Patricia Spears Jones - The Poetry Project

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The way I see is the way I see and I see
Rattles on the highway—not snakes
Rattles, hundreds rolling about-colorful
Sounds roaring on the tarmac

This is wack someone would say. Where
Did they come from? Where are the infants
Whose ears need their clanky clunky sounds?

What happened on the mountain that brought
These instruments of joy and teasing to a
Valley where the winds scatter pretty objects

That mountains switch back at angles
Meant for giants’ thumbs
Scatter them across our eyes’ path, mindful
Of that time when we had tiny hands and tiny feet.
That rattles rattle while infants drop and roll them.

The thrill is gone

A slender sumo wrestler
Somersaults across the stage
Unlikely sprite in the August heat
One of the many Ariels
Bestowing charms and whimsy
While a cross Prospero conjures
A way back to his royal home.

So many objected to the many
Sprites, wrestler included and a
Nasal Caliban working out his
James Dean imitation. You could
Feel the energy drop when ever
His listless walkabout the stage
His rage tenuous as if deciding
Which subway car to enter and scowl in.

Ah but the sprites were many
And odd, the sumo wrester and my former lover
Among them. We would meet and sleep together
until a spider bit me. He was wrong for me.
And that bite was the sign saying enough
Was enough. The thrill is gone.

Prospero, his daughter, the monster and sprite
Return in other bodies, different voices, clouds
And stars hover over their imaginary island

But this real island is too full of Calibans
And too few Ariels. They march about
In costly raiment and ride about in shiny
Autos. Creatures of this brave new world
Credit cards handy. Where are the spiders
In their lives?

New Year’s Day Benefit-1975

PROLOGUE
I was at the second New Year’s Benefit. The stained glass windows were smudged with dirt. There were pews old and dark and heavy with history. It was cold so everyone was in his or her second hand store wool coats and Army/Navy jackets. At one point, Yoko Ono emerges from the side risers wearing a long white dress, her black hair heavy with history. She performed for a few minutes using three props, one of which was a bell.

POEM
Was the bell ringing an opening?
Was her white dress a river becalmed?
Were there wolves in the street & pick pockets
In the pews?

Which of us looked at this dance with wonder?
Which of us responded with scorn? Remember

How the bell and hair and dress broke the stuttering
Poets stride. The altar’s wide expanse forgotten
As eyes and ears looked to this small woman, her
Raspy voice suddenly huge with magic. A blessing

Unknown to many of us. A curse too easily heard by some.

Nothing is planned

The magnolia pod still pungent, had it stayed on the tree
It would have opened—petals white, fist size vexing
The dark green leaves and their massive weight—the
Birds are thrilled by them and tornadoes seem to leave
Them be

The oaks are huge too and the willows spreading.
Where there were houses, there are trees, bushes, birds
The primeval all due to property taxes unpaid or heirs
Not found. Or the last resident moved to a nearby nursing
Home to die while the city demolishes.

This new parkland scattered between well-tended older
Cottages, new yellow or red brick homes and the occasional shack
A neighborhood helter skelter, nothing here is really planned,
Unless poverty is planned.

I kept the pod and a friend said are you going to plant it
And I thought, where in Brooklyn could I plant this seed?
I have no yard and even if I did, this magnolia would not
Grow so huge, so looming as the ones in my hometown

A magnolia needs heat and rain and a quality of suffering
That the South has, despite the malls, the squeaky clean cars,
The Protestant churches at every intersection and Bible verses
On the backs of business cards.

Jesus is always watching
Watching, watching. Jesus is watching you.

Found Poem of the Week:
June 28, 2013

Don West failed to understand yesterday when he asked Jeantel:

“Are you claiming in any way that you don’t understand English?”

“I don’t understand you, I do understand English,” said Jeantel.

“When someone speaks to you in English, do you believe you have any difficulty understanding it because it wasn’t your first language?” asked West.

“I understand English really well,” said Jeantel.

Are you claiming in any way that you don’t understand English?”