Noon Rose…..

 

Roses here in the South are just beginning to pop.  This is one from the new front garden.  The “Mister Lincoln” looks lifeless…..

Jane

Some Haiku…..

Watercolor of trees, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2006

A Note to Lisa:  So good to meet you, Lisa and you are a very special woman.  I talked a bit about “The Kimono” and it’s somewhere (chapters) on the blog here, going back to ‘older entries’.  However!  There are some very funny entries, like  “Nancy Madsen”, and “The Mermaid” from my ongoing memoir: “Memories of a Rotten Childhood”.  LOL.  And….a rather sexy book, my second (unpublished….)  “Devil’s Revenge”, posted here.  Thank you for the chat and the best of everything to and for you, Lisa!  

Hugs, Jane

–

It’s full bloom spring, almost summer at least the weather says so.  These haiku are inspired by Frank Tassone’s haiku, (American Haijin)though he is the better haiku poet.  

Lady Nyo

–

The koi are hungry
Orange mouths gulp green water
Good the algae grows

–

Spring robins watch
Quarrelsome beasts these birds!
They don’t share the worms

–

Half submerged eyes
Of frogs in algae filled pond
Reflect cloudy moon

–

Swifts- dark crescent moons
Sickles cutting through the dusk
Tag the slower bats

–

Chatter of sparrows
Treble voices to spring song
Dried leaves percussion

–

Soft rains caress earth
A hand slides up a soft thigh
Cherry blossoms bloom

–

Sultry air disturbs
The sleep of husband and wife
Panting without lust

–

(my favorite haiku…)

Pale lavender sky
Balances the moon and sun
The scale shifts to night.

 

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2018

Some May Roses….and a poem.

 

–

The world is going to Hell in a Handcart, and there is  much turmoil today.  The political and social issues are thrust into our faces and the only way to escape is in the flower garden, hiding under foliage with the cats.

Regardless how you grow roses, in big pots or in the ground, they are a wonderful antidote to the chaos of life.

And society.

I am no expert on roses.  The trick  is finding roses that have the qualities of survival.  This can be tricky.  The English David Austen roses are lovely, but weak stemmed.  A rain shower can knock the blooms off. Climbers can be iffy, too.  I have several that I would recommend, a Madame Alfred Carriere, soft pink climber that is almost a constant bloomer.  The same with Graham Thomas, a butterscotch yellow.  Both of these are fragrant.  My neighbor, obviously not a gardener, said he had seen yellow roses in the stores, but had never seen them on the vine.  Something like that.  That made me laugh, because walking through the vegetable garden you get attacked by the Graham Thomas as it stretches out it’s stems and blossoms from the side of the house.  The Madame Carriere was 24×24 feet until we cut it down to do the siding.  It’s growing back with impunity.

Some of the very best roses are sturdy Tuscany reds, and the beautiful and prolific New Dawns.  I have two over an arbor and they are breaktaking.  I cut roses almost every day in the morning to put in the house, but most of them don’t last long.  Except the Tuscany.   Home Depot’s “Patio Roses” have turned out to be marvelous:  constant bloomers, reds and pinks and within a season you have to cut back because they will take over the garden and the world.

The one above, that silly red with white stripes is my hands down favorite.  I haven’t figured out what it is, but it’s the second year for it and it looks promising.  It’s crazy with buds so it should have a good showing in a week or so.  It makes me smile when I see it, and that is a good thing in life.

This is the luscious “New Dawn”.  It’s not quite at full pool yet inblooming but it will repeat over the summer a number of times. It’s a vigorous climber and great for a garden structure like a strong arbor. Smells like Ivory Soap.

 

Some New Dawn blooms I picked last night and put in a silver wine cooler.  They last about a day and a half in the house, but they are so beautiful, even in death.

“Wollerton Hall”, an English climber that has had a hard life.  I kept moving the poor thing for the last 3 years as we did construction on this old house.  This morning I noticed that it was blooming, finally, and this lovely bloom will be followed by about 5 other buds so far.  It’s decided it likes the afternoon sun because that is all it gets on the West side of the house.  The scent is like….cookies.

My dead aunt Barbara told me once that my grandfather, her father, was known for his rose garden.  He apparently had a knack with roses.  I have no idea what he grew, as he was long dead before I was born and no one is saying what kind of roses, but I would believe they were old China Roses and Tuscany.  We are so fortunate today to have so many selections to choose from. I guess I have a bit of his DNA with roses, but my gardens are so much easier to maintain.

A combination of New Dawn, an open faced Red, Sally Holmes rose and a random pink.

The one thing about roses is that they usually don’t disappoint.  My favorite was a Heritage rose, another David Austin that I had for 15 years before it finally gave up the ghost.  I would spring for another, but with 60 plus roses here, I would have to find a place.  Hope Springs Eternal when you are living with roses.

Spring Orgy

The roses are having an orgy.
They haven’t the decency to wait for the dark,
But ply their lust in the soft, morning light.

Randy Graham Thomas is leering.
Madame Carriere is blushing.
Her pink silk-petal gown flutters
As she twists coyly to avoid his embrace.

By 10am the sun warms their scents and foreplay is over.
The wind at 11am entwines the two.
Pistils and stamens are seriously ‘at it’
Brushing languorously over parts
And hour ago were covered discreetly.
At high noon in the heat of the day
Pollen is floating all over the air
And even the wide-eyed cats
Sitting under tender foliage are blushing.

The garden gnome is licking his lips
While a concrete hand creeps to his crotch.

This fall there will be rose-hips aplenty.
Red nipples packed with tiny seeds,
Evidence of a spring-time lust.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2018

Spring Roses in the garden.

This is the second year for the arbor and the rose garden.  The front roses bloomed early and the heavy rains beat them down.  They are just recovering.  Have seeded for grass, but the hens have been out.  The roses on the arbor are  “New Dawn”.  Those two roses were planted there 20 years ago, and they smell like Ivory soap.  They are constant bloomers, but mostly glorious in the Spring.

The roses in the vase are from a few of the roses in the garden.  We now have over 60 roses on the property and what are spectacular are the climbers….Mde Alfred Carriere, (1848, France) and the Graham Thomas, a pale yellow prolific bloomer through the summer.  On the end over the chimney is a Cecile Brunner….a gorgeous tiny rose with a huge scent.  They are heaviest bloomers in the spring, and a bit more in the autumn.

Lady Nyo

Roses are easy to grow….you just have to know the properties of each species. I used to bother, but now?  There are old roses that produce beautifully, “New Dawn”, Mister Lincoln, OLWeeks, many others, but these new ‘patio’ roses are the bomb.  So easy and within a year you have to clip back vigorously.  Dogs (4) and hens in the back gardens make it hard to grow things but they can be managed.

“O.L. Weeks”, prolific but scentless.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2018

“Haiku: The Seasons”

 For all who are feeling the first stirrings of Spring.  Especially Frank T and Frank H.

Lady Nyo

–

Cherry red toenails
Peek out from warm blanket.
Snow cools ardor.

Willows whip about
A kimono flares open
Eyes savor plump thighs.

White makeup drips
The hard heat and mosquitos
Make maiko languid.

Girls chase falling leaves
Plump thighs give delight to eyes
Mothers do not smile.

Soft rains caress earth
Hand slides up a soft thigh.
Cherry blossoms

 

Sultry air disturbs
sleep of husband and wife.
They pant without lust.

–

Hoarfrost appears-
All the silken kimonos
Will not warm flesh.

 

A swirl of blossoms
Caught in the water’s current
Begins the season.

–

Dogwoods blooming
Crucifixion appears
White moths in the night.

–
(Dogwoods are a Southern tree here in the South. White blooms
having the form of the Christian Cross, with nail heads. They bloom in the spring right before Easter. They are a symbol of Christianity in Nature.)

–
Under the dark moon
I awaited your return
Only shadows came.

 

Fallen leaves crackle.
Sparrows 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.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2018

“Mountain Woman of North Carolina”, a Short Story.

(our front garden a few years ago.  The tulips don’t return this far south)

–

A few readers have written to say they are having trouble posting their comments on this blog.  I am delighted to have readers, especially on these short stories, so if you can, drop me an email (janebartels3@bellsouth.net) and I will post it here….good or bad.

It’s a beautiful too-early Spring morning, with plum trees waving their white blossoms in the wind, daffodils beginning to bloom, and here and their a wild purple plum has appeared in all its ghostly beauty. Already my maple tree in the front is sending little red helicopters whirling to the ground.  I want to yell:  “Go Back, Go Back!” .  It’s still winter and a month left at least of that.  But the climate has changed and there is no denying that.

Lady Nyo

–

I was born and raised in the North country. I came to the South after running away from home, and landed in a totally different culture. I was so ignorant of this region I didn’t bring a coat and early October that first year the temperature fell to 11 degrees.

–
I knew nothing about the south. I was fed on stories of the KKK, of lynching, of brutal police with billy clubs and water cannon during the years of integration. This was the ‘modern’ history of the South and of the Blacks. I didn’t know about the homegrown violence of the black community until years later, probably when it spread into white communities.

–
I remember in the mid 60’s when a tall and exhausted black man came to our front door, quite a ways out into the countryside of New Jersey. He asked my mother to call the police. He had walked from Georgia. She immediately told me to go upstairs and hide in a closet. I was her only daughter and she was no racial liberal. I don’t remember whether she called the police or not, but I hope she did. Though I think she didn’t. She wasn’t one to extend herself for anyone except herself. He didn’t look like he would survive much longer as he sat quietly on the bottom front step. She did send out a sandwich by my younger brother. Blacks, called Negroes then, were something we never saw much of out in the countryside. Those people were in the cities and this rural area hadn’t changed in over 300 years. Small dairy farmers, corn and soybeans, a river and a long Raritan canal built in the 1830’s was the staple environment of my childhood. The Dutch had moved over the land more than a century before the Revolution and any other color of skin was a rarity.

–
Years later I met a woman, an old white country woman in the mountains of North Carolina. She made quilts and lived in a three room shack in a pasture surrounded by rolling meadows and ringed by mountains. I remember the water barrel under a tin roof, and I remember her pointing a shotgun out of the door when two of us, a girlfriend and myself, came to see her. She wasn’t being violent, just cautious.

–

I don’t know whether it was proper to call her house a shack: The outsides were covered with tar paper and unskinned logs, the inside with tongue and groove boards. The entire structure rested on piled up stones and you could see through the bottom of the house in spots, down into the valley. She had an old iron bedstead in one bedroom, with a red and white quilt covering the board wall behind it. She made quilts all around the year and women from Asheville and Atlanta would come and buy them for their boutiques. I doubt she ever got what they were worth, but it was a major part of her living.

–
Once she recognized my friend, she was friendly enough. It was rare she had visitors and Mary was hungry for news. Living up in the mountains, even if it was in an open meadow with spectacular views on all sides, was a pretty lonely existence for any woman. She had been to Asheville once, taken by her daughter, but she said it was too busy, too many people and she felt lost. There were beautiful mountains in Asheville, too, but she was glad to get home. Other than going down the mountain to the small town that sprung up against the banks of a river, she didn’t travel. Her needs were small, and those trips to the town below her mountain only happened a few times a year.

–
She boiled coffee in an old coffee pot on a small wood stove, got out canned milk and canned peaches. I had never met a woman like her and listening to her history, her stories, knew the Mary’s of the world were disappearing from the face of the mountains. She was welcoming, interested in what was going on in the world. Her hospitality was heart-felt, and I thought of other isolated cultures I had rubbed up against and recognized the pride she took in making us welcome. Whether the mountains or the deserts, the hospitality was the same.

–
She had been married, her children moving away for jobs into the cities that had nothing to do with mountain life. Her husband died one winter, there in the cabin with her. She rolled him outside in the deep snow and hiked down the mountain to ‘inform the authorities’. It took her almost two days to stumble down the mountain and another day for the police to get up to her cabin.

–

I asked to use her bathroom, not thinking. Mary was a bit embarrassed and said that she used a corner of the ‘barn’ for that business. The barn was an open shed, with a corn crib. Somewhere she had a few milk cows, but they were scattered down the cleared mountain side and would come home of their own accord when dusk fell.

–
I remember an ill-fitting back door, where she had an enameled basin and some yellow soap on a shelf above the basin. She saved cooking fat and ashes from the woodstove to make that soap. Money was scarce, in spite of her beautiful quilts, and making your own soap was easy enough. I’ve done it, and the lye burned up a favorite wooden spoon. She showered under the gush of water from the eaves when it rained. In the winter I imagined she heated water on the woodstove, if she bothered. Up in those mountains of North Carolina, it would be too cold to take a layer of clothes off. Getting naked was another issue.

–
It was beautiful out there, looking at the huge sky that would be unhindered by city lights: the stars would be in full possession of the night. Everywhere I looked was the complete isolation only possible in the mountains, now mostly abandoned by people. Land was sold off, or remained unused for generations. I wondered how long Mary would be able to live up there by herself. She looked to be in her early seventies, but it was hard to tell with mountain people. She was a thin old woman, and the winters were rough. I wondered how she managed to heat that woodstove. She said neighbors, men from around the area, would drop off fresh split wood, and this was how it was done up there. People took care of each other when they could. She had some aging chickens and though they were what we now call ‘free range’, she had found their nests and was able to get most of their eggs. I noticed a couple of rabbit skins hanging from the roof. Mary was a pretty good with her old shotgun, but picking the pellets out of the rabbit was a bother. Rabbits and some venison dropped off periodically by far flung neighbors was the meat she ate, but cans of spam were what she liked most. She suffered from the usual lack of dental care of poor people, so spam didn’t bother her as much as tough meat. It was hard to grow many vegetables as the deer came right up to the cabin and cleaned out her patch. She bartered her quilts and eggs for vegetables and spent the summer months canning on that old wood stove. Years later I canned one summer on an electric stove, but with no air conditioning in the kitchen, you  go faint from the heat.

–
Mary had no electricity, so she had no refrigeration, except in the winter when she could put food in burlap sacks suspended on the roof. Raccoons were pests and would raid whatever stores she had. She could hear them in the night, climbing the water barrel to get to the sacks, their nails tapping a raccoon Morse code on the tin roof. She said she didn’t mind much, as over the years she had gotten to know generations of them. She would take her broom and go out there and argue with them, they chattering and cursing in raccoon talk. She didn’t mind, because the raccoons sometimes were the only things that talked to her for a month at a time.

–
It’s been three decades since I visited Mary on her mountain. I’m sure she’s long gone, and I wondered how a woman could survive the isolation of her existence. Her beautiful quilts, patterns passed down from generations of mountain women must have sustained her in the dark and lonely months of winter. She proudly listed the patterns she used: “Wedding Ring”, “Harvest Home”, “Grandma’s Flower Garden” were some of those I remember. She was an artist, though she wouldn’t have called herself such a pompous name. She delighted in taking those patterns and sewing them with her own variations, as she shyly said. That red and white quilt behind the head stead of her iron bed is what I remember most. Although it was on a white, cotton background, the red swirls and leaves and birds were thickly patterned over its surface. It was a labor of love and must have taken a long time to sew; of course the sewing was all by hand and stuffed with boles of cotton, piece by piece. And done by kerosene light.

–
Her shotgun gave her a certain security I would imagine, but she faced bears and puma, mountain lions, rattle snakes, copperheads and water moccasins, those thieving raccoons, beasties we have no heart to contemplate, let alone face off.

–
We are overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of our modern days. Her life was full enough with the struggle just to survive in that cleared mountain meadow. When I think of how overwhelmed Mary would be today, I think of how overwhelmed I am also. Perhaps the solution is far from us, but I like to think that the lessons and memory of Mary gives a peace and an alternative to our existence. It’s out there, and is possible to touch.

–

Stars in possession
Of an upturned bowl of night
Mountain valley sleeps.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018

Plum Blossom Snow

 

 

Crabapple/Peach Tree in back yard, Spring

Frank, hosting dversepoets pub today has an excellent prompt about prose/poetry.  Haven’t a clue what is what, but it seems that I have been writing this stuff  anyway.  Probably because I don’t know what formal poetry actually is.  Come over to this site for the great poetry that this prompt is sure to gather.

 

 

The plums are blossoming…tender little white flowers on 5 year old plums.  They should be later but this weather is crazy.  Yesterday 80 degrees!  Today, 49 and a brisk wind.  I thought we were over Winter, it seemed never really to jell, but it’s back or will be in the next few days with below freezing temps. I see my French Breakfast Radishes have peeked above the soil, but they are hardy souls so the  freezing temps to come should not hurt them.

The light is so tender, gentle.  The swirling pollen will cover everything with an acid green/yellow soon, and already I am feeling the allergies.

Spring is a taunting maiden, blowing in with great promise and then disappearing at will.  Once the Earth pirouettes, this game will be over.

Lady Nyo

 

 

 

The present snowstorm of

White plum blossoms

Blinds me to sorrow.

They cascade over cheeks

Like perfumed, satin tears,

Too warm with the promise of life

To chill flesh.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2015

 

 

 

Spring Haiku, Tanka and Two Poems

(Front Garden in Spring)

It is Winter-Spring. Most of February has been warm and now the daffodils, tulips, snowbells, grape hiathyns, and azaleas are in full bloom.  Strange and unusual for February.  Tomorrow is predicted severe storms in the South, with possible tornadoes.  We didn’t have a decent Winter, so the fleas and mosquitoes will start their pestering of anything with flesh and blood very soon.  This morning, I found three  dead baby squirrels , killed by my dogs. They were only a month or so in the living, perfect little babies.  I don’t know what nest they came from, or fell, but the dogs mauled them.  Such beautiful and tender little creatures.  How sad that they didn’t get to live this spring.  So many are taken by tornadoes and severe wind storms here, people and animals.  Well, all this has turned my heart to Spring, and the fragile  and impermanent beauty of it all.

Lady Nyo 

 

 

Haiku

1.

Dogwoods are blooming

The crucifixion appears

White moths in the night.

 

2.

Soft rains caress earth

A hand slides up a soft thigh

Cherry blossoms bloom.

3.

Changing curtains

Helicopter red maple

Pollen fills the air.

4.

Willows whip about

Red kimono flares open

Eyes savor plump thighs.

 

5.

A swirl of blossoms

Caught in the water’s current

Begins the season.

–

 

Tanka

1.

The sound of frog-calls

In the pond floats a pale moon

Fresh life is stirring

An early owl goes hunting

Wise mice scatter for cover.

–

2.

Thin, silken breezes

Float upon a green-ribbon

Of spring—pale season.

Scent of lilies, myrtle, plum

Arouse bees from slumber.

 

  Foxtail

Great winds come before a storm,

tree branches whirl-

green pinwheels near heaven.

One shakes like a foxtail by the ground.

All this wind!

I think of the impermanence of life,

the ghost-smoke of one loved, now gone.

Even the snow falls to the ground

But you have disappeared into air.

Perhaps that foxtail sends greetings

to comfort the heart?

Rude Spring

Sharp brittle wind

Sails like clipper glass

Cuts the skin razor thin,

And flays off winter.

 

This spring can’t wait.

It lies,

Promises comforting warmth

Yet delivers a numbing cold-

Too much in love with winter still.

 

I hear the laughter in the pines.

They moan or echo an evil chuckle.

 

No matter.

This argument will be over

Once the earth

Pirouettes on point.

 

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bhava Yoga”….for Earth Day, which should be everyday.

The backyard is the domain of 4 dogs, 8 hens and a rooster.  Potted plants at least slow down the romping dogs, but the hens have developed a taste for potted roses.

Lady Nyo

==

 

Bhava Yoga

 

Morning’s roseate sky

Has been blasted away,

Branches now whirligigs

Swirl with a fierce southern wind

As windows rattle in frames.

 

A tattered umbrella

Shades from a relentless sun.

I listen to Bhava Yoga

The vibration of Love,

Where imagination meets

Memory in the dark.

Yet surrounding these soothing tones

The world outside this music

Conspires to disrupt, sweep away

All thought, reflection.

 

The fierce wind gets my attention.

I can not deny its primal force.

 

Still, the pulse of Bhava Yoga

Draws me within,

Feeds imagination with memory,

Calls forth something as enduring as the fury outside,

And I feel the pulse of the infinite.

==

We are like birds,

Clinging with dulled claws to

The swaying branches of life.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 201

Mimi, who sez that today should be “Mimi Day” in appreciation of her antics…..

 

Tanka for Spring~

(Painting by Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor, book “Song of the Nightingale” published by Createspace, Amazon, 2015)

 

Maybe not only for Spring, but with all this pollen outside, it’s hard to breathe, so short forms of poetry fit.  Some of these tanka break the rules, also.  But they can reform.

I see that my computer isn’t forming the text properly, but it’s rather  interesting.  Breaks the mold.

Lady Nyo

 

–The moon floats on wisps Of clouds extending outward. Tendrils of white fire Blanketing the universe Gauzy ghosts of nothingness.

— Come into my arms. Bury under the warm quilt. Your scent makes me drunk Like the wine we gulped last night. Too much lust and drink to think.

—– Give me a moment! To catch my breath and settle. Give me some peace now. Stop kissing my hands, stop it! What if someone is watching?

—- Presence of Autumn Burst of color radiates From Earth-bound anchors Sun grabs prismatic beauty And tosses the spectrum wide!

— Bolts of lightening flash! The sky brightens like the day too soon it darkens. My eyes opened or closed see the futility of love.

— Had I not known life I would have thought it all dreams. Who is to tell truth? It comes at too sharp a price. Better to bear flattery.

– Cranes wheeled in the sky Their chiding cries fell to hard earth Warm mid winter day A pale half moon calls the birds To stroke her face with soft wings.

– Glimpse of a white wrist Feel the pulse of blood beneath- This is seduction! But catch a wry, cunning smile One learns all is artifice.

–

How could I forget The beauty of the pale moon! A face of sorrow Growing thin upon the tide Creates a desperation.

–

Thin, silken breezes Float upon a green-ribbon Of spring—pale season. Scent of lilies, myrtle, plum Arouse bees from slumber.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012-2016