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Jean Jones

The August Featured Poet is Jean Jones

Please feel free to email Jean at: jean.jones1964@yahoo.com

Jean Jones

THE DAY ARRIVES

If you survive the night, the day arrives.
In the light of day, all hope is not lost.
What does your conscience tell you?
Do not run away; do not run towards your problems,
Your concerns, your fears
But face them. Let them come to you.
Do not bring them up. Do not be in a hurry to face them,
But turn to them, with the light of the Sun present.
Unexpected allies may appear; fears may disappear.
Turn to the sun with hope.

SEX AND BLOOD

Watching Neil Jordan’s “Byzantium,” it occurred to me:
If vampirism is a metaphor, what would the metaphor be?
Death? There is the realization in “Byzantium” that all there is
Is death and nothing else, and if that is the case, why not have
As much sex as possible if that is all there is?
But what is sex without love even with repeat partners
Besides several minutes of joy? Nothing.
Nothing compared to love. Eternity without love is a curse
And eternity alone would be unbearable.
So we keep each other company then.
What is sex between us? Is it like blood, the link between us, and our children?
Blood is like sex, like a desire that we need, even if we don’t want to,
A desire to feed, no matter what the cost, making us do things we don’t want to do,
Because of that need, that desire to feed, that desire for sex. . .
What is it then, with sex and blood? Is the “petite death” enough for a moment?
Yes, when a moment will do . . .What about afterwards? Why the desire to couple,
And then the desire to be alone? What makes that possible?
For me it’s release, releasing everything through me to you, and when it’s done,
It’s done.

What is it to you?

Love, intense desire for oneness, when we’re together?  I’m not sure. I know that eternity without love is a curse, and eternity alone would be unbearable.  But what else besides that? Is it like sex, like a desire we need, a desire to feed, no matter what the cost, making us do things we don’t want to do? 

THE POET’S DEATH
(for my daughter Sophie, who chose this as her favorite)

It comes to a point
When you can’t feel it anymore
When old passions and new dreams
Are the same,
And there’s nothing inside
But routine and loneliness,
When old poems stare and echo
Like ghosts in the mirror
And dead people in photographs,
And you try and try,
But all you have to write about
Is the ghostly presence of a vague feeling
Once felt and you can’t feel it, anymore…

Jean Jones teaches English as a second language part time for Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina. He has recently been published in Aphelion and the Carrboro Recreation and Parks West End Poetry Newsletter. He has two books, Beyond Good and Evil, and Birds of Djakarta available on Amazon.