DICK JONES
Inch Strand, Co. Kerry
From this place
on sand as fine as ash
there is only
the incomprehensible West.
It takes down the sun
and spreads out its spillage
like whey and in return
it sends us this great roil
of climbing, falling water.
Poised here again, held
in equilibrium between
the salt curtain and
a pushy wind, between
the birthstone and
the world to come,
you tether your breath
to the moment and
you turn to go.
The God-Shaped Hole
It’s death
that stencils
the God-shaped hole
into our
tinplate lives.
Because of
childhood’s end;
because of
the sleep
of reason;
because of
the darkness,
that blows like
black sand,
scouring flesh
back to bone
and before
bone; because
of these things,
and because
our name is One,
so we choose
to nominate
the raw, untitled
light that streams
through the
God-shaped hole.
Manhattan Transfer – Going Downtown
Starting from the raggy edge
of a night of demons:
Crazy Helga in a blue room
across the alley, her shadow
wild & ticky on the busted blind
as she wails in German
at her TV screen.
Jesus, what a sound:
something dark & spiny
thrashing in her soul
to cry like that.
You
as the spidernet
remnant of a dream,
a fume that discharges
in clear light.
And then, as I wash my face
in windowmorning light,
the snow still falling,
thick like feathers, like
the white silence
under a wing.
W. 186th – ghostblanketed cars,
hydrants, phone booths,
all mugged & compliant
like freezeframe phantoms.
You
as a lostsoul princess glimpsed
on a busted boxtop
in a trashcan.
So I step, a slo-mo dancer,
a Magellan of the heart,
a one-trick missionary
with a world to lose,
into the drifts & dunes
& head towards Amsterdam.
Julio’s got his cab
on blocks by the sidewalk.
He curses, half under snow
with a wrench & a flashlight
while old man Turpin
turns Danish pastry snowslabs
with a shovel & spits
green pockholes deep.
You
as a face from
a crashed snowcloud,
bloodless, tearless,
turning away.
I sidestep the corner.
Streetcenter subway breath
in plumes, denying snow.
In the deli the Slimani brothers
rattle & blather round
the kebab spit.
Here is a grillbound, spice &
powders corner of Algeria.
On the wall the entire 1st team
of AC Ajaccio, 1983, flyblown
bouffant bushes dooming them
to formica & disco history.
You,
a rumor
in the vapor bloom
on chrome.
On Amsterdam cabs in chains;
sunshine ghosts kicking up
the crystals. One bent warrior
with a stick raised like Aaron
wagging the serpent, steps
into white surf & disappears
& reappears as one dressed
in ashes for a wake. He moves
like he’s been cauterized in
a furnace of ice.
You
as a smoke theory
behind a high
brownstone window.
Check into EJ’s for waffles
& coffee & watch the steam
reorganize the air into thick
silver aboriginal mountains.
I slide across vinyl amongst
the prose & numbers shaken out
of the NY Times – the clatter & flash
of barcode headlines, the snap
& flutter of papers lifting
like sudden wings,
from front page clamor
to sports page sidewalk
whisper – Giambi misses
a 3rd straight game.
'Felt fuzzy', he says.
Jesus, what a putz!
And Sheffield’s sprain’s no problem.
He’s good for Sunday’s game
against the A’s. The boys
kick it around: who are the king hitters?
who are the dancing queens?
'Who the fuck gives a fuck?'
yells Nance stamping snow
off her old lady boots.
'Gimme a black coffee
so I can stand my spoon up in it.'
You
in the window
waterscape,
drawn south
on a hundred streams.
Which should I follow?
Through Morningside the snow’s
a gray dreamscape. Bloodholes
switch to emerald – the churn & spin
of cop cars crying out loud across
Cathedral Parkway. I’m highstepping
from bootburrow to icefield,
clogging deep & sliding hard.
I drop dark beneath
the streets – the visceral heat
of the subway neon
& the echo of the
footstep cough & scuff,
the hoot & slam wind.
A rocking conspiracy of
furtive travellers, wall-eyed
or wrapped in paper
winding sheets.
You
as a hiphop chant
in the wheels between
Parkway & Columbus.
Say my name,
say my name
like you’re winding up
a spell.
At Columbus Circle
the lights go dim,
the brakes bind &
for a moment
we are all of
one breath in
the tarry dark.
Then, singing his pain
like a cantor, a guy
in a Mets sweatshirt
& a baseball cap with
a busted peak jumps up.
'We’re fucked, people!' he yells.
His voice is like stones
in a can. 'We’re fucked!
This the last train
to San Fernando
& we’re going down!'
You
on the upline platform
at Delancey & Essex
in a brakeman’s cap
from Dave’s Army & Navy
blew me a kiss
& turned into a winter fume.
Washington Square’s
a cloud chamber, the heart
of cumulus. My footprints
turn secret & die behind me.
The edge of everything touches
my face & whispers in
multiple falling voices.
Bleecker carries me
on a twilight current,
turning, turning, the thick
river, past the cameo flash
of Mr Piombino hip-deep
in front of the trattoria,
dug into his own canyon
down to the sidewalk,
his spade disputing logic
with the falling snow that beds
thick in around his feet.
Two cop cars, chained wheels
flailing, & three kids in mufflers
dancing like full moon maniacs
through their slush & mud parabola.
The ghost of Sid Vicious shivers
on the corner of Bleecker & Grove
in charcoal & tarnish. Nothing
but slogans & a thin soul
against a night of hustling bars
looking for the trick who will whisper
where his mother went one
spectral Christmas Eve.
Hell – once just his father’s name
would have been enough
to light a candle
in the dark.
And now Bleecker crosses Broadway
where the snowplows rule.
Surgeons laying the white
flesh bare. And I catch
up my breath & I check
the beat of my Magellan heart,
cruising now into a
safe harbor. The still pool
of the East Village,
the Stuyvesant rendezvous
whose lights bleed pastel thin
through still falling snow.
Dido’s Bar & Grill whose door
now unplugs &
in a draft of steam
it’s your tune comes stumbling
onto the sidewalk
in a spindrift of crystals
& memory like you knew
each step I took, each high step
sliding down Manhattan’s lattices
on hope & a dream unconsumed
to seek you out, painted
onto the inside of the glass
in your logger’s coat, in
your cossack hat like
you knew & sliced the moment
fine as ice & called me home
with your spilled tune,
its colors running in the current,
& you rising sideways &
your head turning in a mist
saying my name,
saying my name
like you’re winding up a spell.
Initially wooed by the First World War poets and then seduced by the Beats, Dick Jones has been exploring the vast territories in between since the age of fifteen. Work has been published in a number of magazines, print and online, including Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Westwords, MiPOesias, Three Candles, Other Poetry, Rattlesnake and Ouroboros Review. In 2010 Dick received a Pushcart nomination for his poem Sea Of Stars, and his first collection, Ancient Lights, is published by Phoenicia Publishing and is available from them or via Amazon. Dick also has a blog which can be found here.
As daily occupation he does the school run, the shopping and the cleaning, while his partner earns the money. And for fun and modest profit he plays bass guitar and percussion in a blues roots-and-shoots trio.
