DAWN

 

On Earth.  Man's weakness.

The bending of the fragile

grass.  The law.  It's weight

of chains and wheels implacable.

Rain.  Chill.  Refreshment 

of dry roots.  Grain

to grain adhering in

the damp.  The pull.  The sinking.

The nourishment drawn

from below.  The touch

of spirits soft.  Life 

given to life.  Awakening

with a shiver.  The blue

sky.  Clouds.  Breath

mingled.  Lips.  The tangle

and murmer glowing 

in the mind.  Dawn.

 

- Tod Jones

 

LITTLE FIERY BIRD

 

Spark jumps in the golden Bread…

Little, fiery bird lost

among snow-capped mountains.

We call it Spring which

unveiled your monstrous,

lovely flesh as men

delve in the earth…

Risking death and the sun

for this hyacinthine gasp…

 

 

 

HER NAME IS PRAISE

 

No emblem of a trivial fate

can stop the finch's throat.

In this tiny forge of daydreams,

which powders the delicate bones

of every melancholy prince,

what if the fruit seems 

tasteless to you?

 

You are a man?

And you want her?

Know that her name is Praise.

 

 

 

DEFENDER OF SOLITUDE

 

I love the unseen fortress

of your touch…

The invincible beach-head

of your childish smile

which cracks the cyclops-glass

of certainty…

 

your fierceness and the sheer distance

of your unassuming chair…

I love you, Defender of Solitude!

 

 

 

IN MOSQUITO LIGHT

 

In the dim mosquito-light

your preparations cease…

 

But the sky is there,

and the hill slopes away

as never before…

 

Transparent…intimate…

 

 

 

ARRIVE

 

Merit accusation in 

the sweetness of your core.

And, if you live,

restore to fountains

their birthright 

of childish breath...

 

Encompass refusal

while the Grappler holds

to his too-easy Yes...

 

Abide the deep 

incense of trees...

 

Arrive…like rain...

 

 

-Tod Jones

Have you ever awakened in the morning in a rare state of perfect, childlike happiness, as if, just for a moment, all your cares, fears, failures and worries had been utterly erased, like a dream?  Shortly the awareness of dull responsibility rushes back...but for a few precious seconds one tastes again the paradise of the unencumbered soul...one's true identity!  One is, for a brief moment, truly and really awake!  Yes, the heavy dream takes hold again...but once you have sipped from the pure spring of your own innate happiness, even for a moment, you set foot on a road of pilgrimage which leads home at last.  Here is another poetic offering

 

SLEEPY VOYAGER

 

Beloved, when you tore

this martyred Rose asunder

with your gentle hands

 

Dawn branded the mountains

with her fiery sword...

Spread distances before

the sleepy voyager...

 

And I knew that the whole vast day

was a child... one child, one girl....

 

O Desire!  Lead me from white

to ever purer whiteness!

 

- Tod Jones

 

 

Now back to my usual, more depressing mode of rumination! Heh, heh!  Tommy rightly remarked at the grimness of my new profile picture, so I thought I would post a grim poem to accompany it.  A grim yet, I hope, still enchanted poetic offering.

 

STILL WE GO ON

 

We can go on and will

in this trance of disrupted cells.

Assorted bibles lie around

and the day is sharp, Brother,

with the cry the sun makes, rising.

 

We can go on and will, without

the salt, the wrappers, the quilt.

And if concrete angels fall from

every roof, still we can go on.

 

The heart's last cry will not come today...

the triumph of ants, long-awaited,

will not arrive.  The death of the clock

will not be achieved by our last-ditch

strategies.  Cows will continue to munch

the gorgeous crinolines...and we will go on.

 

Punctured by showers, deodorized, deflated,

unrenewed by sleep, collapsed

by somnatic lightbulbs and the bat-light 

of snapped-off dreams,

still we can go on.

 

If the knife could assist us...then the knife!

But your clothes are so sad and stiff with remembered labors...

And you touch your hand to your eye so gently, Brother...

I don't say you weep...no!

But the golden sail inside you will never feel the wind,

And the ocean ties it's horses to an everlasting pier...

And still we go on.

 

- Tod Jones

 

I think I feel about Be a little as Spenser and the courtly 16th century poets must have felt about Queen Elizabeth, their muse and the patron of a marvelous flourishing of arts and letters in an earlier day.  True, we are a somewhat humbler crew.  And I also feel about Be the way I feel when I see a meadow full of flowers on a warm Spring day.  Be has that power.  Thank you Be, for making this wonderful place and letting us all play here together!  And thanks for the fun of FaeZine, and letting me be a part of that!  I wrote this sonnet especially for you.

 

IN PRAISE OF BE

 

A green and leafy portal full of light

Leads to a fairer land than we have known;

Into a winding garden of delight

With blossoms of acceptance richly grown.

 

Here the shy heart sore shaken by the storm,

Here the sweet strangeling children of the gloam

Gather in pilgrimage and friendship warm,

Where Be our Faery Sovereign calls us home.

 

Like golden light around her golden head,

A crown of kindness rests upon her hair,

With power to open hearts and banish dread

And call forth gifts we with each other share.

 

Eccentric sprites of whom the world makes sport

Are knights and ladies in Be's Faery Court.

 

- Tod Jones