Brink

Deer, Red Top Mt. State Park (photo by Dar)

The Brink  

We are on the brink of anarchy 

Says the Asian woman on the car radio

Ten miles north of Red Top Mountain 

As the eighteen wheeler

Swerves in front of us 

As you laugh switching the radio

To a Lou Reed disc 

And Nico 

And the rusted metal deer perk

Up their ears in the park. 

 --Jack 2/'09

Queer at 72

How queer to be  seventy-two
the flow we imagine that our life is
goes around islands of perceptions
revelations traumas disillusions
 deposed rulers of our endeavors
career and ambition dissipate in favor of
 reminiscence of thirteen lovers 

missing those on the other side
lost in death's dateless night 
found alive in dreams
 awake I am  teaching asking
 like Socrates about the beauty
of portraits of Picasso's six wives
are the thirteen an identity my passion

the rapport the thoughts feelings and
body fluids the ecstasy of flesh and cum
arguments forgiveness kisses
what else am I but those 
 writings poetry photographs
letters concerts art or walks in parks 
up mountains down streams

 looking at glaciers craters volcanoes
snap-shooting temples shrines cathedrals 
the Alcazar of Seville the Pantheon
the shrine of 3000 lanterns all impermanent
 the revelation when alone on Mauna Kea  
 under the stars with Orion friend for life
that Thanatos and Eros are queer at 72 

Breath interrupted

How simple is a breath
unless there is impediment
the rhythm of breathing goes
unnoticed most of our days
we may notice a fragrance
breathing it in with delight
or something foul or toxic
making us desire fresh air

What happens when deprivation
of breath turns the simple to complex
fluid in the lungs keeps the heart
from the air it craves when no more
can the air come in with ease
when consumed by consumption
we are desperate for the remedy
poets past never had

our good doctors give us expectorants
antibiotics antihistamines and inhalers
from which the puffs of air provide
expansion of the vessels of the lungs
pills and tonics open the way to air
why even the mind expands
open to music and poetry in an epiphany
Keats alive again pure and serene

Beethoven's sonatas are the embodiment of God
yet even in this temple of delight
veiled melancholy has her sovran shrine
beauty offers us no lasting cure
sadness moves through every pained breath
each gasp a cough of revelation
of impermanence as life like breath departs
how simple is a death


 

James Land Jones

1934-1986

---

Friend, Mentor, Kindred Spirit

 

 



.....The Johnny Mercer House at Moon River where Jack and Jim lived in the early 1970s

Author of Adam's Dream: Mythic Consciousness in Keats and Yeats, Jim was also President of the Savannah Chapter of the Georgia Poetry Society, founder of the Oklahoma journal Nimrod, and a prize- winning poet. One of his best poems is

Belle Isle

Late spring and night. Rain-scented air
Surrounds us like a presence. Ahead,
Past threaded rivers, Belle Isle waits.
Beyond, St. Catherine's Sound unreels, a bolt
Of crumpled purple-silver, into the far horizon.


For months we've said we'll boat out to Belle Isle.
Now lightning plays about us in the shuttered trees.
Transparent knives of moonlight sculpt your face
Between my hands. Your eyes, grown deeper blue,
Compel my lips as birds are drawn to air.


I wait, a silk banner to be filled by you.
Give body to my body through your body.
Turn my empty cloth into a sail.
So fitted, voyager, what is Belle Isle to me?
I would explore the rivers of you all my life. 

Written "For Jack--14 Sept 1984--with love."

PREY

The mid-day meal claws its way
Up the oak trunk nearing the branch
Where waits a hawk still as a summer day
The hawk like a ghost fades in and out
Among the leafy branches almost vanishing
Unmoved by the animal that now hops
On the limb just above the hawk's perch

Is there a hawk at all or is my imagination
Projecting a Platonic form there in the tree
Why would I see a bird of prey perched
Cocked ready to swoop down on chipmunks
Like a guardian protecting his private garden
Hiding in the sunlight my governing father
My potus my doom the hunger of a hawk

Without the Red Glove

Naturally you would come on the Blue Moon
The last of this decade as you and I reach
Our own decade of incomplete decadence
Tonight after spring fever on the porch
That merciless Moon poured her light out
On the helpless dogwoods white delicacies
Delicate as that airy kiss of our two beards

Are we now Glaucon and Adeimantus living
In the realm of Ideals talking of music and art
Your feminine hands nails painted black belie
A tension that has turned a coral snake
Into a gender-fluid salamander held tender
In Schiele's grasp without the red glove
Thirsting for our blue pool of aberrant love

Every sunset is a good bye

Every sunset is a good bye
the reason is not old age
the feeling is not despair
the sun sets into a golden orange
yellow spectacular particulate
matter daily denser breath taking
the irony of beauty that kills

Every full moon brings enlightenment
the very stars that once guided us
dazzle of constellations disappear
as we fill the air with filth poison
rivers bays oceans making the blue
red tide blood on our hands seeping
from hearts into a toilet of indifference

The shine of sun and moon turn shadow
in the fog that suffocates our existence

Life on Earth Hops

Life on Earth hops across the grass
it stops to dig with jitters
unable to ignore the feral cat
on the other side of the yard
its own tail swaying in its 
own pretense of disinterest 

Life on Earth carries on unaware
that Japan dumps radioactive waste
into the ocean an ocean already
full of plastic full of coral bones
the sea grows hot with the pressure
of an atmosphere of soot

Life on Earth goes its own way
it poops from branches into the air
it reproduces and busies itself with
nests and offspring unconcerned with
connections to all the other life forms
Until one species at a time it's gone

-Jameson, 7-7-17

The illusion of permanence

Tomorrow it will not happen
we who view the future through rose
or through a glass darkly gurus admonish
with the wisdom of living in the present
the future like the past does not exist
until it does

In a world of projected imagination
threatened by self annihilation
there are always flying super-humans
with solutions so it is difficult to envision
cataclysms that will destroy us
including the sages

Birds chirp among the frogs and cicadas
today is infinitesimally different
as the breeze carries no scent of death
though permanence proves the illusion 
molecules belie a manufactured macrocosm 
of inevitable doom

The First Immersion Changes Everything

Every river has its flow
whether a stream through a meadow
or a raging torrent rushing beneath cliffs
cascading into the depths of the Earth
even so each river changes perpetually
from the riverbank watching the eddies 
swirl we know that into this flow
we cannot wade twice cannot know
again the exact same water or feel
washing over us the same experience
not only because the river is changing
not only because we ourselves are changing
but also because the first immersion
changes everything

When we wade into the river twice
we carry with us that first wetness
we seek a repetition of the chill
the swimming upriver the thrill
of being at one with the stream flowing
ourselves not only in the present river
but in our memory of our first swim
there our first embrace of this water
the river is our own life preserving
an identity however illusory of life
of an enduring self of permanence
always moving downstream 
every embrace becomes a recollection
every kiss an accumulation

Dust or Stardust

Always been there
greed indifference materialism
a string of pearls a sip of champagne
a mansion
the contrast between the self-absorbed
and community in all its forms
the nurse the teacher the day laborer
between those who are out for number one
and those who are filled with compassion
for fellow beings human and animal
 sick or sad or alone
ours is a country born in greed
the quest for property for rare metals
to dazzle kings to increase their lands
ours is a country built on conquest
on lies  to native inhabitants
lies to tribes in touch with their lands
fellow beings whose lives we destroyed
a country built on slave labor  by
Africans torn from their land and each other
a country whose greed demanded
independence but gave us leaders who
for all their wisdom perpetuated greed
materialism and the accumulation
of wealth of property no matter the
suffering of millions

What is there in our nation that makes us
think that we are a good people
religion has been the damnation of all
who have not conformed to the rules
by the rich powerful who believe in
the divine right of kings now we call
the one percent who ignore with disdain
the words of the holy men they profess
to love and obey
falsehood eats the heart of our nation
art of every kind has failed to enlighten
either echoing the lies of religion
or presenting a beauty and compassion
looked at as mere luxury an irony lost
on materialists
Our literature has given us a truth few
comprehend our disharmony with nature
our violence and warlike hatred our
bigotry our shortsightedness our stupidity
truth from Melville Twain Whitman
voices so intimate to us who read that we
weep for the deafness in our neighbors' minds

The dialog goes on between the followers
of  Rousseau and those of  Hobbes
does being human mean having compassion
harmony with nature having the capacity
for civilization or does being human mean
wanting dominance of others war cruelty
wanting an empire rather than culture
are we mind that is capable of the ideals
of love beauty and vision or are we
 matter doomed to self destruction
doomed like an imploding star to oblivion

Sweet Taste of Lamb

Sweet Taste of Lamb

Little lamb who made thee
Grandmother Minnie made me
a lamb cake baked with real
coconut one of her recipes
praised in the food section
of the Washington Post
her cake my favorite specialty
handed on a silver plate to me
on my sweet thirteenth birthday
someone snapped a photograph
and there we are Minnie
Jack and coconut lamb
for all eternity.

Dedicated to the memory of

Minnie R. Noble

Jameson

Since the Wood Slat Fell Slap

Since the wood slat fell slap
against the Italian tile kitchen floor
startling us both my tinnitus
has hissed its buzz ring rap
on the flow of nocturnes of Faure
Quietude has been overcome
by noise by cacophony by crap
as if a thousand bats are flapping
toward some demon events
where music makes no sense
where bleeding bloated blimpomats
Moloch among them portend
a burning world of mayhem where
the poison of extinct reptiles
gushes forth in never-ending revenge

Kale

Not even kale rich in vitamins
can save us can stave off
the decomposition threatening
our peace of mind our complacency
not gluten free muffins not
supplements not wild salmon
not omega three fatty acids
nothing
will protect the wildcat or
the rain forest the elephant
the economy the homes we
inhabit nothing can defend
us.

Nothing can save us from our
own stupidity our own choice
a leader without clothes without
ideas without compassion void
of understanding of the values
of society a self-absorbed ego
empty of empathy bellicose eager
for war for seizing countries
the way he seizes pussy
always taking faking making
money upon which he has no
perspective.

We eat our television frozen dinner
kale and sweet potato as we watch hero
movies in which actual news anchors
actual members of Congress confer
with mythical bat and supermen in a reality
we have lost altogether as corporations
as oil companies lay their pipe lines
as smog and smoke fog our minds
as the oceans turn to warm plastic
as greed and ignorance trump
all the humanity all love of nature
all love for one another that once
we had.

--Jameson 12/16

Look Away

What do you do when a homeless woman
babe in arms puts out her hand to you
how long do you think about her
that you should or shouldn't have
given 
how much have you done to 
purify your water recycle trash
shared your money with charity
how much do you look away
from unpleasantness from dirt
and decay from disease as you go
about you daily routines enjoy your
dinner sip your wine relax in front
of the television as you solve the
mystery you are reading brush your 
teeth
go to bed snug in clean sheets
do you know that green slime
oozes into rivers of Florida
that fish are dying that the great
Gulf of Mexico is becoming  
a toilet a cesspool of oil and filth
what do you think as you snap
photos of sunsets looking away
from the drains that empty runoff
otherwise called sewage flowing into the 
sea
Are we all looking away now
no longer just Dixie 
as the bees and butterflies
we kill disappear as poison goes
from our environment into our 
minds making us live in a fantasy
that everything is just fine 
absurd as thinking virgins 
long for terrorists in heaven
absurd as the idea of an after-life
Or wouldn't it be wiser friends
to look away from our illusions
better to look death in the eye
see what is happening to the land
and all who live upon it
the lights will out and the stars
shine

Bro Haiku

young brother life-long
self-same flow of blood and bliss
let mirth heal your mind

Slug South

The days end with reluctance
as May Memorials mark us
as citizens honoring our dead
those who died in the World Wars
or defending our Confederacy
we will not forget them
as the sluggish days turn hot
as the crickets the cicadas the frogs
fill our nights with sleeplessness
until we rise covered in sweat
go out and watch the early dawn
hear birds greet the first summer's day

How could we forget the summers
playing on the beach dripping
sandcastles of our imagination
as the ocean waves gave rhythm
to our blinding white thoughts
we loved the mud of the sand basins
we dug into the moats of our castles
we knew none of it would last
the change of tide while we dripped on
we had no idea what our parents
lounge chair slugs drinking beer    
thought of anything we did

Was it the heat heavy in the oaks
the songs of birds the barking dogs
chained in our dirt yards the feral cats
roaches and rats scratching our dreams
that made us slow as slugs in wet grass
those of us who saw the world were
dazzled by the vision of archetypes
the world's cities the wild Pacific crashing
against the blissed out cliffs of Big Sur
the vastness of canyons the Earth's exuberance
until we retreated on our return to our round 
shells of suspicion our mindless intransigence

Sumatra in Eclipse

Tomorrow totality crosses Sumatra
the solar eclipse descends in darkness
over the land a shadow of doom passing
in the blink of your eye questioning me
asking what has it to do with me in Michigan
awaiting my lover thinking of our love-making
doing it doggy style the details of sex eclipse
all other visions as you look at me an old stereo-
type talking about elections pollution greed
eclipsing the natural world corrupting society
you aren't listening because your thought drifts
to television the make believe president or
is it the show about life in England last century
rich with estates rooms glamour clothes dogs
where people are kind no matter their stations in life
entertainment eclipses reality makes my talk sound
distant unimportant like a total eclipse of the sun
on the other side of the Earth like starving refugees
like people being blown up in Syria wherever that is
don't dwell on unhappy thoughts of death and ash
your sad eyes tell me think instead of the delicious
dinner we shall have then the good night's sleep
that will follow as the night the day no less
certain but far more intimate than an eclipse in
the burning polluted skies of Sumatra

Jack 3-7-16

God is not a Tooth

God is not a tooth
uncrowned, unbroken
God is swallowing
process not stagnation
gender-less eating
neither biting nor bitten
a pearl of gathering wisdom
some call panentheism
a totality unsullied by schisms
neither Sunni nor Shia
Neither protestant nor Catholic
Neither Mahayana nor Theravada
Vishnu and Shiva fully embraced
Neither Jew nor Christian
Buddhist or Shinto
in God It's All Food
and we humans are but mite
monads flickering momentarily
maybe a sparkle in God's smile.

-Jameson

Lake Country Seed (final version)

Lake Country Seed

When I was yet a student lad,
First time visiting the Finger Lakes,
I hung upside down
From the cabin's playground
Monkey bars, naked.
Later you said to me,
"You looked like an animal."
You wouldn't have sex with me.
That night, our host
offered me more.
We unmade the bed;
We fucked like animals.

Jack Miller, Nov. 2008

see the new version in 2012.