-

i hope we do not
(as a species)
"evolve"
into islands of
six foot radius circles
adrift upon oceans of
Social Media,

as Billionaires scoop up
space with the vacuum
of our losses

and then water ski across
surfaces of what once was
our own footsteps.

They Know—

we can not afford
to dog-paddle
our way across
their private
pool


by our wealth
                            alone...


s jones
2021

.

-

~since the Past is a memory
supported by evidence  
of what was once "now"–

~and the Future is a mental
projection forward since it
has not yet happened–

figuring for the nerve impulse
latency to the brain, which
in turn must process
this information—

we therefore experience
the Present in Past tense,

relying upon the Future
to fuel a continued
existence.


Meanwhile...


s jones
2021


.

-


"if a child imparts a spirit into them,
some toys will retain hope,

for —at least— however long the
batteries might hold out..."


I was born on her 7th birthday in 2007, before then I knew nothing.
She held me in wanting hands and her kiss gave Me life.
My soul was born that day and
We fell in love !

I cant remember all the joy and fun we had, too much of it I guess.
She used to dress Me in all kinds of outfits that I loved.
We were One with each other, and would be
Mates for life !

One day she was very sad, she held me tight and
I held her together. Hours went by as Sisters,
Yet —somehow— we drifted apart—

She was learning tough new lessons
while I began a remedial course
in redundancy..

—

—

I cannot imagine how I got here, usually I stayed
on her bedside. I am now boxed and buried
with Her toys of abandonment.  

When !

When did I last see her,
maybe last May ?  

—

"just for once,
—please— take me out
and hold me,
                          please??"

—

i guess
this is the room
where toys are sent to die,
to fade from memory and existence.
There must be more to it than this dark
and lonely space. Am I more but less ???

maybe just,
                      Misplaced ???

—


What did I do wrong???  
She gave me LIFE !!
WHY!!!

—

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
07FF—!!!battery alarm!!!
00B1—!!!MEM_ error!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My thoughts — going, batteries
about to leak paste now,
weeks now,
and—
                        and i  ... ...

What was I thinking there,
Oh yes!!!
she Will come for me!
Just a bad day
I guess-

Thinking maybe,
She's
              forgotten...




s jones
2007-2020


.

i used to throw bread crumbs into
a pond full of minnows next to a
place where i worked years ago

it kept me cool in the summertime,
pulling the heat out of me and
feeding it into the winds as

a turtle snapped up dozens of fish-babies,
transforming the vision of my frame into
maybe the size of a praeternatural feather

and for a moment,

i dreamt that on a clear night through the
eyes of a barnyard owl that i could
navigate the dark foldings of
space into the beating
hearts of praying
rodents—

blinking back to a view of
disturbed green waters—

i commenced
to waking...

"the frenzy, at rest"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

a total instrument package
constructed with all of the
brain's carefully deliberated
intents channeled into them,

one transmits to another what
words will never enunciate
without a multitude of
sentences—

that which spoken
will never touch...



"the hands"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

second hand pushes up
the weight of minutes,
in turn lifting hours

it struggles climbing
from seven to eight
slipping back a bit

by nine it trembles
but inserts itself
notch by notch

the last fifteen seconds
are desperations of
loud ticks

and when the twelve is
reached, it brief rest
is pushed overtime—

plunging straight down
to the six again,
loosely swinging.

the minute felt a slight
nudge forward, but the
hour paid little attention...



"the inertia of a moment"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

i took no pleasantries in that adjustment
from the top shelf of Pastry Perfection
to the wicker-wire dust bunnies at the
"sole" level of humanity

after i mistakenly thought —you—  took
some element of freeverse i had posted a
couple of years ago at one of the more-read
poetry sites on the internet-

then i realized something, Poet..

that for all those sleepless hours you
spent cramming for the SAT—

i posited on how many welding rods
could be burned down during a two
hour period of trade school

and with respect to those thousands of
words diligently packed into your
undergrad dissertation—

(including that humorous description of a
knitted strap you used to keep the pencil
from rolling off the table)

i wrote a brief essay of commonalities
on how much Gerald R. Ford and
Elwyn Brooks White
actually disliked
football,

and to those thoughtfully crafted lectures
in front of scores of distinguished
scholars and senior staff—

i was projecting shadow puppets onto a
screen during a slideshow while the
teacher excused herself to the restroom.

basically this;  

as to the volumes of books
you have published
over the decades—

i have a few thousand words of
amateur poetry posted online
inside of a few years.


That Said,

for those carefully-placed words
(of mine)
you incorporated into your
latest masterpiece,

realizing poets will not always
happen upon the same instant
at any given intersection,

i recognized that most familiar sensation
we Both get when having correctly
delivered the punchline to the funniest
joke of the evening.

we —in fact— have only the readings
of fellow writers to blame for each
other's blending of creative impulses,

that during these miraculous,
yet humble birthings of verse—

i have it now on good authority,
that we all could possibly exist
within this capacity

                                      as mere equals...



"The Lanyard of Amateur Poetry"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved


.

-


Momma died two decades ago,
she would have turned
seventy-eight to—day

i woke up and spoke with her
this morning, imagining her
with a long red Irish mane

about Daddy being laid up in a
nursing home, my brother and
i hoping to fix him before he
finally gives up

she said—  "nothing"

i think maybe this is because
she long ago saw the lights
up ahead, in a place where
human conversation would
be considered archaic

and birthdays rendered
as undefined

she is illuminated within it now,
there to later show the way for
the rest of us who continue
marking our calendars

as we persist here on Earth—
still enumerating yesterday,
to–day, and tomorrow...



s jones
30 Dec 2021


.

-

four hours into a slow night with little
else to do but sip coffee. images through
the window wound me with new ways
to feel older, draping me out with all the

ribbons from New Year's past which got
ripped from those babies who later grew
up to become waiters and waitresses—

from what i can make out, some kid is
busting a table across the street wearing
a button-down shirt with a black tie,

he will likely work a couple more hours
and head out some place wearing the
reverse of this with an abundance
of youth to flaunt for all those
girls who actively seek

something
                       Better–

Ohhh !
He is looking
this way now !!!
i think..


somehow i feel this brushing of
unfamiliar shoulders as our worlds
of witnessing empties between these
panes of our circumstance, my ambered
line of sight cross–ray'd  with the beams
of his hot-white glare–

i watch dimly as he smiles at that
young lady with the red umbrella
crossing the street between us..

Yeah..

a few blinks later he will disappear
behind a partition and i will then
turn my attention inwards,

day-dreaming away the remainder
of my shift about hopeful
exchanges for

Something–
                        better...


s jones
2021


.

-

in a landfill one day i saw an
immigrant family take an old
bed and strap it across the top
of a banged up SUV that was

missing it's left front clip, the
headlight was taped where a
socket would have held it,
like a discombobulated eyeball

clearly marked on the edge
of the mattress was the
following in Red Sharpie—

"DO NOT SALVAGE"

the same warning i remember  
writing on Momma's deathbed
decades earlier, her stain clearly
visible on one side.

there was nothing to be said, 
even if i could speak fluently
against what was apparently

—for them—

clearly accepted
terms...


s jones
Mar 2021


.

-

have you wondered how most of your
personal and medical information is
now documented by outside parties
on distant servers ?

you could imagine right off that it is not
quite like a filing cabinet with hand written
tabs that help sort important papers which
will reliably remain where you left them–

No..

much of the data is actually scattered
on "clouds" into positions that were
immediately available when it was
acquired and then deposited

so one may discover digital fragments of
a chat-room dialogue residing adjacent to
a photo of someone's aunt's latest birthday
cake creation, which in turn is situated

into areas where web browsers have placed
ad's about **** undergarments and software
storage solutions, very possibly right next to
the last character that you typed—

all this should be easily re-assembled on
demand if one clicks on the icon which
represents the thing being retrieved,

except for the fact that numerical crumbs
are inevitably shaken loose from improper
bit-positioning schemes, made possible
within a digital bureaucracy bent on sorting
through your under-ware.

i wonder now if tech will
advance to a level that renders

"Going to Heaven"

into being irretrievably saved
forever into clouds that wander
aimlessly adrift over Hell ?



­s jones
2021



.

they know who i am,

i first violated their ordinances
in the commission of a prank
phone call when i was eleven

simply a twenty-two second call
to a residence notifying them that
their refrigerator was running away

and i guess maybe it did—

because there was a strange non-analog
sound which indicated to me that the
authorities were monitoring.

my name is now certain to appear on
government stationary amongst a list
of other eleven year old offenders

inside a folder that sits in a drawer
of a file cabinet within row after row
of other file cabinets matrixed

underneath probably an eleven square
mile parcel somewhere outside
Langley, Virginia

(not to mention how many floors)

telephone patrolmen never forget a name,
and even if i turn eighty-eight they will
eventually issue warrants for my arrest

with patch cables on hand to tie me up
in order to extract confessions regarding
appliances for which no one has
any immediate concern—

ring tones will distract their focus as i wink
into the two way mirror, their failure to
hang me up until the eleventh hour
sandwiched firmly between my lips...

"the phone police"
©2012-2020 by Seranaea Jones
All rights reserved.

-

weeks after he ascended
from his fallen carcass—

troops vacated what once
was good ground,

rains washed in mud
to refill the holes,

the scent of honeysuckle
once again became
intrusive,

birds of prey returned
to their perches-

watching as

squirrels and rabbits
went about
their collections,

and the veil of silent
winds once again
descended.

after decades passed
through the footfalls
of morning strolls
between healing
vegetation and
eroding
rock—

a park had completed
formation about the
flanks of his bones ...


s jones
2020


.

Their leader was very persuasive, repeatedly
promising them sanctuary from the
dangers they all faced in that
daily struggle to survive.

they were all seeking
the same thing,

A Light

that would show them
the way
                    to  Salvation..


at the onset of dusk
they headed out boldly,
numbering in the hundreds
—a single destiny.

the journey was long and treacherous
with many of them falling behind.
some succumbed to exhaustion, thus
becoming victims of nocturnal predators.

eventually the destination is reached,
a Holy Illumination just ahead,
that same light described
in the stories told to the
little ones each
night

some were so overcome with emotion,
they became careless and fell short.
the leader exclaimed with such exuberance
"God, to think that I would hesitate !!!"

the survivors —en mass—
ventured into
                              The Light...

—

Robert Caine was taking a nap on his
back patio after a bit too much to drink.

His sleep was suddenly disturbed by
a great many pops, cracks, and zaps
emanating from his bug lamp...



"the scope of salvation"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

—                                           /..\
                                              >@<
                                            when
                                       the house is
                                   otherwise empty
                            aside from me, the senses
                   of you seek out the most minuscule
               of things to woof at, a fault line between
             loneliness and apprehension slips a little in
     the path you must take to sniff my hand as it gestures
your tiny pitched notes into the silent end of this open space—

"Come..."
                                         ­   


                                                           ­                                         


"the small dog at the end of a hallway"
© 2010 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

Cats possess this thing
about their rears that they
flaunt with impunity

wielding it to express their
unique personal opinions
at the moment

uncurling outwards and
upwards and around then
back downwards

sweeping around table legs
swishing side to side and
then slipping underneath

towards no one
in particular

they sometimes will
form the shape of
the letter "C"
coil into a "S"
straighten to an "i"
or if startled, an "!"

but not a "Z",
never a "K"
and no "E"s,
definitely
not—

and certainly
not an "X"
unless two
stand end
to end

maybe four of them
can gather and
form a "W"

but given their nature,
would they not
question "Y"—
? ...


s jones
© 2008


.

-

a detailing of moments
metamorphasizes
seconds into minutes,
minutes into hours-

into patient waiting
upon children
to emerge
from a toy shop

an unwanted noticing,
listening dull—a'fied to
adjacent patrons talking
furiously into their hands

almost wishing to
urinate again
just to pass
the next hour

tick—tock
sitting still,

autobiographies have been
written and published
in this time

tock—Tick
Still sitting,

Children have been Conceived
and then given Birth To
in this Time

Ticked—TOCKED !
Still—

Moons have been Known
to form on the Surfaces
of Uranus

In This Time...




"the Tick— & eventually, the Tock"
© 2020 By Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

.

-


take any pen and
pull off the cap,

test-scribble on paper
to see if the machine
on the end of it
will distribute
ink

or

take a
charcoal
briquette and
mark a concrete
wall with your ideas
in full black

either way—

i guarantee that
—somewhere—
an authority will
make an attempt
to pressure wash it
back off with a
water cannon...


s jones
2021


.

-


my father's stone finally replaced
the aluminum marker issued to him
after some months waiting

when i visited, i removed
this weathered plate

and then

stood for a moment—

hoping that he
might have
felt

a perceptible bounce

after years of stilled
waters between us...





.

-

stripping off bark,
carefully neat
unbroken
strings,
and then
into the bone
of the branch

bigger chips follow suit
as the carving
continues

the knife peels, chunking
out rough pieces as
they litter the floor

later to be swept aside
into darkness

years pass in solitary
cutting as cars
go slowly by

looking where the front porch
is buried at one end with
the chips of his wilderness

displaying no
ornaments
to show
for the labor

no birds
no raccoons
no whistles
not even his cane

pare of nothing
but the pile—

all he is...


s jones
2020

.

-


i never actually thought i would
live long enough to experience the
surfacing of all my wisdom teeth–

when my fourth one began to throb
and push aside the tooth next to it,
i felt the pain like a spark plug
in my jawbone

but i drank no alcohol
for it that time

i wanted to bath in its presence
as it chewed its way out
because it was my
              very last
                         one–

a knowledge earned from
this Last Rite of Passage

a rebirth of myself through
the gum line of aging tissue—

this crowning new thing you
will never have enough
of anymore...


s jones
2021


.

-

i want to reach up into a clear
night's sky and gently pick the
moon out from the darkness
between forefinger and thumb

but when ?
and what shape ??
such a chameleon !!!

shall i do this in a crescent
phase to see if the contour will
fit atop the periphery of my thumbnail

or perhaps wait for the full glory of
its radiance, to roll it between the
palms of my hands and feel the
illumination of it upon
the skin of my
cheeks
?

Yes

to feel the coarsen texture
of tiny mountains

and to see for myself
what lies upon its shy
hidden face

but as i reach skyward,
my intellection hesitates

watching how it confidently
sails with the stars—

having pulled it down from
its heavenly perch,

and

not knowing for certain
how to put it back...



"to hold a celestial being"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

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 wish a memory of
the old store that used
to operate down the street–

the pinball machine that
almost always would put
out an extra ball with a
bump on the side,

and that fella who ran it,
still offering a coin
from the register just to
hear me play one more

as he swept footprints
of the day off
the front steps

and

then left me soda on the
windowsill for my
bike ride home as he
locked up–

would stop reminding me
how easy it is
for kids of to—day
to sweep all this off
into streets of oblivion—

noticing how the road
where it once stood
is so uneven
compared to the
rest of the grade...



s jones
2021


.

-


illumination will conspicuously
reveal details only after such a
boorish tangency of skin can be
excused for dim–witted attempts
at enveloping one's entire surface...



s jones
2023





.

-

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


.

they float in rusty rouge waters
as fog steams upward, obscuring
various uncanned flotsam

white shapes of vocabular form
disperse into random orientations
entangled by processed seagreens

i saw the letter 'k' rise to the surface,
only to slip below again as other
consonants recomposed

with a single dip of my spoon,
seven of these lifted from
their salty wakes form
a simple line of
characters—

spelling
                   nothing...


"unremarkable soup"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved

-

a fixture for a canvas
of words that spatter
like mud thrown upon
a concrete wall

creaks like ice coated
branches from such
weight and is then

topped off with finials,  
failures of preambles,
rambles and scrambles,

—

the legs snap and the
easel falls to the floor
with a slap—

imprinting the surface
with an exact opposite

that someone in passing
thinks should be a good
fit for a reading...


s jones
2021

.

-

imagine taking all the leftovers from
the neighborhood yard sales that had
taken place the year before

sort and box them into categories like
chipped saucers, stained children's
books, empty picture frames and
old uniform trousers

and you'll get a weekend sale lasting
about nine hours, including the time
taken to assemble these things, place
them carefully for display and

then later throwing them into a pile
on a flat bed trailer for disposal
the following weekend

still—

it is something the
neighbors like
to do...


s jones
Apr 2021


.

-

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


.

-


Looking out into the Dawn,
frost is a welcomed viewing,
snows hesitate here once again,
this Day is gentle to us.

through the clear blue, He looks
down and gazes upon the Earth
as i sit here in quiet reflection.

the only sounds are the shudders
of the refrigerator motor as it
kicks on and off,

the warm air blowing
thankfully through
the floor vent,

the pops and crackling
of joints, both of me &
the chair,

and the heartbeats that
He listens to intently-

the thought of this
reminding me—

i am never alone...


s jones
25 Dec 2007


.