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CAUGHT IN THE NET 172 - POETRY BY MARTIN RIESER
Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit -
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|
your grinding beak and saucer eyes
in every way unique
boneless you have
squeezed through
the gaps in evolution
your skin pulses colour
for every mood:
from Cephlapod by Martin Rieser |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
Mary Anning
Icarus
In Raqqa
Golem
Paciderm
The Peacemaker
Robert Lowell
Cephlapod
Sir William Harvey examines a Witch
To the Wall |
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Martin Rieser
Martin Rieser is both a poet and visual artist. His interactive installations
based on his poetry have been shown around the world, including Understanding
Echo shown in Japan 2002, Hosts Bath Abbey 2006, Secret Door
Invideo Milan 2006, The Street RMIT Gallery Melbourne 2008/ISEA Belfast
2009, Secret Garden, Phoenix Square 2012/Taipei 2013 and RUR at
Glyndebourne in 2014 for REFRAME at the University of Sussex. He has developed
mobile artworks using interactive text and image for Leicester, London and
Athens and exhibited the Third Woman Interactive film in Vienna, Xian and
New York.. He runs the Stanza poetry group in Bristol.
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2 - POETRY
Mary Anning
Fossil hunter
They say I am the daughter of a lightning strike
which threw me into a new way of wonder.
The undercliff roared and rolled last night-
a fair dishing of rocks across the strand
and the Lias full of bones and shells.
I pray in chapel every Sunday for such a fall
for rain and wind to do the work
and the days in fret and mud to be worthwhile.
Poor Tray and I dug for hours and found
a long skull, which must surely sell.
The Bible is one truth, but not the only kind:
I know these bones will remake the world
breaking the old sureties with Deep Time.
I will send this one to Colonel Birch,
a kind gentleman, who has used me well.
Icarus
For Jacques Marie Charles Trolley Prévaux
Born April 2, 1888 Died August 19 1944
1919
What lives, drags itself
back to the ruined towns,
moves like trackless ants
over rubble and torn earth.
From the cockpit
I can see trenches and shatterings,
all the tiny
paraphernalia
of death.
I wind the camera.
The plane’s shadow bubbles
over the front’s pocked
and futile corridor.
1944
It was in the Marseille dazzle
when they came for us
dressed in stifling black.
I stared hard at the sun.
In Monluc there is no light
except the torturing electric spark ;
I climb through clouds of pain
to the blue silence.
If I could only go higher
I would see the curve
of this small planet
and the light of stars.
With the scent of burnt flesh,
of feathers, I am ready
now for the long
wingless fall into silence.
In Raqqa
For Ruqia Hassan
1985-2015
If we pay attention to the soldered sky
it is spliced to the earth by imaginary ladders.
No one has shown us any love, except the graveyards.
No one has shown any compassion, except the graveyards.
If we pay attention to the staggered roofs
the music of smoke writes itself randomly.
End this darkness, these random acts of dislocation:
crucifixions in the squares, whippings on the corners.
If we pay attention to the street, metal rains down,
fire rains down, rubble falls and the jets pass.
The walls are painted black,
blackness covers our heads,
even our hands are covered. Without dignity life is worthless.
If we pay attention to their words, they pierce like thorns,
their edicts hedge the city, our roses drop in the dust.
My soul is free but my body theirs to break as they will.
We shall not bend, but we will die tomorrow or today.
Golem
Zion
made a Golem
from
the river mud,
to
defend the tribe
breathed
the
words for God
into
its clammy ear
awakening the beast
inside
its icy heart.
Placed
an axe
in its
clayed hand
and
whispered
all the
words for death;
then
pushed it
from
the door.
The
thunder of its step
gave no
warning of intent.
…
Zion
led it safely home,
unwound
the magic from its brow,
reciting each word
as an
alphabet of truth.
Locked
its inert clay
within
strong walls:
ready
for service
in
these endless wars.
…
Onto
the road are thrown
the
scraps of those who died
under
the axe’s blinding swing:
a
bundle of red clothes
a
broken shoe
the
fragment of a bone.
Paciderm
consider the elephant
who
hears through its feet
frozen
and leaning
on
acoustic pads
seismic
waves tickling
his
inner ear
who
when in musht
senses
a female rumbling
beneath
the savannah
and
treks to far horizons
or
feels a roll of thunder
from
fifty miles
and
hurries towards
the
fall of rain
so if
an earthquake threatens
trust
the elephant’s early warning
leave
the building
The
Peacemaker
Samuel
Colt 1814-62
He
longed for perfection,
assembling mortality
in six
revolving chambers,
a
snouted heft of metal,
a
mechanism of precision,
jewelled beetle whirring death.
The
lovely simplicity
of
machine making machine:
in wars
was sole victor-
supplying both sides impudently;
yet
through prudence and accounting
amassed
fabulous wealth.
His
gift to nations–
creative destruction;
that
the law be met or broken,
that
boys retain or lose their lives;
and
that mothers might fathom
vast
new days of grief.
Robert
Lowell
On a
photo by Judith Aronson
His
hand is Heaney’s gannet,
hovering above the coffee cup
readying to dive for inspiration
into
that brew, for whatever
it
might snatch: fish
fowl or
demon.
I
always admired those lines
about
the Quaker remains
that
were so salty and sad,
but
here is a bright-eyed
wanderer, whose hair
was cut
for the event
but
still curves a poetic
nimbus
around his brow
as he
launches into voice
from
the sofa’s cliff.
Behind,
an indeterminate
monkey
king lies
in a
twist on the table
wrapped
in the dark
stories
of his mind.
Cephalopod
endowed
with brains beyond your size
alas
poor octopus
your
grinding beak and saucer eyes
in
every way unique
boneless you have squeezed
through
the
gaps in evolution
your
skin pulses colour
for
every mood:
in
Marmaris your spread
bleached tentacles
made
crucifixion
in
every restaurant
in
Skiathos you fled the probing
spears
on rolling curls
bled
epitaph lines
with
your ink’s dark swirls
when
with jeers they raised you
high
on
their triumphant tines.
Sir William Harvey examines a Witch
As the Heart is the beginning of Life,
The Sun of the Microcosm,
A familiar household-god
That does his duty to the whole body;
So is the Intellect
The Master of Man,
Guide of all the body’s actions
And conductor of our Souls.
I have examined the Woman in question,
Who seems to me as innocent
Of all the charges
As any Old Maid.
In truth, she did feed milk to her toad,
But upon its dissection
I found nothing remarkable
In the Amphibian.
Evidence was all I sought,
And no sign of the Fiend
Or other perversion was revealed;
Only the usual veins and sinews,
The Heart still pumping
Under my knife, blue and red:
As perfect an example
Of Circulation, as I have ever seen.
To the Wall
The Execution of Marshall Ney, 1815
The Luxembourg was never so green,
nor my heart so full.
I lost five horses at Waterloo,
where bullets spat, water on a skillet,
I held the bridge at Kovno
while they fell like forests
and swarms of grapeshot
came humming past.
Soon the barrels will level,
and ball breach coat and shirt
to find this heart; beating
in hundred-battle pride.
Steady steps from here to the wall:
birdsong all around,
the squad embarrassed,
shifting their feet, eyes to the ground.
This is how a Marshall of France should die:
with swallows swooping
and smoke drifting through;
raised head and clear eyes.
"Soldiers, when I give the command to fire,
fire straight at my heart.
Wait for the order.
It will be my last to you.”
In Raqqa
and Icarus are
published in the anthology of political verse
Write to be Counted .
Robert Lowell was runner-up in an ekphrasic poetry
competition by the Bristol Poetry Foundation and the RWA and has been
printed in Poetry Review.
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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