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CAUGHT IN THE NET 89 -  POETRY  BY
JIM MURDOCH

Series Editor - Jim Bennett
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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.
 

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He knows her room

and sometimes he

kneels outside the window

on the fire escape

and watches through a

crack in the curtain

or more often just listens.

 

from; Common Denominator by Jim Murdoch

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CONTENTS

1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
 

COMMON DENOMINATOR

TRUTHS

EXHUMING TRUTH

THE POWER OF LOVE

MOTHS

READER PLEASE SUPPLY MEANING

THE POETRY OF REGRETS

IS A RED WHEELBARROW EVER EMPTY?

THE WAR AND AFTER

STILL BIRTH

3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY

4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY:  JIM MURDOCH

 

JIM is a Scottish writer living just outside Glasgow. He has been writing poetry for over thirty years and his work has appeared regularly in small press magazines up and down the UK. Over the past four years he has moved online and started to promote his writing through his literary website. In his mid thirties Jim found the need to branch out and began writing novel, then, in his forties, he thought it might be a good idea to have a crack at a few short stories. To date he has published two novels, Living with the Truth and Stranger than Fiction and a collection of poetry spanning his entire career, This Is Not About What You Think.   Jim’s latest novel, Milligan and Murphy, will be available any day now.

 

For more about Jim visit the following websites:

http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/

http://www.jimmurdoch.co.uk/


 

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2 - POETRY 

 

 

 

COMMON DENOMINATOR

 

 

Every evening

Sweet William

sits on the wall

watching Stiletto

and the cars

creeping quietly

down the street.

 

He knows her room

and sometimes he

kneels outside the window

on the fire escape

and watches through a

crack in the curtain

or more often just listens.

 

The sounds he likes best

are like children sobbing

and he understands that.

 

 

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TRUTHS

 

 

They came yesterday

and unwittingly I let them in

after all, what had I to fear from friends ?

 

It must have been while I was sleeping

they made those deep deliberate cuts

into my past.

 

They were looking for malignant truths.

You can't live with them.

They have to come into the open.

 

I didn't even know what they'd done

till they showed me the ugly truth,

limp in a dish like a still-born.

 

"You've got to be cruel to be kind,"

they said.

They said lots of things.

 

But the wound never healed

and the truth ... it lay and rotted

like Adam's apple.

 

 

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EXHUMING TRUTH

 

 

It was there.

She knew it would be

if she dug deep enough.

But she seemed disappointed.

 

What did she expect to find?

Nothing smells very sweet

this far down.

 

 

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THE POWER OF LOVE

 

(For Jeanette)

 

 

Love is a straight line –

it gets right to the heart of things.

 

Love squared is expansive –

it covers a multitude of sins.

 

Love to the power of three is deep –

it takes time to explore.

 

Give me your hand

and don't be afraid.

 

 

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MOTHS

 

 

Every day I come and look

(every day I can)

at the poem in the window

 

to see if it's changed

(and it always has)

but it's never more than a poem.

 

Every day I'm drawn

(it's an act of faith)

but there are never any answers.

 

 

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READER PLEASE SUPPLY MEANING

 

 

Writers are all liars. We all are.

But at least they are honest liars.

 

They write down those necessary lies,

the kind that move men to leaps of faith

or excuse us when we fail to jump.

 

In the end it doesn't matter that

they let us down in the cruellest ways.

 

 

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THE POETRY OF REGRETS

 

 

Poems turn up out of the blue these days

like family

and usually when things are going badly.

 

Once they were with us, day in and day out

we lived with them

but never really appreciated them.

 

I guess that's what growing up's all about,

finding ourselves

with too many regrets and fewer answers.

 

Only wish I'd said more when I had the

words to say it.

but you don't turn family away. Not ever.

 

 

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IS A RED WHEELBARROW EVER EMPTY?

 

 

My doctor said I

needed to

breathe and drink lots of water.

 

Actually she

never said

anything about water.

 

My wife nags me to

drink water,

seven glasses every day.

 

My doctor says I

can't just breathe.

I have to pay attention.

 

Breathing in itself

means nothing;

I'm not to look for meaning.

 

I did hear the sounds

of silence

and I think one hand clapping

 

and a tree fall in

the forest

but I don't have the words to

 

explain them.

 

 

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THE WAR AND AFTER

 

 

You vanished in a second.

That was all it took.

I blinked and then

you were gone.

 

A bird landed where you'd been.

I shooed it away.

A man stopped to

eat his lunch.

 

I asked him: "Could you move, sir?"

Soon a construction

crew arrived to

erect a

 

monument but not to you.

A dog came along

and peed on it.

 

 

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STILL BIRTH

 

(for Emma)

 

 

Still, a breath away from life,

a heartbeat away from breath,

still my baby lies

 

her frozen hand

reaching out

to receive

 

the gift that was

no longer

mine to give.

 

Still, everything is still,

until I cry her cry and

shatter that stillness

 

forever.

 

 

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 3 - Publishing History

 

COMMON DENOMINATOR - First published in Sepia

TRUTHS - First published in AfterNoon

EXHUMING TRUTH - First published in This Is Not About What You Think

THE POWER OF LOVE - First published in This Is Not About What You Think

THE POETRY OF REGRETS - First published in This Is Not About What You Think

THE WAR AND AFTER - First published in Jasmin’s Heart

STILL BIRTH - First published in Salamander Cove

 

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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

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 -
http://www.poetrykit.org/