DECEMBER

by Clara B. Jones 

Image source: Gawker

It's December so I bought lights brighter than the sallow skin of my guardian who is nice enough but never invites me to Christmas dinner since the five-year-old is afraid of robots. My surrogate said, On a scale of 1 to 5, how much would you like to spend the day at Starbucks®? I decided to walk because humanoids ask me personal questions when they corner me alone. Are you happy? Do you want a mate? Do you wish a mechanical family had adopted you? Starbucks® promotes diversity so no one stares when I order peppermint latte and a cranberry scone though a little girl in line called me, Tin Man®—a slight more amusing than offensive. Besides, I am superior to anyone here since my microchips are programmed with the complete works of Charles Dickens, and the Mayor invited me to play The Christmas Carol in the town square at six. My performance will be bot-streamed to my Facebook® page, and I have habituated to the bullying I receive in public since a technician dampened my sensory registers that should function well until my expiration date next year. The Mayor asked me, On a scale of 1 to 5, how close do you want to stand to the Wise Men? I pretended not to hear him since it sounded like a trick question.

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity & power & conducts research on experimental poetry & radical publishing. Clara is author of three chapbooks, & her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous venues.

CUBA, NOVEMBER 2016

by Clara B. Jones 

Ropa Viejo

Yet soul food & southern food are the same thing though Inga is a common tree flowering in March when raucous monkeys peer up at toucans near the dam at Havana where you chose principle over compromise . . . reading Galeano thinking—Life isn't simple after all & Birds fly North of the tropics & Ordering the Daily Special is usually a bad idea—you exchanged chaos for order . . . form inverted function [like Jakobsen said media changes poetry] as écriture noire was a separatist movement in Martinique where fruit bats roost in caves with Didelphids . . . by June rains soaked roaming tapir alert yet cautious as you were vigilant at El Barracón eating Ropa Viejo amid the sounds of crowds & the smell of tap beer . . . you were privileged but everyone has a cross to bear since Phyllis Wheatley was a member of the Black Arts Movement after Che Guevara called you a “belligerent force.”

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity, alienation, and power and conducts research on experimental poetry, as well as, radical publishing. Clara is author of three chapbooks, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues.

LINGERIE COUNTER

by Clara B. Jones

Claes Oldenburg. Lingerie Counter. 1962. Textiles, canvas, plaster, enamel, metal stand, neon tube, mirror, and fiberboard Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest . . . with the addition of Ivanka Trump’s $10,800 “bangle” that she wore from her Metropolis Collection on 60 Minutes.

Trump is a Pop Artist with enough influence to have
poetry recover its power from the Romantics
and their natural tone inspiring Ivanka and Gucci
and other global icons—
balancing perfect acts for their new collections.
There is no rap masterpiece
since Killer Mike® didn't “get the message”
like Hillary didn't send the e-mails that Wikileaks exposed.
Obama has been sad for the last year
but we can think of several ways to thank him
though Michelle is a dealmaker
and her war with 50 Cent® is about to end
if she gets 5% of the profits
when the Oval Office is painted red.
Michelle said
I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street*
when Trump performed in the Green Room
where his show was stunning.
Call 1-800-800-1234 to order his book.
The price will never change.
Something happened
but it never got out of hand
since Trump's career is on the rise
and he fries tasty catfish.
Barak wants to end global warming
but Michelle wants to fight vile diseases—
having said that it's Thanksgiving
so what is Trump going to cook if poems are at stake?
Trump has prescriptions for migraine headaches
but knows his problems are genetic and Melania has
the right to remain silent so nothing will be held against her.

*Claes Oldenburg (1961)

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity, alienation, and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Clara is author of three chapbooks, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues.

ODE TO TOM HAYDEN (1939-2016)

by Clara B. Jones


To contest the binary is a political act because
Tom was not class-identified—riding Greyhound
To Manhattan with Casey, coming to the party
On the East Side, wearing jeans as young
Revolutionaries honored his plans to change
America The Beautiful after S.D.S. decreed that
Tactics would be decided by participatory vote
And all households would have no fewer than two
Friends from Cuba where macaw vocalizations
Filter through wet leaves, their raspy staccatos
And showy displays overhead—sounds infusing
Darkness between canopy and soil where
Hermaphrodite earthworms live non-binary lives
As soil engineers for microbes and rhizomes as Tom
Engineered comrades revising theories of profit and
Loss—tools of oppression in Braverman's terms.
SNCC a symbol of our will to re-program synapses
While Tom's persona heralded a terra incognita
Of radical outcomes.

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity, alienation, and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Clara is author of two chapbooks, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues.

WE BOMBED IRAQ SIX DAYS AFTER PARIS FASHION WEEK

by Clara B. Jones

New photographs show the Unites States Air Force preparing for strikes on ISIS targets at a secret military base in the Persian Gulf. Daily Mail, Feb. 26, 2016. Getty Images Photo via Daily Mail.

Climate crescented when Anthropocene
overwhelmed Antarctica, displacing
penguins whose food no longer swelled

the ocean, each year of our lives displayed
in glass cases cleaned every day, reflecting
a day-glow billboard sign selling scale

models of maps more detailed than the
landscapes they defined, so finely drawn
that cities looked like flies fixed in pixels.

The secret to my cat's success is her element
of surprise—clowns jumping out of bomber
jets, boreal birds barreling into bathrooms,

babies speaking sentences. In 2003, we
bombed Iraq six days after Paris Fashion Week.
Now we have drones to keep runways safe.


Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. She is a staff writer for the poetry journal, Yellow Chair Review. As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues.

HOW #BLACKLIVESMATTER CHANGED MY LIFE

by Clara B. Jones

Ben Carson, with his wife Candy, arrives to speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National at National Harbor, Md., March 8, 2014. Ron Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images via ABC.

If I were a good mother I wouldn't trigger trauma. He told me it wasn't my fault, but I never thought it was. I am not responsible for the rows of trailers along Route 40 where my son had a play-date before going viral in the reality show of our lives. I wasn't guilty, but in my mind I was since it took two hours off my life to read The New York Times. I would rather deploy, deliver, and execute, but my libido was never my strong suit because racism is a global movement even though Anna Wintour will be obligated to feature Candy Carson on the cover of Vogue wearing a Steve McQueen gown after Ben and Candy purchase a summer home in Ferguson with the money Ben made from translating The Bible into non-standard English to win Al Sharpton's endorsement. Ben's next book will be titled, How #BlackLivesMatter Changed My Life.


Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. She is a Staff Writer for the poetry journal, Yellow Chair Review. As a woman of color, Clara writes about identity and power, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues. Her collection, Ferguson And Other Satirical Poems About Race, won the 2015 Bitchin' Kitsch Chapbook Competition. Clara studied with Adrienne Rich in the 1970s and has studied recently with the poets Meghan Sterling and Eric Steineger.

THE VOICE OF REASON

by Clara B. Jones

Image source: FrackFreeNC.org

I am twenty-nine years old, an environmentalist, and a tool of Big Business. In the eyes of my parents and my pastor, I am a success, a good girl who can do no wrong. Though I have an uncommon amount of support and encouragement, I feel like an imposter. Dad always told me to do the right thing, but that is easier said than done. I grew up in Haywood County without the means to be idealistic. Some of my friends in graduate school were from Chapel Hill and Davidson, never forced to eat chicken wings and dumplings at the end of every month. Doing the right thing was always a practical matter. I was cut out for a career in Science, taught to weigh costs and benefits from an early age. But, I didn't know it would turn out like this. Doing the right thing is a complex matter, something Dad never pointed out. I wrote my dissertation on long-leafed pine, taking a job with the Forestry Department, hoping to continue my studies on endangered trees. But, my boss had other plans, assigning me to survey all the conifers in a five-hectare plot in Lee County. At first I was told that Forestry was revising their species lists. But, when I spotted trucks from the Mining and Energy Commission, it was obvious that I was part of an environmental impact study. Who might have imagined that Raleigh would favor hydraulic fracturing in the Great Smoky Mountains? Any high school Physics student could tell you that shattering shale deposits causes toxic leaks. Raleigh wants to be part of the gas drilling boom. Frack Free NC says fracking is an environmental justice issue, but my boss says NC needs to be free of freaks. “You can't stop progress.” is his favorite mantra, and maybe he's right. I considered asking for a transfer to the Conservation Department but decided I would stay on the job to be the voice of reason. At least natural gas is cleaner than coal.

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. As a woman of color, she writes about identity and power. Erbacce, CHEST, Ofi Literary Magazine, Transnational, Quail Bell, Bluestem, The Review Review, and 34th Parallel are among the venues her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in. In the 1970s, Clara studied with Adrienne Rich and has studied recently with the poets Meghan Sterling and Eric Steineger.

THE FISH WAS BORN ON FRIDAY

by Clara B. Jones

Prospect Park tunnel by TurnoftheSue

I am Mexican, but my immigration status is none of your business. I am no rapist or murderer, but Donald Trump has my ticket. It was easy to cross the border at El Alberto. Even the patrol looked the other way. I hitched rides to Newark where my cousin, César, picked me up. He worked in a fancy restaurant in Brooklyn, washing dishes and, sometimes, peeling spuds. His best friend was an Irish guy nicknamed, The Fish, by his father because he was born on Friday. From the beginning, The Fish treated me like shit and told César I was only good for taking bags from the South Bronx to Harlem, the closer to 42nd Street the better. I didn't mind carrying cocaine, but one day the pack was heavier than usual, and I figured it must be a piece. The Fish fooled me; but, not for long. I called César and told him to meet me in the Prospect Park tunnel ahora mismo, and he showed up an hour later with The Fish at his side. When I pulled out the gun, The Fish yelled, “Stupid Spic!”, and lunged at my chest. It happened so fast, I didn't know what to do. But, as I was running away from the cops, I could see they left César's cap in the street.


Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. As a woman of color, she writes about social relations and the moral dimensions of power. Erbacce, CHEST, Ofi Literary Magazine, Transnational, PANK, and 34th Parallel are among the venues her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in, and she is the author of the weblog, Ferguson and Other Poems About Race: A Chapbook (2015). In the 1970s, Clara studied with Adrienne Rich and, more recently, with the poets Meghan Sterling and Eric Steineger.