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CAUGHT IN THE NET 149 - POETRY BY NOEL KING
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|
We smash your kitchen
drawer units, find the decaying
corpse of a mouse; a piece of the
wallpaper of our childhood still on the wall
behind causes your daughters to cry
with nostalgia. I find your breadboard and it’s
that that brings
my tears.
from Breadboard by Noel King |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
. |
Blitz
Breadboard
Carolyn
Countrymen Father Dances
Little Mestor
Minnows
Taller Trees
The Beginning of the Next Day
Winter Beach |
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Noel
King
Noel King
was born and lives in Tralee. His poems, haiku, short stories, reviews and
articles have appeared in magazines and journals in thirty-seven countries. His
poetry collections are published by Salmon Poetry:
Prophesying the Past, (2010),
The Stern Wave (2013) and
Sons (forthcoming in 2015). He has
edited more than fifty books of work by others. Anthology publications include
The Second Genesis: An Anthology of
Contemporary World Poetry (AR.A.W.,India, 2014).
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2 - POETRY
We chipped together,
the boys in his class,
to buy him a Meccano set,
to help to rebuild his life
after his Mam, Dad and sister
were blown up.
He hung his head, mumbled
a thanks and a goodbye
and headed off on a train
to be brought up by an auntie
or someone, somewhere.
We recycle as much as
possible:
paper into green sacks,
wooden goods to be broken
up for firewood;
your clothes my sisters
sort for charity shops,
resale or recycling. The
WEE agreement ensures
electrical goods can be
recycled for free.
We smash your kitchen
drawer units,
find the decaying corpse
of a mouse;
a piece of the wallpaper
of our childhood
still on the wall behind
causes
your daughters to cry with
nostalgia.
I find your breadboard
and it’s
that that brings
my tears.
I make my fingertips cross
its cuts and scratches;
you knifed all bread,
home-made or shop bought,
bread to go with soup,
bread for our sandwiches
for school and football
matches,
all sorts of breads for
all sorts of trips.
Your heart always fretted
for us wherever we went,
as your knife sliced fat
slices on this board.
But I can’t keep it, I
have my mementos, no need
for another, will watch it
burn in my stove.
Carolyn
Through the harp strings,
your face a study
in adoration for him.
My jealous juices begin to flow
and as my breath breezes
near your breasts,
the music intrudes.
Could you ever love any mortal
as you do him,
your namesake?
*Turlough O’ Carolan – 17th century Irish
Harpist & Composer.
Countrymen
Hear now, I hated to leave too, but here
we are, go back into your shells,
the moon is blue this evening;
you know that is bad for your complexion.
Remember how your forefathers fought earth,
what happened earth. Go into your shuttles now
make love to your woman, woo her again; feel alive.
Hear now my prayer, there is a God after all
and he has saved us from hell-earth. You see it,
it’s just a little blob left there, here! See!
Smaller than my hand! We can prod it,
almost play table-tennis with it. It’s a lesson,
a capsule. A great star stronger than ours
came and made earth melt and shrink, but God
was merciful. Remember that gentlemen.
We will set forth now and find ourselves
a place where we can be, close to God,
where there will be no fighting armies.
Hear now. Let us come. Let us pray.
My mother has left my
father
– she says he’s a
dick-head.
I still feel Dad close
around me,
my head on his chest, his
smell,
his hot left-hand closed
on mine,
his right in the small of
my back
as we swoop, sway, sally
– dancing
proud at the town
ballroom classes
mother had no interest
in; his steps
a trust deed to
twelve-year-old confidence.
They make me live with
her, listen
to her tongue, smell her
smoke,
watch her TV aimlessly,
live her lies;
but I can put on a
record, close my eyes,
and dream Daddy and me
across the floor
in the special shoes he
bought me,
they will wear out and I
will grow older but
those swooping steps will
carry me along
aloft
always.
Little Mestors were a legion of skilled cutlery and tool-making craftsmen
founded in Sheffield in the mid-1800s. A few survive to this day.
Every morning he makes shapes that break,
but amid those are ones that get finished;
some scrap he can discard, some reuse;
he fights the 21st century competition
from the Chinese and Woodies DIY.
Trev (or Trevor as his mother christened him)
is proud to follow his craft, follow
a long, long, pocket-knife tradition.
Trev’s knives come in three styles –
the three-and-a-quarter inch, three-and-a-half inch
and the four inch, but the blade shapes are more startling –
the lambfoot, the farmer, the pruner, the clip point, the spear point and so on…
He buys in his raw materials –
springs, linings, ivory, carbon steel (we’d have to bring carbon into it);
brass, rosewoods, buffalo and stag horns
(for the handles you understand) –
wonders when the day will come
that people will turn away from mass production;
knows that in the greatest houses and palaces
of the world his craftsmanship holds.
Minnows
In this photograph
my grandfather took
me out in a boat;
see the fishing tackle
between us.
I dunno if we caught much
that day or who took the snap;
but it was the last day we fished.
I haven’t been in a boat since
until you take me today,
making me wear an orange lifejacket;
I’m proud of you, my grandson.
Taller Trees
Visiting my then-life;
the cottage fails to view.
I shoulder bushes
to find the door,
rust flies from the keyhole,
a mouse ducks out between my feet
taking flight back to the field.
I knee the bolt and in I go,
Grandmother’s armchair is there,
Out of it grows ivy and other greens.
Smashed windows have trees growing in.
Birds are on the beams, nesting, shitting
and where the crib was cornered
rats nest, raising their little ones.
The Beginning
of The Next Day
Words pour in the rain
as Miss Kenton tells
Mr Stevens she loves him
and he tells her he loves her too.
They kiss.
* After Kazuo Ishiguro’s, The Remains of the Day, Faber & Faber, 1989
Winter Beach
I write haiku on the backs of my hands
while you, mother, walk one way,
and you, father, the other,
across this beach with seaweed frozen,
black ice on rocks and pebbles.
A stream that flowed away time is frozen,
an electric fence that lost its power
leans Piza tower-like towards the ground.
Weak sun from a McGillycuddy Reek
blesses the going-silver hairs of my head,
the white hairs of yours, father,
and dyed-brown of yours, mother.
Having walked enough to content your exercise,
you both begin the walk back towards me.
Lounging on a rock, I turn my head right for father,
left for mother; watching you from dots to your full sizes.
We all sit not speaking, till the sun
wraps itself back behind the reek,
then with me at the wheel, headlights on,
we drive for home.
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Carolyn
Countrymen
Published in Eastern Rainbow (UK), Labour of Love (Canada), The Mentor
(New Zealand)
Father Dances Published in Carillon (UK), Crannog (Ireland),
Mobius (USA)
Little Mestor
Published in Orbis (UK)
Minnows
Taller Trees
The
Beginning of The Next Day
Published in Bard (UK)
Winter Beach
Published in Countryside Tales (UK), Boyne Berries (Ireland)
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4 - Afterword
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