Poetry by A.A. Jones

                  lillie kate CC

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​Wail


I have seen them too, Allen.  I have seen 
              those who fall! wail! at the death of 
              our fathers and holy mothers and then 
              fight growl spit over who who who 
              will get their bloody antiques and I 
              have also seen
those girls who agree to marriage with a
              long-haired boy, makes her drunken 
              dad oh so angry, but then she divorces 
              his long hair, he is a drunken 
              just like daddy and then she performs 
              marriage again with a short haired Baptist 
who’s mustache is packing up to leave 
             this city and she is tired of old 
             Amarillo – it’s Mexican sunsets, and I
             can see
those boys who were pushed aside by their 
              polyester mothers who didn’t like 
              fingerprints on glass and so little boy 
              grows up and grows a mustache and looks
              for a woman who’ll pick him up - hug him 
              when he does good, or skins a knee, but he 
              meets a girl and she just wants the hell 
              out of Omaha, to go see 
              those people
who are so much poor and personality ugly
               that they always drop into bed with 
               slack eyed, red faced someones
who lie that they are eighteen but they is 
               only just fifteen and then one turns 
               pregnant but but but whatever for them, 
               because they are those kinds of 
               ill-fated souls
who share boyfriends with mothers/ babies with
               sisters and cram their pockets full of 
               your extinct grandma’s antiques because 
               more cruelty is on hot hot 2 for 1 sale 
               for those
who hide in Arkansas hills screwing their unmarried 
               wives, eleven rats, five children 
               and mom and dad tell them that Santa 
               brought a dead deer for Christmas and 
               if they eat it all they will be able to 
               fly when they get big, but there are 
               those of us
who see this lie.  And our hair is falling out.
               But the thin trees of Arkansas, 
               the Black River and Sugar Loaf Mountain 
               are not enough to keep us, us mangy dogs, 
               from finding someone 
who, although beautiful, will twist us and 
               beat us and trade us for more youth 
               and more prize and we, not we, only I, 
               will never be free from hardly any 
               Jesus in the pew or in the wine or in 
               the body or at the dinner table, if I 
               do not quit this lineage of filth then 
               I will be the next one one one
who dies to the sound of hail marys but our 
               fathers, out father! The tears are dry 
               ones and the Black River has turned to salt. 
               My last breath only just leaves my lips and 
               the wicked family comes down from their tree 
to divvy up my antiques with their axes and shovels.





The man I want 

I am looking for 
              the soul of an artist, 
              the heart of a poet, 
              the touch of a musician, 
              the eyes of a magician 
              and the energy 
              of a traveling salesman. 

Where would that leave me? 
               Balancing the books. 

But as pretty as the numbers are, 
              they dance on the page for me 
              and I can’t carry the one. 

My soul makes art too. 

My heart is a beat poet. 

My touch is measured and practiced, 
               soft when it should be  
               firm at the end. 

My eyes see things that can’t be there. 
                But I’ll tell you a secret. 
                                                              (They are.) 

And I have a carpet-covered bag 
                with ancient artifacts, 
                collections from another planet, 
                unnecessary talents, 
                odd jobs and quirks, 
                usefulless knowledge. 

Gather round! Gather round! 

I hold here…
               come closer if you can…
I have in my bag 
               if you dare to believe, 
               a string from Cisero’s fiddle, 
               a scrap from E.E. Cummings’ grade school diary, 
               the pin from Magellan’s compass, 
               and a small mustache comb that belonged to Salvador Dali.

All men. 

Long gone. 

But I am still here. 

I am still here 
                and I am all the things I want. 

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A.A. Jones is the operations manager for an independent journalism nonprofit called NonDoc anda break-up coach living in the Midwest. Her non-fiction work appears in The Momentum of Hope and her poetry appears on sticky notes all over her own walls. She is both uplifting and irreverent, and if you like that you can find her at www.indiangelajones.com.

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