April 2020

bio

    James Evert Jones (the artist formerly known as James “Boomer!” Maverick) has curated and hosted poetry events throughout the County of Los Angeles for over 30 years, from the South Bay to the West San Fernando Valley. As a writer, James has been a contributor to the L.A. poetry publications Next… Magazine and (sic) Vice and Verse.
    In addition to his chapbook In a Fever Delirium, James’ work has been featured in the anthologies News Clips and Ego Trips, the Best of Next… Magazine, Onyx: Spoken Word, Voices from Leimert Park Redux and A Decade of Sundays.
    James is currently a program aide volunteer with the Los Angeles Public Library, through which he has become a 2018 recipient of the President’s Volunteer Service Award.


ebonvoice@aol.com

One Sunday Afternoon in September

No one ever knew that Lucy
was a poet.

But as she knelt
in the late summer grass
her knee sinking into
the lush primavera blades
pocked with bald earth
and brownish tufts
forgotten by water
she couldn’t escape
the metaphor
as she
accepted the pigskin
like one would a newborn
see,

Lucy never had a doll to play with
to mother
to cleave to her chest
as her elders did with her
no empty plastic spoons
to bring against pink rose lips
no perforated plastic back
to coax out a burp
after breakfast
see,
Lucy was too busy
with the fruit crates
of her small business.

so she couldn’t escape
the spellbinding cantata
of his musings
the sweet cajoling
dancing in her ear
like butterflies mastering
the gamelan
as she held their child.

She couldn’t escape
the wildflower honey
of cellos and violas
or the red plum nectar
of flutes and piccolos
in his Balanchine dance
of cross-pollination.

Well, of course
she would love him
like a murmuration of starlings
of course, she’d say yes
with a rapturous smile
and of course,
he would make promises
upon dream foundations
before trotting away
to the far corner
of the backyard
swearing he’d return.

The poet in Lucy
couldn’t escape the metaphor
the mother in her
cradled their child
wishing she had
her brother’s blanket
as her paramour
crouched against the post fence
like a lean,
hungry leopard
eyeing an unwary gazelle

like all predators
he stalked
in a dithering zig zag
between the porch
and the doghouse.
Lucy sat their child upright
on the lawn
coaxing him to stand.
Her lover’s eyes
lowered
lasering
just below the pigskin’s
center of gravity.

Lucy looked up
and saw her lover’s face
become focused
and feral
the lyrical vows
he sang to her
became a dull thumping
through the dirt
between her legs
under her chest
to her hands
and the child they shared

Lucy couldn’t escape the metaphor
the musician
who spurned her
the endless critiques
the walls she
built around herself
she wanted to be rescued
just once
she wants to be a mother
her hands tighten
and her arms coil
Lucy pulls away
cleaving the child
to her breast

she sees her husband
soar over them
frozen in mid-pounce

copyright 2020 James Evert Jones