I Will Love You (continued)

Once,

Bare feet chased the winding paths of the creek

And now

They explore the labyrinths etched by lightning in dark skies

I feel your thunder trace 

The soft hollow of my throat 

I know your depths Jupiter 

Your darkness is beautiful 

Like the sea

And I watch as you float 

farther and farther from me

No matter the distance 

Your skin is mine

And a crimson thread connects us

Even in your eagle shadowed silence 

Is the memory of golden fields 

That stretched endlessly before us 

Mouths stained with Persephone’s pomegranate 

Where the wild girl wove you a garland of jasmine and cherry blossoms 

We were joyfully baptized in gold

And made new in the fathomless deep

In every life I choose you 

As your darkness makes love to my light

So even when the gold passes away

The void will remember the shape of our names. 

-LM Jones

Three Little Girls

I was the big sister

Two little hands in mine

As we crossed the road

Over to the field of hay bales.

Green grass and blue skies,

Fluffy white clouds and two rolls of kite string.

We ran and screamed as our kite rose on the breeze

I still feel the burn on my fingers

As our kite flew into the sky

Two balls of twine and UP it went!

We imagined people in planes waving to our flag

And after it fell to earth again

It traveled with us through the woods

Down to the blueberry patch

To partake in our stolen goods

And stained blue, like our mouths

Three sisters with golden hair

We rested, kite and all,

Dreaming of freedom in the air.

And of a flag whose flight

was worth the fall.

-LM Jones

• 

Bound

You stroked my fragile mind
As I begged for you to see
Why is it you sought to bind?
You knew I wasn’t free

You awakened my fragile mind
You were all that I could see
They hurt, these chains you bind
Did I make you feel free?

You shattered my fragile mind
You were all that you could see
I begged you to not bind
Why couldn’t you set me free?

With little emotion in mind
Your eyes I could not see
You refused to let me bind
You Prefered to be free.
-LM Jones

Dreamer

“We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.”

I was a dreamer of dreams
And a lover of the lonely streams
All tangled hair and skinned knees.

I was a child of chaos

a dancer in the realm of dreams

A songstress of winds in trees

With the eyes of storm tossed seas.

-LM Jones

(Captioned Poem by Arthur William Edgar O’shaughnessy)

I Will Love You

“I’ll throw
My voice
into
The stars
And maybe
The echo of
my words
Will be written
for you
In the clouds
By sunrise.
All I am trying to say is:
I will love you
Through the darkness.”

“Do you love me?”
He asked
With breath held tight

Oh my darling Jupiter
I have always loved you
As Persephone loves the earth

Do you recall
Those moments
Between the breath of creation

When we floated amongst the stars?
I said to you
I’ll love you through all our lives
And in the darkness too.

-LM Jones
(Quote: Christopher Poindexter)

Blood Moon

“I am the dark
And I am the light.
I am the moon
And I am the starless
Night sky.
Fall in love with
All that I am
Or please;
Do not fall
In love with me
At all.”

The moon is red tonight
Do you see it?

Cradled

Heavy and full
Like this soul

That I conceal

Within these folds of silk
And breath

And so

I float like the moon
On a throne of velvet light

Crowned

With a veil of stars
And kissed by the night.

-LM Jones
(Quote: Christopher Poindexter)

You Darkness

“You darkness, that I come from,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,”

Here I am
So open for you
Do you love my wounds?
The light belongs to the carefree
So I cloak myself in darkness
And the stars burn bright for me
The night is my lover
And oh, he loves me well
Tear the wraps
And I’ll let you see
Pull away flesh
Unlock my ribcage
And there it is
My heart lying bare
Just leave the thorn please
Its press reminds me to live
I’m afraid, at its removal
I’d do nothing but bleed
And drown the world
With this life it traps inside.
-LM Jones
(Quote: Rainer Maria Rilke)

Innocence and The Ghost

I dreamt of a little blonde thing
With the ocean in her eyes
I followed and heard her sing
Off key notes drifting in skies

She didn’t seem to care who heard
It was her gift to the trees
Where she perched with the birds
Tangled hair and skinned knees

I watched as if trapped in a slow haze
Her world, so vivid, even at night
In memory it’s all just a daze
Of sweet smelling fields, golden and bright

I watched as she skipped through winding creeks
And bare feet flew over red dirt paths
Outside her kingdom they knew her as meek
Here, even the breeze echoed her laugh

I trailed the sound of her joy
As ethereal as the light on her hair
A moment I’d never destroy
But suddenly she turned and saw me there

Like a mirror in a funhouse, we faced
It was a strange version of herself she viewed
Innocence met tired eyes and lines of sorrow traced
Innocence rejected reality, “I will never be you!”

-LM Jones

Pieces

If they ask you about me,
Tell them
“She was the only girl
Who loved me with honesty,
And I broke her.”

I have loved you
And all of your pieces
If I could
I would fold them
Within the silk
Of my own flesh

I would carry your tears
Within the wells
Of these open palms
Saving every single
Sadness
And moment of joy

I have loved you
With every aching piece
Of this soul
And my tears, they fall
To the ground.
-LM Jones

(Quote: unknown)

Even Now

Still I can taste you, even now—
You, who led me to lower worlds
You, who are the origin of my tears
You—
Who made me uniquely vulnerable.”

You love
Who are the Jupiter of
My universe

You, who baptize these lies
From my flesh with your fingers
And cleanse me with your gaze

You are the thrum of my blood
And my breath
The axis mundi of my passion

It is you…
Only you
Who will bring me to my knees.

-LM Jones
(Quote: Segovia Amil
Painting: Arnulf Rainer)