Curriculum Vitae

By Harold Jones

After a gap in publishing of more than 20 years,
recent poems have appeared in UK and NZ literary magazines,
with a selection published by Auckland University Press
in AUP New Poets Four, 2011:
This excellent poet a kind of Ted Hughes
crossed with Bukowski

Gwilym Williams, Pulsar Poetry



Harold Joness poems are like the world he writes about
unadorned, comfortless and strictly for the grown-ups
Al Alvarez

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Jan 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493137534

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Harold Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Rev. date: 12/21/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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522250

Contents

1. Employment

Paspalum

LAX

Accounts

Chain Links

Dunedin

At a Window

A Stand of Ash

Dangerous Country

FM

Moutere Valley

Teed Street

Birthday

On Rue Saint Dominique

Watching for the Thunderstorm

2. Education

I knew a beautiful woman once

Resurrection

Buying Pushkin

At Gymnastics

A mile or two of lakefront

Both Sides of the Road

Dreadnought

In Colour

Pearl

Lay-by

Produce

Motel

Nothing

Twin Headlamps

3. Community

Light Rain

Identity Parade

Persimmons

About Time

Loquat Leaves

Flash Flood

Walk Don’t Run

For Real

Redemption

Love Lane

Sunset

At the Lights

Rich

The White Cross

4. Personal

French Windows

Walking

Curriculum Vitae

Ten Pin Alley

Desire

In Spring

Veranda

Generation

You thought, perhaps, and I

I am sick of images

Above the Indian Ocean

Beyond

Attachment

You and me, singing

1. Employment

Paspalum

At this point of the season, late summer,

The lawns go to ruin. Not this only,

But all of them. I take a small, serrated knife

In hope of checking the growth of paspalum.

I feel the resistance in the root ball – hard,

White – see the light, lime-green shoots

Force their work of seeds above the

Dull, matted grass. I choose to do this.

I aim at some state of betterment – here,

An order in the turf. What presses me

Is what pulls these seed heads forward.

We are enemies, in contest for the earth.

The world I seek, I know, is fantasy –

Grown as idea in my mind. These grasses

Know nothing of the sort, yet we’re both

Consumed by living, by seeking outer life.

The council in its wisdom has installed

An expensive irrigation system in our park.

It comes on rain or shine, above the same,

High, waving stalks that, in this lawn,

I look to cut out. My efforts wrestle with

Mere edges of existence – while within me

Grow, effortless and costly, blades beyond

A knife, and the fat, fierce seeds they spread.

LAX

It’ll be somewhere like this

First class lounge

That I see you again.

You’ll be on business or

Perhaps travelling for pleasure.

I know how your face will be –

Smooth – just a touch

Of make-up, and your hair,

Your lips – you’ll glow.

I can see your eyes – their blue.

I almost see you look at me.

But I fear that you will be

With one of these men,

Too casual in their dress –

My style too, I recognise.

And below the window, as

Now, I’ll see men talking

At a conveyor,