The May Featured Poet is Jean Jones

Please feel free to email Jean at: jjones138@ec.rr.com

MEANING

I'm running around on top of tables with zombies coming out after me. 
I need a gun with plenty of bullets to shoot them all.
I also need several magazines with lots of bullets.

A naked woman, covered with a sash, has two batons, one in each hand.
Four creatures surround her:  A lion, a bull, a man and an eagle.
Behind her is a blue blackground.  A green wreath surrounds her.

A great angel with huge wings
blows on a golden horn. 
Next to the horn is a red cross
with a white background
A man, woman, and child
are coming out of their coffins in the foreground.
In the background, other men, women, and children
are coming out of their coffins.

A yellow sun with a straight face looks
down on yellow sunflowers
on top of a wall
looking down on a naked boy on
a white horse.  A red banner is beside
the white horse.

WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

We get up in the morning, commute, go to work
hoping we don't get in an accident,
don't get a traffic ticket,
don't arrive late for work
hoping everything
will turn out okay
and most of the time
it does,
and we then go on
to the next day
and hope everything
will come out okay
and most of the time it does,
but then,
someone does not get to work,
someone does not
come home
and we find out,
there's been a horrible accident,
a call from the hospital,
and the news travels fast,
"Oh no," you exclaim,
not "so & so," and people
from the church get together
and pray
and people might stop by the house
to comfort and what are we to say,
what are we to think at such a time?
That life is a lottery,
most of the time it goes by uneventfully,
then one day
your number comes up
and while you're talking on the cell phone,
your forget to notice that truck
in your rear view mirror
you go left, the truck honks its horn,
you swerve, the car in front beeps its horn,
and it's over.
There's a coffin, a funeral,
bereaved friends and mourners, and family
and it all happened
one day,
one ordinary day like today,
and the light
came
suddenly.

COW SKULL

In a room filled with potato smoke,
a red eyed boy listens to woman tell a story
of watching stars in Missouri.
The woman's eyes
have the gravity of black holes:
She cannot blink and stars rush towards them
like hawks stooping.
"Will you grow old?" the boy asks,
"When the hair goes," she says.
Nothing changes.
Pictures remain the same
year after year
the cow skull near her bedroom
is the same color it was,
four years ago,
and right now, for the moment,
the boy's eyes and the woman's
are exactly the same.

Originally from Bandung, Indonesia, Jean Jones received a BA in English in 1986 from UNC-Wilmington, and an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry in 1988 from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Jean currently teaches Basic Skills at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He has had two books of poetry published by St. Andrews Press from St Andrews College, North Carolina; the most recent, Birds of Djakarta, was released in 2008.  Together with his friend and fellow poet Scott Urban, Jean Jones has had a brand new book of poems published by a brand new Wilmington, North Carolina publisher called "Shaking Outta My Heart Press."  Jean's book from that publisher is titled Tornado. 

Jean is also co-editor of the online poetry magazine Word Salad which can be found HERE.

You can learn more about Jean Jones HERE.