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CAUGHT IN THE NET CITN 101 - POETRY BY
JOE MASSINGHAM
Series Editor - Jim Bennett
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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
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http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm
and following the links for Caught in the Net.
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All European settlers here, it seems, are driven by the urge to lie in the sun and tan themselves. Elm leaves are no exception.
from; Autumn in New England by Joe Massingham |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
To see oursel’s
Mining Memories
Poem for a Courtesan
Tintern Abbey
Tablelands
Autumn in New Englland
Albert Ross
Aussie Man Dies
3 - PUBLICATION DETAILS
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Joe Massingham
Joe Massingham was born in the
Major employment has been as a Navy
officer, university student from first degree to PhD, tutor, lecturer and Master
of Wright College,
He has run his own writing and editing business but retired early because of cancer and heart problems and now spends time waiting to see medical practitioners, writing poetry and prose and smelling the roses.
His writing covers a wide range but he
has a particular interest in migrants’ experiences and views, especially
relating to resettlement in
He has had work published in
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2 - POETRY
To see oursel’s*
Introspection, I suspect, is
what we turn our mind to when we’re
in Death’s antechamber and can’t
find an old Reader’s Digest to
thumb through to read helpful hints on
how to live life to the fullest.
And although I’ve been in that place
once or twice, I’ve never looked at
or examined myself before.
Now, confronted by myself through
another’s eyes I am bemused.
I see a stranger, not myself,
even if some parts, like the nose,
seem familiar. The sparse hair,
the dewlap cheeks, hidden eyes are
not what I see from here inside
and though my memories are always
with me they mostly stand in the
shadows, waiting to be called, not
run and play in day’s clearest light,
open to any viewer’s sight.
Then there are those things I hold most
dear that are here not seen at all.
Do they really have no place in me
or is it that the artist doesn’t see
them waiting quiet in the shadows,
constant in attendance on my needs,
adjusting their lives that I may
do the same, to some extent, with mine
Mining memories.
It’s still dark o’clock
and fumbling fingers of recall
fossick through the rubble of remembrance
searching for stones of colour that might
polish up to give some value to yesterday.
But in the night light
textures tell more than colours
and I feel the happiness of other times
when we searched together for the tint
that might glint in each other’s heart.
Those mines are empty now
our picks and sieves abandoned.
You settled for an easier life where
you can choose the jewels you wear.
I kick green stones disconsolately.
Poem for a courtesan written on behalf of a fuel-selling
girl*
Your silk is black by choice,
black as the stone from Xiang-Xhou
that the foreigners put in the handle of their swords
when they came to buy earlier spinnings.
And mine? Mine is black from the peat I carry
From the Yangtze’s side
That you and yours may be warm in winter
and me and mine may just survive.
The coins your coolie tosses me
Buy rice and thin cabbage soup
To keep us going till Spring’s warmth
Heats the air and lifts the smoke to Heaven.
But still I would not change with you.
My love is real and true;
like peat and kindling we are warm together.
Our breath forms clouds that rise
whether Spring comes or not.
No emperor tosses coins to buy our pleasure and,
when we have finished and we lie together,
we are as one,
sleep dreamless sleep and, unlike the peat
and you,
our flame will burn again.
*The title is from a 7th
Century Chinese poem
Centuries of seduction,
suggestion rather than certainty,
sewn into
the unseen essential
cotton petticoatt and bodice.
The inviting and suggesting
sari and skirt are silk
sussurating, swishing,
cinnamon and scarlet,
richer ones inlaid with
threads of gold.
Sensuous, sinuous dancer,
hair raven black, shining, cascading
down her back,
eyes unfathomable,dark brilliant pools.
Toes and fingers decked with rings,
ears, nose and eyelids studded brilliantly.
She slithers, snakelike, to the sound
of tinkling bells and cymbals,
tambourines shaking in the background.
The scent of seduction,
invitation in the air
as she whirls and struts.
Strumming sitars setting
the pace, bangles betraying it,
moving to the rhythm of
Insistent, insidious invitation.
Only the beads of sweat
along her upper lip
belie the apparent ease
of her performance.
A sunshine spotlight
singles out the dancer
and suggests sustained applause
would be in order.
Tintern Abbey
Silent Cistercians shuffling in the shadows,
softly whispering orisons,
sentinels standing looking westward
out across the Wye
from land sold them by Henry Somerset,
approved and then denied by Henry Tudor.
Cassocks, surplices, soutanes,
Swishing, susurrating, rustling,
shuffling, scuffing sandals,
chanting chorus, simple men.
These ruins now stand testament,
the skeletons of men who kept their faith,
obeyed their king though they denied his claim
and ever after eschewed his name.
We stand listening to the silence of the outcome;
yet in the background can still be heard
the murmuring voices of honest monks at prayer.
You’re sure that as you stand and listen
an approving God is here.
And on this grey and gloomy afternoon
mist imitates the monks,
comes down the dormitory steps
to join brothers waiting in the choir
ready to sing evensong
if any bird will give them the note to start.
And those who’ve worked the fields
shake the water from their hair
hearing, in the pattering of the rain
and the sighing of the wind,
that peace is here with them;
God’s servants, simple men.
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TewkesburyAbbey
A lark’s voice calling,
a silver trumpet trilling, thrilling,
a trumpeter, triple tonguing,
lifting liquid silver to the ceiling,
passing stone deaf gargoyles in its flight
through the tongueless tower
out into
Then having offered itself to God
returns to give its benediction
to us visitors to this place,
chilling the spine, filling the heart,
making the kneeling knight start up
as if to greet his Lord,
lifting the soul,
so that we go out,
cleansed,
into the workaday world.
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Tablelands
In kitchens on the properties
stand pine or eucalypt, sturdy and square,
scrubbed daily to a soft silk surface.
In grander dining rooms, here and there,
red cedar stands, carved after Sheraton
or Adam, polished as red
as Empire once was on the maps.
And after dinner gentlemen converse
whilst they help themselves
from sparkling glass and polished box
set out on side tables made from claret ash.
In the towns the merchants
have desks of silky oak
at which they make their modest fortunes.
At weekends their families forgather
round the drop-leaf elm
to take part in that most old English of rituals,
Sunday lunch:
roast meat, and two veg, followed by
a custard covered pudding,
even on the hottest day.
In the city we buy our heritage,
paying usurious prices to a dealer
for a walnut, oak or other imported bargain,
or make do with
a skin put on to make things look respectable,
much as we put on our manners when we come to table.
Author’s note:
‘The Tablelands’ (properly the
of
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Autumn in
All European settlers here, it seems,
are driven by the urge to lie in the sun
and tan themselves. Elm leaves
are no exception.
Late in March, though not too late
for the sun to have some warmth,
they drift to the ground and lie there,
like folk at Bondi,
turning a delicate brown
(superior to the oak and maple
whose leaves burn different shades of red)
whilst waiting for melanoma,
hypothermia or exposure
to carry them off
and so make room for others.
Author’s note: The New England in
Albert Ross
An ancient mariner, scavenging for cigarette butts
in the litter left by ships that passed last night.
If he spots a group of likely birds
he’ll have a go at stopping one in three
but won’t be at all surprised if
the best he gets is a look that kills.
He’ll rummage on, trailing those
eating breakfast on the run,
hoping to swoop on krill,
discarded shreds of a Macca’s bun.
He looks an ungainly bundle
when he squats on some seawall
But then he stretches out
and looks almost majestic, spreading arms
until he looks a bit like a grey avenger
swooping down around the neck
of some unsuspecting shipmate.
Aussie Man Dies
He was always king of the keg back home
with a curled up lip and jeering command.
He stood at Gallipoli, not alone;
he was blind-eyed in
Samsonite suitcase stuffed with VB’s own.
Now a wreck in the desert laid he dreams,
legless in
A luggage label round his neck proclaims
his name, Kev Stone, from
“I’ve brought me trusty Esky, never fear,
things aren’t near half as bad as they may say.
Though the keg is empty, do not give up,
a fair few ales are in there, stashed away.”
In his dreams the Rabbitoh’s held the cup
whilst stretched out on Bondi beach he lay,
his despairing wife vainly waiting up.
(With a ‘dip of me lid’ to my old
mates Perce Shelley and Jack Milton.)
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3 - Publication Details
To see oursel’s
Mining Memories
Writing.ie
Ethel Webb Blundell Literary Awards, 2011
Commend
Poem for a Courtesan
Bruce Dawe National Poetry Award, 2003,
H.Commend
Tintern Abey
Salopian Poetry Sciety Mag, Spring 2011,
Published
Tablelands
Not previously published
Autumn in
Falling Star, 2011 (forthcoming),
Published
Albert Ross
Not previously published
Aussie Man Dies
Not previously published
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4 - 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
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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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