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CAUGHT IN THE NET 70 - POETRY BY LESLEY BURTSeries 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 - http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm and following the links for Caught in the Net.
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Often, I must descend high cliffs via
broken ladders, scale rocky ravines, or
cross chasms on broken bridges;
once I swung on a rope trapeze:
endless space above, glittering sea below.
Sometimes, I am at a party in tatters,
while superior women titter
behind lace-gloved fingers.
from; Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe by Lesley Burt
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 - POETRYA Visitor
Earthquake on TV News
Faith
Family Fortunes
Focus Shifts
Gratitude
Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
Raconteur
Shock of White Hair
The Sparkle
3 - AFTERWORD
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1 - BIOGRAPHY: Lesley Burt
I am from Christchurch, Dorset and, with the exception of a few years in Germany and Hampshire between 1966 and 1974, have lived here ever since. I have two children that, to my astonishment and theirs, are now approaching middle age.
I wrote poetry as a child, and at grammar school was one of the rare kids who loved poetry and all things Shakespearean, as well as Jane Austen and Dickens.
My qualifications are in teaching and social work. During the last ten or so years of work, I did a couple of Open College of the Arts courses, and began to write again. My poems were published in various magazines such as Tears in the Fence, Poetry Nottingham, The Interpreter's House, Roundyhouse etc. I developed my skills further through a couple of Jim Bennett’s online courses. In recent years, a good number of my poems have been published online by Poetry Kit. I have also edited two Poetry Kit online poetry magazines.
I retired in January 2009 from a post at Southampton Solent University where I was a lecturer in social work. I have missed my brilliant colleagues and the students; however, this gave me time to compile my first collection, Framed and Juxtaposed, published by Searle Publishing http://www.searlepublishing.com/. I have also set up a small poetry group in Christchurch, and we have read at local events and on an international community radio station. I was very happy to receive first prize in the 2009 Christchurch Writers Competition; there is something special about recognition on home ground!
I am currently working towards another collection, and another year of enjoying meeting with my local poets.
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2 - POETRY
A Visitor
Elim Church's slate-grey spire
is a pyramid of four triangles,
less bulky, high, ancient and famous
as the town's Priory tower.
You drew my attention this landmark;
said you bet residents never notice.
You visited my town for some years,
my bed almost as often; my heart longer.
How clever you were: whenever
I see the spire I still think of you.
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Earthquake on TV News
Our townscape, a 3D patchwork:
red bricks - grey stone
tarmac - scented gardens
playgrounds - weeping willows.
Stitched together by Saxons, Normans,
smugglers, warriors and peace-lovers,
with bridges - hedges - roads - railways;
hemmed by two rivers: Stour and Avon.
Family, friends, ourselves
woven into traditional patterns
of named streets - numbered houses
parasols on patios - cars at kerbsides.
Our position in space and time
constantly indicated by the church spire
and Priory clock-chimes every quarter-hour.
Familiar - secure.
Difficult to imagine all this unravelled;
this very patch of earth shaken;
these landmarks, locations collapsed;
our history in heaps; community in fragments;
like theirs - our own neighbours,
streaked with blood and dust;
watched worldwide
while we fight and loot.
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Faith
We skip breakfast, take a dawn stroll
while the lagoon is clear,
and Mount Agung visible
before humidity wraps it in sky.
In a while, traders will arrive to sell
fake Rolex Oysters, conch shells;
wood carvings of fish, flowers,
cockerels in wicker cages.
Loungers will unfold and fill with tourists.
Masseuses and hair-braiders
will gather under coconut palms,
proclaim services, banter with each other,
barter with pink-skinned punters
while gamelan music wafts through voices.
For now, Sanur's stretch of sand is serene.
A woman places an offering on the shoreline;
with a hibiscus bloom between her fingers
makes signs over it,
splashes water from a phial.
She does not look back,
oblivious as the sea
douses her incense, laps up her rice;
knows for sure the gods accept her gift.
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Family Fortunes
I dream my mother bakes
a plate of fortune cookies for me.
As if she would ever do something
she had thought of as so American.
When I break them open,
messages in her neat handwriting
look like Christmas cracker mottos.
They instruct me to always:
be punctual, work hard, read books;
above all, despise injustice.
I have no need for parental guidance,
screw up the oblongs of paper,
throw them into hot embers.
While they shrivel into smuts,
drift up the flue, I eat the cookies
and find I have become an adult.
Now I must make a batch
for my own children.
The batter is lumpy,
the oven burns my fingers.
I scrabble for a pen, but
do not know what to write.
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Focus Shifts
My mother and I
among bowls, spoons and jugs,
flour and dried fruit:
mixing Christmas puddings
as we do every October.
We chop, weigh, laugh,
chatter about the children,
the stickiness of glace cherries,
seasonal scents
of brandy and grated lemon peel.
While I am beating eggs
I glance up and see she is an old lady.
The effect is like a Magic Eye picture
where you gaze
until your focus shifts
so that a tiger leaps
from jungle foliage
or a Spitfire zooms
out of clouds.
Startled by clarity
I wonder how, until now,
I had never managed to see it.
But I blink.
My mother is back.
She smiles.
As usual, we take turns to stir
and make our secret wishes.
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Published in Roundyhouse No. 30 June 2010
Gratitude
On a long-ago August,
alone in the sunny garden,
I admire a row of runner beans
and big yellow courgette flowers
from my recliner;
hear bees browse dandelions,
occasional lazy growls
of light aircraft,
and the blessed silence
of your adolescent absence.
My heart sinks when you phone.
You and a friend are too tired
to walk another step
home from the beach.
Eventually, I say Okay
and, grumpy, drive out
to find you both
slumped against the call box
with crimson shoulders,
gritty toes, blistered heels.
Your chin lifts
when you see the car.
Thanks
is supposed to sound casual.
Tonight, late, I am stranded
by cancelled trains;
you insist on leaving your bed
to rescue me in your car;
I wince, remember my lack of grace.
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Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
Sleep is not restful; it skitters
through nights in fast-moving sequences,
scatters in disjointed scenarios.
Semiconscious dimensions,
where tasks must be complete
before it is possible to be at a wedding:
hurry, shopping, hurry, baking,
making beds, scrubbing kitchens;
but the moment I finish each item -
like Hydra's heads - another two appear.
Often, I must descend high cliffs via
broken ladders, scale rocky ravines, or
cross chasms on broken bridges;
once I swung on a rope trapeze:
endless space above, glittering sea below.
Sometimes, I am at a party in tatters,
while superior women titter
behind lace-gloved fingers.
Now, for once, my dream is calm:
nearby, a stream drifts through sunshine;
green shade is balm on bare skin.
Suddenly I wake; find I am naked
at a picnic with men in jackets; luckily,
too engrossed in themselves to notice me.
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Raconteur
You exploit a repertoire
of voice and gesture
for readings of Peter Pan,
Horrid Henry, Cinderella...
... and recount your life
in comedy sketches.
Like the one about your interview for
reception-class-teacher-assembly-pianist,
even though you can play
little more than 'Chopsticks'.
You dramatise the tale
of deception over dinner:
eyes wide, bright smile,
hands flexed then extended -
Oh, you want...
finish without words, just fingers -
no, whole arms -
to mime the tinkling of ivories,
as if this is somehow less of a lie.
More recently (briefly lucid
after weeks in hospital)
you describe a whole sleepless night,
before you are discharged,
visualising the kitchen
with you chopping and whisking
ingredients for a Spanish omelette.
Too ill to cook;
but you turn it into a story
to leave with us.
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Shock of White Hair
I turn to stone in the High Street:
unblinking, speechless, oblivious
to traffic noise and chatter ...
... staring at a short woman
whose untidy crop of white hair
surely belongs to my mother.
But two years ago I saw her
powdered, shrouded, round arms
stiff at her sides, in the Chapel of Rest.
Her death is beyond doubt.
I have never believed in ghosts.
Yet this strength of likeness is compelling.
The imposter turns. The spell breaks:
these cheekbones lack softness;
my mother's ready smile is absent;
My glimpse of times we sometimes met
by chance on market day is over.
This has been a trick of narrative.
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The Sparkle
The seaside is the edge
of the county; the country.
On the way, wedged in the back seat
in heaps of picnic paraphernalia,
you argue with your brother
about sharing a bag of barley sugar.
Fields roll by.
At that first glimpse
of a glistening 'V' of sea
in the green cleavage of distant hills,
you bounce and squeal
as it disappears, reappears
time and again
while the road descends
between hedges,
round hairpin bends.
The parents park.
You unbuckle
your red Clarks sandals
and dangle them from your fingertips;
feel sand and gravel under your heels.
At last, here is the ocean
- a gilded dragon-skin -
spread to the horizon
and for ever beyond,
with rippled muscles
soaked in sunlight.
And you tingle at the centre
of this glitter-sprinkled world,
as if you are the explosion
that ignites the sparkle.
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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 - http://www.poetrykit.org/