Richard Jones: New Poems
Reciting Keats to the Chandelier
Sometimes when I’m levitating,
floating giddily around the house
above the sofa and coffee table,
I like to ambush the universe
with a little joy, a line or two
from Auden or cummings,
whispering to the houseplants
as my watering can rains down,
Let the more loving one be me!
or murmuring to the cobwebs
lifeless in the ceiling’s corners,
Love is thicker than forget!
or circling the golden chandelier
and quoting Keats—Loveliness
will never pass into nothingness!—
so everything will hear and believe
before I settle back down in my chair,
finish my coffee, and get on with the day.
New Moon
I’m standing on the moon, looking down
at earth, trying to see if I can maybe spot
my daughter. I was hoping to spy her
driving her white car home from work
but cumulous clouds adrift over Omaha
obscure her even from my imagination.
Did I mention it is a new moon? The dark
surrounds me here, all alone in outer space.
Were it a bright, clear, sunny day in Omaha
and Sarah looked up through her windshield,
she wouldn’t even see the moon in the sky.
I doubt she’d think of me anyway, peering
through the ephemeral blue, missing her.
How foolish of me to bring my smartphone,
as if a signal from earth might reach me,
standing on this crater’s craggy ridge, waiting
for her call to say hello, maybe a quick text,
just a word or two, I’m so far away.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy’s a state I’ve yet to visit—
as far away as tiny Rhode Island,
first colony to declare independence,
first to pass a law abolishing slavery.
If I really wanted, I could fly East
and hike Rhode Island from coast
to coast in maybe two or three days,
camping at night under the pines
in a small red nylon tent, a sanctuary
with a hanging lantern, warm glow
gleaming, the red tent in the dark a
benevolent lamp or friendly beacon
lighting the way for other pilgrims
seeking the state of bliss and delight.
Augury
I’ve never needed runes or numerology,
tea leaves or tarot cards to divine my way.
The future is here already—let the wind
blow where it wishes. Which is not to say
I’m blind to the world’s correspondence.
Today, walking in the woods, listening
to Chekov’s “The Lady and the Dog”—
my headphones rich with the delusions
of the philanderer and his mistress—
a snake crossed the path underfoot,
a fast-moving, haunting, S-shaped omen.
Last week on the street, a frenzied man—
bearded prophet, shabby soothsayer—
grabbed my coat sleeve, cried out,
“Do you know the score?” And recently,
a woman confided she was “spiritual”—
sipping wine as she burns incense, candles,
and muses on poems turned to randomly.
I didn’t tell her I need no bibliomancy,
no crystal ball, palmistry, or auspices,
though in truth birds in flight fascinate me.
I mean, a murmuration of starlings—
ten thousand wings turning as one—
has to be the augur of something.
Expansion of the Universe
If I understand astrophysics correctly,
the interstellar, cosmic space between us
has grown since we were first married,
even the space here in the den
where you fall asleep on the sofa, drift off,
a receding star in the TV’s blue light.
You may not float far, my love,
yet it seems I cross a vast celestial distance
to grace your shoulders with a fleece throw.
Then in the domestic dark,
my heart becomes its own spinning galaxy,
but contrary to scientific theory,
a galaxy that doesn’t expand
but shrinks smaller and smaller,
diminished by time
but not vanishing, not dying,
love ever-more infinitesimally precise—
a fierce, shining, pitiless diamond.
The Heart Has Its Reasons
That Reason Does Not Know
Don’t let a poem go thirsty.
And if it’s cold
give it your jacket and gloves.
If its house is dark,
light a candle.
If there’s no food in the cupboard
bring it a bowl of beans, some fresh bread,
tomatoes from the garden.
Should a poem sprain its ankle,
take out its trash, mow the lawn, trim the hedges.
Poems appreciate a compliment.
Tell it you really like its new red shirt,
its spiffy tweed cap.
When you go sailing together
and the poem says something sweet
about the wind gilding the purple sea,
tell it you appreciate the way it puts things,
that you couldn’t have said it better yourself.
Proverbs 4:23, The Three Doors
I guard my heart because everything I do
flows from it. My friends find this notion
sentimental, the word “heart” long beaten
to death by love songs and greeting cards.
I explain that “heart” refers to my entire
person—mind, body, speech, all that I am—
but still my friends deem mere trifles the wild
and vast array of temptations—what to read,
what to treasure—the myriad ways the heart
is damaged when wisdom goes unheeded.
I fear it is easy to sully and stain the gift
of being, the human heart from which flows
forgiveness, lovingkindness, gentleness, joy—
affirming miracles we are all created to perform.
Photo credit: Sarah Jones
Richard Jones is the author of twenty books of poetry, including Passport, Avalon, and The Minor Key, all from Green Linden Press. His new and selected poems, The Blessing, won the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry. Other titles include At Last We Enter Paradise, A Perfect Time, Apropos of Nothing, and Stranger on Earth, all from Copper Canyon Press. He is the founder and editor of Poetry East and over the last half century has curated more than a hundred exciting and diverse anthologies, including Poetry & Paintings, Cosmos, The Last Believer in Words, Bliss, Origins, Wider than the Sky, and London. The poems above come from an untitled manuscript in progress.
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