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FROM LIVERPOOL - EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2008

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CAUGHT IN THE NET -  FEATURED WORKSHOP  -  PK POETRY LIST
Series Editor - Jim Bennett
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Introduction by Jim Bennett

Hello.  Welcome to CITN 35. Our publishers series was sent out by email and due to copyright restrictions it has been decided not to post further copies on our website.  However you will be able to enjoy our new series which will be poetry produced from on line or live workshops, groups or communities of poets.  If you belong to a workshop or other type of group and would like to put your group forward for our feature please write to me at
info@poetrykit.org
 
The first group is Poetry Kit's own online workshop, PK POETRY LIST.  The PK List was started in 1998 and runs alongside THE POETRY KIT website which has become one of the worlds leading poetry information sites.   The PK List has also been successful in generating a community of poets who produce excellent poetry and which enables them to develop their skills and hone their poetry in a supportive and friendly atmosphere.   The PK List was started by Ted Slade, who died in 2004, since then I have managed the list with John Howard and Sherry Pasquarello.

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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PK POETRY LIST

 

An online poetry discussion and critique workshop

with members from around the world.  Members post

their poetry to a central email address via email which

is then forwarded to everyone on the list who are free to

respond.   The list is very active and the comments

authoritive.  The atmosphere is friendly and supportive.

PK List website can be seen at;  

http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm


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CONTENTS

1 - COMMENTARY BY JIM BENNETT  
2 - POETRY

 

           JAMES BELL

           JIM BENNETT

           GARY BLANKENSHIP

           BOB COOPER

           WAIATA DAWN DAVIES

           SALLY JAMES

           JAZZ

           PHILIP JOHNSON

           LOUISE JONES

           CATHERINE KANAAN

           ANGELA KEATON

           GRANT MCLEMAN

           STUART NUNN

           SHERRY PASQUARELLO

           BARBARA PHILLIPS

           ROSEMARY QUINN

           DAM ROBINSON

           ARTHUR W SEELEY 

           CAROL REED SIRCOULOMB

           TAMMARA OR SLILIAT

           ELAINE WALKER 


3 - AFTERWORD
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1 - COMMENTARY:

In 1998 PK Poetry List was one of the first online communities and although it went through several incarnations as we changed list-servers before finally settling with JISC, the UK Academic server, it has on the whole been a story of development and growth.  Along the way there have been some highlights and some terrible losses.  There have also been the poetry projects which for me stand out as beacons of what can be achieved on the internet.   You can see some of the completed projects at http://www.poetrykit.org/pkp/index.htm .

For me the most important aspect of the PK List is the way in which you can post a poem and soon get feedback from informed and helpful poets from around the world.   We have members in most part of the world and although for convenience all list posts are in English, we welcome new members of all levels of experience and ability are we are willing to embrace change.   It is often said that one of the outstanding qualities of the PK List is the friendly and supportive atmosphere, where everyone is made welcome.  We do have some rules but they are just common sense protocols to avoid unnecessary conflict and providing our good will is not abused our door is open to everyone.

The selection of poets and poetry here is just a representative sample of the poets and standard of poetry that regularly appear on the List which is a very active and vibrant online community.

For me two exciting projects come to a head in 2007. The first is the first international meeting of PK members, and this will take place in Liverpool in July.   The second is the production of a CD of members recordings.  Both of these are firsts for us. If you would like further information about either of these please email - info@poetrykit.org

  - Jim Bennett
 

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JAMES BELL

 
ON THE LOCAL TRAIN TO KUMERO

Settled at last in a window seat
I watch as Karuisawa slides away.
The window view becomes
paddy field and foothills of gingko,
foliage that clothes the furthest reaches
of Mount Asama’s great bulk.
Today its craters puff out stray whiffs
of smoke, continued suggestion that
greater power sleeps within
its black volcanic rock.

On the seats alongside us
some Japanese ladies cannot contain
their mirth any longer; flap their fans
at the sight of a gaijin with a beard
and wearing a Panama hat
on the local train to Kumero;
a town that does not exist
in official guides, or on tourist maps.

The ladies would flap their fans harder
if they knew I’d slept last night
in comfort, on futon and tatami.
The ladies mirthful fans would
reach a frenzy if they also knew
I’d made this trip before, a few days ago,
when I ate miso soup and two plates
of yaki soba at a favoured restaurant
and bought my Panama hat
at a men’s outfitters in Kumero.

 

James Bell is a long term member of PK list forum, a featured poet on the List website, published in Transparent Words and other e-zines. A chapbook forthcoming in 2008 provisonally called "Poems From The Picture House". Lots of publication in small press in Uk and USA 

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JIM BENNETT

 

as cool as the sound of jazz

 

it’s late - gig over - I should be on my way home

I suppose I can convince myself that I am

but the roads are mysterious and the night air

is as cool as the sound of jazz

drifting from a basement club in Basin Street

the car takes me down roads to see where they go

some place I know but different

shadows like a sheet

change familiar shapes into strangers

ghosts of friends

here the sound is the rhythm of tyres

clipping on the edge of concrete road slabs

another time it will be the slap slap slap of windshield wiper

and another the distant sound Dave Brubeck

on the CD player

volume turned down low

and maybe some words will come and I can speak them like a song

to the slap slap slap slap slap slap slap of the tyres

or maybe not

but it must be time to find some familiar place

time to find my way home

out of the seductive never ending streets

away from the music

away from the cool air

away from the comfort of night

back to the room where the sound is imprisoned by walls

swallowed by carpets and curtains

back to the place where tomorrow

demands to be organised

back to the place where darkness is trapped

and night holds its secrets behind a closed door

where dreams wait

but just for now the road is empty

yellow street lamp lit

traffic lights all on green

the car window open brings in the scent of early autumn

and for now just for now

life is as cool as the sound of jazz



Jim Bennett was born in Liverpool in the UK and continues to live nearby.    Jim is the owner and editor of The Poetry Kit website and magazines and he is widely published.

 

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GARY BLANKENSHIP

 

 

Poetic States XL – Colorado

 

Litter and Lice

 

Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.

-- Colonel John Chivington, leader of the volunteers

who attacked the Cheyenne’s Sand Creek camp

 

the old women, neške'e,

toothless, barren, are dead

 

their gray hair lies in the campfires

like last year’s leaves lie beneath birch

 

the old women are dead

 

the young women, he'eo'o

brides, mothers, are dead

 

their scarred bodies lie in the teepees

like soiled rags in a trader’s wagon

 

the young women are dead

 

the children, ka'êškoneho,

babies, grandbabies, are dead

 

their broken bodies trampled under hoofs

like America’s flag in the Colorado mud

 

the children are dead

 

the old men, ma'hahkêseho,

elders, grandfathers, are dead

 

their blood floats in the creek

like sand in the stream’s floods

 

the old men are dead

 

the nits, the lice, hestaemo, are dead,

the red willow downed,

the rabbit skinned

 

justice, humanity, is dead,

Black Kettle’s peace, nanomonestôtse, is dead

 

 

 

Gary Blankenship is a retired federal manager who dabbles in poetry and publishing.  He is CEO of Santiam Publishing and published the online journal, MindFire Renewed and its companion, FireWeed, both at www.mindfirerenew.com.  Gary has been widely published on the web and in a variety of paper publications in the States and abroad.  His day is divided between the cat, poetry forums, and chores.  He published a volume of poetry based on Wang Wei's River Wang poems, A River Transformed, available at http://people.lulu.com/users/index.php?fHomepage=108254.  He has two chapbooks out of print – Autumn Reflections and The Garbage Collection – and for Poetry Super Highway produced a chapbook based on the words of George Orwell and George W Bush, By George.  Gary moderates at Wild Poetry forum and for Blueline’s Poem a Day forum. His blog is at http://garydawg.blogspot.com/

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BOB COOPER


The Day Frankie Nearly Died


It's six in the evening, the streetlights coming on,
though the Cathedral clock struck three minutes ago,
and I've already been to The City Vaults,
had a Tetley's, bought 20 Silk Cut,
then glanced in at The Blackie Boy,
where Tommy behind the bar said he hadn't seen you,
and there's Frankie near The Imperial,
pissed as usual, lighting a roll-up and trying to sing,
but he doesn't see me so that was OK

while the Marxism Today guy crosses over again -
the old one with the pony-tail and tartan D.M.'s
who I'd try to ignore outside The Beehive
until he mentioned oppression and I'd got onto Stalin,
though he hadn't heard of Akhmatova or Mandlestam,
and he'd interrupted, said poetry was *unproductive*,
but, still in full flow, I'd switched to the Prague Spring,
flowers in the gun-barrels of tanks, then Jan Palach -
while Frankie sings on, *to brighten up even your darkest night* -
and I was reading Baudelaire when Palach curled up in flames,
*Les Fleurs Du Ma*l for the first time, and a woman's hair
as rich as tobacco that I'd loved to have smoked, inhaled -
and now hearing again that hard-left tone as Frankie relights his tab,
holds his bottle like a microphone and continues to croon,
*You just call out my name .* while the finger-wagging starts
and Frankie shouts over to me as the shoving begins

when this police car pulls up and they get out,
pull on their caps, then stand each side of Frankie -
and I'm sure they're going to lift him - but this Socialist guy
gets hold of the Safeway Cognac, steps to one side,
turns his back, stuffs a hanky in the top,
tips it, lights it - though no-one else notices -
then throws it at the car, and it doesn't explode
until Frankie falls over - or is he pushed -
then everything flares, purple blossoming light

and I see you over the road, running to them,
wrapping your coat round Frankie's hair,
shouting something so loud at the night
and our faces, like the Vltava, frozen over.



This poem first published in: Pinnochio's Long Neb, Smith Doorstop, 2000

Bob Cooper has won 5 pamphlet competitions in 6 years. His full collection,  All We Know Is All We See, is available from Arrowhead Press:
http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/ Although this poem is written about Newcastle upon Tyne he now lives on Tees-side.

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 Waiata Dawn Davies

 

WALKER GALLERY

 

 

Not the nineteenth century’s acres

of pre camera realism and

romantic hypocrisy.

 

Not the meticulous despair

of poor Adrian Wisznewski

showing an uncaring world

what cameras might

eventually achieve..

 

Not the primordial vomit

Of  Frank Avery Wilson and

certainly not Lowry’s

industrial bleakscape.

 

But this one

cheerful as a greeting card

simple as a child’s question.

The artist had fun with

shapes and shades and text

then let us share the joke.

 

 Waiata Dawn Davies is a retired teacher living at the mouth of the Waitaki River in Otago, New Zealand. She has published two collections of poetry and had several short stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand and the BBC.

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SALLY JAMES

Mapped out

This is the map, the palm of your hand.
Here is your house, the school and the fields
were you played. Below the third finger
of your left hand, I see the church
where you never married.

At the base of your thumb, dirt
is ingrained. This is the mine, the place
where your father worked. It is buried
deep beneath your skin. This is why your
blood is more black than red and the sacs
of your lungs are filled with coal dust.

Your breath is the smoke of winter
and your eyes have the sparkle of life.
You bring light like the sun and shine
brighter than the full moon on a frosty night.
Your halo is the colour of rainbows.
Long ago your heart burned with love.
The embers are still there, glowing.

 



Sally James;  I am a widow with four children, lots of grandchildren and two dogs. I live   in Lancashire and have been writing poetry for a long time. Some of my
poetry has been published in small press and eline magazines and read on local radio. I have an MA in Creative writing.

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JAZZ

 

Shattering Images

 

Mother leans at the kitchen sink

sleeves rolled up to her elbows

she washes, does her Sunday baking

she is singing

 

the safe aroma

of cabbage and mushy peas

wafts through the house

 

Father sneaks up

to wrap her in his love

he sings with her

 

albeit the Sabbath

the rest of the household

polish, dust and clean

to the sound of bubbling pots

and love birds

 

now mother forgets

what she should have remembered on Sunday

and today she remembers

what she is best forgetting

 

yesterday she asked

"am I going senile?"

today she asks

"am I going senile, did I ask you that yesterday?"

 

tomorrow she will forget

what she asked today

tomorrow

she will forget

yesterday's images

 

 

 

Jazz - Born and bred in the North West of England, started writing poetry as a child having written a poem for my Aunty Rita about a snowman.  She thought it was wonderful and I thought I was a real poet!  Sadly there is no copy of it anywhere so I can't tell whether I've improved or not since the age of 7.   I'm now a portfoilio worker having hundreds of part time jobs, life is hectic and that's just how I like it - but it does mean having to squeeze words and poems out of the nooks and crannies of life - now there's another poem.
 

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PHILIP JOHNSON

(3)
daft as a brush dog rough me
 
 
have taken out the ings
in as much as need
 
and very much doubt I’d ever of met a gerund (knowingly)
 
without the workshop here
the pk list
 
the c and c offered
 
also I enjoy the intercourse with many partners
 
not a single expectation
of a ring
 
 (2)
negg
 
how to explode a negg
 
leave it in the pan and let the water boil a way
while scribble
 
odd lines for a poem
 
wait
 
wither the train of thought
can you hear it?
  
(1)

whoops
 
the best poetry comes in the white heat of distraction
like when shards of egg shell have stuck in the ceiling
 
on all four walls
 
clung to washed ing draped over the clothes horse
mid the yellow haze of yolk
 
blast it!

 

Philip Johnson - Diagnosed with Crohn's Disease 1982. Fortunately, though I have had 2 Resection Operations - April 82 and again April 2006 - I have mostly enjoyed long periods of good healthy remission.    Presently employed as a Senior Care assistant come Care Team Leader; member of the Board of Directors at the Princess Royal Trust Cheshire Carers Centre since 1995; Northwich Town Council member since co-option January 1994.   For me the spark of inspiration can come from anywhere at any hour - from people watching to the things I hear or read or even in the middle of the night (events must mull in my subconscious before outpouring).   By far my best work is written spontaneously.  

Achievements to date:
Hard copy published by: Poetry Now, Anchor Poets, North West Disabled Writers Group, Das Alchemy, The Ugly Tree; Poetry Scotland, Mid Cheshire Writers Group, Cheshire Carers Centre Newsletter, National Assc for Colitis & Crohn's Disease newsletters, local, regional and a national newspaper.
Electronic Formats: Write Away, Caught In The Net, The Red Pencil, and The Writer's Hood, Transparent Words; Caught In The Net
Guest Editor of Transparent Words "Special Edition" December 2006 and, presently, compiling sound files towards production of a compact disk on behalf of The Poetry Kit List giving opportunity for as many of our member’s voices as possible to be heard.
 

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LOUISE JONES

 

the pansy

 

the pansy has a yelow flower
bright in the sun
below that short leaves
verigated veins and a thin
stalk
 
there isn't much of it
just growing like a weed
in the corner of the yard
but right now it is
the most beutiful thing
I have ever seen
  

 

Louise has only felt confident to show her poetry to people in the past few months.  She says that since joining the PK List she has been given the encouragement to write and improve that she has never had before.  

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CATHERINE KANAAN

 

A Connecticut Yankee in Provence

 

You waited patiently enough

as I wandered like a nomad through the world

with thought of you unborn,

until the bright blue day, I happened

upon you in my garden, irrupted as you call it,

burst open my carefully sewn seams

spilling untidiness into your neat furrows.

 

I came uninvited

into your  sharp nature of grey rock,

wild box and lavender.

You seduced me with the scent

of thyme and pine trees.

Your bottled mushrooms and the  smell

of tomato plants in your garden

enslaved me.

 

The sun is at your back,

the mistral hurls itself day after day

sanding the olive trees

to glittering  blue-grey flags,

and I, coming from a tamer place

but maybe with wilder thoughts,

breathe it all in.

 

In your small village

we are one of the great mysteries,

a gift sitting next to each midday plate

ready to unwrap, solemnly gaze upon,

and dissect.

 

And we  sit equally bemused

eating olives,

pondering spat out pits.

You ask me to stay for the vendenge

instead of scurrying away early.

You tell me that the grapes

have, as you put it,

a lovely “aspect”.

So I stay.

Now I separate carefully the word

back breaking into tightly packed bunches

of grapes on the vine.

 

I bend over your field of potatoes,

I pick your olives, hour after hour

my fingers slowly numbing.

Your mother passes by,

looks at me, reminds me

what I turned my back on,

la belle vie, shakes her head,

she also has a gift at her midday plate.

 

I look at your hands,

the callouses are good

for scratching  my back,

your face burnt timeless, and

know that you would die

if I ever took you from your table

and your laboured earth.

 

 

Catherine Kanaan is an American who lives between England and France.  She divides her her time between poetry, music, gardening and 
Maurice, not to mention three children and two grandkids.

 

 

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ANGELA KEATON

 

dialectic of implications

 

Extracts from a cranial conversation at Borders Bookshop, Cheshire, UK, while under the stimulus of drugs.

 

Ihab Hassan: the time has come to theorize postmodernism.

Artaud: a body without organs.

Ziolkowski: (it) has more to in common with contemporary music and art than with the poetry of the past.

Lyotard: A writer is in the position of a philosopher.

Foucault: Give them a temporary appearance - make mine an Earl Grey, long with milk

Gossman: Not immediately perceptible.

 

Portoghesi: Theses have deep roots in the present human condition.

Eagleton; An authentically political art.

 

Wolfe: Has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of

 

wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much – weak with lemon

 

 please.

 

Van Eyck; (man) has neither increased nor decreased during that time.

Portoghesi: The ironic use of quotation and the figurative use of the archaeological artefact are discoveries of the twenties – where’s my espresso, I said with two shots.

Stern: One of the oldest metaphors.

 

Angela Keaton.

I live in Hoylake UK. This is a small coastal town on the Wirral Peninsular, which lies between the rivers Mersey and Dee. England is on one side of the Dee and Wales on the other.

    Having enjoyed the process of studying for an MA  I, perhaps foolishly, embarked on research for a PhD. For both degrees my subject has been Contemporary Innovative Poetry.  

 

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GRANT D. MCLEMAN

LANDFALL

His life's a falling glass,
no ocean survey could map
its course through dockside
bars throughout the years.
And oh! The time spent,
And oh! The time wasted
at sea  between  ports,
between  whiskies…
 And  now,  on  land
 for  the  final  voyage, 
 time  to  catch  up.
 But  time  is  catching  up  and 
 his  barometer  is  no  longer  set  fair,
 his  falling  glass  has  nearly  reached
 the  floor. 
 He  sighs  as  he  tries  to  take  
a  final  drink........
 

Born  in  Glasgow,  published  in  several  outlets,  print  and  on-line,  been  member  of  PK  list  since  April  2006,  collaborated  with  US  photographer  to  produce  broadcast  pieces  for  a  US  cable  TV  programme  and  has  been  closely  involved  with  the  Whitehouse  Poetry  Revival  in  Limerick  city.  Some  more  collaborative  projects  and  a  collection  are  in  the pipeline.  More  info  on  www.verbal-art-wordlab.blogspot.com
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STUART NUNN

Knee Replacement – for Tony

 

Like a tree pollarded too many times, your flesh
is more encumbrance than well-oiled machine,
so different from the original handy mechanism.
 
The prosthesis mimics anatomy, demonstrates
how life ought to be, titanium animated
by bodily fluids till you’d never know the difference.
 
But the infection started death’s work in your bones.
The surgeon says he can put things right,
make muscles flex in time to the brain’s music.
 
And you must believe the bone’s necrosis
can be postponed by engineering,
no limbs hacked off to save the rest.
 
Hinges straightened by the metal articulations,
you’ll stand at least two inches taller,
and trigger airport security alarms.
 
 
Stuart Nunn - I am a retired college lecturer living in South Gloucestershire, part of what is still sometimes called Avon. I mark A Level exam papers and work with the local athletics club as a starter. Tony was my best man in 1970 and, if his knee will stand it, we're going to the Rugby World Cup in France in September.
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SHERRY PASQUARELLO

her mom named her peaches

she thinks that's funny
so, she stuffs rubbers into a mason jar
hidden in the fruit cellar
on a shelf behind the canned peaches.
the tampons are sitting in a cupboard
with the liquid pine cleaner
peaches finds that funny too.
the freezer is filled with diet food
that's past the expiration date
by at least a year or so.
she says they taste like the feelings
she has when
she's shoving another trojan in the jar
and laughs the hardest at that.
peaches has all the makings of a poet.
 
 
 
Sherry Pasquarello - i'm a Pittsburgh poet - published in, the individualist newsletter, black roses, online at, the amateur poetry journal, alchemy lit. mag, the writer's hood and caught in the net. a proud and happy member of the international PK poetry kit list workshop and has been included in the anthology project, dec. 2004 and in national poetry day projects,recently in, four volts. uk. and the picolata review. 

 

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BARBARA PHILLIPS

Global Village

 

Marshall would be pleased his global village

is here; it walks daily past what was the

Centre For Culture And Technology where he

ran his hand over his hair during long nights

lit by incandescence, early technicolour tint

massaging exteriors of windows, mediums

waiting to tingle to embryonic wires humming

in urgings of a future struggling to invent itself.

 

Often a beer in hand, cigarette in the other,

Marshall was a poster boy for his generation.

Today he would be puffing outside the Centre,

shivering in winds whipping along Queen’s Park

Crescent up Avenue Road, through steel Liebskind

spears holding hostage skies over the Museum’s roof,

no doubt indifferent to architectural posturings,

celestial memories running through distant ruins.

 

Sometimes, Marshall sat with Parker, conviviality

spreading through numerous brown bottles punctuating

conversations marked by merriment, generous gesturings,

and much throwing back of heads, luminescent

in silvered magnificence, when wisdom didn’t

have to be concealed to spare incumbent inheritors

recoilings of distrust, distasteful rejections

of anyone without an ipod or a blackberry.

 

Many nights Marshall paced alone his urban cell,

pondering the permanence of his future address,* while

rain bandaged tree branches in headlight-coated

swathes; through his open windows, Marshall

listened to the city directing casts through

tumultuous screenplays, drawn through the shredder

of impatient expectations, seduced by the mirage

of the village on the horizon at fingertips’ end.

 

 

*” Tomorrow is our permanent address.”

     _ Marshall McLuhan

 

Barbara Phillips has written three chapbooks: Tympanic Mysteries: Love Is A Tympanic Mystery; Shadows In The Echoes; Confessions Of A Sybaritic Puritan. She has recently written an ebook , Blue Sails Haiku & Not. Her work has also been published in various print and electronic publications, such as Transparent Words, Caught In The Net, Ygdrasil  A Journal of The Poetic Arts, Poemata, Verse Afire,  Quills CanadianPoetry  Magazine, Canadian Writer’s Journal, Poetry Canada Magazine, Malleable Jangle, Hammered Out, Bywords Quarterly Journal,  Zimmerzine,  Ars Medica, Poetry Super  Highway, Writer’s Hood, beside the white chickens, and Erotic Tours Magazine. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Oval Victory: The Best of Canadian Poetry, A Time Of Trial: Beyond The Terror of 9/11, No Love Lost, EOA And West: London Poems Part ll , Seeds6: An Anthology of Poetry, Handprints On The Future and The Future Looks Bright. She has been a featured poet and was a recipient of the Ted Plantos Memorial Seed Money Fund.

 

 

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ROSEMARY QUINN

 

TIME PIECE

 

It was ten past six on the kitchen clock the first time

he hit her,

his dinner painted the wall in

tinned carrot, mushy peas and brown gravy,

the plate fragmented as her ankle-bone cracked

against his hob-nailed boot,

his heel marking with delicate tracery the arch of her foot,

she crumbled, surprised,

he liked to keep the spark in their relationship.

 

Still holding the saucepan of custard she watched

as it pooled gently, silently, round his feet

while the Queen of puddings, his favourite, waited

 red-capped, bereft, for her topping.

 

It was half past eight by the clock in the hall

the night he cleverly gathered her hair in his hand,

he always was so artistic!

then  opened the door and shoved her into the rain,

“Come back when you’ve got me my fags”

and turned on the radio loud,

he had an ear for music,

was talented people said.

 

The next time she noticed the clock it was striking nine times

and the youngest was crying,

the Christmas-tree lights twinkled merrily still

where they lay on the floor,

he hummed as he combed his hair,

“A natural tenor voice” the neighbours observed

when he sang Silent Night in the choir

 

On a night when the town clock was striking ten times

and the snow gently falling,

she huddled against the gable wall

the children beside her,

a family portrait

an artist might check for perspective,

rifling her purse and

counting the takings he whistled,

he needed a drink for his birthday

 

The phone call to tell him she’d died came at midnight,

he cried,

“After all, your mother’s your mother”, he said.

 

 

Rosemary Quinn, former teacher, now living in Inishowen in Donegal on the shores of Lough Swilly and close to the (invisible) border with Northern Ireland. I write poetry and short stories and have had some poetry and several stories published in Ireland. I have also performed my work on stage and on radio, in Ireland and in North Carolina.  I am a member of Derry Playhouse Writers and the PK list.

 

 _________________________________________________________________________________________

 

DAM ROBINSON

The Superfunky Sounds of The Abraham Zapruder Connection

 

I'm confused and quizzical
don't want to just get physical.
Or you saying I'm gorgeous,
merely thinking how you'd enjoy us....

 

Dancing around a hotel room, then boom!
Two emotionally hot, distracted
detached tourist love machines
lips pressed tight, moulded like plastecine

 

our bodies fade 'n fall in bobbing ass parades
superfunky sounds of The Abraham Zapruder Connection
tcb grooves and moods all the radio wants to play
Lay right on back let the chips fall where they may
 

 

 

dam robinson (sic) is a sometime sparkly rhythmic, often outrageous performance poet living on Merseyside.

http://www.myspace.com/damrobinson

http://blog.myspace.com/damrobinson

 


 _________________________________________________________________________________________

 

ARTHUR W SEELEY 


Sisyphus at St Anne's
 

The sand that trails from the fist
of this chill February wind
collects in slant cones and wedges,
wreaths the foot of the memorial plinth,

drifts up the drives of hotels;
a soft wind-sifted plume
 combs through the crocus
 and sidles slyly into town.

I watch him sweep his pile,
try to imagine him happy,
but his cheeks are pinched with cold
and his mouth masked by a scarf.

The wind plucks at his yellow jacket,
tugs at his trousers.
He reaches for a shovel,
 his wind-bleared eyes
 

blind to the flats of sand beyond the dunes,
to the grey sheen of the distant sea;
blind to the dull metal of the sky
and the snow-pecked Cumbrian fells;

blind to the imps that stream
from the peak of his pile
and tease away, over his boot
and back along the promenade.

 

 

 

Arthur W Seeley.  74, lives in the Pennines, the Yorkshire side and by far the prettier side.  Retired teacher and lecturer in mathematical education. Made a living by being good at maths but loved rather poetry. Now has happily discovered the computer, the Internet and ten thousand poets.


 _________________________________________________________________________________________

 

CAROL REED SIRCOULOMB

 

Grandma

 

she was very old

when I was young

Grandma Reed would hold me on her lap

and read aloud

stories of the little red hens and such

books opened my mind

for a life time

a gift

from an old woman

to a small girl

 

 

Carol Reed Sircoulomb - Wichita Kansas - I  live in Kansas but I have been lucky to see the world, not from a T.V. screen but from life.  I always wanted to be an artist. I became a photographer, potter and quilter, only after many years of self doubt. I guess you would call me a perceptual person.    I started writing because of my Grandmother.  I wanted my children to know her and other family members. She died at 96 when my oldest child was 5.  In the poem I used the name we called her because I wanted her name known in the future, if only for a moment.


 _________________________________________________________________________________________


 

TAMMARA OR SLILIAT
 


The Golan Heights
 

A.

Quo Vadis, domini?
Where do you think you're going, Mister?
Yea, He used to play water walking here,
and sometimes wine conversions for the guys,
But we, Sir, we spat blood.
Vintage of 67, vintage of 73,
we've converted blood to Golan wine
and drunk with the lava soil hope
to make grapes…
 
B.
 

A pack of nuns scatter about,
like the cormorants that rise up screeching
from the Eucalyptus trees, their leaves
bleached by the birds' droppings.
 
There, where a herd of demon-chased swine
plunged into the waters of the Kinneret,
my Kinneret, the ground is still shaking
with the sound of panic-stricken hooves.
Kursi is covered by a blanket of tranquility
Its hem embroidered in German-English chatter. 
 

 

 

Tammara Or Slilat, born 1960, lives in Poriya Ilit, Israel. I'm a poet-writer-painter (besides being a healer and channel and in the mornings an English teacher). I've published two books of poems in Hebrew, had some of my poems published in Literary magazines in Israel, graduated the 2 year course of how to lead creative writing workshops, got the Jordan Valley award in 2004 for my art and poems.

I'm a member of the PK list since GKW (God Knows when), participated in a number of challenges and projects.

________________________________________________________________________

 

ELAINE WALKER 

 

later that night she thought

 

 

bland and safe

unfamiliar colours a

study in taupe and a

too hard bed my own

pillow I should have brought

my own pillow

 

quiet here clean and

impersonal with nothing to

recall people or places except the lack of

something to recall people or places distance can be

good better yes better

for now

 

stay awhile enjoy

the pristine newness and fresh

sheets hermetically sealed

biscuits and neatly filled pot of

coffee sachets and tea one

drinking chocolate

just add water

 

take time to read

the novel that’s been

waiting for time to

read or the

Gideon bible

in the draw

beside

the single

bed


 

Elaine Walker is based in North Wales. She writes academic and non-fiction material on a freelance basis, but is also a fiction writer and occasional poet. She is currently writing a book on the cultural history of the horse for a series called ‘Animal’ and the second draft of her novel is just on its way back to an interested agent. She teaches Creative Writing for the University of Bangor, the Open College of the Arts and local community groups.

 

_________________________________________________________________________

4 - Afterword

Email Poetry Kit -
info@poetrykit.org   - if you would like to tell us what you think.  We are looking for other workshops and communities of poets to feature in this series, please let us know if you feel this might be something for your workshop to be involved in.

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 which appear on the Poetry Kit site and this can be found at -
http://www.poetrykit.org/    

 

 

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