Jessie Jones is a writer living in Montreal. Her work has appeared in publications across Canada, the US and UK. Her first poetry collection, The Fool, was published by icehouse poetry in Fall 2020.
Attempts at exhausting
Nothing but not to know
never to know never
but nothing but
lifting it up
Up yes the lift now
the tower of hands
the tiny clap of yes there goes
the litany over my head
Over and over
till pretty breaks
the purity of my heavy
pink brain
putty in the wind
in the wait
of the catch
Hook it
its catching
turn the body into a net
and let the caught run through it
let the caught roll
water-bedded
into the rise of it now
Up the motion goes
pounding down
a fresh up down
up the singing temporary
down the same
and the middle where they meet
a gulping surface
How can I both catch
and be caught
I cannot
my body vibrates
under a seam of release
Throw it back deep
into the there of no content
where its spat back
because the done is never
The done is none
to those its done to
wondering floundering
and pressed by the throw that goes
nowhere but down
and into and through
A work is a lot
I cannot
Turn the loss into
up caught down in the thirst
of waiting parched down throttling
nowheres heavier than ever
Healed thrown broken
catch the little flecks
in the upward-facing gaze
Futile infinity
a loop
you don’t choose
Aeaea
At the end of thought,
I opened up. I slowed
the gritting. I watched
a dumb show. I found
my footing. I was nothing
and it meant everything.
I cried, “WAKE” and the
ferris wheel started, carnival
music stalked its prey
with rubber mallets. I had
thought my last thought.
Down in one shot. Flowers
browned like paper. Nothing
to remember. Or try. I had
spent so many tries. My mind
leapt from one verb to another,
a-flounder where no one could
follow. Under the hood of a wave,
I rolled without mention. I missed
something. It broke my concentration
and thought reentered.
Fase
If two skip science. If two
and you make twee what cute.
If two new flounce
go dresses. If two by chance.
If two stride in the post-bell
paranoia and stress
the wish then surely. If two extend
the stress to softening.
Which they might.
From every direction
a pinkophany. If two reach
out for more summon hunger.
If two kick stood
by kick stands lean.
If two face one by heat scoff hot.
By drink they stun.
By afternoon indebted
to obscene absurd what fun.
By the emerald-hard eye gone
wide. By boredom spun fine
and crystallized.
By the ear room
sound lounges.
If in two no me
felicity. If two shriek
through the solid regress
not yet but when.
When two abide.
Or no.
If two choose and do.
If two kick at the hulk
of the worn crawl tamed. If two
slick their eye with dragon black
watch it.
If two shuck off
why not.
If two defy a unit
they do most truly.
If two do
they have.
If two have
they live.
If two constitute a subject
then who. Who wouldn’t glow
with the bounce of jell-o.
If two complete beauty
wholeness in horror then no more.
If two mince
containers of shame
and idle babble with a steak knife.
If two come bearing fight down beast.
With wind lips harken water.
Arroyo thy dry and aqueous.
How two is whom
is the wrinkle. How two
is most you too. How two tomb
and toothache in the bomb of want.
Dark the tutu belly
of the concertina.
Helium blue
as the walk turns wet.
If two confer it a sound
the way is fresh paint.
Imperfect medium
Alive, a loan, now
Alice, now noon.
Time whines
& spills
forth dimension.
No longer bouncing
off a bracket
of difference.
Amidst the frost,
a pocket hearth.
The hand on my face
a great comfort.
What is I
when everything’s
outside. The clock
now operatic.
Without us, I forget.
A thread loose of the loom
it was once woven through.
I forget now songs, now
nine, wine thrown
at the sun.
Moons pile up
like unwashed dishes.
The dawn park roars
open. Green on the tip
of a spring tongue.
Alive, alone, now
running, now now.
My hand on my face.
What comfort. It was.
Pour citer cette page
Jessie Jones, « Attempts at Exhausting / Aeaea / Fase / Imperfect Medium », MuseMedusa, no 9, 2021, <> (Page consultée le setlocale (LC_TIME, "fr_CA.UTF-8"); print strftime ( "%d %B %Y"); ?>).
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