-

last night i met a wolf  
in a dream where
i was in a car with
the door decidedly open

listening to a radio that
was playing
some soft jazz
on a distant station.

i look and— there He was !!
right next to me sitting
just inches away.

He said (woof) "Hello" with a
mild but manly voice, this fellow
was well over two hundred lbs.

i said "hello" back as He sniffed
at the side of my leg briefly
and then looked at me with

friendly eyes and an expression
which seemed –to me– like
a gentle smile.

He then said (woof) "I just wanted
you to pet me for a minute–
hopefully you wont mind"

so i did..

perhaps it was the scent of what i sprayed
on as i made my way out, or maybe
how the boots surrounded my
thighs a couple of inches
above my knees as the
wind blew across
my skirt like a
gesture—

and then a voice on
the radio shouted,

"You should be Parked !!"

I woke...


s jones
2021


.

-

i once had a bowl of
alphabet soup that
cussed me out

moody soup i suppose,
maybe too much salt

it only took all of three stirs
to resume composure

nevertheless i have favored
literally innocuous
types of soup ever since

not so much from me
being onion-skinned,
but simply for the fact—

i would prefer to eat
as opposed to
entertaining such
potentially disturbing
conversations
over the dinner table...

s jones
2021


.

-

i lie here beneath unfinished skies,
watching a rainbow evaporate
into shadows of daylight

my intellection suggests they are
made from billions of thumbs and
forefingers holding tiny mirrors

between me and my beyond,

lying to us with images of ambiguous
white columns in a gigantic panorama
of shape-shifting mistakes that constantly
reposition to hide the flaws

but i can easily make out these errors,
committed upon sensing inadequacy–
adjusting abstract creativity mapped
with ill-conceived perfection

which is likely what blew
this rainbow apart ,
the precipitation here was
so immense !

and somewhere—

droplets rise to form a tremendous new arc,
glimpsed now by a humble roofer
who wishes only that the sun
would hide once again...


s jones
2021


.

-

an icicle broke off from
the gutter of my porch,

stabbing my hydrangea
bush right in the heart.

i could reprimand the
shattered remains of an
icy spear,

and then bandage the
wound with a layer
of snow–

yet it occurs to me to maybe
quarter an apple with a
Swiss Army knife,

this pooling of thoughts like
pale blood seeping out of a
painfully frozen morning—

turning me white like
heavy frost over
so many early roses...


s jones
2021


.

-

I accepted this
portion of a

@-#)~"—?—"~(#-@


(conjured surely
from some black
cauldron)

And With Respect—

My mouth opened
wide enough
in the attempt
to finish the
whole thing raw
with a single bite–

but instead,
I grabbed one crumb
between incisors,

tugged
and tugged
until It tumbled
out of my mouth
and onto the arm
of the porch swing–

bounced and then
dropped
           between
                         cracks
amongst peelings of
old paint and then
into the funnel of
an Ant-Lion,

who thought it had
the catch of the day,
pulled It in,
bit into It–
went sour-faced

(as if it could)

and spat It back out
where It continued
into a wormhole
downwards
inwards
&
side-wards
inside out
through
multi colored
celestial
milky-ways—

bumping into a  
plastic spoon
spinning end
over end
along a
Mobius Strip orbit
between the
Rings of Saturn,
where It shall
                          (hopefully)
reside
For  Ever—

(Expansive Ten-Fingered
"E" chords played upon
Three Grand Pianos)

Finis
            Coronat  
                              Opus...

­

s jones
2021


.

-

i found a can of fish hooks
while looking for a pair
of gloves to—day

a decomposing hand
crawls its way back
to its owner;

in the course of parsing
her effects after she was
folded and filed away

finger over finger by thumb
over lithography of safety,
prying open the subtle warmth
of personal bed space,

like a pen seeking fluid
to fuel an exhausted
ink well,
the tip of one of
them pricked my finger,

finger over finger by thumb
over a papier-mâché torso –
casting long shadows, even
in total darkness,

my blood then violated
an heirloom—

a notepad of dreams she
had on her nightstand
the morning she died,

between the folds of blankets
towards vulnerable skin—
icy digits commence
with repossession,

detailing on
her last entry what
i had just written here—

frantically groping into thick
blackness for the pull chain
of a light switch—

something to do about a
can full of fish hooks
she happened upon
in a nightmare...

It was just a Glove
it was a glove
it's a glove
a glove
~




s jones
2021
.