I sit in silence
Finding solemn and peace
But the noise won't stop
Refusing to cease
The dream it always
Ends the same
My loved ones gone
Me screaming thier names
Memories only go so far
For we remember just who they are
But it's not the same
Because they're not here
For each one of you a silent tear

August burns Monday
into tomorrow’s ashes
of history.

The future will ponder
why a society gave an ear
to the rantings of a man
whose resume was failure.

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

He was stone,
hard edges,
and brittle words.

I walked among
the gravel until
I had enough
calluses to leave.

I was just a misspelled word
you so easily erased
from the notebook of your life.

                  
Now,
how do I ever erase you —
the most beautiful poem of my heart?

Far far away from you

in some corner of the universe

somewhere in the unknown —

is there any place

I can call home?

A place of peace and quiet,  

where happiness also lives.

The moon melts into my trembling hand
a lantern dripping liquid stardust.
Stars hiccup slow, spilling galaxies
across my tongue like sparkling syrup.
My feet dissolve into comet tails,
and gravity forgets its name,
letting me float sideways through syrupy nebulae,
where hiccups are constellations
and the night hums a dizzy lullaby.