Jill Jones


   From dog till dust

1. of the time you are gone

all the dogs have gone nocturnal
made more evident by whip-cracks
still they hunt edges
a long time before people

the dogs have gone for the night
they don’t worry about the hoopla
if you work all day they sleep
so their new images aren’t light-soiled

all the dogs have night going
where shadows crush craniums and boxes
there’s a place inside gone extinct
before the circles and the barriers


2. of a corridor but no sign

Midnight warehouse, counting
numbers of plant, thousands
seemed like a corridor
maybe I'll take a walk down
where more spiders than dust
and there’s a man in the basement

what’s the connection of small windows
of pages, loaded with figures?

practical difficulties I rejected
that’s how I came so low
descend with me in shades
I refuse to dream down myself


3. if the fugue ends

the running away finishes pink
the sounds whole inside song
perfectly looped
the track is that distant mauve
underneath as though heart
might find relief

the operation ends
on the edge of a large stone
abandoned on distances
where the gaudy hung
do you want to jump the bit?
the meaning of all song


4. so I was gripped

waning, against sky
or blazes in reproach
I saw a satellite graze
time world still dark

close, around
a self with my hand

and thought here
until lips excluded
the snow dawn
in the bevel
and against flames.

There, admit, I am torn.


5. in dawn you can see

to the distant station
where rattles and bells
rise on the east side
of the valley, overturning
the line of morning
thunder, unstable
standing objects
altered, having not paid
attention
to the effect of color, of rose

weighed in the new cloud
it rains in case

6. and the work of

white 4am silence
storm blue morning
cloud swell with leaves
the task of body

turning inside
low and braided
conflated with beats
collecting hills

the dangers of simple
assemblies of colour
stir with pages
labour’s good dust

 
 
 
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