Ramshackle

By Jara Michael Jones

Jara Michael Jones uses the pages of Ramshackle to unleash a raw, clear look at the drunken circus we call life. His characters - stoic executioners, guilt-ridden orgy-goers, and other hapless narrators - confront the absurd and terrifying noise around us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257308248

Book preview

eISBN: 978-1-25730-824-8

ANATOMY OF A POEM

It’s

a path marred

by crosses, sprawling , too fierce

to travel lightly

It’s

those

churning barbs inside

your gut , those wicked thoughts:

failure, trespassing, being

afraid

you

would have me

think that it’s a swelling

mist, some pristine

walk.

Or

vague, limp signals –

cold little antecedents cowering, bitter,

under the poet’s

tongue.

It’s

Neither, to me –

These tawdry handicrafts do nothing

But forfeit the

message.

Believe

me , it’s the

goal, no, the dire responsibility—

being absolutely, cheerfully

awful

to

slur phrases, nick

wildly at the shells, prune

the glib, trite

words

in

frantic desperation, prayer

or a ramble of epithets

which sound almost

holy

APPLESAUCE AND SKY

Applesauce and sky

Delivers wisdom for the

Writer.

You want self-solutions,

You crave words that burst

Like California Silver Sparklers,

Up until they sear your hand.

I am unsoluted.

I am overweight with nifty metaphors.

I say applesauce, sky.

You say, What about some Emerson

For fervor, Keats for soulful melancholy,

Gardner for his short, staccato thoughts

That ripped apart the corpses of the status –

No.

Applesauce and sky.

Fine then, you sneer,

Muttering bits of Latin through

The gaps between your teeth. What kind

Applesauce, what kind sky. How can true,

Majestic poems and prosody find a niche in –

Applesauce, sky, I smile.

Don’t write symphonies.

Make an old man sing.

Bah! Fairy tales and pretty words,

You curse. You are worse than

Children with your lack of syntax,

Follow-through, split infinitives –

You’ll never be a Cummings, fool!

I am children, I affirm.

For a moment, realize how difficult

Your task can be:

Your purpose on this earth

Is taking common speech

And spiking it with sight.

If not applesauce or sky, I say,

Take some other fettered, unkempt word,

a quiet sound that lives in corrugated boxes,

Feed her until her color returns,

And