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swallow builds its nest
from objects it can gather
steal lipstick, why pay?
Joy Ann Jones Aug 20
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
Lies looking for girls to tell them
gather in groups--
little ions looking for a charge.

Girls grow up greedy to spout the wildest stuff
about each other
or boys
or you.

Girls spend hours in front of mirrors
telling lie upon lie.
I'm ugly/ I'm pretty/ that's enough/ never enough.

Girls grow and haul a whole hope chest stuffed with lies
behind them to college,
to the altar,
to the nursery.

Lies looking for girls to tell them are never lonely for long.
Diogenes ran a girls' school until he lost his mind.
The students lied and said he went sailing.

Sit with me. Talk.
Our mothers did the best they could.
We'll always be like sisters.
This tea is good.

Lies looking for girls to tell them
don't stop when friends go home.
They circle when you're
anxious
afraid
alone.

At sunset I shake all my gathered lies from my apron to the sky,
and when they work together,
oh my
how the feathers fly.
Joy Ann Jones Aug 19
Time came unbound
like your feather wild hair,
the feeling shadows of thorn,
endtimes laid on the plate
of a destitute breast.

It was hell dark
in the filthy theatre.
The old ticket-girl sat ****
and tattoed, like Madame Defarge
knitting the playlist for the guillotine ball.

And so clicked the tale
from her needles to mine;
how He spoke to the girl
in the bathtub forsaken,
razor-naked and numb:

'You die before living--' said
the Dark Prince, 'a sad backwards thing;
spread for me--learn.'

He brought her on velvet
the delight-box of tortures,
the ambrosia of Tantalus
to put between her legs.
He artfully taught her

to rub out the human
for the animal clench,
to **** all the sweetness,
climb hard for the falling,
then took it away

from the mad thing a-mumble
in her wilderness skull,
wearing the blind face
of an ancient race
we can no longer know.

He left laughing
laughing
on His way through the endtimes,
for the Fall was forgotten
and Death held no ease.



©joyannjones February 2013
This is a reaction to a 1973 blue film I once was reluctantly dragged to called The Devil in Miss Jones, a review in a poem.
the river has no voice.
blue sky no heart.
the swan trumpeting
in the black of night. my soul

longs to be far out
lost in the vastness of ocean.
nothing but rolling waves, grey dark sea.

(no mercy
from the swan's sad song.)

I want to vanish in a cabin in the woods
away from people

and caught on the dock at the lake
in the pouring rain,
i beg the rain,

she's crying
to me
to come to her.

heart of rain,
black phantom born of sorrow, wings whirr,
vanishing into the hush of night,
wings grow distant in flight.

the black swan a ghost light flickering.
she is the echo of every goodbye.
Joy Ann Jones Aug 18
I've unpacked the moon
from her nightboard box
so many times
I've worn out the ribbons.
I've hung her up
where she couldn't be missed
unless you were
watching
TV.

After a time, however
things loosen. The moon falls.
That paper crackle under the boot
is the crumpled bonesnap of
last night's hopeful crescent,
broken like a shotgun
that has two black eyes for
what it scars
and always fires blind.

So I gave up being
a moon-hanger years ago.
Now I'm retired--fallen
by the way
some say-- too tired
to lift that heavy glow
or to reach a sky that high,
but I have gotten by
by being very good at
dodging bullets.




©joyannjones~October 2015
Joy Ann Jones Aug 17
In the wildest place,
my mouth stopped with stars,
I came to the end of words;
the parched mint, bitter
paper plank

where I lost my balance,
on one foot teetering
along that roadway where gold-
flashing fireflies stand effortlessly
on air

to send their fragile signal
out,
every night a nocturne
of one less
til I and the last firefly

danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind

or else fall quiet
and one
with the wild that
will neither be spelled
nor known.




©joyannjones June 2023
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