If a million chickens
laid a million eggs,
they'd all jump up and down
on their two million legs;

just think of it:  a million eggs,
a million whites and yolks
would make a mile long omelet
to feed a lot of folks.


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Copyr­­­ight 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

You've left this land, but this land won’t leave you.
She’s painted like a sky inside your mind,
beneath which your true life is acted out.
Her vengeance is each day you don’t return.
As birds retrace their ways on twilit wings,
however far they forage from their nests,
so too your soul, when daylight’s had its way,
is drawn to suckle at her thorny breast,
until you waken to a world of mirrors,
where nothing is familiar but yourself,
to wander gleaming cities leached of life,
whose foreign doorways bar you from your home.



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Copyr­­ight 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

In a meadow by the hill I saw my love lying there;
in a meadow by the hill, he was there;
in a meadow by the hill I saw my love lying there,
Curah crahnah rifi fahlah clee ah tah!

O my love, never leave me but remain, but remain;
O my love, never leave me, but remain:
for if you ever leave me I will never love again,
Curah crahnah rifi fahlah clee ah tah!

No, I will never leave you but remain, but remain;
while the meadow blooms in flowers, I'll remain:
while the deer is in the forest and the sun burns in the sky,
Curah crahnah rifi fahlah clee ah tah!

In the meadow by the hill he remains, he remains;
while the meadow blooms in flowers, he remains:
while the deer is in the forest and the sun burns in the sky,
Curah crahnah rifi fahlah clee ah tah!

Oh I am very pretty with my hair all in a braid,
with my hair all in a braid, hanging down:
oh I am very pretty with my hair all in a braid,
Curah crahnah rifi fahlah clee ah tah!



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Copyr­i­gh­­t 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

Maria I want your bitter mouth
Maria I want your ******* of dank loam
your ******* of sullen ripeness
your ******* of childbirth

Maria I want the narcotic orchid of your tongue
I want your eyes of treason
your eyes of attack
your eyes of the moment of death

Maria I want to be washed up shipwrecked on your shore
I want to be buried in your breath
I want the venom of your passion to sear my veins

Maria I want to be a universe unborn kicking in your womb



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Copyr­­­­­igh­t 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

Lord, set me a table in Byzantium:
not the rose-colored queen of the Bosphorus,
not the city of jeweled liturgies,
but the drain where the scourings of empire collect.

Give me a rough wooden bench
and a goblet of thick southern wine
that smacks of honey and dust
in a tavern on some twisted lane away from the sea,

where a plump dancing girl of uncertain antecedents
clicks the reptilian scales of her castanets,
her gaze weighing my limbs like dubious florins,
while a one-eyed Cappadocian in the corner
thoughtfully fingers his knife.

Lord, I don’t ask for much,
only a fate I can handle.


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Copyr­­­­igh­t 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

Dear Amanda,

    I hope this letter finds your well.
I must tell you shovel, sparkplug, grass, rice.
The meteor you sent me crumbled
because I forgot to pay my dream tax.
Amanda, Amanda, your flesh is soaked with bread.
I saw you standing barefoot with your babies in a hamper,
and I thought of you so hard I cut my hand
on a piece of candy.  Please ask Father if he’s seen my voice.
The world gets flatter:  it’s sticky in between.
Your hips are violet cycles.  They make me ashamed of the clock.
Your eyes make whatever they look at count.
You just put me on the pins of wonder.
Amanda, everything is soiled except your heart.
I’m flying as hard as I can, but the air gives out.
The wistful starlings have forgotten but are not forgotten.
Please ask Mother to make me a choice.
Give little sister as many kisses as there are daisies,
and tell little brother not to hurt himself on the dandelions.
I must tell you cloud, stoplight, window, flute.
I must tell you asphalt, armature, prairie, sky.
Amanda, I’ve got to lean on this to say it but
the words don’t matter, they can only mean.
The best revenge is not to care.  Reach.  Reach.  Reach.


                             Eventually,

                                          Me

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Copyr­­­igh­t 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com