“Musings on a Closing Day”, from “A Seasoning of Lust ” and Comments on Growth in Writing

Jesus Christ! Where did all these poems come from?  Not the ones already published in “Seasoning- Lust”, but these new poems I must have been writing in my sleep.  I promised I would post some pieces from the book, but I was looking over a pile of new poems written since and right before the publish date.  They appeared like mushrooms after the rain and probably have a shelf life as such.

It’s funny, I have been working on finishing up a novel, “Devil’s Revenge” something I have posted here in bits and pieces, but I think the new poetry, which I hastily grouped together under the WIP name:  “White Cranes of Heaven”, were really detours, maybe a cleansing of the palette because they have nothing at all to do with the subjects and issues of “Devil”.   They are as random and disjointed as they can be as a collection.  And, most of the have nothing to do with erotica.  Which I think is fine and a nod to growth.  I do think that there will soon come a time where I just will have to post a few, like a test drive, because I need to know whether they, or these, ‘connect’ with readers.

And that is my rant over the past few months:  connection in poetry.  We all have read ‘personal statements in poetry, but does it really connect, speak somewhat to our own condition?

And that’s the rub.  Years ago I remember someone, another painter saying that ‘if a painting didn’t have some resonance elsewhere,  didn’t spark something of the universal in viewers, hang it on your bathroom wall.’

I think that applies even more to poetry.  We can get tied up in the issue of “personal statement”, and that’s ok, but is it an ‘interesting’ personal statement?  Does it or can it strike a flame in another?

We sometimes are so tied up as to our ‘originality’, our ‘uniqueness’ (and this is part of the madness of narcissism that seems to be ‘ok’ in our society) that we bystep the part of  our humanity that seeks to make connections through our creativity.

And on this issue of growth?  It should never stop.  Oh, I do know a few fellows who pat themselves on the back and talk how balanced they are, and come off as ‘wise’ and worldly.  But under the surface I detect insecurity, fear and something that leads to ossicification of the spirit.  No sense of growth or adventure in them at all.

I do more the ‘blinding walk out into the world’ and get creamed with mistakes, miss steps and misadventures.  But I learn.  More, I grow, and that is the point of life.  Up till death.  You want to squeeze out all possibilities until they place the coins on your eyes.

Lady Nyo

MUSINGS ON A CLOSING DAY

I move my chair
to observe Mt. Fuji-
monstrous  perfection
with the cooling crust
of spring snows.

Languid movements
of  a branch
like a geisha
unfurling her arm
from a gray kimono
makes petals fall,
a scented, pink snow
covering my upturned face
with careless kisses.

Timid winds caress
my limbs,
bringing relief
to old and tired bones
brittle now with life’s argument
and sullen defeat.

Raked sands of garden
waves are hardly disturbed
by feet like two gray stones
and grains  flow
round ankles and
I realize once again
I am no obstacle to
the sands of time.

My heart is quieted
by the passage of nothing
for in this nothing
is revealed the fullness of life.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009

Tags: "A Seasoning of Lust", Connectedness in Writing, growth, Narcissism, poetry