Upper Ideas and other works by Jamey Jones
Jamey Jones is originally from Pensacola, Florida. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he interns at Ugly Duckling Presse. He is also a student in the Creative Writing M.F.A program at Long Island University. Jones is the editor of brown boke press. His latest collection of poetry is Blue Rain Morning (Fell Swoop 2009).Jamey Jones is originally from Pensacola, Florida. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he interns at Ugly Duckling Presse. He is also a student in the Creative Writing M.F.A program at Long Island University. Jones is the editor of brown boke press. His latest collection of poetry is Blue Rain Morning (Fell Swoop 2009).
Intimacy
for Kazuko Shiraishi and Ed Sanders
But wake up, she said, again and again and again. And in waking, the light remained reliable, arriving on time, which helped the ice to thaw and glisten. I listened, still in bed, between wake and dream, to the cars pulling in and out of their spaces. As they did so, the ice made noises resembling tarp being stripped from a roof. Crunching, ripping, tearing sounds. The weight of the moon this side of the sun. Blue sky. Morning. But wake up, she said. Allen's not here, but I'm his sister. Tiny bubbles in the still blue glass of water before The Comedy of Errors. We kept needing to leave, but couldn't. At one end of the building, a fight broke out, at which point everyone scattered. Here, already here, again and again and again. Found in a mine in North Carolina, circa 1890, the complete skeleton of an alligator. Her mother shifts in the wind. My mother too. Perhaps everyone's mother. A motherly wind. The winded scroll piling up on the floor as she continued to sing in a language most didn't know, but with a warmth everyone understood. Like intimacy without making love. Like total ease and ice thaw. I keep thinking the spider web thread glistening in the window is a snowflake. This reminds me of massive glaciers cracking. Wake up, she said, again and again and again, wake up. One hundred monkeys cry in the bowery. I slide home on less obvious ice. After the fight, I left with my brother who wasn't my brother. I recognized no one, and nearly fell in a ditch. Echoes of a queen nearby. The lesser light, the reliable morning. We all need to laugh, he said, after comparing himself to Bartleby the Scribner. After singing about dancing with his wife in the yard, at night, in moonlight. After the air-lightened laughter of Billy Blake, even the hippest of the hip couldn't help but smile. Not afraid to pray, he prayed. And even the coolest of the cool began to thaw. Dear Sunday, I speak to you from Thursday, and mean you no harm. When she says her mother floated, I believe her.
Wake up, she said, wake up.
Upper Ideas
among the coins and receipts
at the most necessary times
above the sediment
in the corner of the morning
mountains of I have a head for dreaming
of homesick beers and neurotic indecision
sky-blown I reach for the bars the blinds
snowy ledges allow for the coffee picture-perfect
stored boxes of clouds and stars support
subtle hunches in the middle of the night
the seemingly random notions that appear
the creased black whims folded
upper ideas in a bottom fed world
Making Coffee With Tom Clark's Lunar Guide
Bespectacled blonde beyond the jet stream she leans
Calm in new numbers the coffee pot spits and sputters
Through one more morning of service if not for you
Who glides golden please stand up we are the car horns
Of Brooklyn we do not know why we honk we just do
Be true to yourselves young chemtrails and everything
Else will fall into place, hardwood's morning furnace
Is first cousin to the sun, moon chipped lines
Of dog star geography, first grade glass jars filled
With mud and memory placed on the ledge above
The furnace and below the window with the goal
Of becoming rocks in 100 years.
Pretend
I pretend that I'm floating so I can pretend
that my landlord below can't hear me so I
can pretend that she won't complain about
my stepping for the umpteenth time when
she sees me next by the front door so I can
pretend that I don't secretly think she's got
it in for me and hates men in general so I
can pretend that I'm not beginning to think
she's a bitch so I can pretend that I'm not
judgmental and that everything is cool and
groovy and my karma is pure so I can pretend
that there's no friction at all no conflict with
anyone in this head of mine so I can pretend
that I'm empty a blank slate a blue sky a space
bubble non-bubble already unpopped unborn
always forever so I can pretend that this
pretending is not pretending but a bending
of my seeing which makes pretending real
like waking life smiling and everything is
golden and we all go to heaven amen.