I remember it well...
Out of the oven: a
white-hot rock,
Like a Pompeii lava bomb,
Or dinosaur’s egg.
We marvelled at the
ingenuity,
And chewed it
from; Soda Bread in the Seventies by Helên Thomas
___________________________________________________________________________
CAUGHT IN THE NET 97 - POETRY BY
HELÊN THOMAS
Series Editor - Jim Bennett
___________________________________________________________________________
Introduction by Jim Bennett
Hello. Welcome to the next in the series of CITN featured poets. We will be looking at the work of a different poet in each edition and I hope it will help our readers to discover some new and exciting writing. This series is open to all to submit and I am now keen to read new work for this series.
You can join the CITN mailing list at
-
http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm
and following the links for Caught in the Net.
_________________________________________________________________
|
|
I remember it well... Out of the oven: a
white-hot rock, Like a Pompeii lava bomb, Or dinosaur’s egg. We marvelled at the
ingenuity, And chewed it
from; Soda Bread in the Seventies by Helên Thomas |
________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
Love Poem For My Disco Glitter Ball That I Bought In Kao San Road Bangkok For A
Snip
Free Market Forces
Soda Bread in the Seventies
On Being a White Square
Season To Taste
Do You Think She Killed Him?
the
culinary puffer fish as metaphor for my cutting words
Poetry for Children;
Scabby Knees
My Holiday
3 - AFTERWORD
___________________________________________________________________________
1 – BIOGRAPHY: Helên
Thomas
Helên Thomas is a Northwest UK based performance poet whose first taste of
poetic success came in 1985 when, aged 17, she was a prize-winner in 'She'
Magazine's National Poetry Competition with 'Ode To Bad Poetry'. In
October 2000 she won the Manchester Poetry Festival Slam. She
has performed at a range of venues including libraries, tents, a canal barge, an
ancient historical monument, lots of pubs and an inflatable peach.
Helên has organised events for Warrington’s Hot Wire Events and The Lymm
Festival. She was actively involved in Warrington Community Press, which
produced two publications, one of which was ‘The Hotwire Slam Anthology’. Her
poetry has appeared in numerous books, magazines and online and she has been
commisioned to write bespoke poetry on a number of occasions. She was
commissioned to write a ten-minute performance poem to commemorate five years of
The Lymm Festival, and has been on the festival's panel of judges for the annual
creative writing competition on three occasions.
In 2008, Helên's book of poetry for children, 'We Are Poets!' was published. Helên regularly performs her poems and delivers workshops in primary schools. She has just released a CD / download album which features some poems from the book, along with previously unpublished poems, many set to the music of her partner Owen. The album is available from www.helnthomas.bandcamp.com
For
more information please visit:
www.helendthomas.co.uk
____________________________________________________________
2 - POETRY
Love Poem For My Disco
Glitter Ball That I Bought In Kao San Road Bangkok For A Snip
My
glitter ball sees all
with its flies’ eyes
It
never cries
or
sheds a tear
It
does not drink beer
despite spinning around a lot at parties
It's not a drunkard
or
a tarty
thing.
Its relatives I've seen on 'Come Dancing'
though it doesn't much go in for romancing
It's reflective and quiet and has moody swings
but we never argue about anything
It's at its best when the sun's at an angle
bouncing beams off the walls
making spangles
of
globing orb strobing square snaps of light
It never studies but my
ball's very bright
clad in a multi faced
mirrored mosaic
juggling daylight as I
awake
launching dawn lasers
around multi hued
this revolver shoots
bullets of sheer pulchritude
It's a piece of suspended animation
broken reflections in rotation
and I ask,
"Would you rather be flat on a wall
in
a flat, on a wall, Ball?"
And with its smile
shaming sheen
It gives no reply
enigmatic as ever
I
suspect
that it's shy.
Link
____________________________________
Free Market Forces
Buy that! Want this? What’s that? Want it? Go on, you need it. You’re worth it. Why not? This month’s must have. You can’t be seen without it. What, not got one? God! You’re worthless. Nobody loves you. Nobody wants you. Get it? Got that? What if you dropped that? What if you break it? Better buy a warranty. Better get a spare. Be prepared. Buy some extra bits. Now you need an add on. Come on! Better get a move on. Oops, now it’s obsolete. Better get an upgrade. Yours is old. You're out of mode. Better get the new mold. Remodelled, repriced, re-sold. What’s that? Wrong colour? Got scratched. Take it back. Better get a better one. But hang on! That cost a few bob. What if you get robbed? Better buy insurance. Better fix a fence. Get a gate. Get alarmed. Get armed. Join the neighbourhood. Watch. Buy a better watch. Better than your neighbour: Mrs. Jones. She’s so chic. Collagen and cheek bones. Fixed loans. Sticks and stones. You’re going to die alone. Better buy a mobile phone, an i-pod and a Rolex. I bet you don’t get much sex. Work out where’s your six pack? Join a gym or get pissed? Watch your weight. Lose don't gain. Mind the gap. Take the train. Watch yourself. Avoid a sprain. Break your wrist. Here’s the twist. Get a lawyer. Be a victim. Get a counsellor. Get neurosis, necrotosis. Get a second diagnosis. Open wide. Got halitosis? Better buy this. Gives you fresh breath. Butter wouldn’t melt. Yes! I beat the breath test. Buy big butts and bouncing breasts. Soft touch? That’s the acid test. Bigger, better, faster. More! Get a gun. Buy a war. Build a wall. Build a barrier. Buy a harrier jet. Get a contract. Make a killing. Market forces. We’re all willing. Free to pay. Never, never. What you say? What’s the cost? Just one dollar. Every day. Bargain.
['Free Market Forces' was published in 2007 in 'This Poem is Sponsored By' - Corporate Watch's 10th Anniversary Anthology.]
In the days before chest freezers,
And old Doctor Atkins,
We had power cuts and bread
strikes;
Panic buying in the Co-Op.
But Mum stayed strong,
When we ran out of bread,
She baked her own,
With soda instead
Of yeast.
I remember it well...
Out of the oven: a white-hot rock,
Like a Pompeii lava bomb,
Or dinosaur’s egg.
We marvelled at the ingenuity,
And chewed it
All the way through ‘Basil Brush.’
She never made it again.
Not long after that,
They invented ‘Pot Noodle’.
['Soda Bread in
the Seventies' was published in the anthology 'Taste', Clan-U Press 2006]
I'm a crisp linen tabel cloth
lovingly laundered,
A communion wafer that’s strangely
four cornered,
I’m a canvas primed for a
colourful brush,
Or a fresh fall of snow before
treading to slush,
For industrious Inuit I am a
brick,
I’m a glue-crafting child’s
chiselled Pritt Stick,
I’m a slippery, hard slab of heart
stopping lard,
Or a mini, hotel fridge cooling
the bar,
I’m a wedding cake, frosted, its
details awaiting,
I’m a Christmas card ice-rink
ready for skating,
Perhaps I’m a sugar lump plopped
into tea,
Or an empty price tag on something
that’s free,
I’m a synthetic moon for mass
manufacture,
A monologue’s script improvised by
an actor,
I’m a homemade cube of peppermint
cream,
The record of last night’s
unrecalled dream,
I’m next year’s photograph album’s
first page,
I’m an old lady’s age.
I’m a gallon of milk in a
transparent tank,
An ungrateful person’s letter of
thanks,
I’m a naked calendar lacking a
date,
I’m the nouvelle cuisine emperor’s
new plate,
I’m an anorexic’s favourite menu,
The last man on earth’s party
venue,
A four walled tunnel’s end that’s
in sight,
Might be, maybe, a square of
light.
By Helên Thomas (Published in 'The
Ugly Tree' Poetry 'zine issue 19 and also in 'Best of Manchester Poets',
published by Puppywolf, 2010)
Youtube link (audio)
http://youtu.be/WqT2P5MVWp8
In spring I
simmered Easter bunny stew,
Beneath its skin:
dumplings of myxoma,
For caviar of lambs’ eyes and of ewe,
Ram-raided the carrion crows’
larder,
Fried bulbs of daffodils and bells
of blue,
Their shoots adorned pasta
primavera,
For cappuccino frothed spit of
cuckoo,
With jam tart wounds: tacky red
stigmata,
For drastic weight loss, I
prepared for you,
My special: tagliatelle toxocara,
And plastic-surgeons’ pinky
residue:
Liposuction taramasalata.
The outcome was not what I had
contrived,
You gorged yourself, yet somehow
you survived.
In summer,
kernels of apricot ground,
And marzipanned
cake fit for a new bride,
Then digitalis ‘vine leaves’ wrapped round
A mulch of garden molluscs, that
died,
From slug pellets, or cider slow
drowned.
For black peppercorns I utilised,
Laburnum and lupin secrets
I found.
Dishevelled salad I tossed, which
comprised
Of rhubarb's dark green to keep
your sleep sound,
Before which, nettle stings I
stitched inside
Your dental floss; then I urged
homeward bound
To your mouth, African bees'
suicide.
Come breakfast all I could heave
was a sigh,
For all my efforts you deigned not
to die.
In autumn: sundried, road-kill
casserole,
Cow-bar culled, magpie inspected,
pecked,
Blood marinated potage of pothole,
Maggot-riced, rock salted and flat
packed,
Morsels tweezer-peeled from
tarmac’s clefts,
With sulphur tufts and rare game
braised, I served
A spill of tongues with juicy
marrow cracked,
Then Granny Smith’s most vile
windfall dessert:
A boozy, worm-holed sludge of
apples bruised,
For raisins: drunk wasps and blue
bloated flies,
With nutty gravel crumble, clay
clods baked;
Poured septic sauce called
‘custard’ on the side.
Three portions later, to my sad
surprise,
My favours failed to bring forth
your demise.
Dead winter saw sorbet of yellow
snow,
And warm umbles spice-mulled in
caribou,
With goblets steam full of festive
Merlot,
Spread giblet fois gras from geese
with bird flu
For nibbles: old starving
snowmen’s noses
Made carrot soup; and dubious
fondue
Tainted taste buds with
tuberculosis,
From gobbets of phlegm hacked into
tissue,
I sauced for pasta evergreen
pesto,
Of nasal descent and I laughed
when you
Guessed, “Hmm, truffle oil?” You
hadn’t noticed,
When you’re tucking in, that I
never do.
Then as Christmas re-lit our
attraction...
You died from allergic nut
reaction.
Link to audio:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_1447473
[Published in
'The Ugly Tree' Poetry 'zine issue 19]
Do You Think
She Killed Him?
Sunday: summer’s newly wed
innocents,
Urban garden, with cuttings,
bedding plants,
Task: to assemble a raw, yellow
fence,
To the buzz of traffic, in the
distance
Bleak
beneath spilt ink school uniform skies
the persistent
sizzle of thunder flies
sealed in a city, all breeze
paralysed
a dead afternoon is hung out to
dry...
Her memories: ominous,
creeping blue, stained
mending a fence, a day
spent, mundane
where spiky punk green
grass, rails against grey
of an egg-box town, on a
normal day...
Sit-com old neighbour with beige
cup of tea
helpful, in slippers and baggy
cardie...
“Pass the hammer Ben!” is Frank’s
final ask
a
throaty rude suck; a life draining rasp
sounds from his mouth like an
emptying bath
plump tongue: a glistening alien,
vast
into his throat, autonomous,
sliding
“Come on
Frank!” They try to rouse him...
..but nothing...
a tragic, practical joke,
near banal
nightmares ambushed, Franks
lies there still
he’s a small doll held in
her sometimes dreams
lullabies drift him to
sleep in her arms...
She recalls work first aid course
simple rules
There’s something about the
tongue; they take turns
saliva sticks lips, like envelope
gum,
lolling in gaps and failed
airways, his tongue
a slippy grotesque; now she grabs
his jaw,
groping for space into which
breath can fall...
Asleep she conjures a
dazzling fraud,
elbow deep, she’s hauling
yard upon yard
From Frank’s dead throat
glittered seaweed stinking,
strings of sausages, fake
flowers, bunting,
a grande finale out of
Frank’s gullet:
six
white doves and a pink fluffy rabbit
He
stands, to applause, gasps, and elation,
Hands held they bow to the
crowd’s ovation.
The paramedics arrive; she
observes
Like telly, she’s sure they’ll
jolt him alive...
With opiate infused, warm
milky drink,
She
tucks him in bed, and kisses his cheek.
“There now, you’ll feel
better in the morning.”
the culinary
puffer fish as metaphor
for my cutting words
The Japanese word
‘sushi’ means ‘it is sour’
sometimes it’s lethal
blowfish or puffer
by another name fugu
often is fatal
prepare for repast
take out prandial peril
tetrodotoxin
deadly delicious
clean cuts render edible
go gall bladder, guts
bile free and spineless
sound bites edited; souped up
vitriol punctured
unsayable truths
filleted for consumption
in palatable portions
raw cyanide, sliced,
diced, redesigned, redefined
‘that’s nice’, served with rice
Published online:
http://poetrykite.blogspot.com/2006/11/heln-thomas.html
Link to audio:http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2150256
CHILDREN'S POETRY
At weekends, on holidays, in all sorts of weather,
With swimsuits and wellies we go to the beach,
With buckets of upside-down sand we build castles,
And dig moats around them that fill up with sea.
We gather dry starfish as brittle as biscuits,
Driftwood sandpapered and washed by the waves;
Pebbles, glass smooth, shaped by years in the ocean,
We sift through the flotsam for shells in shy coves.
We ponder the rock pools and wonder of mermaids,
Tell tall tales of jellyfish stings and jump clear,
Dare to touch seaweed and dead crabs, so stinky,
Jabbing and jousting a snapped craggy claw.
As pirates swashbuckling, we plunder dune islands,
Tumbling down gullies of hot windblown sand.
Playing cool cowboys and super Sioux Indians,
We slay mutant monsters until the day’s end.
Back by the bay, the tide’s turning, waves breaking,
Invading the shoreline, the swell of the sea
Floods moats; our fortress defences fall crumbling,
Collapsing sandcastles that sweep clean away.
By Helên Thomas (From ‘We Are Poets’ Flapjack Press 2008)
Also published online at
www.nthposition.com
Link to audio:http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2081076
_____________________________________
Scabby
Knees
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Can I pick them, can I please?
They’re so itchy, brown and scratchy,
Crusty, flaky and quite nasty,
Like burnt pastry on a pasty,
If I pick them Mum might catch me.
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Can I pick them, can I please?
Can I scratch them, can I pick them?
Can I pull bits off and flick them?
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
I got them falling from the trees,
Onto the hard ground with a thud,
Playing games of Robin Hood.
My knees would be scab free they would,
if I’d fallen in the mud!
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Can I pick them, can I please?
Can I scratch them, can I pick them?
Can I pull bits off and flick them?
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Look like they’ve got a bad
disease,
Crispy coated with dried blood,
Underneath there’s gunky crud,
I would ban them if I could,
Scabby knees are just no good.
By Helên Thomas (From ‘We Are Poets’ Flapjack Press 2008)
Link to audio:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_4595702
____________________________________________
My Holiday
My holiday looks like an old tin can:
Rusty old, dusty, fusty, musty caravan.
My holiday looks like a giant belched the sky,
Frightening the sunshine, making trees cry.
My holiday looks like a bag of soggy chips
That’s fallen in the bucket that doesn’t catch the drips.
My holiday sounds like pelting hail stones,
The chattering of teeth, a chorus full of groans.
My holiday sounds like a car that feels unwell
Clanking to a standstill like a dying carousel.
My holiday sounds like squabbling grans,
And the pained peeling ‘ouch’ of overdone sun tans.
My holiday feels like a greasy deck of cards,
That slimes on your fingers like slugs in lard.
My holiday feels like scratchy pointy rocks,
Or water in wellies seeping through socks.
My holiday feels like nettle stings on feet,
And the pink bumpy dot to dot of prickly heat.
My holiday tastes like sweaty sunscreen trickles,
Sour blackberries plucked from under bramble prickles,
My holiday tastes like chips beside the sea,
Campfire smoke, and hot sweet cups of tea .
My holiday tastes like ice cream and candy floss,
Crisps and sandwich crumbs swigged from bottles of pop.
My holiday smells like sea air surfing the tide,
And funfair hotdogs on the pier with onions fried.
My holiday smells like a novelty steam train,
Or walks at dusk through cow fields after rain.
My holiday smells like molten motorway tarmac,
And forgotton mouldy butty sludge in my back pack...
______________________________________________
3- Afterword
Email Poetry Kit -
info@poetrykit.org - if you would like
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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