five poems

by Christopher Jones

1968 Black Ford Ark

When I’m wounded I drive,

and as I drive my car fills.

The souls of all the road kill I pass,

mangled and longing for empathy,

leap up from the roadways

and ditches of the county

to accompany me.

I can’t write a word,

so I press down the pedal

to escape the mockery

of all that blank paper

and there appear

badgers that snarl without choice,

skin ripped back from teeth

broken by diesel thrust,

deer blasted across the tarmac,

terrible explosions of meat

that leave only the most pitiful clues

and stains of their existence.

I dream of old girlfriends

and accelerate away

from the crush of spoiled love.

Yellow birds that lie broken in the weeds

flap timid wings to follow me;

shatter-backed snakes

that contorted out letters

to spell the last of their lives

twist themselves into mine.

On the interstates that I hope

will lead me from loneliness

I drive past lakes and rivers

and find a thousand frog souls

in the cool places beneath my seats,

open my glove compartment

and a panegyric of butterfly

color cycles out.

I tear out the back seat

to make more room

for animal spirit,

get rid of the stereo

so the smaller dead

might have a cleft of their own.

In the absence

of the artificial music of the airwaves

these dear but not quite departed dead

sing me songs of their own inventions.

Delicate bird souls sing

arrangements of nest and air,

sharp fox spirits yip

moon songs and den songs,

turtles gutter out muddily soothing

sonatas of water and weed.

They sing, I drive,

and my Fairlane carries the load.

bears us away

from the carrion state

and over borders

to what will come next,

like a Black Ford ark

with a 302 engine

and a gentle disposition,

doors held open to the crushed and pathetic,

always ready to gather in

one more lost soul,

even mine.

My Card

I was sitting in front of the tattoo shop

drinking tea like a frickin’ gentleman

when Death pulled up

and kindly stopped in front.

I nearly peed my pants

but he didn’t pat the passenger seat

menacingly

or try to cram me in his trunk.

He just walked up and nodded,

gave me his business card

and drove off again.

It’s true.

I keep the card here, in my wallet.

No, you can’t see it.

He’ll give you your own

soon enough.

Requiem

That was the day I woke up early,

couldn’t sleep,

drove down to the dump and shot rats

with the rifle I use for squirrels and strays.

That way the day I went through two boxes of rounds,

I could have built a requiem

like a model ship from the peals and squeaks of pain.

That was the day I lit the fire

next to Fermy’s shed,

junkyard Mozart perching orchestral

I drank a beer and watched the sun finish rising

to the soundtrack of the ragpicker’s confusion

and the woman’s name he cried out in his fear.

That was the day I ate breakfast at the diner,

platter heaped with flesh:

ham, sausage, beef hash, bacon.

I was ravenous and craved something that had died,

something that had lived and felt some small pleasure,

something that felt confused and cheated

when the knife went in.

That was the day I left my fifteen cents change,

traded the finger for the look I got.

That was the day I drove to Joan’s house

where her kids were still sleeping,

fucked her in the way that pleased me best at the time

though I doubt it much pleased her,

said I’d already eaten,

left.

That was the day I chain-drank beers,

started on the whiskey

about the time the stores were opening.

That was the day I drove to the package store

three or four times,

though only twice that I remember.

That was the day I passed out

in the heat of the day,

awoke to a taste

like the dump had stowed away in my mouth.

That was the day I could still feel

liquor and animal grease hot and sodden in my belly,

fuse and fuel both for the day. 

That was the day I scrawled the note on the napkin

to make the smiling girl stop smiling.

That was the day I hurt some kid in the parking lot,

even drunker than me,

just a blurry target,

a body pinned low against a truck, receiving impact

until my clothes were sodden in his rain.

That was the day

that was a lot of days,

the virus-day,

the one that grew and stank

like a wet-basement bible hulking with mold.

That was the day I was shackled again,

though not for most of what I’d done,

that was the day I left behind me

then made four left turns

as fast as I could press.

That was that day.

Who says a man can’t express his feelings?

Who says a man doesn’t know how to grieve?

The Wandering Coyote Says Goodbye To His Poetry Instructors

(variation on a Galway theme)

Goodbye, kook in Dublin, who told me

“I spent ten years in the jungle, killing pigs with a spear!

Oh!  Sorry!  I’m not a homosexual!  Sorry!”

Goodbye, California federal agent-in-training

babbling for hours in the Rosslare port

about all the food it wasn’t safe to eat and ended with

“But I don’t obsess about it.”

Goodbye, plump little Bolognese whore

who laughed as I carried off

the Hotel Verdi’s 7-foot cedar

but then looked used up and tired again,

goodbye.

Goodbye Scottish ex-barrister

who hitchhiked Europe with a jester’s hat

and a lyre named Billy

who stunk up our Prague hostel so bad

that I slept with my head out the window,

my pillow laid across the sill.

I wasn’t laughing at you,

I was happy to be there, and there,

and there with you,

you were better than landmarks or museums

and my souvenirs were free!

You weren’t just raw material for the page,

you were my healers and priestesses

when I was wounded and lovesick

and lonely for home,

propelling me across a continent with your

crazy, smelly, wearily beautiful prayers.

Portrait: Superman With His Finger in His Ear, Like a Gun

How do you pierce the invulnerable eardrum?

Even if I had time to sleep

that question would keep me

wide-eyed and insomniac,

puzzling solutions to this problem.

All through the solar day and lunar night

I listen to you pray.

I listen to you demanding.

You say my name and I appear

faster than a speeding bullet:

“Superman, save me!

Superman, save me more!

Superman, I’m not a racist, but…”

Even my super-strength is impotent

against the endless torrent of my super-hearing,

because…I hear you.

Even at super-speed

I can only waste my effort in one place at a time.

And that place is America,

America is where my rocket landed,

America is where the Kents

took me in and loved me.

So I show up here,

I catch my girlfriend or Jimmy

falling off their hundredth high-rise

while I listen to the cells

in a skeletal child’s body

half the world away,

eating themselves as he dies.

I stop my fifteenth bank

robbery of the week,

ensuring a Christmas card from the FDIC

and a burned-in memory

of the sounds a sniper makes pulling slowly on the trigger,

the splash and patter of children’s brains on the ground,

the shooter’s laughter that follows

and the pings and whistles of his Instagram.

This letter on my chest,

these colors, this symbol

is supposed to have meaning.

I’m supposed to stand for Truth, and Justice

and the American Way,

but here I am bearing witness

to mass graves that still scream

and fight to free ziptied hands

while the bulldozers roll over the top of them

and I’m here, instead.

Wasting my time with trivialities.

I guess the American Way is all I get.

Photo of Christopher Jones

BIO: Christopher Jones founded Lost Prophet Press, publishing the literary journals Thin Coyote and Knuckle Merchant: The Journal of Naked Literary Aggression for many years. His work has appeared in many places, including The American Literary Review, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Cajun Mutt Press, The Wild Word, Hearth & Coffin and what he is informed was a very nice flowerpot on the Detroit Lakes Poetry Walk. His most recent book is Swamp Yankee, from Destructible Heart Press. He lives in West Saint Paul, Minnesota with his family.