Bob Dylan accepts the Nobel Prize
I liked that he spoke about what he read at school.
The time he saw Buddy Holly,
and the way he made it
sound like he was alone when he wrote it.
Like he never had friends, only people
he cared about. I liked the way he offered
no reminders, and that he didn’t
mention Facebook. I liked
the sense of humor in his voice,
and the thought he might be stoned
as he read it.
I’ll never be a poet obviously.
I like a street of leaves the best
a line that weaves and saves nine lives
the trouble, where the river glides.
Broad daylight is no judge of taste.
My heart a stitch, best served by lies.
The moon’s fat mouth some time
ago made this its Godless claim on me,
to teach me words first “go” then
“go”, till no momentum pried
me free, inelegant and worldly-wise.
We fear to be the stuff of dreams,
that buys us for a modest sum.
I like a street of leaves the best,
a camel train in summer’s heat.
The river glides, a line that weaves
between fast gulps of strangers’ feet,
eyes straining in the foreign light.
Sister Christ
This is me, hot, tired
and half out of my head
on a stretch of summer
afternoon, unaware
of this old woman of maybe
twenty one or fifty six
with the strong
sweet wine
the colour of apricot
in my used coke bottle.
Shuffle – shuffle,
I murmur to my
dead eyed dancing feet
and I cannot
tell if it is the sweetness
or simply the wine
that tastes like water
having no sense of being
followed, ignored
or sketched out
against the hairspray smell
of pharmacy.
Voices muttering
in on cell-phones
scratching my beard
with yellow fingernails.
The only way I could
tell it was still me
slurring constant sorrow;
merrily making no
sense, a smeared mascara
my mother’s
way of telling me
I had such pretty eyes
once when there was
only one of me.
*********************copyright Jonathan Jones
