-

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
.

-


Hello there !

i ~was~ that small gap on the
driver side wiper blade that you
paid little attention to until now–

glad to make your
acquaintance !

you know, its kinda funny
if you think on it, you and me
just staring through one another.
the eyes often fail in capturing
the obvious, i guess in passing

but as things tend to develop in nature,
they have creepy ways of obfuscating
the wits out of you as your
inane goes insane–

                                    Ya
                                            See ?
                            molehills
             do eventually
                                become Mountains
        when they are allowed to grow and
              cover your windshield with those thin
 brown and grey arc streaked Venetian Blinders

That now capture your fully divided
Attention as you drive in all that
Muddy wet sleet with only a small
Gap left to look through—

Hey,
were getting to know
each other pretty
good now...



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


.

-


it was working towards me
in tiny increments with this
unusually adamant
determination

loop-scooting itself across a
hot gravel desert populated
by abrasively inert killers

scraping off bits of itself
in detail along the way

i gave it a lift—

it rolled into a tight ball,
relaxed and then died
in my hand

its last act, a lamenting as if
i had denied it some chosen
final resting place

leaving me holding
this barometer

for measuring the spaces
between those less than
lofty of goals in the better
part of my years...



s jones
2021


.

-


is it better to feel a sting
than to become numb
from the wakes of

those millions of voices
suggesting to you about
how to live out

your final few breaths ?

i might hold on
to mine
                  
                  forever...




s jones
2021


.

Pregnant Penelope placed
pealed pears in pairs in a
path which pickled preacher
Percy just previously pondered.

Pealing downstreet in a Plymouth,
he placed the gear down and
pushed the peddle purposefully
upon patent plush carpeting

PLOW!!

Poor pealed pears pushed
plumb with the pavement,
they promptly exploded..

Oh Please ! Pause !!!
Plllhhheewfff,
puke...

preposterous poetry should
be punished promptly with
proper penalty,

BUT

regretfully someone
will plagiarized such
pompous penning

Alas, THEY shall be known
for the **** they pass
in some preferred
publication,

which —personally— would
please the p*** out of me...

"intentionally poor ****"
© 2007-2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

a large hand from outer space
descended to the Earth's surface
and with a finger and thumb,

grabs me by the belt at the seat
of my pants,

hoisting me straight up like
a fish out of water for
viewing with a great
concern...

He turns my tinyness toward Him
and looks me eye to eye, frowning
in disapproval—

"I dunno, maybe You should
just,
                 toss me away??"

His face then smiled a little,
and with a sigh ,

i was gently lowered
back down...

"Intervention"
©2007-2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

it was, for her~

a question, a dare to venture into a
place that few would ever visit
more than once in a lifetime

walled with earth, rock, twists and
turns, shadows that move—
bones that lay still

a smart phone was recovered there,
the woman who left it is somewhere
deep in the lower chambers

it recorded her unapproved descent into
miles of dark passages which multiply,
divide, intersect— mystify

images steady at first, a wonderment
of sheer expansiveness, these arteries
go on forever and ever !

"i need to tell someone !"—
                                               "ohh, no
                                                 signal..."

a "sotto voce" begins questioning confusion
as her disorientation becomes a
measure of breath

curiosity now relinquishes to a desperation
of sharp huffs as the camera aims about
in quick jolts, straining to see the
next hopeful opening—

the light stops
working.

minutes later she realizes her affiliation
with the underground brethren has
been met with tacit approval.

her phone is eventually abandoned with
all remaining composure, as a new

and permanent member commences
a delirious marathon down
the corridors of
                             home

—

the recording lasted awhile before
her drowning cries dissolved into
resolution of a sealed fate—

underneath and silent,
amongst thousands

                            of opened mouths...




s jones
© 2020


.

-

i submit~

they had been used to fill the balloon
in order to make it lofty, without any
regard for these molecules not desiring
a state of massed captivity,

with a clown smiling literally from
ear to ear with what he had done,
sentencing them to an uncertain fate
inside a rubberspheric prison.

floating erratically above the small child
he had given them to, they bounce up and
down repeatedly upon string as this small
jailer runs between tall ma'ams and misters

they long to be released,
but they do not desire
a wandering cell
at the mercy of
the winds—

!!! FANTASTIC CHANGE !!!

A man in dark vestiges
has wandered into this paradigm
with lit cigar in mouth, wearing a black moustache
upturned at the ends. He smiles in twisted lip pleasure

as he
POPS!!!

the key into the lock

FREE !!!

the yellow cocoon shrivels instantly away,
tiny helium souls quickly separate as they
dissipate completely into oblivion within
a welcoming clear blue sky

Free—

~so you may understand, a possible
justification exists for —conceivably—
any negative human activity...

-


there is decidedly too much space
between us and the spool

all this rope and not enough bone
within our fingers to get
a good grip

and

with too many moons having past
to notice any stars from the bottom
of this nightmare dream well—

do we just
drip ?...


s jones
2022



.

-

they have empirically evidenced
      a spectral existence within
          computer imagery of
                small glowing
                       orbs
                      ~  o  ~

                     "yawn"

if i found myself in the middle of
these things as they bank off the
walls and nudge against my arm–
batting their lil' eyes at me,

it would likewise illicit from me
the perception of a largely
innocuous event,

But—

the
creeping
shadow of
a skeletal hand
appearing to reach
for my shoulder from
the opening of a doorway
within the steady limitations of
a traditional negative photograph–

would most certainly
pull me into

it's
               reality...



s jones
2021



.

-


what do you say to someone
you love from such a distance ?

a stroke could be measured by
how far it is from the first floor
to the intensive care unit

or from the steering wheel
to the door **** of the
hospital entrance

or from your drive way to
the spot where you have to
pay for parking

or from the handset of
your telephone to his ear—

exhausted,

you can only
whisper
into it—

"i love you Daddy"

and hope this time
he can feel your
breath...


s jones
Nov 2021


.

-

on the Sea of Tranquility sits
evidence of alien visitors
to this world ;

underneath one of the footings lie
the crushed remains of an indigenous
being who was delivering a message

inside a six-fingered metacarpus
entanglement is a wrinkled sheet
of aluminum with the following
etched in broken Earthling—

"we never sent invitations
and we never asked you
for anything–

Please,
               go home..."


s jones
2021

.

-


feel the heaviness
of invitations
bold,

free fall of purpose,
dissolving into a
whirlpool

circling it's center
thinning number
by number

ten, nine, eight,
se—seven,
six, five,

four~

feather tips
stroking
underneath
upturned
palms

three~

fingertips
light­ly
touching
delicate
doorways

two~

steps away from
loose earth at
the edge,

giving way
to

one ;

submerged as the
membrane above
sleep vaporizes

into web-footed
thrusting through
currents

with "up" rotated
lateral
across the
undertow and
pulling you beneath—

breathe...



s jones
2021



.

did i lose it already ?
this fragile notion
piercing the fog
that hovers my ocean ?

i must place it
somewhere safe
so i may remember
the fragment
if not the face

perhaps this snippet
of waste?
     no, there is
not left a whit of space

Here is the vessel,
a white bleached and
prepared remnant
of an elm or a spruce        
that once
stood
         Tall
and shaded the sun
from exhausted lost
explorers—

cut stripped and
diced
to provide
               for Me
this small
space,

so i may forget...

"memory paper"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

Amazing !

how They keep millions of
computer-boxed brains from
calculating out of bounds

using the same media,
which simultaneously
*****

to the left
                 and
                          to the right

sating a hunger for numbers
by drawing into either side
as many believers as possible

all the same ;

those who are ideologically
magnetized seem to
not mind
                   control

giving me every reason
to keep my eyes glancing
at the center for movement

where i know a monster
patiently waits—

smiling at so
many cattle...


s jones
2021

.

-

she stands there with
equal curiosity and
reaches as i do
towards the
surface

thinking
how we both
could dismiss the
truth of the glass—

knowing
we each think
alike and are of
the same mind

believing
in each other's
convictions of
being

accepting
the warmth
of our fingertips

to prove we each
exist on opposite
sides

wishing to join
one another

looking deep into
focused eyes

whispering
permission

to allow the
other's hand
to slip aside

and
pass              
through...



s jones
2020



.

-

i could imagine this word
being used by a hypnotist
to induce a trance

or maybe typed in as a fake
name on a website to get
access to free software–

but i would really like
to put this into some
possible context,

(being how i just
thought of it)

(~!@"–MoonFish–"@!~)

i could cast a line into
the Sea of Tranquility
and pull one out

pop a tab on a beer
while firing up my
portable grill,

scale it, clean it,
cook it-
                eat it.


(<Moon-Fish>)

the name of a poem written
for somebody who works
at a fisherman's wharf,

moonlighting as a night
watchman kicking rats
off the pier.

moon fish—

a phrase coined by an
amateur poet for an
idea that may never
actually come to being...



s jones
Apr 2021


.

-

when i was very young i was
prohibited from climbing the
kitchen cabinets in order to
get into the sugar container

yet my ulterior motive
next to it was the flour

it started with the creation
of pictures of my fingers in
reverse

and then with a playing card
i molded shapes that would
crack apart in intricate detail
as i nudged at it slightly

with a tablespoon i constructed
mountains and grand canyons

i even made my own
five year old face

thinking how God might
have been inspired with
simple cosmic dust

—

reviewing the cracks and
wrinkles of my pale stoney
cheeks in the mirror

i have decided that it may
be best not to let children
play with flour...

s jones
June 2021


.

-


i have decided to
meditate on
nothing

by filling a moment
of voids with -

no parks
no dogs to walk
no children out playing
no cars cruising dead end streets
no boats in a river that flows nowhere
no fishermen having fish to fill their boats
no livelihood, no fish on a plate, no plate
to place back on the shelf, no shelf
to fix upon the wall, no wall
to hang photos, no photos
to look at, no faces
to recall,

nil,

just so maybe i can
feel the Universe
pour itself

back into me...


s jones
Dec 2020

.

-

Greetings,

I am the empty chair you just recently
pushed into the carport like some unruly
child made to stand in a corner.

Not a new chair for sure,
but you made me Your chair
by the force of gravity,

transforming my cushion into
perfect contours in the image
of your ***.

Though you were always careful
if crumbs fell into me to get up
and brush them away,

and instead of just plopping down
******* me, you sat gentle and easy,
even if only doing so to soften the
shock for yourself,

there were moments as you sipped beer
you let it slip through your bottom lip,
dripping on me with bitter aftertaste.

Still, I was forgiving of that, and even
to those numerous occasions of you
venting your evening meals.

But the one event that forever sullied our
personal relationship was the morning you
woke on me soaked in most of the past
evening's              
                ~~brew

Though you tried to patch things up
with towels and scented sprays,
we were never to look upon
one another with the
same recognition
again.

I know now the days for me here number
far less than the buttons of the controller
you so frequently lost between my cushions,
giggling me in your efforts to retrieved it.

Although our separation will mean for me a
transformation into a twisted pile of springs,
stuffing, splinters and ripped cloth within the
bucket jaws of a front end loader in the snow,

I can take some comfort with me to the
resting pits of jettisoned human folly that
our severance was of no fault of my own.

yours truly,
Chair...


s jones
2007-2020


.

-

what can be said
about a library
depopulated of
forbidden books—

when the librarian is
legally prohibited from
conveying information
to anyone about
its contents

?


s jones
2023





.

-


it is like the pulling of fish from
water that is now too shallow
for minnows to swim in

or a child's deceased hamster
inside of a shoe box leaning
against a dumpster

while a breeze pushes autumn leaves
in the opposite direction of
a one-way street

it is what remains after the
door to everything has been
padlocked from everybody–

these are the bubbles that
pop randomly in my
dishwater,

all of this soaking quietly into
an old wet sponge situated
just between my ears—

did you hear any
of this ?


s jones
2021



.

-

lying on a closet floor
that stretches for over
two decades—

memories

messages, pictures and songs
from back in the day stored
inaccessibly in a rusting box
that has not functioned in years

and next to it, a laptop with a
deployed CD tray sits sideways
partially draped by a sheet

these machines may have
shared stories once,
but its doubtful they really
knew each other

—

miles away in a nursing home
a petrified brain rests in some
kind of medicated peace

while another lays quietly on his
side under a blanket watching
for the other one's last breath

hearing kids just outside
laughing into their devices —

he hopes for a chance to take
his last spin on –anyone's–
old record player...



s jones
2021

.

-


I think of you as the first draw
from a cigarette wish-well,
and the dizzy well being
of its so-so beckonings—

i became addicted,

remaining perilously close to your
edge with a potential for falling in
while reaching for another taste
as the cravings intensified.

But the euphoria diminished;

when i realized (finally) that you
were not my springwater, nor the
bucket of a dreamwell, nary even
the spool that held the rope—

you were merely a shimmer
of water under a bridge
that was too good
to be true.

Someday i will pause
over your delicious
flow once more,

to remember a taste
necessitating years
to drift downstream...


s jones
Dec 2020


.

my panic sack would have
contained enough breath
to blow out most of this
year’s birthday candles

inverted,

a mask tumbles out like
some kind of lung-wallet,

hinting whispered
passwords

i hyperventilate into it
with resignation upon
each casting of a socially
distant wave

splashing between crests—

a sense of security swells
in my chest as i drown in

absolute safety...


"pest bag"
©2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-


would i rather wait in line
at the entrance to Hell
knowing at least
that i had
tried—

than to stare at the Pearly
Gates coming up with
excuses as to why
i didn't
?


s jones
2021

.

-


totally submerged
they laid side by side
three puppies of
different colors in a
shallow puddle
by a pasture

a bull with udders was
fixed halfway into
some fencing nearby
like no big deal

he was totally dark and
she did not labor

i lifted the brown one
he yawned and
looked at me with
black sleepy eyes

the middle grey and white one
was twitching partially under
the first, buried halfway
into sawdust

i left him

the third one had bands
of orange and red
around its little body
he was far too little
to pick up with
my fingers

they all just wanted
to lay still and sleep
in mysteriously
clear waters—

i woke...


"pups of a puddle"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

for centuries people have set aside
special days to schedule certain events,
mark a historic point in humanity,
or signify the passing of a torch

so perhaps within such varieties the
makers of calendars could introduce
to the world in all their wisdom,

A Wildcard Day

a day that people can do anything with
and be able to place it at will within a
positioning scheme of convenience,

empowering it so that
you can substitute any
pending occasion,

say like, (insert bad day here)

so that you can make
it yesterday,

put it off until
next week,

or at the very least—

resituate it anywhere
but to—day...


s jones
Feb 2021


.

-

i tell myself sometimes–

"Cut !"

when i remember
out of impulse
some bad event(s)

playing on a taped
loop of myself
screaming—

and denied scissors
capable of putting
ends to it...



s jones
Mar 2022

.

-

feathered smudges like a floor spatter from
Jackson Pollard covered the lanes underneath
an old L&N railroad overpass where flocks
of pigeons used to **** from above

tiny pellets were sprinkled along the
rail banks & eager beaks pushed aside
large stones to pick out these "yummies"
which slid easily down the throat
causing vacant, fixed pupils

it is about thirteen foot-six inches from
the bottom of the bridge to the street,
hundreds of detached eyes looked
aimlessly from the pavement
for a sky to rise in

motorists rolled up the windows as they
approached for a finishing pass, hoping
maybe they would all eventually wash
away with the rains

i see a morning dove landing on my
porch railing, it's tiny black lenses
zooming into me through the window

causing me to think if maybe there is
a talon or a couple of small bones
embedded tread-wise into my tire

a vision now manifests some
thirteen foot, six inches away—

all those
                  eyes...


s jones
2009-2021


.

-

" You have no real sense of meter,
your rhyming is non-existent
and you spell like a brat,
following no rules"

Rules?

i didnt know i had to follow
any rules, 'cept the ones in my
head that represent limitation

"Well, you need to read up
on some of the more classic
"recognized" poets—
Learn the Proper Etiquette !"

Dood,

i have read more than a few lines
of that finer moem-age poem-age,
and if you want to write about why
roses are red on fine sheets of poet paper
with a fountain pen in the fashion of Kipling—

Cool;

i will more likely write about how well Violet blew
over the top of a half empty jug of bourbon with
a ball point pen that skips more or less
in the style of Bukowski—

and then someone can say that
we had both written poems
about Colorful Flowers...



© 2020
.

One day i had a detailed look
at a 24 inch machine scale and
pondered some new ways to
relate to the sizes of things

some "inch" scales are in gradients of
decimals and i see them divided into
tens, those tens in turn divided to
even smaller tens, thus~

1.00 =    1               inch    
0.10 =    1/10  th    inch    
0.01 =    1/100th    inch    


1/100th of an inch is very small but i see
certain things that my mind can measure,
like the size of the Earth— a little less than
eight thousand miles in diameter.

i can see a mile, but not thousands,
so my magic scale says:

1" = 1,000 mi, thus
Earth = about 8"

i imagine holding Earth in my hand
like a small beach ball, then i figure
that the moon is about 2 1/4" big.

how far away is it, i wonder ?
let me grab a tape measure :)

given what i have on hand, now there
is a basketball and a tennis ball lying
some 20 feet apart from each other
in the back yard

i look upon all this and fathom it in—

but this vision now zooms upon my "Earth" ball
with the scale situated conveniently next to it.
detailing the texture of its surface, my eyes
become disproportionately larger than my brain—

observing the Space Station
cruising about 0.15 above it,

the clouds hovering at 0.01,

and further still through the winds of upper distances,
descending between the smallest of lines to my
mere figment of a presence at
1/100th the size
of this tiny
period
dot
.  

— leaving me to wonder how
i could possibly have even
glimpsed all of this—

from way down
                              Here...

"Scale"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-


i think of summer solstice as
a reminder for God to let the
earth back down

it's not supposed to
stay up there forever—

that's what kids are for...




s jones
Jun 2024



.

-
video—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiIEcwoDHM


One is supposed to sleep with the intention of repairing the mind and the body of all those ills encountered in daily life, but This night was not one for rest. I think the clock was reading 9:53 last I had glanced, but it could have been 3:59 or sumthin.

Anyway, my eyes opened to the stature of a very tall and muscular fellow holding a pitchfork to my side. He said "Miss Seranaea Jones, you have been selected to participate in a wonderous event. Your going to tour the finest Pits of Hell and all of the recent improvements. Satan has"personally" endorsed this invitation to you, so we must be on our way !"

I think at that moment I said, "its not done yet, let it cook a while longer".

I was not really capturing current events, so he jabbed that pitchfork deeper and pushed me right off the bed. Frickin hurt too, so realizing
that this was gonna be a non-negotiable parlay, I agreed to his terms.

(or "It", I dunno... this dood was holding a pitchfork on me and I couldn't find my gun)

We went outside to his vehicle. It was Hottest **** thing I ever saw !
We got inside and I was surrounded by blinking indicators, computer graphics and some serious leather seats and solid wood paneling. He said "Please fasten your seatbelt, it is not currently permissible to have you killed". I said "Thanks" with a fearful stare of a chicken being held by its throat.

He started the engine and Ohh !!!— such an immaculate sound emanated from it. With one pull of the gearshift we plunged STRAIGHT DOWN. Before I passed out I saw what looked like platoons of dragons in formation poised to venture upwards into to midst of the Earth. My last element of memory was of cheeks rippling with the force of acceleration.


Having survived the trip down to the Negative Pearly Gates, the next thing I knew I was in a fish and ski motor boat cruising the River Styx. Had all those extras too, depth finders and flat monitors that surrounded the driver position— the screens were filled with the ******...


ummm—
wished i had not looked into the rear view mirror,
looking back was a version of myself as some
mummified shriveled past-tense
Seranaea  "thing"—
                                      — ughhh

He pointed to the sign at the entrance. It looked new enough, but was marred by bullet holes and deep scrapes.

It said—

                       "Ye who enter, Abandon All Hope.
                              ATMs are available inside.
                                        No Smoking"  

He said "My apologies for the condition of this entrance, we just recently had some particularly unruly admissions". I nervously nodded, thinking on how unruly I was upstairs to have become a Hellbound tourist.

The next thing I noticed were the creatures in the water, their mouths gaping wide, wrapped by bedsheet-white skin tightened around skulls and pairs of hollowed eyes. They were screaming knives into my soul.
My captor said "reach into this bag and throw one of these out to them"  
It was a bag of charcoal briquettes, so I took one and threw it. One of those creatures snapped it up and then slipped back underwater.

Cool !!

I did this a number of times, skipping the briquettes and watching them get snatched as like so many minnows gulping down bread crumbs. I was really getting the hang of it by the time I suddenly Slipped And Fell !! –splashing into the water as these things start immediately towards me, reaching for new flesh with long sharp Nails When I—

4 AM

Woke Up !
Wet—

wrapped tight
in a bed sheet—

peppered with
blacken 
fingerprints...



think id better be a good girl
from now on !!!



s jones
2007


.

-


decades ago this was a tasty
quick meal between ten
hour shifts and sleep

tangy cheese in a metal container
that i cooked on a burner as the
shells boiled to a full fluff nearby

i mixed in some diced ham that
in of itself could have filled
a morning omelet,
had i the time—

to—day’s products consist of
much smaller shells that boil
into gooey blobs

and cheese– sealed in some kind
of chemically pre-melted state
inside of a silver bag,

and ham—

packed in smaller cans–
very much tasting like
the machines that process it.

i wonder now what level of
creature is low enough to
be able to live off of this

to within what measure
of survival

or—

if in fact this stuff
could actually be
                            
eating  it...


s jones
2021


.

-

~a small pile of ash—

some teeth
metal oxide and
grated bone material

fitting a cardboard
vault with such a
precision

a weighing of decision

to throw in some
flour or a handful
of dirt

upon a
lifetime allotment
of sanctified hurt

i sleep
to-night in a
shoe box casket

to fathom that
finalized state
of being ~


s jones
Nov 2020



.

my footfalls translate to mileage in the
way that feathers can be lost to a given
amount of wing beats—

each iteration of propulsion will shed
bits of material,

and these are mixed into the sands that are
splashed across beaches, bleached and
eventually broken down into elemental shapes

one of those grains flew and landed on a
boardwalk and then another one
kicked it aside many years ago
by some distant shoreline,

they now lie together in my path—
why i know this is anyone's guess,
but surely the math is in my favor

needless to say, even if my remains withstand
the sands of time there wont be anyone
left to recognize me,

yet i am certain a piece of me will always
be a few steps ahead somewhere,

either washed there from a recent gale,
or maybe blown from the nostrils
of a passing sea gull...

"shoes and feathers"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

she laid there on the carpet
like a fuzzy brown pillow
i could see her mid-mass
slowly rise and fall

small twitchings of her paws
caught my eye as she began
running in a yard of dreams,
expressing her excitement for 
                    it

a rear leg jerks followed by another
but they never seem to coordinate,
all the same i know she dogtrots
quickly in her vast green parcel

i think now her goal has just
been reached, her legs are
straight and she is softly
barking muted "yes"s
through her nostrils—

her tail wags significantly,
dissipating quietly vented
puppy treats...



"sleep dog"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

.

-

thick
blanketing  
comfortably soft
foldings enclosing
warmth around my being,

they may not insure my
safety– yet they do
provide some sense
of security

and perhaps motivation–

my hands reach inboard
along the divides between
flesh and cloth

probing contrasting textures
for a perfect fit of my fingers
into a clasping for rope

pulling for wind—

i slip off with my sail
into an ocean of dreams...



s jones
2022


.

-

we knew the Marlin kids in '71
at the house across the street–
Danny, Angela and

the youngest–
i cannot fathom for the life
of me his name

i played almost daily with that boy
until one evening he showed me
Danny's military photo to explain
why he had been away so long

a week later daddy told me not
to go to his house anymore

i am unable to visualize
his kindergarten face
even to—day,

only a memory of the photo
of a brother who vanished
forever, later taking with
him everybody else

whenever i think
of it now,

i feel like i am keeping a
space for his lost image
in my private album
like someone's name on
the Black Wall—

the name of a conscript
in a crusade made up
mostly of children...


s jones
June 2021


.

-


from between feathered clouds
of the east through branches of
misguided deeds waving crooked
shadows into the window–

and then

penetrating the skin-tight sheet
that wraps around a throbbing
head into a pair of thin
quivering optical blinds—

the rays of Sunday Morning now
blisters a soul in preparation
for a forgiveness—

from Saturday night...



s jones
2022



.

-

a "Purity of Being"
rests upon this
–Bed of Angels–

governing the distances
between crests of
wrinkled sheets

watching them

break along the banks
with his skillfully
sinful skin—

Waking me...



s jones
June 2021


.

-

i spread sugar across the kitchen table
and use my index finger to start from
deep scratch, penetrating it's layer to
the smooth wooden surface below

writing characters into gritty detail
within it's fine grainy media, i finish
each line without any practical means
to re-work the structure

they are my sweet licks by finger tips,
rows of tasty words that lay bare upon
a temporary tablet— in a raw form
which will soon be swept into a dust pan

just a musing on a mess at a place
meant for dining, i remove my
thoughts with a hand held brush—

yet traces of its ghost now linger
in a fragile film awaiting your
consumption...


s jones
2008-2021


.

-

I discovered it protruding a bit
between reference volumes in
the library, seemingly amiss.

Stuck fast, I pulled
on it hard, it popped out and
then flew past me,

flapping across the room like some
quasi-winged frisbee-lark, bouncing
off the edge of a bookshelf and

landing on the carpet with it's
feather pages fanned outward,
the quills then slowly relaxed.

I let it sit it there for a moment to
settle from the occurrence, then
picked it up for a closer look,

releasing my breath into Tut's Tomb,
to blow away loose sediment dating
from it’s forgotten inauguration—

Upon reading, it thanked me
for this flight from a
static Perdition—


by
telling me
tales of taradiddles,
page after page to no
end...Taradiddles, page after
page to no end...Page after Page
to no End...telling Me Taradiddles ! Yes !!
Taradiddles !! To No End !! Page After Page to NO
END !... PAgE AFtEr PaGE AFTeR PAGE—TARADIDDLES !!
PAGE AFTER PAGE FROM COVER TO COVER TO NO F—

( thuMP ! )


—leaving me with little doubt
which section of the library
it should have been placed...


s jones
© 2020


.

to be a bird of great wing,
pulling across the folds
of cloudy space

intimately familiar of each
turn between misty
white finials

with a quick flap—
out of reach,
into the opening of a
grey mountain—

evading the glimpse of
all but the sharpest
earthbound
eye...


"that space between mists"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

That line in the distance which
defines the boundary between
the Heavens and the Earth

is not even a line–
actually it is an arc,
so i have fooled
myself already.

I imagine this as a border
constituting what i can
and cannot reach

with all the lofty fixtures
of space high above

and the rocks below—

my endurance erodes
between them.

I admit to having grown
fond of the certainty
this divide represents

because it renders the scope
of my options unambiguous.

Still, i fancy some rungs–
a way to step up
so i can place hopes
just above that threshold,

but having attempted to
measure the height of
"Jacob's Ladder",

i realize success could mean
my condemnation to
a hopelessness
below...


s jones
2021


.

i felt a presence as i walked
past its shadow between
restless sunbeams and
lazy dark patches

too small to fill a stadium and
too light to resist a breeze,
it could not muster the most
muted sigh of thunder

still, it singled me out from acres
of trees and multi-laid squares
of rooftop hide-aways

and followed—

to send a message of being
to an insignificant recipient

through a small break within
divided thoughts, into a brief
opening underneath—

a single drop, into a
downpour of
tears




"the cloud"
© 2008 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

i look up at my feet and
understand what it is like
to be buried underneath
the entirety of the Earth—

maybe Atlas was
simply interred
after all...



s jones
2021


.