Jill Jones

And What is Hurt

what if I recycle my length

or width that will not tell

you any more about me

I could have a party or song

pressing about the other

song of all this it’s nothing

to do with comfort or steel

becomes a following it’s not

a work or a craft

or beginning of epic love

as these things fly

walk along paths and beaches

not so clear nothing is when

you think of being born

what you see out a window

where you drove

to get here where you had to

grow up refuel extend

your knowledge estimate

where you might be for

the rest of the century

all of this is not

obvious even though

the courtyard fills with snow

soldiers guest for the ball

mourners indeed the panoply

of what you need to see

through you need to lift

like a servant a saviour

amongst the dying or a person

someone else who needs

nothing but to know is this

right and what is hurt

not only in the morning

but also all night as

history lifts its veils

as you become more

than you thought you

would need to as like

and unlike the sun

Rosendalsvägen, Sunday

light is smoky above

the cookhouse, there’s a scattering

of salt and accents, I never meant

what I said, but I did, children play

their own games, touching

because it doesn’t matter, if it does

little dogs watch each mouthful

although they’re not begging

if I ran by the shore every afternoon

it would not make a difference

or I would die, the air fills with steak

and pommes frites, the beer

and the rosé have been drunk

a gull calls to another gull

how they call these waters

boats have crossed one sea to another

delivering american tshirts, faux fur

mayonnaise, everything

now seems to depend

on icecream, this is the long autumn

four pm bells ring from the kyrka

we wanted you to last longer

than you did, the lawn is covered

in ducks’ feathers and lovers

To Absent Bodies!

Where is the

vanishing point of

cloth? Whose body

will it increase?

The material falls

away. Who has

drunk and who

has left? Nothing

is the same.

The raptness washes

over you, waves

in the weft.

We are never

free of body.

Absent hands, here

“drink to me”.

Revenants

You read about visitants.

It’s often hard to tell, sometimes

they’re normal or green.

It doesn’t much matter.

You see these things.

They appear as comments,

updates, news items.

Nevertheless they record

something that’s passed

by you, has moved on

from corners, billows,

wobbly horizons,

appearance that years ago

someone may have said

was otherworldly but you know

that shades of day, time,

makeup and skin are more

or less the way things appear.

Nothing more spooky than light,

or iffiness that makes you

drop things, stutter over mistakes,

as if time could be

anything but time,

some thing that passes.

Accident – A Medium

‘a medium for accident or chance’ – Francis Bacon

Left over or

left

nothing to scream

gap, gape

the figure

in all this

teeth ribs arrows

working loose

that middle age

before / after

emanations

the unsettled

sitting / sitter

wrestling

with skin

doubling over or

balling fragmented

‘seriously damage’

plaintiff

who tells

or listens

creased

from running

emerging from

the night sea

or folding

onto the floor

in a circle

© Jill Jones

///