“O Absalom”, a Love poem, for Open Link Night, dversepoets pub.

 

O, Absalom!

Ensnared by long hair in the

Boughs of an oak,

Pierced through the heart three times–

The shimmer of life fading.

 

I,

Pulled into mysteries

Abandoned by love

Given over to lust

Charged with stolen rapture

Dizzy as a drunken dervish-

One hand up to Heaven

One hand spills to Earth

Skirts stiffened with sins hard as stone

Corrupted over a life time and now–

Flayed on an unending mandala.

 

Mystery of Life,

Unstoppable desire,

O beautiful Absalom,

We float upon a divine river

Entangled in the reeds of human wanting.

 

This is our nature,

This our calling while

Flesh answers flesh.

What quarter be given when the heart

Overwhelmed by passion’s excess?

 

Lie still–

Let the waters cleanse our loins,

Mud of the banks soothe our wounds,

Our blood mingle with the floating grasses,

Our hearts sink beneath the surface.

Let the rivers of Babylon

Carry us away.

—

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“Johnny Muttner”, a poem of childhood cruelties…

Open Link Night is today, Thursday over at dversepoets.com.  It’s a great night to read poems that are all over the place…not demanded forms, etc.  My friend, Kanzan Sakura has pushed me to submit this poem below to OLN.  We will see how it flies….

Lady Nyo

 

This childhood boy has been on my mind for years.  Way before I became a poet.  I hope that Johnny is well and has a wonderful life.  We certainly did what we could to make him miserable.  Forgive us, Johnny.

 

 

 

Johnny Muttner

 

He would come down the school bus aisle,

An early morning scowl on his face

His right leg dragging

And we would advert our eyes or giggle.

 

No one knew for sure

What was wrong with Johnny

But an adult said

“Maybe a club foot”

And we went through our poor knowledge

Of the word club to figure this out.

Country club, caveman’s club, club soda

That was about the full of it.

 

Johnny was a farm boy,

And wore the rough overalls to school.

That, paired with the strange, heavy shoes

Was sure to isolate him from our mainstream.

And our ‘mainstream’ were other farm kids,

But without the limp.

 

Every so often, a boy would get caught in a bailer

And die or be maimed

So perhaps this was the fate of Johnny

But no one really knew

And no one had the courage to ask.

 

This was the time of polio

Of Iron Lungs

Of cripples and crutches

And non-motorized wheelchairs

So why did Johnny get treated

By us this way?

Because he was amongst us,

Our age, a farm boy like the rest of us.

 

Our fathers came home not long before

From War, with the embellishments of combat

Physical and psychological

But this was too close to home, our generation

And not our father’s.

 

The scowl on his face

And the fact that

No one on the school bus would make room

Meant he suffered the full blows

Of childhood brutality.

Who knows what he suffered at home.

 

There is a time, in childhood

When children are compassionate

When they surround with concern

A child thrown off a swing, or with skinned knees

Or a cast on an arm that we all clamber to sign,

But at a set stage, all this changes; we become brutes

Like many of the rural parents we saw and knew

Our own parents who would shoot a stray dog

Or cut the throat of a lamb

And don’t ask what they did to cats.

 

So we became imitation adults

The worse of us

And Johnny suffered our transformations

From childhood to an early mean adulthood.

 

It wasn’t until high school

That Johnny changed and we girls

Noticed the change.

He became handsome, talkative

Almost a different boy, winsome

And he stood tall and no one

Noticed the limp anymore.

Perhaps he had learned to hide it.

 

60 years later I remember him,

He floats before my eyes

Of a time faded into nothingness

Mostly I remember the cruelties

That this lamb suffered

At the hands of children

Growing into life

And a mean, unavoidable destiny.

–

-Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“Songs of Summer”….poem.

Watercolor, Early Spring, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2011

dversepoets pub is OLN…Open Link Night!  A wonderful time to post ONE poem and visit other poets……And…they will be on break until July 17th.  Our Norseman Bjorn is presiding over OLN so be good.

Lady Nyo

 

SONGS OF SUMMER

 

Summer cartwheels through the sky!

The fertility of months

Expressed from field to orchard,

Above in  sky, and deep below,

Where earth gathers green energy

And transforms by magic

Fruits for the mouth and eye.

 

Fledglings tipped out of nests

Try new-feathered wings on warm currents,

Calves butt heads and race in calf-tumble

Climbing rocks and playing king-of-the-hill,

Spring lambs past the date

For the tenderest of slaughter

Coated in white curls,

Smell of lanolin sweet in their wake.

 

There is fresh life in the pastures,

Now  steady legs and bawling lungs,

They graze upon the bounty

And grow fat for the future culling.

 

Tender shoots of wheat and corn,

Waist-high, defy devious crows,

Paint once-fallow fields in saffron and

A multitude of hues-

Golden tassels forming,

Waving under an oppressive sun,

And when the sky bursts open

In random welcomed rains,

Heaven meets Earth-

The cycle complete.

 

These are the songs of Summer.

The bleat of lambs,

The cymbals of colliding clouds,

The noise of fierce, sharpened light,

The plaints of cows with taunt udders,

The loud quarreling of a swollen brook,

The scream of a hunting hawk

Calling for its mate,

The pelt of an unheralded storm

Upon a tin roof,

And the quiet sighing of

An unexpected wind-

Brings a benediction to the day.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011-2017

 

Young RedTail Hawk, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor

Our new Rose Garden this Spring/Summer.  Looks small, and probably is but we stuffed 30 roses in this area.  Mostly English (David Austen) and Knock Out roses that really need to be trimmed every two weeks.  Some Mister Lincoln (on pedestals) and O.L. Weeks roses,  and those gorgeous “New Dawn” (2) of them that cover the arbor.  And lots of mosquitoes which curtail our using the garden.

All paintings by Jane Kohut-Bartels, various dates and various mediums

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“High Road”

“American Eagle”, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor, 2001

Open Link Night over at dversepoets pub.  Where you can post one poem of your own-  This is a wonderful slot at dverse where we can read some  original poems.

Although I wrote this poem a couple of years ago, it seemed rather appropriate to today.  We all have choices, and they might not be easy, but we should expect our leadership, our politicians, who say they will represent us in the political arena to exhibit the best of character.  Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the standard in practice.

–

HIGH ROAD

 

Asking directions to the high road,
I got shrugs and blank stares
yet knew there were two roads-
both led into infinity
both coursed through
all manner of life with pitfalls, trenches
where bones were broken
skulls rattled loose from moorings
like ships in high winds…. dangerous waters.

What was the difference
and why should it matter?
The effort cost
energy regardless the choosing.

An old man sat at the crossroads,
a bum, grizzled gray hair
sprouting porcupine’s quills,
rheumy, pale eyes staring at the world–
little interest in what passed by.

I asked him the way to the High Road
and with a toothless grin
he stared at my feet, my hands,
lifted his eyes to my face.
I thought him mad and cursed myself
(asking questions of a fool!)
And was moving away when I heard his voice:

“Did I know of the eagle and crow,
how they soared upon thermals
higher and higher
became dark, formless specks upon a limitless sky,
lost to human eye, invisible even to gods?”

I thought him crazed and started away-
he cackled and spat on the ground.
Something made me turn, startled,
And saw the wisdom of Solomon in his
now- shining eyes.

 

“The crow harries the eagle, the eagle flies higher.
Vengeful, annoying crow flies round eagle’s wing
turning this way and that, yet the eagle flaps upward
soars upon thinning air until the crow
breathless and spent, drops to the common ground-
falls to his death.”

“The High Road, the path of the eagle.
The low road, the path of the crow,
mingling with dullards

daring nothing, with eyes cast downward
only saving a bit of energy
learning nothing of worth.”

Silently he sat, an old man
eyes glazed with age and fatigue.
With a nod to his wisdom and a toss of a coin
I gathered my strength and pushed onward,
Upwards, the lift of eagles, now under my limbs.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2017

 

Sumo Wrestlers…..Haibun

 

Sumo Puppies at dinner…..

 

Over at dversepoets pub, Bjorn is challenging poets to write a sport themed haibun.  I’ll bite, as I have a fascination with this ancient Japanese sport.

Lady Nyo

 

Sumo Wrestling

I love Sumo wrestling. Or at least I think I do. Perhaps it is the only sport where I don’t feel like I have to hold in my stomach sitting there. Watching those mountains of flesh-men grapple with each other makes my heart beat hard. There is such history around this sport, and such a deep tradition. The fact that they gorge themselves with a purpose makes my heart sing. How wonderful that you can eat and eat without any concern for weight or fashion!
And, did you know that those belts they wear can cost a million yen? Or so I have read. I have also read that Sumo Wrestlers are some of the most humble and gentle of men. Here, have another bowl of rice.

Mountains of flesh pound

A ring of sandy earth
Cunning and strength vie.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2017

 

“Day’s Symphony”

(Songbirds, 1995, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels)

Over at dversepoets pub, Victoria is presenting the lovely challenge of quadrilles, a poetry form of exactly 44 words. The key word is ‘sound’.  I haven’t written many quadrilles, but today in searching for any inspiration, I thought of the many birds I hear during the day and night.  Couldn’t fit in the hoot owls though, those scary little monsters of the night.

Lady Nyo

Day’s Symphony

 

I awake to the sound of raucous songbirds

Too near my bed.

Outside the rooster crows and crows,

Until I attend his sermon.

The hawks scream above the clouds,

Hunting horns with feathers.

At dusk, mourning doves

Deliver the benediction of night.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“The Fox”

(Huffington Post.com)

 

I am to be one of the ‘featured’ poets at the Earth Day Celebration April 26, 2017 at Sevananda Foods, here in Atlanta, Ga.   Poetry readings are to be of a Nature theme, which is proper for the event.  The poetry is from 6-9 pm with open mic after.  In trying to select appropriate poems for this event, I had a hard time culling out poems.  I selected 15 poems.  It should be interesting.  I don’t read well in public so I will have to work on this. Already my vocals are scaring the cats and making the dogs howl.  Posting this early for dversepoets pub Open Link Night on Thursday.

Lady Nyo

PS: I LOVE foxes.  I would have one here if it wasn’t so illegal.  No fox was hurt or injured in the writing of this poem.

–

The Fox

Yanked from sleep

By a scream

Wrapping around the belly,

Fueled by some instinct,

Long buried thread of ancestors.

Bolting upright

Knowing without knowing

A terrible slaughter was tearing

The soft night apart.

–

I had heard that sound before.

Coming fully awake,

heart pounding through my chest

I listened again, and there!

The vocals of a hen attacked

By something stealing through

The soft night, waiting beyond

The edge of sleep.

 

Three dogs have I

City dogs, though with

The blood of once-fierce hounds.

Not one of them would

Run out to do battle.

Grabbing the collar of the

Biggest, he turned and bit me-

He was no fool.

There was danger

In that dark night-

He was doing his best

To avoid it.

 

Stupid hounds!

I’ll face the monsters

Out there myself!

And switching on the porch light

I saw the dark flight of something

Fly across my yard and vision,

Take a sharp left and disappear

Into the night where porch light met

A dismal darkness.

 

Running to the chicken coop,

Found a young hen, a pile of feathers

Mounded around her, still alive

Clucking mournfully.

 

How do you comfort a tail- less hen

At dawn, with a crescent moon

Throwing feeble light upon the ground of slaughter?

I’ve raised hens for enough years

To know they are merciless to the injured.

But the events of the night

Had stunned their own instincts

And she burrowed amongst them,

They crowding around, covering with feathers and warmth,

Rocked out of their slumber

Clucking out warnings to further attackers:

Let the night and its beasts hear their rage!

 

In the morning I asked my neighbor

Once a south-Georgia farm boy what to do.

His answer was bloodier than

The attack of this young fox,

For young he must be,

Not to kill his prey on first strike.

 

“Spread poison in the kudzu,

Here, I’ll lend you a shotgun-

Fox be vermin and bred for no good.”

 

There is something mystical

In a fox who dares to live in a city.

Or desperate.

 

Birthed in the kudzu growing

From the leveling of a small forest

Sheltered in one-foot wide drainpipes,

Feeding on rats and rabbits

With a taste for chicken from time to time.

 

No.

I’ll lock up my chickens

Let a dog prowl the fence,

And leave off the

Modern methods of slaughter.

 

There must be a balance in nature

As it struggles to right itself

To bypass concrete and the destruction

Of habitat by mankind.

There will be a balance

And I will stand with the foxes.

 

Oh, it is a marvel and a mystery!

For every species is the center of its universe,

If only for him.

 

We are connected by a fine thread to all else,

Our survival depends upon this,

Yet our eyes are blinded to the truth

And something in the proclamation

Of “Inheriting the Earth”

Lies and trips us up,

And we are no more shepherds

Of these species than wolves

In human skin.

 

The world is what it is,

With its own rules of hunger, survival,

We just a cog in this great Mandala,

And most of us attempt to bypass

These laws of nature, still clothed with

Dead dreams of conquerors.

 

And some of us know this deep in our bones.

 

We are blind to the beauty of life

That we are not alone.

The tragedy would be if we were,

And we deny our connection to what we now proclaim “vermin”,

Believing for some bad reason this makes us more human.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

Haibun Monday: Fear

(A tornado in Alabama last year.)

Kanzen Sakura over at d’versepoets pub is presenting the Haibun Monday challenge.  And it is about Fear.  We all have them, and they are legion for most of us.  Come read what makes the heart flutter and the stomach queasy.  Thank you,  Toni….your prompts always entice!

Lady Nyo

Haibun: Fear

 

Global Warming has brought significant changes to the South, and Atlanta is now nicknamed “Tornado Alley”. In the almost fifty years I have lived here, I have seen disturbing changes. My first acquaintance with a ‘tornado’ was when I heard what I thought was a tornado and I was in the bathtub. My now-ex-husband headed for the basement leaving me in the water. It turned out to be a train. There was a track back in the woods we didn’t know of.

One flattened our local park and was called ‘severe wind shear’. From the looks of it, it seemed like a tornado. Trees, hundred year old oaks flattened to the ground, an indeterminate path through the park, a warzone of defeated greenery.

I fear the heavy winds and rainstorms. I am powerless before them. The only way to save oneself is to head for the basement and cower with whatever lives down there. And of course this adds to the fear.

 

Winds begins to rise

Fear out runs common sense

The worms are safer

 

 

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“Metamorphosis IV

 

 “Mine, mine, mine”.

For those not following (and you are legion…) this is part of a series of basically 200 word episodes.  There are 8 in all.  I’ve never published these, nor have I posted them on this blog.  As far as I can remember and that is getting harder. The earlier episodes are on this blog if you scroll backwards.

Dversepoets is having an open link night (OLN) where you can post a piece of your choice.  I am posting this because it is funny and we need comedy desperately in the world.  Y’all too glum out there.

Lady Nyo

—

Laura twisted in the wind. Well, rotated in the air conditioning. Bart had a new kick, called ‘Shibari’. An ancient Japanese practice of wrapping things. Precisely. With hidden knots. She should have thought twice when he insisted she strip.

Arms wrapped behind her back, more cloth holding her legs together, she sighed. She didn’t mind hanging upside down, was even getting used to the headaches.

Bart, however, was having a bit of his own transformation, and Laura didn’t know if she liked this one bit. He was becoming ‘weirder’, taking up hobbies. Piercing was one, this shibari another. Laura was seeing Bart in a different light, helped along with her new, nighttime vision.

*Goddamn Japanese! Why can’t they stick to wrapping small packages?*

Bart told her ‘shibari’ was the ancient art of “wrapping the heart.” She bought it, didn’t even mind the bananas, mangos and kiwi he stuck between the bindings. He was, after all, a common fruit bat.

Up on the roof, Bart had other plans. From under his wings, he drew out a new black, leather- riding crop. He slapped it on his palm, laughing with glee.

Laura was about to obey.

—

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010-2017

Haibun: Shadows

(“Dusk”, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2005)

Over at dversepoets pub, Kanzen Sakura is calling for poets to write a haibun with the theme “shadows”.  Go visit dverse site for more information and to read some wicked good submissions.

Lady Nyo

The newborn radishes are shadowed by cherry tomatoes. The almost-red globes drop down to visit. They compare hues. The garden is bathed in the light of a horizontal crescent moon, grinning like an idiot, suspended over trees that cast shadows on hillocks and deepening the valleys with their creeping darkness.

It is very early Spring. Dusk and day still balance in a pale sky, though the moon has risen. Oh, the mystery of the night where shadows churn with imagination!

I sit on a concrete wall, watching distant clouds dance on the wind. The oaks are feathery with their foliage, the pecans still winter-nude. Day is closing. Doves are almost silent, sleepy sounding. Bats speed by, scimitars of the night. I close my eyes and drink in the approaching dark. Only those shadows attend me, and possibly a few lurking monsters.

 

Night’s benediction:

Bull frogs bellow in the pond

Shadows blanket day.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017