Poems by Jon Stone

Theft


A way down the slow-current, gentle-back river
she earlier lowered the boat of her into,
a something that’s nothing comes suddenly stealing.


She’s up like a jack and she’s buzzy with dreaming,
and each of her breasts is a wound-tight hand-bow
trained on the something that’s nothing that’s something.


The shades that were shadows retreat into shadows.
Far off, through the window, the trolls that were hunting
fall back to their mountains. The nothing that’s something


is nothing again and the room resumes stilling.
The bowstring relaxes. She rejoins the river.
Already, already she doesn’t remember.


​


The Glass Expert


The words all leave her mouth as molten glass.
They sink, and cool, and roll like marble-glass.
She tells the story told to her by glass.


She spills its secrets, noting the retentiveness
of mesh or woven surfaces, how all of us


are equally attractive to its errant crumbs
and how it winks from underneath a fingernail


or beds behind a pinna like a wayward stud
or crowns a tooth, and goes unseen for weeks or months.


The hammerblow that took the small hours by surprise
had holed the shopfront on the third or second swing


resulting in a sudden wave of glass
breaking on the air, a dust of glass
blown from here to there, a pelt of glass


that settled on the burglar, and his collar, gloves
would instantly be itching with it, boots encased


or jewel-encrusted, any naked flesh lit up
with shining hairs. The car seats would be strewn with stars,


and every star a witness, every particle
a sleeper agent waiting in its nest for her


to spy its pin-prick Morse, to read its microform,
damning as a purse of gems the size of eyes


beneath her microscope’s enchanted glass,
her lenses misty, whole mind turned to glass
and everything about her made from glass. 

About the poet

Jon Stone was born in Derby and lives in London. His poems have appeared in anthologies of imitation, formal innovation, science fiction, erotic and comic book poetry. School of Forgery (Salt, 2012) brings all these elements together, while he also collates, collaborates and anthologises through Sidekick Books, the small press he runs with Kirsten Irving. He won a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award in 2012 and the Poetry London competition in both 2014 and 2016.

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