The grim gargoyle between the mirror
and the bar,
is unsexed, fig-leafed by a Corona label.
A whole graveyard of teeth is laid bare by its grin;
every once ivory marker, smoked gray or darker.
Each a memorial to the words jailed in
the poetry books shoved under to keep it
stable.
They're warped and closed tight and
unread for years.
They won't open up even to the fangs
and claws
the heavy demon displays above their
covers.
As stoic and stone faced as any regular,
the gargoyle, aside from balance, doesn't
care.
With its bat wings half-unfurled, it
hovers
in a squat like a critic taking a shit on
verse
or a poet revising a line to make it
worse.
Paul Jones was inducted into the NC State Computer Science Hall of Fame in 2021. His poetry has taken an unusual journey beyond Earth—a manuscript of his poems crashed into the moon's surface in 2019, while another lunar mission with his poems aboard successfully landed in February 2024.
Jones’s recent work has appeared in Rattle, Hudson Review, IEEE Spectrum, Sheila na gig, and Book of Matches, as well as in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems (From 1800 to the Present). His collections are Something Wonderful (2021) and Something Necessary (2024).
http://smalljones.com and on social media as @smalljones.
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