Two Poems by Ken L. Jones

For the Duchess of Stardust

Why must I store all that I remember in refrigerators
While I still dream shaking like a harp?
Until I wind up weeping Silent Night every Christmas
And New Year's Ever finds me making resolutions in the dark
And there are ashes of a dirge
In all these moaned memories
A total eclipse of my nightmare's surf
Whose neon has arrived far too late
And now there's nothing left
Just lonely cliffs made of yard sale Teletubbies
Too sad to comprehend or to try to explain
And a television that tells me to get my ass to Mars
And I will do it because I'm aging and damaged
And still devouring old comic books
From the last bloodsucker century that was ago
And what is all this about anyway?
As I listen to Bob Dylan sing Lady Lady Lay
Nothing lasts forever not even the identity of my first kiss
That was given to me by what's her name way back
Before I could ever take up pen and write down poems such as this.


A Walk Through a Thousand Kinds of Birds

There is wood smoke in the frost that creeps across this afternoon
And in the shadow of every word that trampolines off
Of the devoured blacktop is a silhouette of light
As askew I awaken and go down red stairs that lead me to a magic show
Where music only others can hear turns the street
In front of my house into a snifter of brandy
That smells like the nitrous oxide of Gertrude Stein and it
Briefly dismounts the transience upon which we all ride
And have long ridden since stillborn childhood first slumbered drunk in the park
And awoke to find itself an old white bearded Walt Whitman
Watching the rain from a tavern in the dark

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.