“Walking In the New Winter Woods”, posted for OneShotWednesdays

"Mallards at Dawn", jane kohut-bartels, watercolor, 2006

This poem will be published in the coming book: “White Cranes of Heaven” .

WALKING IN THE NEW WINTER WOODS

–

Walking in the new winter woods

the crunch of frozen ground beneath

my boots,

my dog’s paws will be sore tonight

for we aim far afield.

–

I think of this morning when we

argued at breakfast,

the smell of maple bacon should have

stopped all that, but didn’t.

–

We can’t get past the desiccated ghosts

who have moved into our hearts, inviting

slights and outright blows never delivered

but still lingering in the air.

–

I loaded the gun with birdshot

in case there was a duck down by the pond.

Was, but they were those sitting ducks

didn’t seem right, too easy a target

like this morning at breakfast when either one

of us could have let swing and landed a good one

on tender flesh and raw nerves.

–

The dog is game for hunting, but my heart

isn’t in it.

My thoughts go back you standing there,

that old apron around your  waist,

determined not to let me see tears

and my heart cracks and soon I head back with

a peace offering of a bough of holly.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010

“Wind Chimes”

From a book to be published:  “White Cranes of Heaven”.

Lady Nyo

–

WIND CHIMES

–

Wind chimes peal in the night–

Tossed by high winds

racing round  eaves.

–

Dogs howl in the distance

Adding to a cacophony,

Discord upon discord

Like an orchestra gone mad,

Murdering the conductor

And throwing  tone poems

To a chortling Universe.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010

“White Cranes” Get Feathers with a LOT of help from my Friends!

I know…a baaaad title for anything.  But it’s 5am and I’m not really that creative this time of the morning.  It could be titled “White Cranes” Continue to Moult”, and that would be the truth of the matter.

I just got the text done…organized….the poems arranged for this new book.  The “a LOT of help from my friends” part comes from various friends taking clumps of the poems and reading them and returning them with their crits and comments.   I’m not that territorial about my poetry, though Nick Nicholson would disagree…. but what the hell….these friends are writers and good ones, too…and IF I can’t trust these friends…who?

Compiling poetry is so different than going over chapters.  I had 90 plus poems, and decided that this was too much for anyone, including me…to read.  So I got them down to 50….and they are all seasonal poems.  None of them are love, erotica, etc, though there is a thread of erotica in many of them…just not a blatant thread.

Bill Penrose yesterday…the fellow who does all the really hard work on my books: the formatting for the publisher….suggested illustrations to make the book ‘more interesting’.  I think he’s on to something here, dear Bill.  I used to be a painter…and have lots of pix of the paintings..mostly landscapes and birds , so some of these paintings hopefully will make it into the new book.  We can try this and see how it works.  It will make the book more expensive I am told, but it will be ‘more interesting’.

Lady Nyo

—

AUTUMN POEM

—

The chilling rains

Have blasted leaves

From black-barked trees.

Too soon has this happened

Thinking there would be yet time.

—

Time to marvel

At Nature’s robust palette,

To fill the eyes and senses

With ethereal beauty

No man-made tints can challenge.

—

But like most of life

We are behind

And lose out to clockwork

Not of our making.

—

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010

Winter Comes Too Soon

This poem is still in rewrite, rethinking.  Autumn/Winter usually throws me into poetry that reflects the monumental changes around us.  But what I am finding out is it isn’t enough just to notice and write into poetry those external changes in our environment.  I think that realizing the internal changes, those thoughts and memories of the past and now present…well, they, combined with those external, outside things makes for something perhaps deeper.  Frost did exactly this: an eye to the environment and a thought to humankind’s connection.  One followed the other.

Lady Nyo

******************

Autumn,

That too-fickle season

Has thrown off Jacob’s coat

And turned to winter.

Gone the leaves

Brilliant hummingbirds,  airborne jewels

Illuminated in prismatic splendor

By the sun piercing a brittle blue sky–

Replaced  with blackened limbs

Stretching naked arms towards a now glowering sky.

The season of alms and hunger has begun.

Gone are the pelting rains

Which poured down window panes

Like crinkled crepe paper

Distorting our view of the shearing outside.

Gone, too are the golden sunsets

Where a beam of light transposes

Distant trees, paints the belly of clouds.

The leaves and color are gone

And that is as it should be.

What is now outside

Hints at what is growing inside–

This long passage through a muted season.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2009

Some Haiku for the end of October…

I love Haiku, and write a lot of it.  Next month I will be posting Tanka, my favorite form.  Hope you enjoy this abbreviated Japanese poetry form.

Lady Nyo

HAIKU for October, 2008

The clouds flee the sky
Bitter north winds push them far.
My heart follows them.

Fallen leaves crackle.
Sparrow’s add the treble notes.
Season’s musical.

The cold moon shines down
Upon hollow dried grasses.
Earth prepares to sleep.

The frost at morning
Makes the birds plump their feathers
Squirrels add chatter.

The air grow colder.
Soon wool will not be enough.
Come inside- stay warm!

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008