Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
Modes (of Nothing), poem by Jill Jones.
Modes (of Nothing)
There’s a long shadow under the tree.
Heat’s expensive at the switch or outside.
Asphalt wriggles towards the beach.
We make bright portraits of anything flavourless
or mashups of cats and Fortnite.
Time to rizz up? Pink shoes kind of.
Retail fills car-boots in the long afternoon.
Day glitters with sunscreen. How much loss
is left in aquifers, the Black Sea, a cancelled series.
Fruit and vegetables need a new climate.
A monologue ensues in the supermarket aisle.
We know we’re being spied on. We accept cookies.
‘Are salads now extinct?’ Use the ‘sniff test’.
Locate your missing artefacts. Call Triple Zero.
‘Think twice before sending.’
Rules are breaking, even the mosquitoes are winning.
‘The synthetic voice is so cosy.’
Come out at night. Feed on blood.
© Jill Jones
Jill Jones Latest book: Acrobat Music: New & Selected Poems (Puncher & Wattmann, 2023)