Wess Mongo Jolley Poetry Collection
Featured in issue 17 of Dreamers Magazine.
For the Seagulls
Once it is on the shelf, or boxed up and slid
under the bed, will it ever be opened again?
The bus crashes, the artery fails, family afraid to
crack a volume for the demons it may invoke.
The box may float around for years or decades, until someone
needs closure, and then these pages flutter in the landfill.
Birds will peck apart my life, scraps blown like snowy
leaves, blue-veined paper reduced to pulp by early winter rain.
Perhaps that is why my fingers linger, palms
pressed to the cover, a lover’s hand I cannot let go.
The world is brutal and all I can do is shout and write,
close the cover, clear my throat, and shout again.
In the end, only the seagulls will hear.
This poem is for them.
Koan
You’ll find the master in the places
where he is not.
The place he was holds
more of him than his skin.
Shadows burned on the playground wall
linger long after the ashes have blown away.
He is not in these hen-scratched words, but touch
tongue to paper and you’ll taste the sweat in the shirt he wore.
The depression in a pillow where he laid his head.
Branches that fall back into place.
A sound long dead upon the wind.
A memory of a wild-eyed stranger.
A snow angel, five floors below, melting in spring sunshine.
You’ll find him where he is not—
diluted like a homeopathic cure.
Touch his footprints, filled with invisible flesh.
Squint your eyes, and that’s him in the door frame.
Seek him there, if you
must seek him at all.
Your coffee will be richer if you
just show the cream to the cup.
Asymptote
—Asymptote: v. To approach, but never quite touch,
a straight line, as something goes to infinity.
And there were waves that came ashore
while I was atop the mountain.
Glaciers that cracked and fell while
I was looking at the sea.
There were clouds that passed overhead
while my nose was in the grass.
I must have all the world’s aching joy
or I must have none of it.
The man across the park sweeping the leaves
has never glanced my way. When he leaves
he’ll never know how he cleaves
my heart.
He was at the sea
while I was on the mountain.
He watched the waves roll in as I
saw the glaciers crumble.
On the bow of a ship is a woman who kisses her lover
under clouds that go unnoticed.
They will both live longer than me—
cursing these arcs that approach, but never touch.
Someday I will be gone,
missing more of life than I lived.
The city will be here when I am scattered on the wind,
dust, falling with the leaves of the trees—
swept up by a lonely stranger.
About the Author – Wess Mongo Jolley
Wess Mongo Jolley is a Canadian novelist, editor, podcaster, and poet, most well-known for hosting the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel for ten years. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in journals such as Grain, Off the Coast, PANK, Danse Macabre, The Chamber, and Apparition Literary Magazine. His horror trilogy, The Last Handful of Clover, is available on Patreon, Wattpad, QSaltLake, and as an audiobook podcast. Mongo writes from his home in Montreal, Quebec. Find him at http://wessmongojolley.com.
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