The
Book of Possibilities
by
Jill Jones
Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1997
What critics
said about The Book of Possibilities:
"... her vision is impeccable. Like other contemporary poets
liberated from bardic pronouncement, Jones invites the reader
to share in the speculative processes of discovery ..."
Lyn
Jacobs,
Heat
"... an engaging and distinctive lyricism, full of deft insight and quiet charm, strong, and elegantly and gracefully articulated." Judith Beveridge
" ...explores the boundaries of inner and outer experience, the shifting approximations of fact and possibility ... the journeys we take with Jones are always made complex ...Jones pursues the border between action and observation, the flux between contact and meaning ... maps the possibilities for interaction and contact that space may hold. ... There are many ways to live, even if it is only in dream, and no matter what happens the risks are still taken." MTC Cronin, Cordite
The Book of Possibilities was shortlisted for the National Book Council Awards 1997, The Age Poetry Book of the Year 1997 and the Adelaide Festival Awards 1998.
This book is available through www.amazon.com.
Some poems from The Book
of Possibilities
Writing her big sleep
Three screams, the climax outside
of gunshot.
The pen goes cold as metal in winter.
Ten years ago she had been drowsing through
The Big Sleep and woke up to a dead man.
And it's happening again, outside
the screen's
blue flame - this time a flat dead glow
covers up the page's distress.
Private investigator now she
rises
from the couch, feet like steps in the street.
Will they find her upper storey, gun blasts
through the chip-board door?
The body back then, a male
furnace
burning on high even at rest, a little twitch
at the ears but blinded in half-sleep, room-dark.
"Why do they keep going back to the house?"
He didn't see the gilt exotica
extrapolated from black
and white, Laurel Canyon strange enough.
But his question out of dream - a sleek shiny car
dragged up from the edge of the pier,
black telephones, two a.m. - was his last.
"What's wrong with you?"
he was supposed to say.
"Nothing you can't fix," she's to reply. All her life,
waiting to mouth the second half of the double act, but
waking up, a dead man and smell of damp corruption,
cordite, sweet exotics, lonely refrigerators.
Outside, the street's a giant
answer.
Everything's wrong now with cigarettes
and sex, loneliness still long-distance but defensible.
Except her window bars sing, sirens swarm, a body
slumps out there, past her door. No wonder
a woman's screaming, how can that be ignored?
And the pen silent, near frozen in blue.
Songs of
the evening air
les sons et les parfums
tournent dans l'air du soir
- Charles Baudelaire
Sounds and fragrances blend
in evening air.
The lines of buildings, curves of roads
and trees also have songs breathed out,
waves of leaves, exhaust, sweet jasmine.
A thick air of cooking clings
round the blunt blades of picket fences,
its solid note tangles with the screech -
a child's bike and the pothole,
brittle edge of mother's voice, pitching
what she can, a register narrowed
by temper and hard care.
The lines of buildings, crescendo
of stairs,
swell the argument in Arabic on the landing.
Men comment below, potbellies near bursting,
scorn the foreign wave of chanted words.
They say she gives it to him every day,
what's trapped inside them, useless hurt,
the sound of spit hitting concrete,
thick air of exhaust, sweet jasmine.
A laminex thud, spoons, knives, glass -
a medley swings out into the cool
dark, shadows sway, rich in layers.
A single candle in a front
room
ripples an arpeggio on curtains and glass.
Breathed out, a wish for pleasure as dark
on dark blanket covers a source of pain.
Glossy street-light swims in a blur, opposites
collide or move past each other,
slippage like jazz or plate tectonics.
A white cat tremors a moment,
flicks a tail round the corner,
between lines of buildings, the pitch of leaves.
A woman's face presses out from a window.
Gears slip, teeth metal tyres
on glass,
familiar rust of gates, old songs of iron -
one day someone will make it new again.
Hunched in coat and collar a man balances
two large paper bags, weighted with beer
and dinner - oil, fenugreek, chilli and hops -
amber comforts, old songs, the football replay.
He grasps the parcels tight and swears.
Nosing shadows a dog sniffs the fence,
pisses, jogs on through air that tells him
more about the night than human syllables.
As dogs do, humans do
what they can -
fiddling the catch of the gate.
The party
The party rackets on down the
street
Breathy voices fly up like lemon chiffon
Things pull apart for a little while
'I've been trying to nail him down'
There's a thin silence along the line
He never rang back when he
said
There's a breezy sound in the mix
Someone's playing your favourite song
The cords are tangled up on the floor
Then things pull apart for a while
She snatches up words in a
fist
There's a fat silence along the line
She opens out the flat of her hand
It's a quiet that grows and grows
'He never rang back when he said'
Leaves are curling up in the
heat
Branches scrape the side of the house
Midnight clouds are tinged with red light
We hope the storm will blow over tomorrow
There's a breezy sound in the mix
Yellow lights string across
the horizon
Today there were white boats on the bay
You can't hear the phone above the noise
What if someone is trying to connect
We hope the storm will blow over tomorrow
Two boys argue about the green
dress
One man is looking after death
Someone talks about letting go
Someone else wants to contradict
'Today there were white boats out on the bay'
A dog is howling at the end
of the lane
Flying foxes screech into the tree dark
Our neighbours are arguing about the fence
Plastic garbage skids out on the footpath
The party rackets on down the street
A baby cries upstairs on the
bed
The balcony is wet with kisses tonight
A black leather jacket hangs on the doorknob
She shows her girlfriend the night's new stars
They can hear the telephone above the noise
Midnight clouds spill out a
red light
Flying foxes screech into dark trees
She opens out the flat of her hand
The tall man is looking after death
Someone is playing your favourite song
Things pull apart for a little
while
The dog disappears into the dark
You can hear the phone above the noise
The baby is sleeping in a black leather jacket
There's a breathy silence out along the line
Copyright Jill Jones
Updated 15 August 2005