Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

Epiphany In A Cage

The stars I count in the sky are like bluegrass music

As my isolated farm takes on lizard like hues
Until all is plunged into darkness’s plumage
Which is the continent where she came from
And still oh so gracefully she sways there in my memories
Like the rueful resonances of the black bird’s lament
Where within its incendiary irresistible birdcalls
I become torn apart by a blur of all the things
Which once made me content
And now caught up in the dark undertow
Of the silvering leaves I become devoured
By something as subtle as a ticking clock
In the velvet jewelry pouch that has become all these rushing decades
That I could never figure out how to slow down or stop

 

Found Footage

I’ve long since stopped caring

What any particular flock of flying monkeys
Happens to think of me
As I wonder about far more important things
Like what would it be like to hear her voice once again
So like melting glaciers of rough emerald
Back in the unwinnable hours that now can but say
The same words over and over
Till they rake and scratch my mind
Like jungle drum palpitations
Antiquated yet still unhinged
Like her bare feet in the fallen acorns
Like the fetus that never did I make in her belly to grow
But still which like Kurt Cobain’s graduation recital
Is still as forceful as harpsichord music
In the fallen snow of an old man’s ruminations
And which always fail to console me 
Especially on this golden box filled with coins
Of a sleepless night when I try not to think at all of such things
But still they sneak up on me and backstab me as I gasp “Et tu life”

 

  

That Which We Are Destroying

When I think of all the times you’ve hurt me

I wonder why I still love you
But without you my life would have no meaning
I’d rather have a little of your time than none of you
My reason tells me quick to flee
But this feeling has me in this hold
So I will be your sad alchemist
And try to turn your stone heart to gold.

On a empty beach I faced the sunset

As sea gulls fled a coming storm
I turned my collar and huddled
My jacket up around me
But my desolation prevented warmth
Oh Kathy I called your name
As darkness surrounded me
Like an empty womb
Oh Kathy I called your name
And woke up hung over
In a disheveled room

I know that I will never go

I’ll wind up groveling at your feet
If this masochism keeps on growing
I’ll soon be begging to be beat
All that I once knew as self-respect
I pawned to buy trinkets for your amusement
My emotions dart along jagged nerve ends
Leaving me a monument to nothing but death and confusion.

Ken L. Jones has written everything from Donald Duck comic books to dialogue for the Freddy Krueger movies for the past thirty plus years.  In the last three years he has gained great notice for his vast publication of horror poetry which has appeared in many anthology books, blogs, magazines and websites and especially in his first solo book of poetry, Bad Harvest and Other Poems.  He is also publishing recently in the many fine anthology poetry books that Kind of a Hurricane Press is putting out.