The December Chosen Poet is Jean Jones

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

SANTA MUERTE

She is the Skinny Lady (la Flaquita), the Bony Lady (la Huesuda), the White Girl (la Nina Bianca), the White Sister (la Hermana Bianca), the Pretty Girl (la Nina Bonita), the Powerful Lady (la Dama Poderosa), and the Godmother (la Madrina).

She is the eighth archangel; the personification of death, she ensures a path to the afterlife.
She is the Grim Reaper, wearing a shroud, carrying both a scythe and a globe.
Her scythe is the moment of death, when the silver thread of life is cut.
She has vast power, and has dominion over the earth.
She has an owl and an hourglass, and she is the messenger and the beginning of something new.
Do not place her next to the Catholic Saints or there will be consequences.

IF MY LIFE WERE A TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE

I would want it be like “Night of the Meek”
when a drunk who drinks because he’s tired of the suffering he sees around him
becomes Santa Claus so he can give gifts all the time.
If my life were a Twilight Zone Episode
maybe I’d get to see real justice, and not just karma.
I’d see hope for the hopeless, a second chance for those who didn’t deserve it.
My joy wouldn’t just be because of my kids,
but because I could see justice, and it wouldn’t be just a faith, it would be a reality.
In my Twilight Zone Episode life, the plot to kill Hitler would succeed and all those who were involved would not be strung up and strangled on piano wire for Hitler’s jollies. Bonhoffer would not need to be hanged naked at a concentration camp, and all those in the SS along with those who willingly participated in the Shoah, the extermination of Jews, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, would receive their just reward in this life, in terms of punishment for what they contributed to the suffering of innocent people. In my Twilight Episode life, the innocents would escape with their lives and those responsible for trying to kill them would receive the justice they deserved. It would be like a Night Gallery episode where a concentration camp SS killer would find himself trapped inside the painting of a crucifixion by a concentration camp survivor, frozen forever in a scream.

ENTERING DRACULA’S CASTLE

“My Mama says, to get things done, you better not mess with Major Tom.” – Ashes to Ashes

There is a feeling that people addicted
may describe as a “high,”
when one gets close to the goal—
a well-stocked bar, an all-you-can-eat buffet,
a naked woman, a syringe full of heroin,
several lines of cocaine, a video of people having sex,
regardless of the age, and you get an idea
of what it means to enter Dracula’s castle,
opening up your throat expectedly,
hoping to see in Dracula’s eyes,
your face screaming with terror and delight

Jean Jones has an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. He teaches English as a Second Language part-time at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, and has two books, Beyond Good and Evil and Birds of Djakarta that are available on Amazon.com.