?

Do you dine daily on evil men's hearts?

When were you born and when did you last die?

(If you are still mortal do not apply).

If you're an incubus describe your sex

Otherwise proceed to questions of hex-

Magick, and give us your references

And your flesh and blood preferences.

If you're chosen for an interview here

Bring your victims with you. We'll test their fear

Under laboratory conditions.

Write down which blasphemies and seditions

You have helped initiate and propagate

And tell us why you think you're degenerate

Enough to become a civil serpent.

It's a stepping stone to a government

Post for ambitious abominations

Causing chaos and assassinations.

There's lots of succubi and cthulhu

Who'll report back through directly to you

As their Head of Inhuman Resources.

Beware lest werewolf union forces

Pressure you for a pay rise like they did

To your predecessor. That's why we rid

Ourselves of him at All Soul Destroyers

(Equal Opportunities Employers).

See more of Arthur's work at - http://www.arthurchappell.clara.net/contents.htm

This is Mine

by Frank Faust

 

I am making this my own,

from gun metal blue salt water

to orange fruiting of the sun.

I'm ankle deep in the sand of low tide,

running out fast

in the chop of a wind

that has raised the heads white,

up on driving waves

full of fizz in the black

of a night rising,

with the moon

shining in a line going out forever

to the last of daylight.

This is all mine

 

See more at - Tales of Faust - http://www.hotkey.net.au/~flp/F_index.htm

Transplants

by Larry L. Fontenot

 

The first to go were roses,

lifted from backyard beds,

resettled by dutiful children

into their own garden plots,

as if bouquets would ensure

the return of memories.

 

But no blooms were left behind

to protect the past from erosion,

to remind us what went before:

carefree summer days sunburned

into dusk, a child’s eager finger

shown the way to every petal, the eye

to every insect.

 

Some things are best forgotten:

how flowers know no allegiance

whether in scalloped landscapes

or plastic vases left in windows.

How we suffer the unforgettable,

caught in the snare of every thought,

while flowers live and die without memory,

unable to recall a single moment of regret.

 

More of Larry's work can be seen at http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

Adrift

by Frances LeMoine

 

icebound snowbound homebound

bound to candles and fat batteries

 

wheels spin tailspin

shadows of snowdrifts, plows and cruisers

across fogged panes

 

telephone exhausted

television dozes

radio slumbers still

short two batteries

 

a royal sky is exiled

somewhere over sheared utility poles

and this gray ocean reigns

 

waiting for white to thaw

for pale to yield

for wind to fade

 

the heat of the VCR dissipates

 

no romance

in the flashing of the

12:00

12:00

12:00

digital embers glowing

Email Frances at - frances_lemoine@yahoo.com

Monkey Bars

by Lewis Lacook

 

To stop thinking for a moment inside our walls,

Renee, I went outside, taking our garbage

ever out, to side with the trees for a moment,

evenly interlaced, and the mathematics of

serious nature. I walked to the end of a

 

humid street, so far from wet leaves they

osmosis'd palms over my bubbling forehead,

loudly interjecting with electricity and pangs

darned from your whimpled skin. We live

in the shoulder of a playground; that's good.

Noted. I wanted to sit among those dark and

gnarled rides, getting high in encroaching

 

heated shadows; I wanted to pull a burlesque

acted on the moon there, maybe bleed a page

nearly passionless, and sit the whole time you're

dreaming me; would you like it if I was candy-crown'd?

Sleep or type through me to the telephone crushing

 

images down to deadpan? I sigh and do our dishes,

not truly flattened, just missing some dimension;

 

trees like SummerJustGotUp. They're stained glass,

hot still, and they remind me of the weight of your

xertion: I walk through your tatoo eyes, all the way

 

down the street. I barely noticed the roughness of

a city's flow. And not knowing where I was,

Renee, and not caring, as long as I'd get home okay.

Knowing my body, knowing I had candy for you.

Visit Lewis' site - http://www.angelfire.com/or/lacook/portfolio.html

Chicory

by Lewis Lacook

 

In the land of chicory coffee (strong!) I got zits again.

Am missing the praise of my elders who need fitfully

praised. The cat slips in sleepy streams near

the sliding glass doors of the balcony, opening

her eyes to a slope drying grass into birds talking to her

 

through mesh screen. This grid filters out the bugs

who sift through dirt, blowing up garbage trucks.

BANG! says the cat, though she might be getting sleepy.

 

On the landing in strong chicory coffee I zapped bugs,

stoned on this new state's air and the frailty of

my elders. Renee wakes me from some pool taking

deep breaths of me through the pillow, where

she snored, so that it was caustic singing; once,

 

I would rise from the riverbed sputtering and tumultuous.

Now her face above me is a voice.

Visit Lewis' site - http://www.angelfire.com/or/lacook/portfolio.html

The Swallows Came Back, But First They Stopped At My Place

by Carol Ann Lindsay

 

The rasping, twittering noise echoed

like a loose shutter in wind,

so I looked outside to see black

pointed, narrow wings fluttering

in circles; they flew segregated,

when they put mud and straw on the ledge

above my cathedral window,

just below the tile roof.

A trail to my front door

confirms the flocks vitality

and I wonder if the birds are lost.

This year weather changed

and the creek flows like a river

spawning flies and gnats that

make famine disappear for birds, and

offer jobs to men who cover my hacienda

with nets. If swallows had space at my place,

I wouldn't need the pesticide man.

My house was a field last year

and it's March again; they say

the birds always find the old church. Maybe,

when the nest is hosed down,

they'll find their way back

to San Juan Capistrano.

Link - www.creative-commerce.com

If They Take Him from the Country

by Peter Magliocco

 

 

If they take Him from the country

the land will still be frozen memory

in virtual interstices our mind plays

tricks repetitively with hypnotic chaos

the unconscious furrows like wheat rows

the wind like an angel's sweet breath

over a vale of twisted bodies in Bosnia

becoming de-militarized zones of twilight

where lucky refugees wait with movie extras

for the last free lunch hand-out there

I'm wondering how to photograph Him

for the posterity of starry-eyed constituents

wanting to act in this savior's passion play

to revive what history took from us

by bleeding the heartland of nutrients

till dust rose to meet air's umber warming

as earth shifted deeper into volcanic flux

with the souring of old oceans expelling

a plethora of spent species in our midst

His hands could not bring back to life

their cacophony of braying oratorios

heralding this creation's valedictory embrace

of our shapeless dances with carnivores

we'll eat yet from the first fruit of ourselves

a last repast of hoof & mouth disease

to multiply our damnation of clones

 

The Evening Tide

by Peter Magliocco

 

Love should have saved you,

deep within emotional sediment

resisting everyday erosions of time

installing the wide lament grief

beyond some main part of you

daily as a precious artifact is

at the behest of your careful fingers

tweaking the rose of its inner stamen

(while repainting its ancient outline)

lovingly, slowly

in sync with late afternoon shadows

growing into their widespread imprint

across the earth of us

 

while the sea urchin bastes in emission

of repulsion and/or attraction

& the speck of a swimmer braving

some hint of evening tide

strokes the coiled carotid's pulse

into wavering night.

 

 

The Wedding Seers

by Peter Magliocco

 

You look to remove the antique mask

from your face

but underneath's the cold reliquary

of blindness waiting

to enwrap your features in

that ageless varnish wrinkles held

in check still dazes you

from an otherworld of true meaning

no longer desired in seeing

your wedding flowers wilt in water

true believers baptized themselves with

as the bride's maid left you

"without explanation," or warning --

affronting the minister's arcane task

of uttering biblical sanctions

no one wanted you believing in --

while your husband-to-be

stalked the perimeter of maiden boundaries

you once took sweet refuge in,

too late now the hint of unsung remorse

welding your lips to its invisible acid

nearby children of the Rock Garden

stay high on watching

with elemental vision of savants

your naked visage unveiling marble

skin-splintering the photographer's lens

 

as you shatter the soft nimbus

of something violated

 

beyond the unseen

Worlds on Line

by Barbara Philips

 

there is no need of worlds

over mountains and across seas

in this moment of transience

carrying memories of permanence

we extemporize

we sympathize

we philosophize

we synchronize

we harmonize

out here beyond the beyond

of seas

I am willingly catapulted

into this universe

of you

enveloping me

You can see an interview and more of Barbara'a work at the Featured Poet and Transparent Words areas of the PK Site http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/index.htm

She has also appeared at the Poetry Super Highway http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

                      

Lengths' Eclipse

By Barbara Philips

 

lengths of evenings

eclipse afternoons

amethyst clouds amble

voices veer on football fields

escape into passing traffic

soldiering golden rod salutes &

files through laneways

amber sun bows

lies down in horizons

lures lovers into long kisses

You can see an interview and more of Barbara'a work at the Featured Poet and Transparent Words areas of the PK Site http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/index.htm

She has also appeared at the Poetry Super Highway http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

Kite Song

by Barbara Philips

 

String tangles and loops the toddler's fingers.

He carefully extricates himself from

capricious wigglings of white cord leading to

brilliant scraps of red,blue,and yellow

geometric configurations in the kite that throws

itself exuberantly into brash breeze

blustering in comedic confrontations with beach

horizons and scudding sky tinged clouds

Free now of kiteful mischief making

he pushes the yellow baseball hat off his eyes

and squints as he tracks the kite leaping off clouds,

tugs back the cord,bracing against gusts

greedily swooping around the kite flapping signals

in successions of yellow-red,blue-yellow,red-blue.

The kite cavorts as it courts sun,sky,and wind.

The child holds on,both hands in fists.

He grabs the cord that spins in speeding twists.

His father pushes his hands deep into jacket pockets,

steadily watches his son who chases after the kite,

face turned upwards,

mesmerized by willful kite gambols in sun singing skies.

You can see an interview and more of Barbara'a work at the Featured Poet and Transparent Words areas of the PK Site http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/index.htm

She has also appeared at the Poetry Super Highway http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

Home

by Carol Sircoulomb

 

Her name was Charla Jo

What a cool name

She also had long blonde hair but she wet the bed

I saw my first Elvis movie with her

I was not impressed

In fact I thought it the worst movie I ever saw

 

My sister got to spend the night

With better people though

A girl whose Momma

Slept naaaked

she taught me the word nude

I can not remember her name

It was not cool like Charla Jo though

 

Yesterday she told me

She was going to pack her bags

and go back home

this place was awful

the food was bad

the other people were stupid

except the 100 year old black woman

who liked to sing and dance

 

It made me think of Charla Jo

Her daddy owned a nursing home

We went there once

Old men tied to their beds

Saying come here honey

I walked with my head lowered

 

Grandma and Grandpa Mc

Lived in one

It smelled so bad

I always smell urine and pinesol for hours

 

I do not remember it smelling

in Charla Jo’s bed or her

Dads nursing home

just 12 men tied in their beds

It was on the 2nd story, I always wondered

If the funeral home was below

 

She just called

Someone has to come and get me

I have no reason why

They just have to get me

 

I responded

No one will come and get you

Her phone hit hard

Almost Bulimic

by M. J. Tenerelli

 

Oh love the loss of you

Is good medicine

I want to choke up

On a bad day.

Our boy lifts his brow, like you,

For the pleasure of my laughter.

It’s then I sit on my hands

To keep my fingers

Out of my throat.

 

More of M.J. Tenerelli work will appear in issue 19 of Zuzu's Petals, at - zuzu.com.

 

Afterword

 

email Caught in the Net at - caught_in_the_net@hotmail.com  tell us what you think.

email Jim Bennett - jim@bennett11.freeserve.co.uk

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 subscribe to 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 July 2001 look out for it in the in-tray

 

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