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CAUGHT IN THE NET 180 - POETRY BY LESLEY BURT
Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit -
www.poetrykit.org
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Submissions for this series of Featured poets is open, please
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|
The cottage door opens. A woman blinks at acutely angled sunlight. He stands. She hurries to the gate as if she would give chase, calls: This railway was the death of Grandfather.
from The old line through beech woods by Lesley Burt |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
1.
The Kiss
2.
Corfe Castle at
sunset 3. The godmother 4. Parish without postcode 5. The old line through beech woods 6. Home-hunting 7. Driving home through February 8. Women Picking Olives, by Van Gogh 9. Following footsteps
10.
Escher
hands out a gift |
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Lesley Burt
Her poetry has been successful in
competitions and published in magazines over many years, including: The
Interpreter’s House, Sarasvati,
Reach, Dawntreader, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly,
Tears in the Fence,
and
The Butchers Dog; also online,
including by the Poetry Kit, Long
Exposure, The Poetry Shed, Algebra of Owls, Strange Poetry and Ink, Sweat
and Tears. Her pamphlet was
Highly Commended in the Mslexia/PBS pamphlet competition 2018.
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2 - POETRY
Twilit meadow and star-filled
night –
mirror fragments spin together,
a migraine of gold-foil,
crimson, sapphire;
music thrums a trance of
flowers, dance –
forgotten; entwined, until
sunrise
shatters Lucy-in-the-Sky’s fake
facets.
Corfe Castle at sunset
From a turret, the raven
discharges
another series of discords.
Jackdaws
peer out of fissures, thresholds
gape.
Watch from the motte: a train’s
fat steam-trail
channels parallel hedges, stops,
swells,
disperses among village
chimneys.
Footfall ruffles only
dandelion-clocks.
Below, on the station platform,
a guard
blows a whistle, raises a
lantern. Wheels clank,
dining car rattles; women in
feathered hats
sip tea, titter into gloved
fingers – never
notice a raven launch into
flight.
The godmother
Twilight rides pillion: roadside lemon trees,
oleanders, olives, merge with dimness.
Her scooter halts its putter near Taormina.
She coughs in the doorway; waves a card,
gold-embellished, looped with script. Ash wafts
into the scullery, sprinkles the stove.
Fortunes to claim, she purrs,
ten million
when you wed oil, far side of the Med;
holds out the card: your invitation to dance.
Her scarlet Rokett – dull in Etna’s breath – drones
down the hairpin; cypresses needle dusty sky.
Saucepans gurgle garlic, basil, tomato.
Parish without postcode
A sink-hole opens, just where the Priory sat in scrutiny of tweedy textures on Hengistbury Head and, beyond, on asterisks of sunlight that dazzle jet-skiers who ruffle the Solent. Bones of a thousand years drop in underneath daisies they pushed up, plus the man on a sit-on mower who beheads them every week. The confluence of Stour and Avon cascades in, mingles with mill-tail and Mill. Dozens of dinghies wobble among bobbing ash-filled urns. Ducks dabble in horse-chestnut leaves, mackerel gleam between dandelion clocks, salmon leap over slouching gravestones and swans bow necks before guardian angels. The clock paddles its hands and chimes out waves of Westminster Quarters. Brides are bedecked for the bells on Saturdays and a choir sings on the cusp of Christmas. The mower-man hears nothing beyond ear-defenders as he navigates undercurrents, sticks, stones and bones. Street signs are buried beneath the broken church that named the town. Parishioners flounder in all directions.
The old line through beech woods
A runner stretches – alternate feet on a log –
near a thorny hedge. Shadows waver across
his white trainers. Leaves fall, tesselate
a dead-straight path with brown, red, yellow.
The cottage door opens. A woman blinks
at acutely angled sunlight. He stands. She
hurries to the gate as if she would give chase,
calls: This railway was the death of Grandfather.
Nikes raise dust as the runner disappears
where beech trees lean into his path. Rooks
settle beside tousled remnants of nests,
witness the closure of the cottage door.
Home-hunting
The traveller – dazed by acid-yellow fields,
cornflower sky pierced by hawks and poplars,
cloud-shapes of leaves, feathers, towers –
listens to urban folk talk of stark scenes
in black-and-white, cities drawn Gothic
with spires, shadows, nuances of grey;
wanders a winter in ancient woodland
where brambles tug ankles; stumbles among
twisted roots, deadfalls, lightning-tree totems;
sleeps on leafmeal while the forest shimmers
in its glaze of refrozen frost and implies
possibilities of a hot, crackling hearth.
Driving home through February
Constant engine hum,
hiss of wet road, sloshes
where moats border verges
after weeks of rain;
branches write on dampness
of pale, cloud-streaked sky,
to remind me of Ashbery’s –
the way trees, centuries old,
drink deep, stretch wide
to breathe, touch neighbours
soundless until ruffled,
and today their only green
is mistletoe clumped too high
to reach, too late for Christmas.
Too soon for spring,
rooks gather, test positions.
Women Picking Olives, by Van Gogh
There are those who see beyond
the weight
of spires, buttresses and hymns;
hassocks,
gravestones, grey shadows, damp
crypts, cobwebs;
more than seasons' rhythms: rain on fields,
nuances of green – grapes,
olives, the heat and chatter
of harvest’s casks, baskets, wilting basil and oregano;
to a universe where trees, seas,
creatures are as yet
unclaimed by names; they see how
earth rolls inside –
not underneath – swirling sky.
Following footsteps
Sudden – the mother’s death – she wobbles
takes to wearing the old lady’s shoes
keeps them soled and heeled, polishes
over scuffs, wraps in soft scarves
nestles them in bandboxes at bedtime.
The sisters go up West, parade Jimmy Choos
and Prada in Bond Street and Soho
while she conceals her toes in old slippers
to watch Saturday Kitchen, pops feet
in old Crocs when she weeds borders.
Until a friend helps her make a stand –
takes her to Russell & Bromley and clubbing.
On Saint Crispin’s Eve she leaves
after midnight, barefoot, hand-in-hand
with a man who strokes her tingling insteps.
Escher hands out a
gift
His face stares
back from the sphere,
eyes wide – the
better to see himself –
mouth masked by
heavy moustache
that droops its
corners. Behind him,
his history fills
bookshelves, pictures,
lit by windowpanes
that acknowledge
worlds beyond his
room. All this
reflected in one
hand that offers
so many strangers
something of himself.
The Kiss – Three drops from a Cauldron Issue 17, July (ed Kate Garrett)
Corfe Castle at sunset – Highly commended in Poetry Kit Summer Comp 2018 (Judge Jim Bennett)
The godmother – commended in Welsh Poetry Competition 2018 (Judge Sally Spedding)
Parish without postcode – Sentinel Literary Quarterly Champions SLQ April 2018 http://www.sentinelquarterly.com/april-june-2018.pdf (Judge Mandy Pannett)
The old line through beechwoods – commended in PK Winter Comp 2018 (Judge Jim Bennett)
Home-hunting – Three Drops from a Cauldron, Midwinter edition 11th Dec 2017(ed Kate Garrett)
Driving home through February in Reach 233 (ed Ronnie Goodyer)
Women Picking Olives by Van Gogh – Long Exposure 10/09/17 (ed Daniel Williams) https://longexposuremagazine.com/2017/09/10/1149/#more-1149
Following footsteps –
The Poetry Shed
https://abegailmorley.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/following-footsteps-by-lesley-burt/#comment-4368
(ed Abegail Morley)
Escher
hands out a gift – Poetry Kit December Project 2018 (ed Jim Bennett)
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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.