SHIVERBUSH JONES

This life teases out of you an incongruous song
made of stair steps and questions and flipping of birds.
But the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

The throwing of bowling balls and the spanking of gongs,
the tripping of triplets and the ripping of shirts--
they’re all just a part of your incomplete song.

Vibrations recycle before very long.
And even the thud of your feet in the dirt
the world will sing back to you in thousands of tongues.

The air that you squeeze out of overused lungs.
The cries and the barks and the purrs and the words.
It’s all just a part of your world-wooing song.

We are never alone so much as among.
Each gesture we make this planet records.
And this world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

Love itself is fine, as are lust and longing.
And there will come a happy answer from some exotic bird.
When you step outside and engender your songs,
the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

JD Frey — April 15, 2010
JDIEGOFREY@GMAIL.COM

MY BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,
this song of lives lived well and rested,
that look that passed between us when
I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust
a wave that quickly crested.
Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust
and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white
across rare steaks we had requested
and how you fanged them with delight
while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.
Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.
A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest
and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread
now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

JD Frey

Separate

From my window, Chicago is a clove of garlic
On an eggplant lake too deep to ford.
You chopped peppers, carrots,
Leaves Romaine, tomatoes on a cutting board.
You asked me to separate a yolk from its white
And I knew I could do it
Because keeping things separate
Gives me no trouble.
So I proved it to you,
Standing at the sink,
Sliding the sun from one half of the sky
To the other
While thin and ropy clouds
Oozed to earth.

Here, I hold it.
I have isolated this burning thing,
This bird‐to‐be,
What now, what will we
Do with it?
From a cabinet,
You pulled vinegar and olive oil
And lemon juice and honey,
And you told me to make dressing.
So I took a fork and popped the tender bird;
I whipped it into froth, and, further,
Poured it on the salad.

Let us share this humble meal –
We, fierce advocates of health.
Let us take these simple steps
To responsibly dine sensibly
To align ourselves so perfectly with earth,
Her crunchy bounty.
Let us raise a fork, a lettuce leaf,
Let us both agree on everything,
Specifically, that yellow yolk
That gives our meal its extra texture:
It really binds it all together.
Once it’s in, we can’t extract it
Can’t take back; we can’t unhatch it.

If asked again,
I might have rather kept it separate.

I didn’t say but might have said
Your healthy salad was a bore
My body craved but mind abhorred
Because I’d rather you just touch me
But we’re talking about salad, now,
We’re talking about making healthy choices
Which is separate from the voice in my head
Not yours but nevertheless course and rough
Saying “you’re not what he wants;
You’re not pretty enough.”
See? A clip, a snip, some rhetoric
And I’m a parsnip on your board
Chopped up in mixed metaphor.

Not so secretly,
Nor, in the end, separately,
I will head home hungry.
I, who am so fond of flying,
So fond of spying on the earth from my window in the sky,
Will shell Midwestern cities like peas –
Davenport, Moline, and Muscatine.
I’ll fight my way through this final leg,
Mourning my bird,
Eating your egg,
And Omaha and Council Bluffs
And Kearney where they searched my car
Will race like oil on a tongue,
Like dressing from a bottle poured,
Until at last, at length, I’ll land
Just two hours from Cheyenne
And two thousand miles from your cutting board.
We’ll retreat into our private bubbles
Because keeping things separate
Gives us no trouble.

VOX POPULOTOMATUS

VOX POPULOTOMATUS


When I think of what this town has become
it inevitably tears me a new one.
What used to be forests of dogwood and plum—
when I think about what this town has become—
is now painted squares that spell e unibus plurum.
(Makes me wish for a taco-sized aspirin to chew on.)

When I think about what this town has become,
it inevitably tears me a new one.

JD Frey – September 9, 2009

Hikes, Hailstorms

Almost the end of June and we (me, my husband & son, Aaron) watched a wicked lightning storm last night from our front porch. Every piece of sky was changing from twilight shades of white to impenetrable black, minute by minute, and simultaneously ripped by jagged yellow electric needle-thin lines. We huddled together in awe and were startled by silly things like a poor, lost poodle who scurried up our stairs and trembled next to my ankles. Her white fox-like face emerged from the torrents of rain like a strange animal spirit and we scooped her up and kept her warm and dry in the house until the storm had passed. Aaron gathered up pieces of the inevitable hailstones like he was a boy again and placed them in the freezer side-by-side and there they sat like stoic, crooked marbles. I mourned the fact that the hail was probably decimating the tender columbines and pink wild roses, but I can't be so greedy. I have had a long spring season of them and when I searched for them today, they were still there, as sturdy as ever. In fact, poppies had sprung up around them. It was as if the chilly hail and heavy rain had unearthed them all from lazy sleep.

On Sunday, we hiked up in the park to Cub Lake. A swift five miles. Color everywhere and delightful showings like fat coyotes and marmots, mallards and one cornflower-blue bird perched on a post. Golden banner dominated the wildflowers until of course we reached the lake and then the long, wavy stems of the giant yellow pond lilies hypnotized us, the lake so clear and a dreamy green. The lilies floated independent from their pads, light spirits all.

Graceland

Last leaves linger on black fingered trees
lacing the crackled blue sky.
The waiting has begun.
Miss Thalia and her sisters,
at the beer since morning,
laze about languorously, expect
nothing.
Grampa, who helped
his own poppa plant those naked maples,
paints emptied shells for the future,
while mother fusses with her quilts again,
still. Everything so still.

Old Carl (way up there on the right, through the branches)
looks up from his fields,
listens as silence accumulates.

Only Aglaia the younger and her beau are unaware—
lost they are in a moment
of each other, entwined, they grow together.
Her mother only smiles.

There are other towns, other skies
across the mountains,
where the river Cephissus flows,
the dogs begin to howl
and crows rise on the wind.
Ceres’ harvest is done,
night approaches.
It is time
to bring the quilts inside
and dance a slow tango
making the beds.

Stoke warm fire beneath
the eternal soup, blood
red with beets, smoke-savory
herbs nearly burned in butter,
scrap-full stock
hissing silently in
fragrant welcome.

They’ll be back,
the children and the animals,
birds will sing again.
Tonight we have some
of Grampa’s old plum wine
and stories of ancient days
to keep us company.
History’s in the wind.

The dance of Euphrosyne,
off-stage, left, makes
Aphrodite smile, invites
another spring.

BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,

this song of lives lived well and rested,

that look that passed between us when

I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust

a wave that quickly crested.

Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust

and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white

across rare steaks we had requested

and how you fanged them with delight

while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.

Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.

A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest

and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread

now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

J Diego Frey