CAUGHT IN THE NET - Eight

JANUARY 2002

Editor - Jim Bennett

Hello again. This is Caught in the Net number EIGHT.

As I said in the last edition I have had to reduce CITN from a 12 issues per year to 8. This is just to help me fit it more easily into my academic year. I hope you enjoy this new edition of Caught in the Net and continue to support it with submissions and feedback.

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

 

alchemy of words

by Jim Bennett

I read the words see them perform a magic

simple words that dance then trip and drip across

the semen soaked stained couch

driven by a storm

I hear the sounds

three syllables that crash like winter

you can walk here among stars

touch the moon

find out something about eternity

but only

for a moment

In this late age its all been said

language ends at the end of language

the grammar of love

becomes sex and unsatisfying

couched in argument

lettuce edged carnation flower

ends in brown finger stain

crushed and broken

in this desert, a night without horizons

I float at the centre of a globe

frightened to look down

in case I fall

in case I fall

forever

at the end of time

held together by constraints and connotations

connivances and conversions

articles of faithlessness

and euphemistic figures

so easy to run wild, try too hard

mean too much with poetry

with poetry

with poetry

and the alchemy of words

don’t be surprised

if no one understands you

Jim Bennett's website can be found at

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1127/

ART
by Arthur Chappell.

There's an unfinished portrait on my wall
Depicting a lady with no clothes on
Tastefully done, not explicit at all
I knew the artist though she's long since gone
Leaving me feeling just as incomplete
As the watercolour present she sent
To say goodbye, managing to defeat
All my efforts to find out where she went.
I'm just as abandoned as her art
A totem legacy of affection
Primitive crave painting from the heart
Which few bar myself could call perfection
Now art and Arthur need her so much
To round off her work with one last touch.

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

New Year's in St. Thomas
by David Gershator

throat operation
no food no drink
no parties

hospital bed
doctor's boombox
no rap just blues

in a white
hospital gown
latest New Year's outfit

an intruder
goes from bed to bed
talking Jesus

doctor
to poet
don't talk 
don't sing

unable
to talk
I envy the talkers

unable to sing
I lip synch
into the New Year...

Parties all over
the island
this poet's on drugs

PIGEON RESCUED (After E.Dickinson)
by David Gershator
                              

Survivors? What survivors?!
A white pigeon in an airpocket under the rubble
Day turns to night and night to day
How many days since anyone survived

A white pigeon in an airpocket  beneath the rubble
New York pigeons have all the luck
How many days since anyone survived
Not even terrorists got that pigeon

New York pigeons have all the luck
Only a pigeon a friggin' pigeon
Not even terrorists got that bird
If you want a symbol take it--it's yours not mine

Only a pigeon a damn pigeon
"Hope is a thing with feathers"
You want a symbol--it's yours not mine
I've had my problems with pigeons

"Hope is a thing with feathers"
That thing with feathers fools no one
I've had my problems with N.Y. pigeons
Sky rats only look good when they fly

That thing with feathers fools no one
How many days since anyone survived?
A white pigeon in an airpocket
Survivors? What survivors!

Familiar Faces
by David Gershator

Familiar faces
the missing
keep on smiling

One smiling photo
after another
no one's smiling back

deeper into Autumn
some missing faces
now missing from the wall

rain wet
the xeroxed faces
near the fire alarm

on the lampost
woman's face half gone
the description hangs on

peeling off
the last of the missing faces
autumn storm

among the last
of the faces
reward for a missing cat

AWAKENING
by Maria Theresa Ib

Those nights we spent
without a clock time grew
sacred as a monk

we could tread softly
we could bleed sweet
seconds of silence

and we did
it was dawn that killed
our drawing spilled

too much light on it
overexposed and wet
we fled

across a lawn that seemed
suddenly too green for eyes
who knew only shadow

we were not the ripe fruits
we had seen in the meadow
hanging off the tree juice

welling up like tears
behind taut skin
we were supremely green

untouched by sun and showers
great gifts lost in a crowd

of hours

PARTISANS
by Maria Theresa Ib

Protract the evening
love lay down
the sleepers and let us travel
like trains ever terrestrial
& ever practical

Oblivion will stir us
on to a deviant path
down to unfound fjords
stuck
between a verge & a verge

Susceptible to change
the journey will enthral us:
two incarnations still
conspicuous here
among the stars that

proliferate & postpone
our purposes
We lean
toward each other
& do not question

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.

 

Gimmick

by Prasenjit Maiti

It was late in the morning when the sun was finally persuaded to rise,
rinsing his gleaming teeth of fire with yours at the nasty slipstream of
memories, crushing angry passion flowers and wild berries among your virgin
forests to face the day like a man as he must without you . and why must you
be always so cold and serene like the distant stars? this sunny day is like
any other among the serenade of sorrows that remind you of cold battles
foregone and old soldiers deserted like nobody's mundane business . it was
late in the evening when all the bottles of perfume finally rushed to woo
you and your aroma and musk of richness that made the sun go quietly down
across the yonder rivers like a dandy whimper . and so the sun must rise and
the sun must set and the sun must cry and wry its useless hands till you're
aflame and nearly all your rivers go all so blatantly dry

 

precinct new york

by Prasenjit Maiti

the big mac i'd bitten into all of a sudden turned cold

as a jaywalker was run over

by one of our new york greyhound services

and my arms were locked by a streetwalker with sad eyes

. . . what has happened to you, america, my dreams?

your french wines sell cheap in plastic bags

that grown-up children take along to their parents

living derelict in mad houses, condos or god's own country

what has happened to you, america, my youth?

my chicago streets, your bloody napkins

my sodden shirts, your stale hamburgers and rye whisky

what has happened to you, america, my love?

playing cowboy around the world

and sleeping with james bond like soho

my new york muggers, your affirmative action plan

our derelict asians buying cheap airline tickets

to enter you en masse

as if group sex is any less free of illusions ...

what has happened to you, america, my dreams?

in your new york derelict, cold chilli oil

china town and prawn champagne

I'm crying america, are you?

 

ROBBER
by Christopher Major

First you take the little things:
spectacles,car keys,
these you will eventually return,
knowing sight and car come later.
Names next,lifted from the tongues tip,
familiar names, precious names,
children, grandchildren,
snatched and held,
locked in a murky mind.
By now alarm bells are ringing,
but still robber, you persist ;
dignity, happiness, independence,
you take the lot, by shrinking my world to
a city,
a street,
a ward where stangers flock.
A new wife everyday watches you take my age,
leave me a baby, dribbling, cossetted,
pushed down corridors to sunlight
that never touches the darkness.

OUT
by Christopher Major

Amongst the streamers and tinsel,
my eyes plunge the colours of your party frock,
have it tug my gaze to a tacky floor,
where disco lights pop and flare
like packs of paparatzi,
the unwanted glare confirming
headlines for office gossip.
Bold in drink we 'Sod 'Em',
let them gawp as we kiss,
then taxi to homes that,
miles apart,
lie about the distance between us.

The journey is in silence,
as we wonder if the ripples
travelling the hall,
will spread through days,
weeks...........
.........entire lives.

WEEKEND
by Christopher Major

Black cabs at the club door,
fat fullstops to Saturday night,
the Town centre's bagged and shaken,
left litter strewn and can cluttered.
Teens swagger their sway
past the fluid windows of brimming pubs,
underagers swilling furtive swigs
from a communal can-
I watch the cig smoke rise
like steam off their quenched youth.
Sitting freshly dumped,a girl,
crumpled as a Kleenex at the kerb;
while above where two lads
flailed fists during 'Happy Hour',
the night closes,makes an aperture of the moon,
awaits a flash of sun,
a bright bomb bursting behind that church,
making the black tapering steeple
seem to part,curtain-like,the sunny sky.

So there it is,
a glimpse of night beneath,
to which we,only we,
will bring real darkness.

Exile

by Edmund Matyjaszek

 

As though the sun

Is not for me;

As though in lines

Of broken hedge

I see the bare brown trees

That shed

Not one green leaf more.

 

So flat the shore road

Stares at me;

So winding to ascend these steps

The grey stone tower

That looks

On no green land, no sky, the sea perhaps.

 

II

 

"Broken, clumsy hammock"

The sea shifts

Bangs the ship's side,

Hits the hold with a thud,

Slapping itself into spray.

The handcuffs of exile

Clang through bells,

Jangle in engine noise.

jeans
by Sherry Pasquarello

you take my
small
hips, in your
big hands, too
big hands and

pull me on
to
you, fit me

to you, on
you, over
you like putting
on

socks, or a pair
of
jeans, with
just as much
thought you

wear me, like
you bought
me
at
k mart

Love In Four Languages
(from the Book of Translations)

by Rachelle Singer
 

a book of Kurdish melodies
a book of Arabic proverbs
a books of Turkish memories
a book of English adorations
 

Tonight
come to me
in a dream

On this night
we will be born into one
from this dream

Outwit the quickness
of your thoughts
that are unsure
Outwit the alertness
of my heart
that is trembling

Open softly
the door of me
Translate this love
in all of your languages

I
Kurdish
I am watching the stars

Whisper nothing, even less
Shelter my eyes with your hands
Open your rose petal lips
drink the cream of my skin
I am in exile
Unable to eat or sleep, ecstatic
in shrouds
in ashes
on the shore of a continent
that carries your name

II
Arabic
The moon ascends

Seven years the moon rose
then fell as I waited
at seven gates
Pale as this night
My heart lived shut
like a pearl

Trampled by war
at the borders
of sunrise and sunset

Men were bees
whose wings carried honey
swarming to nest
before you

III
Turkish
I am listening to the Sea

It is you
that enters me
without words
without mercy
Sharp as a knife
The steel of your fingers
crushes my bones into stars
Your cries are my cries

I fly
on the breath of your soul
on the scent of your skin

Swear as I do
we are clear, we are
surrendering nothing
to all heaven and earth
Say-
you take
what is yours

IV
English

Constellations move
in your eyes, I pour
down your chest like soft rain
you shudder
under the fall of my fingertips
Columns of marble
Your thighs are veined with sapphire
My hands gather you
soldier, my king
you are here without words
or maps
at the mouth of the Nile
Your history is written
on the waves that dissolve
between my lips

You have slept in my blood
While I slept on a bed of fire

I am on the bridge to Damascus
I am beneath the Polar star
I am naked before Heaven
I am shameless, speechless, blind without limbs
in your arms

You call my name
I dissolve in a bed of tulips
Your hands pull out my life
You fill me with yours
I am ablaze
thirsting in a garden
that glistens with tears

You call my name
your tongue carries me water
I find you
above me
wordless
waiting
still as a storm
your heart exploding
inside me
 

Tight Shoulders
by Carol Sircoulomb

pain
tension
tight shoulders
no one to help
just a dream of your strong hands kneading me


see more of Carol's work at

http://sircoulombpoeticphotos.homestead.com./newindex.html.

Afterword

 

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

email Jim Bennett - jimbennett11@btinternet.com

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 February 2002 - look out for it in the in-tray

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