Tag: Ali Jones

Forthcoming – Alison Jones

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

Forthcoming

If we could visit now, would you come with me?
Take my hand, let me lead you up the pea gravel path –
tread carefully if you are wearing sandals,
I have learnt this the hard way, in summers past.

Come. Here are two striped cats that bask
and unfurl, in the dappled sap-light. Now, through the orchard,
where Norfolk Pippin, Cox’s Orange, Victoria and William,
reach and recline, limber limbs to the waiting sun.

We can always return here. Boundaried by beeches
that hide clamouring hives, through the stable door.
Here is the cool flagged kitchen, where flowers, foraged
from hedgerows rest in chipped crystal – fit for the fae!

Celandines, daisies, Jack by the Hedge.
Here on a scrubbed wooden table, Mason Cash bowls
perform daily alchemy, from base grains to tempting treasures.
Tins rinsed in the old Belfast sink, then dried with Irish linen.

Sit for a moment, here with me in the midday calm,
pull up the Hepplewhite chair. Somewhere deeper within
arpeggio practise goes on , sung through a well-worn cello,
lifting into bird song and bell chimes. We can always begin again.

 

Alison Jones is a teacher, and writer with work published in a variety of places, from Poetry Ireland Review, Proletarian Poetry and The Interpreter’s House, to The Green Parent Magazine and The Guardian. She has a particular interest in the role of nature in literature and is a champion of contemporary poetry in the secondary school classroom. Her pamphlet, ‘Heartwood’ was published by Indigo Dreams in 2018, with a second pamphlet. ‘Omega’, and a full collection forthcoming in 2020.

Potato Harvest – Ali Jones

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

Potato Harvest

Once, we hid moons in earth,
reaching down to sable loam.

Now, tines shy, lifting gently,
we begin to gather them in.

Hauling up, bundles of small satellites,
Dark drops. Another moon floats up

between branches of cherry.
Small moons bring night home,

geosmin, thick and dense, a full tide coming in,
held in canvas beneath polished granite.

They wait to ghost up again, to rise
through fire and water, in cauldron dark pans.

 

Ali Jones’ work has appeared in The Interpreter’s House, Proletarian Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Snakeskin Poetry, Atrium, Café Writers, Laldy, Green Parent magazine and The Guardian. Her pamphlets Heartwood and Omega are forthcoming with Indigo Dreams Press.

The Old Soldier – Ali Jones

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The Old Soldier

He has a hut in the woods, well-concealed;
bounded by ash and thorn, linteled in ivy,
where he hides a Falkirk kettle and finds
a tin tea caddy stashed safely with the horseshoe
trivet and well-worn pan. It is not so small,
a familiar path of bird song leads him on
to dress in blackbird colours and sing of rain
while he works by the stream. A young buck
at his side asks who owns the forest?

He has no reply, only beckons, come and see;
the bounty of trees heavy with apples, a crop of nuts
netted with the fingers, a spring dancing
to offer a cup of water, the abundance
of berries and birds to pick them.

Tame a man and lie him down,
make him peaceful in crowds and muddy trenches;
at home he is quiet as a fox and prefers
the rowan tree and blackthorn’s sloe arms
to other company. He finds a clutch of mushrooms,
the honey of the wild bees, a patch of wild strawberries,
enjoyed with a wash of tea and a drift of briar roses.

The summer hides him until autumn swells
her belly and skeins the sky with wild geese.
He is a nimble singer of the spinning wheel,
friend to the wren and woodpecker, despiser
of his own children, his wife has given up on him.

At night he hangs his hood with the fair white
birds, the voice of the wind harps twigs,
and the steam’s cascade is night music to his
swan song, He lays down with no quarrel,
a hermit in his little hut, and gives thanks.

 

Ali Jones is a teacher and mother of three. Her work has appeared in Fire, Poetry Rivals, Strange Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Snakeskin Poetry, Atrium, Mother’s Milk Books, Breastfeeding Matters, Green Parent magazine and The Guardian. Her pamphlets Heartwood and Omega are forthcoming with Indigo Dreams Press in 2018.

The Sewing Tin – Ali Jones

~ Claire Walker ~ Leave a comment

The Sewing Tin
 
It hid in a drawer,
anchored in darkness,
a landscape borrowed from others,
finding geography in the contours
of buttonholes and zips, few alike,
metallic retorts, sharp spikes slipped
from fabrics unknown.

Who wore the dress,
with flowers in her hair?
Who loosed a pin
beneath the moon’s
bone wide stare?
Who pulled pearls through?
A breadcrumb trail of prizes.

I am looking into
the heart of secrets,
flexing them beneath my fingers,
prying their mechanisms;
no blood on my hands,
hanging stitches from the past;
the dead pricking my fingers.

 

Ali Jones is a teacher and writer, living in Oxford, England. She holds an MA in English, focused on poetry in domestic spaces. She writes and performs on a regular basis.