CAUGHT IN THE NET - FOUR

JULY 2001

Editor - Jim Bennett

Hello again. Caught in the Net is back with edition number FOUR.

My thanks go to everyone who has submitted work for inclusion in this issue and my apologies to those I could not include. I am swamped with an embarrassment of riches and I want to get as broad a selection as possible. 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.  

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

 

fear of abandonment

by justin barrett

 

she tells me she

doesn’t like going out

with her friends

with me

feeling this way

 

because

she doesn’t like

hurting me

 

and she’s

afraid if she keeps

hurting me i’ll

eventually leave her

 

yet she’s the

one who

walks out the door.

See more poems by justin at http://www.geocities.com/remark_poetry

like Esperanto or Latin

by justin barrett

 

you are a

language i do

not understand.

 

See more poems by justin at http://www.geocities.com/remark_poetry

 

right here

by justin barrett

 

6 beers and a

darvicet

later i feel

as if i could

hoist the world

upon my shoulders

and carry it

forever

 

but i prefer

to just lie right

here listening

to my heart

slowly throb

 

See more poems by justin at http://www.geocities.com/remark_poetry

Postnatal

by David Conway

 

Days merge together

like liquid to litmus paper

a carriage clock sings our praises

stripped of all its authority

 

you lie in a darkened room

lulled by the rain

that settles on its window

 

and wear the duvet

as if it were your father's hands

so large

you believed

they could cover the globe.

Listening to Ani DiFranco in the rain

By Larry Jaffe

 

It is chilly Saturday afternoon

Los Angeles overcast as only

this city knows how.

 

There is nothing like the

cloudy gloom of a

city built on sunshine

to get you down.

 

But maybe the rain makes

you feel alive with thoughts

of spring and memories

still too painful

to be forgotten.

 

I listen to the rain

on Saturday afternoon

wondering when

pessimism replaced

the optimistic soul.

 

Ani DiFranco sings lonely

using clouds

as microphones.

 

And I listen to Ani

and the rain

thinking the three of us

make a fine pair…

 

See more by Larry Jaffe at - www.lgjaffe.com

Dark rosary

By Larry Jaffe

 

 

The dark rosary

of your lips

prays till dawn

for eternal forgiveness.

I am not the father

who bequeathed you

or the one that held

your hand on the

merry go round

that fateful day

in October when you

looked into eyes

that were yet to be seen

and felt my passion

like a chord to

your soul.

Your mother

saw you standing

there one-fourth naked

three-fourths angel

I of course was

hidden in shadows

despairing at never

seeing your eyes.

You broke

the complicated braid

that bound our lips

with sweet waters

happiness.

I stood at our

gravesite

wondering where

to put the flowers.

 

See more by Larry Jaffe at - www.lgjaffe.com

Of what is friendship made

By Larry Jaffe

 

 

This woman was shot from

wings made of clay

yet she still flies

with wordfull oratory.

 

She stands by neither

victim or prey

her words speak

of bravery

a silence that

her mouth

never utters.

 

But I read between the lines

to find the place tulips

were planted

and honeydew melons

wrestle in the sea.

 

She is not unlike a farmer

her word seeds pressed

to her bosom and

tilling the soil

with sweat soaked passion.

 

And I can believe

I claim to know

her from other distant lands

where pharaohs roamed

and Jews were meant

to die.

 

And perhaps then too

she gave me

loving cup of water

so parched my thirst

with ridicule.

 

She looked at me with eyes

so wide and wounded

knowing my despair

praying for my joy

and musing

with the muses.

See more by Larry Jaffe at - www.lgjaffe.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

exertion: 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.

 

 

See more at -

Websites: Idiolect (online zine): http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7326

X (hypertext experiment): http://www.lewislacook.com/xindex.htm

The Little Book of Viruses (online chapbook): http://www.angelfire.com/or/lacook/index.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.

 

See more at -

Websites: Idiolect (online zine): http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7326

X (hypertext experiment): http://www.lewislacook.com/xindex.htm

The Little Book of Viruses (online chapbook): http://www.angelfire.com/or/lacook/index.html

 

Each Box

By Michael Levy

 

Each box projects a life behind an illuminated screen,

A myriad of choices, clues to happiness of self-esteem,

Many refreshments of the mind all uniquely locked inside

Savor the various flavors, before the key's of truth turn n hide.

 

Each box has numerous secrets wholly tucked away,

Some are endowed treasures souly reserved for a rainy day,

Others are cherished pearls from wisdom's infinite array,

Whilst a few drink nectar from the golden goblet of Mandalay.

 

Each box has special switches to turn on spirits light,

It is well hidden, packed away by ego's contorting might,

But when the channels are connected, a powerful candle is lit

The riches of the soul appear, simple; yet incredibly exquisite.

 

Each box is filled with mystical chocolates, orgasmic to the taste,

Fed to new born infants but lost in a race with to much haste,

Intelligence tunes in at birth, played on a baby Grand.

How wisdom trickles through, the human grains of sand.

 

See more from Michael Levy at - http://www.pointoflife.com

LEAVING ENGLAND

ON MY WAY TO HOLLAND

By Duane Locke

 

The stevedores are flying over the white-tipped gray waters

 

The sea gulls

Are unloading flour from a cargo ship.

The sea gulls rip open the flour sacks.

 

The dock is whitened with flour.

The ship I am on is whitened with flour.

The cocktails are whitened with flour.

The slot machines are whitened with flour.

 

The flying stevedores have black-tipped fingers,

Have black teeth,

Have black eyes,

Wear black shoes.

THE GULF

By Duane Locke

 

The gulf wears an overcoat,

Its hands

Are stuck

Deep down

Into its pockets of sand.

 

The gulf

Touches a mountain

At the bottom of its pocket.

The mountain

Has white gold hair,

And is a girl.

 

The gulf finds

The white gold haired girl's hand,

Removes her wedding ring,

Tosses

The gold circle

Towards the hands of the moon.

 

The moon refuses

To catch the ring.

Lets it sail by.

The ring falls back on her finger.

EPIPHANIES

By Duane Locke

 

Epiphanies come not from the soul,

But from the body, the philosopher thought,

But not from what in popular parlance

Is designated "the body," but from the true body,

The body beyond the public and popular

Conception of the body. An epiphany

Occurs when one sees with his own eyes,

Not seeing according to tradition,

Not seeing according to accepted view of reality,

Not seeing with the eyes of ancestors,

Not seeing with the eyes of the masses.

Epiphanies occur when the golden twists

Of her hair become a strange voice,

When there is speech without words,

When silence is loquacious,

When the fino pony and his tap dance watched with her

Becomes a dark mist and gallops through darkness.

When the white light that glows

From the darkest part of midnight

Illuminates her lips.

 

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

 

Highway 61 Revisited

By Corey Mesler

 

Driving north on Highway 61

the lights of Clarksdale

look like Las Vegas

 

the way the surrounding darkness

ends in them.

And indeed its Pizza Hut, its

Wendy's, its Sack and Save

seem exotic as palaces.

Toby sleeps in the back seat

 

huddled over his pillow

in delicious fatigue; Cheryl next

to me nods, her

 

chin on her chest. The Delta

is a long black dream,

the serenity of India rubber,

 

the swallow of a whale.

Off to the west a skyrocket explodes.

It's 10:15, July Fourth, 19something.

Late-Night Riff for Jack Kerouac

By Corey Mesler

 

Jack,

the

paper

is

black.

The

night

is

long,

it’s

too

long.

The

reasons

for

invoking

you

are

tired.

Better

light

a

candle,

Jack.

Spirit-

chaser,

dreamer,

long-

distance

runner.

 

Religion

By Corey Mesler

 

Singing

Beatles songs

with my five-year-old

daughter

 

is one path

to the Godhead.

 

"mouth"

By Sherry Pasquarello

 

my taste for your mouth and the

words it contains, the

thoughts of me they wrap moist

around

make me lick at your lips as

if the were the last drops in the bottom of the glass, your

ideas give me

shivers of possibilities and so

i search the corners of your mouth for a

stray crumb that i might pick off and

swallow

"insomnia"

By Sherry Pasquarello

 

night walker

moon's silver

reflected in dark

eyes

 

whisper wanders

through each room

wrapped thick

in silence

soft breath tiptoes

looking for sleep

Will

By Joe Sichi

 

If it is immediate

they will be enthralled.

If it entails I

they will devote the world.

On and on;

they are masses blathering.

You will join them,

but even a poor poet

was made for greater stuff.

 

It is no more than chaff

under your boot

as they call you distant,

demented, detached;

and you will be.

You will not care.

For you will touch beauty;

taste passion, see visions,

and you will smell truth

and hear God.

You will look in

your willful insanity;

drink it deep,

find it sound,

and go on

 

 

Read more by Joe at 

http://home.att.ne.jp/wave/NagoyaWrites/Joe%20Sichi.htm http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9952/tw5/pg15.htm

The Hesitation Waltz (This Is Not A Poem)

By Tracy Thielen

 

 

The hesitation waltz, the heartstring,

the rape,

 

The mysterious proof, the

delights of landscape.

 

The treachery of images:

table, ocean, and fruit.

The palace of curtains:

the voice of the absolute.

 

The ignorant fairy, the patch of

night,

the prince of objects, the

dominion of light.

 

The Subjugated Reader

(reconnaissance without end).

 

The Literal Meaning

(reconnaissance without end).

 

The Man With the Newspaper

(reconnaissance without end).

 

The Hesitation Waltz

(reconnaissance without end).

 

 

Hear more of Tracy & the Hindenburg Ground Crew, available for download at http://www.actionbox.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 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 AUGUST 2001 look out for it in the in-tray

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