“Night Fire Road” for OneShotPoetry

"Night Fire Road", janekohut-bartels, watercolor, 2010

This is my submission for this week  OneShotPoetry.  I was putting myself to sleep with all the pastoral poems so I thought I would try something a bit…..sharper.

This poem was recently written during a trip to the North Georgia mountains, an escape from the gulag that Atlanta can so become.

“Night Fire Road” will be included in “White Cranes of Heaven”, soon to be published.

The painting was of this year, but not done for the poem.  It just seemed to fit.

Lady Nyo

–

NIGHT FIRE ROAD

–

Sharp right into mystery,

Down cracked macadam

Churning the guts,

Pot-holed surface falling

Either side to waterlogged ditches.

Hurtling towards a tunnel

Of dark, smothering trees,

Deep in the mountain.

–

This is Night Fire Road

Spiraling down and up

Like the dark flames of its name.

–

Tires dumped in the tar of night

Maybe a car or two

Stolen, torched,

Liquor bottles christening the

Games of drunken fools.

–

Maybe it was meant

To be named for foxfire—

Bioluminescence come down from

The borders of Heaven

A gleaming fool’s gold

Only appearing at night

To tease greed and imagination.

–

Or perhaps it was named

For the illicit meetings

Of furtive lovers

Who shun daylight

And go inflame passion on

Night Fire Road.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010

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