Jim Zola

Yellow Sheaves Beneath the Corpse of Melvil Dewey

Ants intoxicate lovers for hours.
  By hours I mean years, mean life.
   Cold fingers warm the coffee cup,
     deafness rises in dust mites, slogs
     ears that welcome the devil’s only tongue.
 Figure a number for all reason. A
   gedankenexperiment, the thoughts that fold end sleeves.
    Here’s what’s left of my life. Here.
     I long for the silence between the shelves, that holy state.
      Jugular, wisdom regurgitates the sweet
 kiss that makes both entrance and exit possible.
  Love says the chiffon jukebox, sings the organic halcyon,
   marry me into the system,
    not soldiers of infinite chaos but
     order dressed in funeral lingerie,
  powdered cheeks and wrists ringed with neglected garlands.
   Quick as the lazy brown fox.
    Real as the dog jumping into a fire in time for a
     solemn waking to brevity, the heavy industrial
      tune the bones play with timbre
 unlocking a truth so slim it’s transparent.
  Violins know blood music. They play until
   we believe the night might not end
    x-rated. By end I mean not more. Not
     yellowing pages dog-eared at passion with
zinnia petals to mark the spot.

 
Monkey Typewriter Theorem
 
The first just sits
on a stool and spins,
impersonates my Uncle E.,
sashays towards the earth’s
true urge. Another O’s
its mouth, launches fleas
into the vents.
AAAA
is all this one knows,
or so he feigns.
Two in the corner,
See and Do,
nudge each other
and point towards me,
smirk. One shakes
its ass red. One
standing pays
a dozen knuckle draggers
peanuts to mash
the keys.
Most chitter cliches
about the lack
of proper greens
or press ripe rumps
against the two-way glass.
They beg
for dark rum
in plastic cups,
flick shit
when refused. Genius
stenciled on cheap t-shirts,
they muddle
Shakespeare.
All but one
who hunts and pecks
as if by luck
he might become
a poet.

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Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina.