Mythologizing Always: Seven Sonnets
BY PATRICIA SPEARS JONES
I.
Here is a place where declarations
are made/where the heart takes precedence
the gleam goes bland
This is the heart part/intense improvisation
on the I/THOU axis
pity the poor actors (darlings)dust
in their throats (choking) dialogue ancient
(concentrated chatter dictated by clouds)
click of whispers
dammed up phrases {mythologizing always)
Moans move through their limbs like wind through
Trees talking mad talk ‘cross the illuminated
Avenues of hard cities.
II.
Take the skin
Take off the skin
Remove the vital organs one by one
especially the heart
What is left
The skeleton
The skeleton is made of calcium
magnesium, phosphorous et cetera:
an amazing catalogue of chemicals
You are holding in your arms
an amazing catalogue of chemicals
The elements clash tenderly
Sparking compounds that move like eels
Under touch.
III.
Dime falls, your voice rises (fevered)
It’s keen, the way the wind whips this
Garbage up and around like a father
Swinging his baby we are holding hands
And yes, giggling no force can stop us now
We are singing all the James Brown songs
We know helpess off-key, but exhilarated
Columbus Avenue breakdown: how the puddles
In the sidewalks radiate splendor/glass
Broken against high-rise buildings beckon
We are hungry the shifting children salsa
And you may be our feast, please linger
You offer me your laughter
I take the sweat from y our cheeks and hum.
IV.
Taste like tears—sea flaked and heated—
Taste like try again and get nowhere,
Maybe, this is the sonnet that mimes itself
Sequences silent and perceptive
The “might have saids”
The stomach-eating rage
The power of conversation is in its
Possibilities of Interpretation
(here’s where the mime becomes important
because the words sound so dumb)
And here’s where the anxiety dance gets choreographed.
It goes like this: You turn clockwise.
I turn Counter-Clockwise. We stop, stumble
Resolve our steps. Begin again.
V.
You slipped into something dangerous
after attending to your intimate conferences
Thirsty friends forever requesting water
Or is it blood they want? Your blood.
Somebody’s screaming. Is it me?
Here on the side street being a sideshow
For passersby. You put on your silver armor.
I have only my quaint devotion.
It is not enough. You say
I can’t eat your food, baby, but I sitll like your cooking.
Did I trip? Did you? That Mingus
record is still revolving. You smile
serenely. I can barely breathe.
VI.
If I could waste myself, I’d do it here
In public. Curse your name till my tongue bled.
The same tongue that searched out the
darkest spot on your back and licked it like chocolate.
Curse your name like you were some
Broken god in need of further profaning.
But I am no good at playing: victim.
Sadness is so private. These tears on the
Uptown Express. Take that tired song off
the constant stereo. It keeps reminding me
That what brought me to you was music.
You said you never lied to me. Fucker.
You take the exit sign home with you.
But I won’t become invisible.
Patricia Spears Jones, “Mythologizing Always: Seven Sonnets” from A Lucent Fire. Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Spears Jones. Reprinted by permission of White Pine Press.
Source: A Lucent Fire (White Pine Press, 2015)