DeAnna Jones

CREATION

I have things to write about
but I’m choosing to sit here
with the UPS truck
outside in my driveway,
man in brown shorts,
muscled thighs,
black hair on his calves.
I don’t look at his face
right away.

I watch the quads,
the flex under his flesh,
thinking about the mechanics
of function and beauty,
the movement inside watches,
fuse boxes with their tiny
battery sized parts,
the inside of phone wires, cables,
blue and white, yellow and white,
my husband’s face
when he takes apart mother boards
or opens a set of Craftsman drill bits,
boxes of screws,
flat head nails, bolts,
gold and silver hooks.

I see a man walking towards me
made by something
that loves making,
loves the large strength of power,
fused together a machine
that can lay down a box
half the length of a grown man’s body,
smile a set of white wide teeth
and ask me to sign.

—from Rattle #21, Summer 2004

Confession of Icarus

They shook their silvered heads, strands whiter than
my sea foam splash and said that children can't
behave -- they never listen, do they? No.
The old may think I made mistakes there but

they underestimate the value of
a journey in all directions, of
the test over fear it takes to plunge and still
appreciate dimension's beauty best.

They judge the distance as it just fell short
in length, forgetting how without such depth
a human cannot live - how flatness kills
as sure as any precipitous fall.

I plummet, yet I will never look back,
embracing my last plunge to ocean black.

Squirrells

I used to sick on a large rock in my yard

and try to talk to all the squirrels.

I might have been a strange kid,

but I knew well enough that they could

not talk to me, at least not in verses of English.

I thought, however, I could tap into a bond

of deeper animal existence

that others did not know about 

because they shunned animal nature

as base and beneath them.

I thought that I because I was wild

that I could join into the collection of wilderness.

The same reason that humans shunned me

would work to summon them to me like men to sirens.

When it did not work, I persisted, still.

I sat on the rock and held my breath,

convinced it was my movement that kept them away,

that by offering up the breath that kept me alive,

I could via sacrifice be like trees they climbed

and they would welcome me too.

Nothing brought the squirrels to me.

I learned the cynical phrase,

"don't hold your breath,"

through severe realistic experience.

"can't hold a squirrel" is true too.

If I wished to be fast, to chase them,

but the use of force would ruin it.

I wouldn't have enjoyed contact

if it didn't validate what I felt:

squirrels and I were innately connected.

So I watched from afar

as the squirrels leaped through the grass,

pointing their noses this way and that

as they sniffed out acorns

and pulled them up with their tiny little claws.

As all sprouts do, I grew up 

and out of my childhood whims,

planted into adulthood, I

came to learn that squirrels and humans

were not the same. I am not

Still waiting to become one

with them but I still tend

a small place of belief that it could.

I breathe in shallow spikes,

sharp, like bursts of hope.

No Sleep

No sleep.
No sighs.
No simpered snores.
I need incentive to slide in bed,
wrap myself in sheets of dreams, technicolor.
If you would let me dream of you,
I would roll myself into the pastry flake fantasies
filled with my fairy wishes.
The black-blooded creatures of the night crawl out
hiding behind my bedpost, their little hands held to their hearts,
feeling the red light and pulse of their desire to be real,
for some gust of magic to sweep round them and turn them gold
But when I call your name and you don't come,
your absence chases them away like a cold breeze.
Bed time is a fine hour for fables
but only if the sheets are warm from you.

3 Minute Fiction Challenge

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door. Taking one last look around the small Manhattan apartment, Nadia thought about how she wouldn’t miss the clutter. Michael had so many books stuffed on the mahogany shelves that they looked like lobsters crawling over each other in a supermarket tank. All those books lay there, but somehow she had managed to pull out this photo album, probably the one thing he didn’t want her to look at. The sunlight coming in gave the little place a warm buttery feeling, but it also hit the multitudes of dust swarming the air. He never dusts, she thought. She laughed. After seeing the photo, not dusting was the least of Michael’s offenses. Well, she wasn’t going to be made victim by two men in a row.

The noise of the shower stopped. Uh-oh. Nadia had to move quickly. She couldn’t leave with him watching. She was sure of that but she was having trouble getting off the couch. It was one of those big puffy couches, the kind that swallows you when you sit and once you’re in it you never want to get out. Counting to three in her head, she pushed up from the couch, but only gathered enough momentum to get halfway up from the marshmallow cushions. Her rump technically didn’t even leave the seat before she plopped back down.

“Hey Nadia, can you remind me later that I need more shampoo?” Michael’s call echoed from the bathroom. Nadia froze. “Nadia?” He wandered to the bedroom door and looked at her. His hair was still dripping and he wore only his towel. She looked at the floor and cursed to herself. Go, go, go. She finally pushed herself up. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Nadia couldn’t look at him so she chucked the photo album at him and bolted. She descended the stairs, flew out the door, onto the street, down the subway entrance, and, swiping her metro card, put everything behind her. She stopped only when she reached the platform. For just a moment, she let her heavy breaths catch up with her. A teenage girl pointed at a man sprinting towards them, clinging to his towel so it wouldn’t fly from his waist, spraying those he passed with water.

“No,” Nadia moaned.

“Ew, gross.” The girl scrunched her nose.

Nadia covered her eyes. The train couldn’t come fast enough. Michael reached her and grabbed her arm with his free hand.

“Don’t touch me.” She slipped out of his wet grip.

“Nadia, what’s the matter with you?” More people were pointing and staring at Michael but he looked only at her.
“What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you? I saw the photo of you and cat woman on Halloween. What were you doing with another woman?”

Michael slapped his forehead. “That was two years ago. Before I even met you.”

Nadia shook her head. “You were dressed as the pirate king. That was this year.”

“I repeated the costume. I’m sorry Nadia. I wear the same costume every year. I’m not very clever, but I am faithful. I promise I did not cheat on you.”

Nadia looked at him dripping in the subway. A train arrived and all the passengers unloading stared at them. The wind rustled through the tunnel and he shivered but stayed looking at her. “Nadia?”

“Well, I feel silly,” she said.

A look of relief washed over Michael. He looked down at himself, then at her. “You feel silly?” he asked with a smile.

Saliva

When I saw the boy for the first time, I tripped so sharply that my organs lost their place. My heart took the place of my head, pumping constantly.
I told it to stop, but it wouldn't.
My head took the place of my stomach, digesting only thoughts of him.
I told it to stop, but it wouldn't.

I was dying.

The one who shook me up would be the one save me.
I needed a transfusion and I stole a kiss to get it.
A bite of the lip and the lifeblood pulsed from him to me.

But with the blood came a bug –
An illness of obsession, unshakable disease.
The sickness of needing to tell him how he made me feel.
I tried to make it stop, but I couldn’t.

I frothed at the mouth with words I had to say to him.
The sentences dripped and rolled down my chin.
Subject and predicate saliva.
He wiped my mouth with his sheet music, barely noticing.
I continued to foam as he played on and on, my requiem.

I tried to wash my face in the Raritan River,
Hoping its currents would carry away my illness.
But the current was not strong enough.
I stayed silently by his piano bench,
My chin nestled on his thigh as if I were a dog
I stained him with my drooling sentences
Maybe he would stop playing and notice?

I told the summer not to end
But the fall winds chopped at the season
The summer, the boy, my stomach and heart, we were all alike
We did not know how to obey

Nobody Too

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
by Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Nobody Too
By Dana Eckstein

You're nobody?
What a relief!
All these somebody's running around
Like I'm someone to be found
Are making me loose sleep!

I'm nobody, you say?
I wonder how you knew?
I hide disguised
so I am most surprised
but I am sure glad there are two!

A pair, a pair!
There is nothing better!
Like a sock with a companion
A mountain with a canyon
A creditor and a debtor!

The somebodies, my dear
I don't know how they do
With the dreariness and publicity
The feigned charm and felicity
All to impress the likes of me and you

The frogs, the frogs!
They ribbited and they jumped
How they stand not to die
Before the public eye
Leaves me just quite stumped

Now that we've two of us
We'll never have to part
Unless of course you know
You're sombodiness comes to show
Because then I'd have to dart!

Items Lost

I never intended to lose so many things.
Buttons, jackets, mittens, oh the many mittens.
Glasses. The ultimate paradox of losing glasses.
If only I had my glasses, maybe I could look for them.
I never meant to lose the trust of my best friend in junior high school.
I can’t decide if I meant to lose my innocence.
One the one hand, it made me sophisticated, intelligent, cool, cynical.
But then there are the days when I wonder why I was so eager to throw it away.
Cynicism makes you lonely, no matter how many cynics you are surrounded by.

Then there are the things I lost intentionally
That homework sheet – Oh sure Mrs. Peterson, I never got that homework sheet
And how could you hold me accountable for the homework I didn’t do when it wasn’t assigned?
Of course not.
There was my sister’s blue satin dress – so shiny and soft
I lost it, but then I helped it find itself in my closet.

My first kiss. All my life I dreamed of giving it away.
I used to walk by myself down the sandy shores of New Jersey
And fling my kisses into the ocean, who for all his roaring
Never did anything more than lap my feet.

Then all of the sudden it was gone.
I was fourteen. It was my birthday.
We were behind my daddy’s rose bushes.
And this boy, who chased me for months
Sprayed me more than that grouchy old ocean ever did
And then only several months later,
Lost memory of who I was.

I lost my first kiss. Intentionally, unintentionally. Either way, it is gone.

Tangled

Tangled,

you are tangled

in your own thoughts

in your own words

you play yourself

like piano chords

hammer each string

until they've crossed their lines

I'll forge each note

to fit my own designs

and each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

Tangled,

I am tangled

crossed by your thoughts

bored with your words

I've played myself

by moving towards

a line without a guide

that finds itself over again

knotting and twisting

never to reach the end

each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

stroke by stroke

brushing my hair

removing each stroke

of your hand caressing there

stroke by stroke by stroke

I'm struck and stuck 

these knots are just not fair

each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

If You Want Me To

There's no shelter in my home
More thoughts than there is rain
She lays in bed wishing you were here
Though she's far away
And she thinks she's wrong, about everything
and she can't hear you
she wishes to
but she can't hear you now

There's no shelter in the rain
if it separates you two
as she wonders if you wonder if
you think about her too

And neither of you can foresee if there will ever be a day
When she will turn to you
Oh she wonders what you'll say

She wonders, she wonders, has she done bad?
Like you, she's learning from you
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

And neither of you can foresee if there will ever be a day
When she will turn to you
Oh she wonders what you'll say

She wonders, she wonders, has she done bad?
Like you, she's learning from you
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

You're fortune's fool, to be punished for this
the badness could end and start with a kiss
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

Fairydust

The dusty light filters in through the one high window in the door frame
The light lands on the stage floor just before the piano where you and I sit
The piano is what they call a grand piano. I call it a grandmother piano.
She is old and elegant, deeply resonant, with many scratches glimmering on her weathered black polish,
creasing her surface like inky elephant skin
Her ivory keys are slightly chipped but as you gently press her, she sings

I am curled up on the hard stage floor. I breathe in the smell of dust

It is bad for me but I love the sweet resin musk.
The vibrations of the piano travel through the floor and come up through the side of my ribcage and the hands upon which I rest my cheek

You keep plunking away, singing softly. Your voice pours like molasses. I am trying not to listen to you. You're singing out the air, to nobody, the love songs wash away, wasted. Instead, I focus on the words of the grandmother piano

Don't worry about the boy, she murmurs
Let me sing you to sleep, to dreams of love requited

But I can't believe her, I can't quite take her in.
As long as the dust fairies fly in circles, in the cyclone of light, I will coil myself around my wounded heart

I stand up quickly, my skirt falling in folds around my knees and I pad over to your bench. I try to sit gently as to not disturb your playing

Your eyes dart towards me then back at the air to which you sing

I watch your pale fingers skipping from note to note, almost as white as the old keys

Your hair smells like the dust that falls from the theater's vault above us
I breathe it in.

I know better. The dust will swirl in, the suspended particles will line my lungs, collect in my tissues. It will run in my blood. But I can't stop - I just breathe it all in.
The piano says, "Be sharp. Be careful"

But. I've already breathed you in.

The Teapot Shop

The Hip Hop Teapot


I went to the teapot shop
to get my teapot shopped
to shop out the teapot stop
the top of which had stopped
I clip clop hip hopped
to the teapot shop
where I stopped with my teapot a lot.
The teapot shop held great lots of teapots
but still the shop owner stopped
to say "Welcome to the shop!"
I held out my teapot, the one that had stopped
so that he could stop and plot
how to stop and fix the pot
and we arranged a teapot fix pot plot.
He took the pot, the only one I've got
and looked at the stopper which was stopping not.
He said, "I guess I can take a shot,
but first would you like a spot?"
and then he held out his teapot.
I said "I do like a spot of tea a lot
but this tea would have to come from your pot
for my pot is not and that is all I have got
and until I have got a pot all my hopes are naught."
Then he said, "But I've got a spot flavored with iris and hops.
For these hops, I hopped to the market spot.
It was there that I stopped and copped the hops."
I said, "Tell me not although I long for a spot,
for I have stopped here in your shop because of my pot.
You have a great many lots of teapots here and oh dear
I cannot leave this spot until I have a teapot stop."
The shop owner stopped, sad for the neglected hops
but said, "Fine, here in the shop you can shop for a stopper to stop."
So there in the teapot shop where I had gone to get my teapot shopped
to shop out the teapot stop, the top of which had stopped,
he gave me a stopper which stopped atop the pot.
Rejoicing that my teapot was once again tip top,
upon the spot, I hugged the shop owner of the shop.
It was then we stopped to get a spot of tea with hops from my teapot
and from then on life was the in the tippity tops.

Remember the Nights

Remember the nights
when the air rolling off the sea
slid in like cold porridge
cool but thick, dense with salt
but the heat rose from the pavement
and emanated the board walk
the two forces would collide above us,
stirring in the troposphere
as we strolled along the boards
licking ice cream cones
and arguing about which arcade game to play
which shiny window to succumb to
we didn't realize how the winds fought above us
twirling tornados like the ones inside of us
the heat of a teenage night, the excitement and pulse like the lights of the boardwalk
the warmth of another body
and the coldness that came with the end of the night
when the lights went out and we realized
that for all our arcade prizes and sandy kisses
we were still alone.

Lost to the Sky

Jack, wasting your time in the sky
Walking on clouds while my life plods by
The puffy pink clouds support your feet
while I'm here begging milky white's pink teat
How could I ask you to give up the gold
and a harp that sings stories, I'm told
Her golden hair falls in curls and she siren serenades
You toss your hair with the smile of the renegade
Could you give up the warm of the giantess?
She saved you but you know I loved you best
And she eggs you on intending to crack you in the pan
Her husband craves your blood of an English man
I know I cannot reach you in the skies
but suppose you come down, you'll find I'm your size
If you loved me, I'm no harp but I would sing
and I'd provide your finger with a golden ring

Wake

In wake of all that lives and breathes, I am
A simple bind of flesh and blood and bone
Another copy in the caravan
Redundancy of multitudes at home

Oh am I new? I dare say I am not
My mother's child, my father's spawn am I
There's been no new princes since Camelot
My heritage leaves me blank, uninspired

I run my hand over my dad's book case
I feel spine after spine, page after page
so much all said; what's left to fill my space?
What will I say when I'm alone on Stage?

To live up to their line now they are dust
The pressure ignites me til I combust

Snowflakes

Sometimes I get caught
silly moments pile up like snow flakes
each light, delicate, weightless, flying free
a shovel full can break your back
and you hardly even noticed
as you watched each fluffy crystal descend
as you watched each little tutu twirl down
you failed to see them after they passed
tickling your nose, melting on your mouth
the ones in the past that went past
my feet are buried, along with my heart and head
and when I finally notice, I'm shivering.
they are so cold.

Eyes

if I was meant to see out of eyes not my own
then how come into my body my eyes were sewn?
I've got only my eyes and I'm all alone
You've got your own eyes and you're all alone

if the world is so big and my eyes are so small
then how come I think I can see it all?
and how come I can't foresee the fall?
I know it's coming no matter how I stall

Given our disparity in size
You cannot compare the world and my eyes
Or the difference between real and realized
Humans only see the synthesized

if the earth is my mother, then where was I born?
and from who did I learn to live with such scorn?
I know of responsibility, and that's why I'm torn
because who I am and who I wish to form

Waves

As the waves crash
Incessant one and all
As the god fearing waters
Serve Poseidon's call

Like silvered warriors
To let their mighty forms
Crumble, forlorn
Upon meeting the seditious sand

Who loves the kiss of the waves
But still more prefers their doom
As the waves roll towards the climax
Where the bath of foam will consume

So too do I arc myself towards you
As I anticipate no end
Of forever and for always
Wishing to descend

Into a fluttered heap at your feet
Prompted only by a gaze
and the sensation of the trace
Upon the meeting of your hand

Run Away

The morning light peeks in through the window
and more than I've ever been, I'm cozy and calm
The soft sheets lap at my skin like the water of the bay
Then I roll over with my arm out to slap the alarm

But the quiet returns and I didn't even need to hit it
You've already got the alarm and you've got me too
Your body is so warm and so close to mine
I've gotta go to work but could I stay with you?

Let's run away today
Pack our picnic baskets
go free
We'll fill our backpacks
with string cheese and pudding cups
and find the perfect sleeping tree
climb its boughs
and hold each other close
And chase the horizon
that we can always just see

I can get in the shower to be sociably clean
And give you a sudsy kiss, knowing that I'll have to go
And I can dress in suit and heels, playing "grown up"
I can take my car keys but I don't want to though

Why don't we take sneakers so old they're ridden with holes
and pretend like we're the lost kids in Peter Pan
I won't get cold through the tear in my jeans
If I can always feel the warmth of you holding my hand


At the office my boss says, "You got that dreamy look"
and I can tell that he'll never be able to know
That he may have me from nine to five
But your love will always power my soul

And one day we'll discover the path out
Where life is more than filling out my I-9
I'll find the answer, just for you, to give to you
and then we'll have love all the time

Open Water

There is a picture that captures you perfectly.
All it took was a little
"snap"!
and you were taken
your face set in emotion
set in the lens
your shoulders back
sturdy like the tall strong mast of the sailboat
by which you stand
there is only a slight smile on your mouth,
each corner only turned up enough for me to see it
and I know what it means.
it means you feel the rope in your hands, each hair of it prickling against your fingertips
the wind that tweaks your nose and soars against your chest is strong against you
but your countenance is stronger
you are going to split the sea with the bow
cut through the bodies of the water, keel under you
and you stand on top of it all.
It captures you perfectly and all it took was a snap.
Just like how something snapped in me when you captured me.

It's the perfect setting
The blue green water chops, rough and wild
But that's what I think of you.
You like to hide, you like to pretend
people think because you speak softly
that you are soft, like a worn, tattered sail
but let them try to bind you
you stand on top the power of the ocean
let all of it churn beneath you
you'll glide over it
just make sure to duck when the boom comes around
Aptly named the boom because that's the sound it makes when it makes contact
Just like the sound my heart made when your hand first made contact with mine

I should sail away
I have all the seven seas and more to explore
I could sit in front of maps and chart my voyage
or simply sit and let the wind take me