Three Poems by Junior Clemons

you can hold a newborn deer in your palm

if you place fluorescent light into the ground

you can find a chair on a busy street

and sit in it until ice forms all around you

you can wonder while walking under trees

if your pelvis and spine shine through.

you can view a list w/ milk cheese bread

and say aloud “this is our universe at its truest”

you can talk w/ the saddest ghost

if you stare at the mirror until it’s a painting

you can pretend to waltz w/ someone

and when you mess up describe it perforated

and if you soak your tongue in gold

you can save anything. yourself

(Away, March 19 2009, San Francisco)

*

i don’t want anything described as ‘sunsoaked’

i       want everything described as ‘sunsoaked’

suspended wrist

do not look for orphans

but the childless

unnamed

i don’t want to be young

a spool of thread though some

remember a sword

what i’ve done to my body—

and the statue: a statue implies

something less than real / a star

brighter having known it

(After Carmen, September 23 2009, San Francisco)

*

and thinking of her

inner ear which is to say

that we are in conversation

w/ all of it and yes

it’s a cat / probably
but the list of things

that can appear outside

one’s window is infinite

and ‘sensual’
a word that is effective

without being absolutely

understood

(Club House, December 14 2009, San Francisco)

Junior Clemons received an M.F.A. in Writing from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. He received his B.A. from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, where he studied English & World Literature, with a Writing emphasis. His first book of poems, SO MANY MOUNTAINS BUT THIS ONE SPECIFICALLY, was published by Carville Annex Press. He was born, lives and writes in San Diego, CA.