Dick Jones: Two Poems

Pigeonholed | Up

Pigeonholed

Some deep mystery of plumbing
or a soft door flapping in a wild wind —
the air is taking a beating somewhere
in the walls. I put down the paper

and rise listening. Only the creak
of heating, the calm breathing
of distant traffic. Again, a fan-dance,
a regatta of sails in a storm, applause.

A bird caught behind the firescreen,
swallowed by the house at night.
I ease the gas fire forward, peep
behind the screen. A shape shifts

in the dark — a plume of soot,
a gust of down. The next is
a hand-held blur: a fly-half
heading home, the bird against

my chest like a second heart.
I skim the corridor, clear the stairs
and hit the grass running. My face
is full of wings and she rises

up the flue of air between
the fir trees and across the roofs.
We are released, me, to dark
containment, she, to the empty sky.

Up

The ice is melting.
It pinks and shivers
like thin music. Black

windows in the ground
go soft and vanish.
Cobweb dewdrops glow

like moonstones in the
dark blue before dawn.
You wake. You breathe

deep. First light, bright
like spray across the ceiling.
You've slept and dreamed

beneath this cracked map
of an inverted world
too long. You've read

your fortune in its
one-lane highways,
nowhere roads too long,

looking for compass north.
Now the ice is melting. Breathe
deep. Rise into light.

Poet's Biography:

Dick Jones is the Director of Drama at a well-known English progressive school. Over the years he has had poetry & prose published in a variety of magazines, both in print & online. These include Orbis, Envoi, Poetry Ireland, The Interpreter's House, and others. His blog can be found at http://blogs.salon.com/0002065/.