Native Brooklynite Precious Jones's poetry has been published in Gay Black Female Magazine, Coloring Book: An Anthology of Prose & Poetry, and Rolling Out UrbanStyle Weekly. Her writing tackles issues of race, sex, and sexuality, among other things, with honesty and wit. She gives thanks to June Jordan, Chrystos, Sapphire, and Neruda: four loving and passionate writers who fed her hunger for good poetry.
A Poem for Mary Woodson
(or when the definition of madness is love)
we call crazy a pot of
hot grits flying like bats toward the fleshy cave
of his back,
the blistered heat
of a woman's heartache
boiled down to dementia,
while tabloids spilled the
juice 'bout a pimp-turned-
afro'd soul singer
swimming in hominy
talking bout, I'm still in love with you, let's stay together, take me to the river, whistling dixie 'bout making love 'til lemon trees orgasm sweet and sour--
certainly he
promised her a lovesong,
something like
baby you been on my mind
'cause a good woman is
hard tuh find,
cloaked in slow groove blues on cruise, top down, skirt up, mary,
missing mother and wife
went AWOL for Al Green,
til husband came to claim her
like luggage,
she had a mental breakdown,
they said,
she was out to lunch
as black women in love
often are, i bet he made
promises insincere as his suffering,
impromptu baritone scat about a
diamond-ringed proposal on
soul train,
real time tender lovin' tender only
when he wasn't coked up or
windin' up on some other
pretty young thing, but mary
was a woman who loved so hard
she went postal
a woman who loved so hard
she'd rather
take two shots to the head
than make a mockery
of her fever-pitched passion
for a whoremonger:
who of us
hasn't been driven to
ponder revenge,
to fuck the best friend
or enemy of,
sister/brother of,
to gauge out the eyes of,
to headlock and head butt,
to stir corn grits in a
cast iron pot,
to scar our heart breakers
with grainy tattoos that say
"fuck you,
die hard and slow as jesus
on the cross"
I know he promised her
a lovesong,
voice smokey as a juke joint
whispering in her ear
about baby this and baby that
til she finally conceded,
yes, Al, I love you,
Al, I forgive you, Al,
I'll take you back
A Poem for Mary Woodson
(or when the definition of madness is love)
we call crazy a pot of
hot grits flying like bats toward the fleshy cave
of his back,
the blistered heat
of a woman's heartache
boiled down to dementia,
while tabloids spilled the
juice 'bout a pimp-turned-
afro'd soul singer
swimming in hominy
talking bout, I'm still in love with you, let's stay together, take me to the river, whistling dixie 'bout making love 'til lemon trees orgasm sweet and sour--
certainly he
promised her a lovesong,
something like
baby you been on my mind
'cause a good woman is
hard tuh find,
cloaked in slow groove blues on cruise, top down, skirt up, mary,
missing mother and wife
went AWOL for Al Green,
til husband came to claim her
like luggage,
she had a mental breakdown,
they said,
she was out to lunch
as black women in love
often are, i bet he made
promises insincere as his suffering,
impromptu baritone scat about a
diamond-ringed proposal on
soul train,
real time tender lovin' tender only
when he wasn't coked up or
windin' up on some other
pretty young thing, but mary
was a woman who loved so hard
she went postal
a woman who loved so hard
she'd rather
take two shots to the head
than make a mockery
of her fever-pitched passion
for a whoremonger:
who of us
hasn't been driven to
ponder revenge,
to fuck the best friend
or enemy of,
sister/brother of,
to gauge out the eyes of,
to headlock and head butt,
to stir corn grits in a
cast iron pot,
to scar our heart breakers
with grainy tattoos that say
"fuck you,
die hard and slow as jesus
on the cross"
I know he promised her
a lovesong,
voice smokey as a juke joint
whispering in her ear
about baby this and baby that
til she finally conceded,
yes, Al, I love you,
Al, I forgive you, Al,
I'll take you back
