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CAUGHT IN THE NET 143 - POETRY BY ANNETTE
SKADE
Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit -
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 |
With a watercolour brush I attempt
the quality of light, ruffle contours
more fluid than any mountain range.
One imperfect shade bleeds into another,
colours stale as they dampen the page.
from; A map of my House... by Annette Skade |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
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GOD PARTICLE
A MAP OF MY HOUSE IN TERMS OF LIGHT
THIMBLERIG
THE BOAT TRAIN
GARDEN GEOMETRY
STAG
AIRCOACH
KNITTING A FATHER FROM NETTLES
MEDICI GIRL
VESPA |
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Annette Skade
Annette Skade is from Manchester, and moved to the Beara peninsula in Ireland in
1989.
Her first
collection
Thimblerig
was published following her receipt of the Cork Literary Review Manuscript prize
in 2012.
She has a degree in Ancient Greek and Philosophy from Liverpool University and
she has just completed an MA in Poetry Studies from Dublin City University,
where she read everything from Anne Carson to the York Mystery Plays, Elizabeth
Bishop to Basil Bunting.
Her poems have recently appeared in the SHOp poetry magazine, Abridged and the
Cork Literary Review. In 2014 her work was published in the When Women Waken
Power Issue, Crannog Summer Issue and the Poetry Bus Money Issue. Her
poems appear online at Poethead.org.
She won the Bailieborough/ Cara poetry competition in November 2013 and
the Poets meet Painters Competition in 2010 and was placed second in 2012 and
her work appears in the Poets Meet Painters anthologies. In 2014 she won
second prize in the Allingham Festival Poetry Competition, was Commended
in the Liquorice Fish “Lost Voices” Competition and was Highly Commended in the
Poetry Kit Summer Poetry Competition on the theme of “Film”.
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2 - POETRY
God Particle
Clear plastic Spirograph pieces
in a red cardboard box:
a watch mechanism.
I am a ten year old prime mover
determining the shape of the universe -
will it be perfect circle or ellipse?
I pin paper, an outer shape
to the board, choose a smaller cog
to run around it, tooth to outer tooth,
insert a pen through the dial
and begin a circular motion,
slow then picking up speed.
Clockwise, counter-clockwise I roll,
change colour, gears, track planets,
build an interlace of curves,
parabolas, spirals in a pattern
still unclear, glimpsed
through the music of the spheres.
A Map of my House in Terms of Light
Legend:
grey beige- barely enough light to read by
sand yellow- enough natural light to thread a needle
zinc yellow – sunlight casts shadow
pastel orange- light pools
deep orange - light drenches
A black propelling pencil
defines the external skin;
breaks in line give weight to spaces
made to box the force of sunshine.
I add interior walls to show
how light glides and glances,
how doors trade it for bought warmth,
how an open door matters.
With a watercolour brush I attempt
the quality of light, ruffle contours
more fluid than any mountain range.
One imperfect shade bleeds into another,
colours stale as they dampen the page.
To plot all changes
from dawn to dusk
and through each season,
I need many such maps,
an atlas of light.
My clock-shackled body
comes to feel the path;
scud of clouds, dapples on furniture,
the disorientation
of flicking on a light switch.
Thimblerig
Houses on green baize,
upside-down cups
at a fair, reveal nothing
but blank dints of windows.
Which holds the dark nut?
Can we hear it knock
against the sides as it spins,
see a bulge in the walls
signal to the flaying, inside,
of particular human scraps?
Or is it passed
from house to house:
a sleight of hand
which renders us
already too late as we tap.
The Boat Train
Snow is a poor Midas;
turns all to base metal,
trees to wire,
soil to iron filings.
A bulging sky pours a million grey globules:
we lucky few have made the boat train.
We hurtle down soothing steel.
Barges iced to canals,
ring-roads etched with skidmarks,
empty stations unreachable by road
are framed for us in a flick book.
Doors fling wide to wild strangers
shaking off flakes of outside.
Slowly they drip dramas:
mobile conversations of shops closing early,
how to get the children from school,
cross-talk over shopping bags,
stories of abandoned cars.
The sea is the colour of amalgam.
Two drinkers bend close and murmur the tale
of hill farmer brothers who dropped their key
as they slogged home last night.
This time is not now.
We are sackcloth and ashes,
starvelings in rags,
ravaged by dogs and plague.
We freeze to death in this flinty world.
Pray for the train and the rails under it,
pray for the traveller outside in all weathers,
weave spells against the cold.
The reflection of the woman in the Pullman seat opposite
stares back at me with a skin of grey mountain.
The stainless steel trolley stops beside us.
We wrap hands round our tea,
take in warmth like survivors.
Garden Geometry
I planted love-in-a-mist to fool the carrot fly;
find myself taken in
by the fuzz of unsteady green
lolling among strict lines of vegetables.
Foil satellite dishes of pink and titanium-blue
quiver on flexing stems,
crook sepal filaments at the sun:
an irresistible signal to pick.
On the kitchen table their green haloes crack,
charge little screws of colour
to hover on a net of spiny fractals:
more lightning strike than carrot top.
Stag
Erect, buffed by dusk,
he sniffs the outer ring
of streetlight: a roadblock.
I count prongs, gauge
how long to stand under rain,
to strip bark from oaks,
paw hoof into leaf mould,
scratch hide on tree trunks,
shed bone and rut:
how long to become forest.
Aircoach
Your eyes swim bright in a tinted pool of glass,
the bones of your face more solid somehow,
now I can make you out. Your teeth are pearls,
your mouth shapes silent words in the window.
You bundle your coat onto the rack,
stow bags, settle, twist towards the street,
I think of the daughters of that far land,
twined close, always in arms reach.
You frame a smile in the deepening dark,
tapered fingers slowly wiping air,
the airport shuttle makes its scheduled start,
shuts you behind a blind of glinting mirror.
Your hands make a veil for your eyes there,
you shield yourself from the desert glare.
Knitting a Father from Nettles
Scrape years of dirt
off the date, rip nettles
from the headstone.
Gather armfuls.
Pay no heed
to swollen knuckles,
red welts at the wrist.
Wrap stem after stem
around the needle,
fibrous strands of story,
shreds
of faded photos,
in – over –
under.
Stay silent.
Not one word
to pass your lips.
Echo his ghost,
rarest of visitors,
the slow shake of head
at the bottom of the bed.
Bind the waist
with a knitting belt
to pass a needle through.
Knit one–handed;
nursing the baby,
stirring the pan,
stacking the shopping.
Shake out the finished thing
to settle on the space
around a father:
a winding sheet
for a dinge
in the mattress.
Begin again.
Medici Girl
Beauty adorns virtue, my Father says.
To save the family, and me, from
the shame
of my disfigurement, he orders a corridor
to stretch from here
to Santa Annunziata.
I beg forgiveness from the Holy Mother
at a hidden
chink beside the altar.
Her beatific face is turned from me,
I am to
reflect upon her beauty.
My bedchamber floor maps out the world.
Every day I pace its length and breadth,
dip toes in oceans, trace the course of rivers,
trample the towers
of the powerful,
reach the very edge, the land of monsters,
half-made things,
deformed and magical.
I slide down the wall, squat in this place,
feel
light from the high window on my face.
Vespa
The
front is
aquiline,
handlebars well-trimmed,
it primps
preens,
jostles
for position
outside the
Red Moon Cafe.
Riders wear helmets
in hot pink to the counter, carry them like baskets,
filled with promises of safety. Heads on sleeves,
hearts in the engine, they straddle, switch and rev:
a frisson up
the spine of
the narrow
side street.
God Particle
A Map of my House in Terms of Light
Thimblerig
The Boat Train
Garden Geometry
Stag
Knitting a Father from Nettles
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4- Afterword
Email Poetry Kit -
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to tell us what you think.
We are looking for other poets to feature in
this series, and are open to submissions. Please send one poem and a short
bio to - info@poetrykit.org
Thank you for taking the time to read Caught in the Net. Our other magazine s
are Transparent Words ands Poetry Kit Magazine, which are webzines on the Poetry Kit site and this can be found at -
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