Janet Kenny



Janet Kenny left a good life as a painter and singer in New Zealand to sing professionally in England then escaped to Sydney, Australia. There she was active in the anti-nuclear-weapons movement and jointly wrote and edited a book about the nuclear industry. She now lives by the sea in Queensland. She has published essays and poems in print and many online journals including Mi Poesias, The New Formalist, Avatar, The Susquehanna Quarterly, The Raintown Review, and Iambs & Trochees. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is included in the international anthology The Book of Hope.  She shares a book of bird poems, Passing Through, with the American poet Jerry H. Jenkins. She has illustrated a book of humorous poems, The Bad Habits of Little Boys, by the Irish poet Jim Hayes.



Du

A wisp of old woman,
curved like a scythe,
tottered to me as she
fussed her shopping,
her walking stick hooked
on her chopstick wrist.

She spoke to me then
in a dried leaf voice.
Inaudible there
in that busy street,
swept by rude gales
from passing trucks.

I leaned closer to hear:
Mein eyes not gut.
time for bus, ven comes it?
“Which bus do you want?”

She smiled, shook her head
then sang to herself
—and somebody else,
in—not German. Yiddish?
“Which bus?”
She leaned towards me,
her tiny claw reached
to stroke my face.
Du she said.

Du

Published by Web Del Sol



To a Dying Rat

Rat, I did not lay the bait
that’s brought you to this parlous state.
Your dulling eyes encounter mine
and I recall the famous line:
“Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie”
and grieve with Burns, but then at least he
saved the mouse, whereas I watch
your death, old rat, and cannot scotch
the human habits that determine
which are pets and which are vermin.

Published in The Susquehanna Quarterly



Cliffhanger

Light washes form away as morning gleams
across the wooded hills. Two eagles fly,
wings motionless, on thermals. Sea birds cry
below on opal beaches. Something screams.

Alert, I look for victim or for beast
but life continues. Each thing at its best
as early hunger scurries on a quest
and greater creatures prey upon the least.

A hang-glider fringed by brilliance calmly steers
beside the eagles. Arrogant now, he shares
imperious space. He wheels with them, then soars
to veer behind a hill and disappears.

Still taunted by the scream and by the sight
of Icarus who risks his life to live
at one with wild things, how I burn to give
a portion of existence for that flight.

Honey is enough without the sting.
The air is crisp. Waves fall down with a crash
on sunlit sand. The rhythmic tidal wash
releases sadness. Crickets start to sing.

But grass is sweet, the flowers are damp and fresh,
I settle for my fate. I’ll never brave
a cliff to be an eagle. I must save
my courage for the weakness of my flesh.

Published by Helionaut Publications



My Father’s Eyes

So blue, my father’s eyes out of the river;
he swam too long, I held my anxious breath
sure that some weed or log had caused his death.
Then with a rush the water would deliver
his face, triumphant at my lack of faith.
Proud of his power to frighten me. I never
believed he would survive. He seemed forever
imprisoned in some crevice underneath.
To venture in that dark and rushing pool
was more than I could bear. I chose to swim
in sunlit shallows where cicadas’ prattle
and softly dipping willows made a cool,
consoling summer refuge. Nothing grim
could lurk, or rise intent to smirk and startle.

Published by The Guardian



Savage Morning

Ice-sharp, the probing winter sun
stabs down its light to start the day,
and spider installations spun
by night ignite a flash display.

A spangled drongo, frantic, flies
through glinting trees, a streak of blue
emotion, topped by ruby eyes
in search of something cruel to do.

A snake with open belly, dead
beside asparagus, reminds
the gardener that the potting shed
hides more surprises than she finds.

Who killed the snake? It was not I
who said that everything must die.



No Escape

some impressions from poems by Anthony Hecht

He knew the darkness just beneath our skin
and found some dry amusement in our game
of ethical adjustment to the mean
and shameful deeds we give another name.
He noted some may stop and walk away,
unable to deny complicity;
the ones who stay the course and live the lie
meet what they made, a Pyrrhic victory.
Death comes in many guises—all escape
is barred—every feint is met with strength.
Important people entertaining hope
slip on the soap and measure out their length.
Nothing is cheap. The price is all we have,
and nothing less is all we each will give.

Published in Iambs & Trochees



Australian Medea

He posed between his mother and his wife;
a man who’d risen from the working class
to overcome all obstacles and pass
into the upper echelons of life.

His early hardship trained him well for strife
in politics. Promoted from the mass,
he spoke the people’s language, never crass,
but useful as a well-honed butcher's knife.

The woman scorned watched as her TV screen
mocked her with his image. She had made
this man. She thought of what she might have been.
The children she had wanted now were seen
beside a younger wife, proudly displayed.
She telephoned a national magazine.

Published by Iambs & Trochees



Worms

When I was five, because the town was small,
I went to school upon my tricycle.
It was bright green and had a silver bell.

My tricycle was stiff and stuck on stones,
on gutters and cracks that webbed the path.
Then it was that I discovered worms.

Worms in puddles, half worms, healed with scars.
Pedalling was hard and the worms
were in-ter-est-ing. Worms became my friends.

School was close but I was slow. One day
I came home when it was too dark to see.
My frantic parents seized me by the arms:

“The police are looking for you” they both said.
I shot under my bed and stayed quite still.
Jailed for looking at worms! I held my breath.

Worms didn’t convince my parents. They believed
some man had dragged me to his den of sin.
They eyed me oddly for weeks afterwards.

By then I had found frost and icicles.

Published by The Raintown Review