Who saves a summer saint too often burned

When sermons yellow like the leaves of fall?

My mind dismisses everything I learned;

When winter comes my faith forgets it all.

I need a word to last throughout the years;

Three months are not enough to savor spring,

And blossoming flowers are sure to wane.

My plummeting desires are now fears;

Like falling suns they mange white doves’ wings

And char the angels’ mouths so they don’t sing.

There is no word to loiter in my veins.

Shawn R. Jones

(Womb Rain, Finishing Line Press, 2008)

I’ve decided not to

write about

how you were

and were not there,

how you cared,

but did not care.

I refuse to write about

how you were

a was

and a was not,

a sometimes,

an if, and a maybe

and a never

not ever father

who always is

but is not

a part of me.

Shawn R. Jones

Reprinted from “Womb Rain”

(Finishing Line Press, 2008)

Blacker the Berry

Candy coated complexions

stand in milky way fibers

stronger than maple trunks.

Their pronounced veins cross

beneath dark skin

coiled like vines

up the bark of a tree.

Shades of every spice

mix in the salted rain

as sun slides thick

honey down their spines.

Grains of hair

rough like aged brown sugar

melt down a lifted brow

to land on nostrils that

flare proof of the crown.

Shawn R. Jones

This Fall

I want to see God

in the dividing light

of shadowed branches

that drop twisted leaves

in swirling blue currents

of green and black earth

and watch His smile multiply

in ripples that ride

cool autumn downstream.

Shawn R. Jones

Often times I combine my love of poetry with my love of dance.

I wrote this poem for my former African-Dance teacher, Melanie Kelly.

Doundounba

Unbind blood of new creations

Let your body go.
Beat drums of liberation.
Feed the overflow
of rhythms under condemnation-
movements they call sin.
Swagger hips in your frustration.
Let you body win.
Jerk your neck out of oppression
till each braid whips loose.
Wipe sweat from pent up affections.
Feel tensions reduce.
Swing your arms in opposition
to everything you know.
Batter bones of your temptation.
Bang your body low.

Shawn R. Jones

I enjoy

the hue of red cardinals

beneath golden rays,

a fawn trotting silently

across grassy plains,

the flute’s timid melody

gliding on air,

the fading bass

of a bear’s fallen growl,

and the eerie breath of leaves

feigning to be rain

in the wind.

Shawn R. Jones

*This poem was inspired by Louis Armstrong’s song, What a Wonderful World

I wrote this poem last summer and had my students choreograph a dance to it.

 When I Break at Dawn

I sleep among the same stars.

I am the spotted moon-

Crescent shape, my soul doth quake

Deep in midnight’s cocoon.

I dream about the same dreams.

I am the castle in the sky,

But not the fairy-tales of all is well…

I ask my Father, “Why?”

I rise with the same Son,

And yet I  break at dawn-

An insecurity of reality-

A hope of change moved on.

I dance to the same songs-

I am the twine-flexed child

Of fantasy.  I cannot be

A dancer in this shroud.

I pray to the same God,

Though I am spotted, flexed, and twined.

And tomorrow morning when I break –

I’ll break with all mankind.

Shawn R. Jones

Author of the devotional book, Pictures in Glass Frames   http://t.co/BxiNwWRG and the poetry chapbook, Womb Rain, http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717218&sr=8-1

He sees a grieving woman, soft and round,

on the sandy shore, sobbing for her child,

rolled over like a stormy wave and loud.

As seagulls cry mocking the woman’s sound,

she tells the young man how her son had drowned.

Wet check on his neck from her warm-teared face,

they slide receptively they  in one embrace.

The sun hides. Early evening does turn down.

The two become one movement of the night

just barely knowing each other at all.

With fresh dawn shinning their dew of delight,

Strange nakedness does bend the morning’s light.

Dawn’s guilt holds much more power than delight.

Wrapped in bereavement’s ache, their sin is small,

for one’s comfort denies the other’s fall.

Shawn R. Jones

The hawk’s beautiful shadow

soars ominously across

acres of yesterday’s snow.

His dark wingspan appears,

disappears, and reappears

without warning.

For a moment,

I feel like prey

between life’s pattern of

curses, and blessings, and curses.

Shawn R. Jones

In sunshine

brown flesh pours on grass,

nourishing soil

for the goldenrod

to resurrect in fall.

Bodily eruptions

make life’s faint  worries

dissolve to the ground.

Memories hoard lust

in separate mounds

as sin’s disfigured shadow

twists in torment

beneath the crust.

Coarse hair coils

between green blades

then mashes leisurely

into wet earth

as warm blood

shades white stones

and quivering muscles

lose themselves in the rhythm

of bones crackling to ash.

I am nothing. I

no longer can be found.

Shawn Regina Jones

reprinted from

“Womb Rain” (Finishing Line Press)

Womb Rain can be purchased at:

http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347716562&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Womb+Rain+by+Shawn+Regina+Jones