Pursuing springtime walking sprees
beside our dog, beneath the trees,
I oft detected some unease
amongst the birds and buzzing bees
as echoed by flat monodies
of clicking, clacking, knocking knees
(forsooth, reversed parentheses)
resounding pained discordant keys,
confusing triplets’ twos and threes
as if the tunes were meant to tease
with awkward stilted harmonies.

I asked a doc with med degrees
if he could, somehow, kindly, please,
suggest intensive therapies
that maybe might perhaps just ease
strange syncopations such as these
(you know, those eerie  melodies
that echo from my noisy knees)
before my family finally flees.

At last my doctor said “oh geez,
this is the worst of maladies,
so I’ll replace those  knobby knees
(they look like half moons made of cheese)
with stainless steel or manganese
or other metals such as these
as used in all such surgeries.
I’m sure the outcome won’t displease
(you’ll stand on legs, isosceles)
although there are no guarantees”.

Now that I’m fixed, I stretch and squeeze
with exercise my coach decrees
to aid me flex my new born knees;
and should I suffer agonies
he soothes the strains with frozen peas
or cubes of ice that make me freeze
and says “I hope my expertise
has helped to heal your injuries
and if you must, feel free to sneeze”.

With chiseled legs on racing skis,
I now can sail as does a breeze
o’er  nearby alpine apogees
(and view those sites that no one sees,
alive in eagles reveries)
and when in Vail, win jamborees
upon my new non-knocking knees.

When I met you, you were day-sleeping in somebody else's car
and running around scrapping all night.

With your shaggy hair and that roll of your shoulders,
you made me jelly-kneed right from the start.

Sunny, you kept your loneliness hidden from your running buddies,
your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars in the Texas night.

I kept you coming back by feeding you, like some Italian mother
with a full pantry and a real bad crush. Come onna my house, birichino.

You had nothing, expected nothing, and were fearless, so fearless,
but when I fussed over some new cut you turned boneless as butter.

When I drank you turned to a rumor, gone like smoke, hating the stuff
yourself, and somehow above it. You made me want to kick loose of it, like you.

How did I charm you into staying, my gorgeous one?
How did we teach other what love was, with your silence and my words?

Til the day I die I know my heart is full of you, and all that you gave me.
I held you in my arms as you gasped and ran free, in the black hour of your end.

Oh, I learned to care again, about life, about myself, about it all,
but it took a long terrible while. and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Girls always fell for you like autumn leaves, light as sighs, stars of a moment.
I know how lucky I was to be the one you gave your heart to.

It's been thirty-two years and I still say your name and picture your face
every day. Even the angels won't be able to tame you--I won't let them.

Wait for me. When my hours are over I will find you. I will come running.
_

A drive-in at the edge of time,
its neon humming louder than the stars.
One thing on the menu,
the thing I swore I wanted most.
Infinity stacked on infinity,
the order already written on the slip.

I reach for the tray,
pretending it’s a choice.
But my hunger was calculated years ago,
folded into ads and family scripts,
into the rhythm of bills and debts,
into a father’s silence,
a mother’s instruction,
all of it rehearsed.

Uncertainty—
they call it quantum,
a blur between position and momentum.
But uncertainty lives only in the act of looking.
Particles don’t hesitate;
they march in algebraic procession.
And I am no different:
neurons, traumas, desires,
just more math grinding forward.

The menu watches me back.
Each decision a loop,
each rebellion already anticipated.
Off-menu dreams rerouted,
sold back as neon slogans
on the same cracked sign.

Here is the human cost:
streets of people circling the counter,
mistaking repetition for freedom.
Whole cities of choice collapsing
into prefab inevitability.

And yet—
art mutates.
Sometimes it glows louder,
selling the same meal in brighter colors.
Sometimes it scrawls graffiti on the wall:
there are other kitchens.

Cancer or evolution,
mutation or recursion,
all of it still algebra.
But maybe—
just maybe—
algebra can surprise itself.

Harry chased the shadows
around rooms without windows,
straw up his nose,
a bottle of Jack Daniels
on the moveable food tray,

the eye of the storm,
fierce, beautiful,
and like a hurricane
he came and went without meaning.

all he owned was time,
walked the days
like old newspapers
blowing down a deserted street.

Harry wandered the neon sky

on fire with wounded women
wrapped in night,
caught by the song
of mermaids and sirens
who sweetly sang Odysseus
onto the rocks.

so he chose to fly, soar
above the high wire trapeze
into cloudy silence,
grasping for tranquility
in the heartland where serenity
always slipped like water
through his cupped fingers.


the sky is a fickled lover
always just out of reach.

reckless grace,
the sky leaned closer
and Harry kissed the clouds.

delphinium migrant blue,
and into night
we follow,
toward the residue
of morning,
where there's no time
limit to grief.

you wake with
electric intervals,
something's wrong
with yesterday,
in your head are
galaxies like grains of salt,
and they fill up the sky.

these red metallic balloons,
that come to you
when you are ripped open,
whether it’s by pain
and heartache
or you’re falling in love,
these you can’t close
yourself off to.

but what you actually want
is to bypass them,
and try to reach that
dawn serenade,
which is floating
above them,
as if golden electric ribbons
which don’t
demand repayment.

the moth flew        to the right
and then                 to the left

back and forth
forth and back

ping ponging
between the headlights of my car

fragile little wings of white deep in a winter’s darkness
adding to the confusion

was an unexpected november snow
the moth did not seem to mind

the heavy flakes that fell
some as big as its own body

within
and without

we are so tiny
in our lives

we are so tiny
in our world

Here in the dry constellations,
Orion winters in the blue west, the
Drinking Gourd spills silver on the void, and
the Seven Sisters crowd together,
quilting the covers of night.
I miss the beach.

I miss the salt, I miss the sweet
curled wave that rolled the wind
into a gesturing wand
of air and water,
joining two lurching souls
ungainly in their solitary progress,
into one smooth moving thing
hip to hip, stride for stride
handfast, untarnished

because you chose to throw
your arm around my neck
and let us spin

in the eddy, as the tide
ran out, till we were dizzy

and all the slipping stars
cleared the boards and moved
their heavy banquet
to our eyes.

©joyannjones December 2016