Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

Watching and Listening To

I never discovered the identity of the highways
That were all mixed into one
And are now as cherished as stolen horses
As they have become happy memories
That are like paint drips and fantasies
That remove all the door knobs of back so long, long ago
When there were adventures of her own
In the tape hiss and the clipping
And the fold rock strums of the riverbank on which she was last seen
But all of that is metal to be refined on some other day
During the hollowness of some far away Sunday afternoon
Because this morning is a vacant lot full of tumbleweeds
Desperate to detach and hurry off toward the drained coffers
Of she who was always only a mirage
That evaporated in the harshening light of noon.



Blink and You'll Miss It

After a day whose big sky is like festive fabric scraps
My all night impatience became a house that was empty
And didn't even have enough ink left in it
To wake me up the next morning to the emptiness
Of those blessings whose shaggy hair was Welsh and fierce looking
As they rippled like wadded up sheets of aluminum foil
That sounded like a Russian orchestra as this was accomplished
And was something which was only usually hinted at
In the grimaces of the distorted twin guitars
That are but yet another transition
As time seems to warp into those intimate moments
That suddenly becomes aware of their own ragged blades
And which are nothing less than my complete resurgence
As they skim over these waves towards far from home again



Vanishing Seeds and Bonsai Trees

Peppermint vines creep through the ghost like snow
Velvety icy and bubbling phantasms made of penny candy
While the fragments of a harpsichord
To which the water colors of Diego Rivera dance
Become the egg yolk words to the chorus
Of the shallow waters of the reggae ice cream truck
That will always reside in her touch



For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

A Poem by Jeffrey Zable

Walking My Poem

I was walking my poem down the street
when a beautiful woman stopped and said,
"My, what a handsome poem.  Mind if I pet it?"
"The pleasure is all mine," I responded, "and
I'll even have my poem recite for you."

"Oh, to be a virile, young man again
who could catch the eye of beauties like you--
to sweep them off their feet,
and wind up beneath the sheet
for a night of unforgettable release."

And as she walked away
without the slightest appreciation,
I continued down the street,
dragging my poem behind me.

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area.  His poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies from the mid-70's to the present, most recently in Serving House Journal, The Vein, Weirderary, Futures Trading, Mocking Heart Review, Bookends Review, Unscooped Bagel, Grief Diaries, Houseboat (featured poet), 2015 Rhysling Anthology, Poetry Pacific, Third Wednesday, Flint Hills Review, and many others . . . 

Three Poems from Ken L. Jones

Where Can I Find Her Paintings?

TV was a highway of personal beliefs
That were tan all over
Card decks slipping open like rodeo clowns
And all of this still makes patterns
On the cloudy pumpkins in my backyard
As I dive into all that is mild and tender
And will always be a taco stand
That stands up to the elements
Even as it blossoms submerging the hours
As I slowly sip its white grape juice
Laced with rivers that lead to a frozen lake
That now has barbed wire all around



A Silence So Deep

Wow pumpkins are turning into gold tarnished TV shows
And yet this pilgrim afternoon o' the sea
Is my Lord Of Hell is Venus In Furs to me
And as the taper candles that are the stars
Vault my thoughts way beyond Mars
Causing my past and present to dance
Like elves down strings of memories
That are like the Appalachian Trail
Where they are raked up like fresh baked leaves
By Andy Warhol who is greasy from kicking it old school
And planting the seeds for dust and diesel trucks
Late for the multiple layers of the kid in you



Gifts From The Dark Edges

In the underbelly layers of a long time dream
That hardly softens all that is so long lost
But whose after school detention's airy melodies
Are more poignant than any Doors' song
And yet somehow all that has gone before
Makes my remembrances dive and soar
Until they devolve like whatever the dog
Turned into in John Carpenter's The Thing
Served with a creamy thought

For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.

A Poem by Peter Magliocco

not a supernova supertrain

Star ether braids itself thru time
penetrating the gravity of sweet yearning
levitating a breath of multitudes
from trails of dying comets
where sin was born finally
just a bridge connecting humans

in a race to reach ultra-heaven
coloring my graphs of infinity
beyond the corner convenience stores
selling generic ambrosia as last meal
while I speed thru the stop sign
at the cul-de-sac of your heart-fall

there starlight still breathes us in
beyond a disinherited galaxy
of little earth stars we homed in
curious substitute for an afterlife
immersing ourselves in cyber ships
(modeled after "The Crystal Ship")

of classic Rock & Roll perhaps
we had little chance when the dry
cities closed up all around us
squeezing out the flesh of stardust
vampire aliens played with constantly
leaving us husks of forgotten desire

Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he's been active for several years in the small presses as both editor and contributor.  His latest poetry book is Poems for the Downtrodden Millennium, from The Medulla Review Publishing.