Two Poems
Janet Kenny

The Very Idea

The edge of every plant is rimmed with gold

as morning sun discovers where it hides

and timid saplings suddenly are bold,

and jazzband birdsong noisily decides

the day is here. ‘Beware this tree is mine’

and warming life recovers from the cold.

This is the time when seething life’s design

seems indestructable and safe from harm.

The sun is up, come in the water’s fine.

This lovely earth protected by a charm

is us, we are what ever life can be,

and we can see no reason for alarm.

Nothing dependent, certainly not we

could ever smash this delicate machine.

Such vandalism we shan’t live to see.

- - -

Miss Postlethwaite’s Downfall

Water colours and reading

were Miss Postlethwaite’s passion

and in her own fashion

she had taste and breeding

“My dear father always,”

her usual beginning,

“advised against sinning”

and lowered her gaze.

She cycled each morning

to open her shop

a convenient stop

for needs without warning.

Milk, eggs, stamps and pencils

and biscuits of all sorts

equipment for ball sports

and cardboard utensils.

The cad you expected

in the form of a vicar

managed to trick her

then promptly defected.

Her shop gone and maybe

a worse fate in store

she courageously bore

a fatherless baby.

“My dear father always,”

she said to her lawyer,

“was a trusty employer

of the suitable phrase.”

“And had Papa lasted

despite his bad stutter

I’m sure he would utter

the epithet bastard.”

- - -

Janet’s notes: “In my New Zealand childhood during WW2, little corner shops were frequently run by what were patronisingly know as ‘maiden ladies’, or worse, ’spinsters’.

“In 1960s Britain I found similar shops in country towns.

“In 1970 Sydney, Australia there was a similar shop at a ferry wharf by the harbour.

“I doubt that they exist today.”

- - -

Janet Kenny left New Zealand to pursue a career as an operatic and concert singer in London, then settled in Sydney, Australia, where she worked in the anti-nuclear movement and jointly compiled, wrote and edited a book about the nuclear industry, Beyond Chernobyl, published by Envirobook in 1993. Her poems have been published in many printed and online journals. She has published two collections of poems: This Way to the Exit (White Violet Press) and Whistling in the Dark (Kelsay Books). Her work is in several anthologies including Outer Space: 100 Poems, edited by Midge Goldberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This last particularly delights her because she is number 79 in the list of 100 poets who in recorded time have written in some way about space, including Homer, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Pushkin, Housman, Yeats, Lorca, Wilbur, Stallings and Simic. She is very sorry she can’t tell her late husband. He would have laughed.

- - -

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Two Poems Janet Kenny

Two Poems
Janet Kenny