About the Author Thomas D. Jones is the author of Genealogy X, his first book of poetry, published by The Poets Press out of Providence, RI. His poetry has also been published in numerous magazines throughout the country. Originally from northern New Jersey, he has a BA in English from Seton Hall University and an MA in Publishing Studies from New York University. After twelve years in the publishing field, he decided to change his career and become an adult educator, teaching composition and ESL at colleges in the New York/New Jersey area. Since moving to Rhode Island in 2001, he has done freelance publishing and now teaches ESL and computers at adult education centers. He is also the publisher and Poetry Editor of Wings Online Magazine, www.geocities.com/wingsmag2002/ in existence (but not on-line) since 1991. This is his first poetry in Nuvein.

Imagine you decide on a trip

out of town in winter weather.

You intend to stop at the grocerâs

and pick up some food you forgot.

Instead, your eye catches the banner

unfurled at the local museum:

PAINTING BY UNKNOWN MASTER.



It piques your fancy, so you step inside

to get close to the painting

of silos, windmills and animals

who graze on last yearâs leavings,

gaze ahead of themselves

into the horizon where you see



a town hall and highway,

dumpster and Salvation Army

of ragged unkempt people

whose faces, wan and yellow,

stare with a patch on the eye.



You reach out to touch

but it vanishes without trace.



Back on the street, outside

the museum window,

a car rolls by, blowing debris

and bouncing passengers.

All except the driver hide newspapers

behind dark glasses and smoke,

read in the lines of their hands,

in the words on the page,

astrological signs of the day:

unfinished poems, dead flowers,

lovers of stars and the moon.



Like you, they feel the asteroid tug

as they look in the eye of a neighbor

who brushes them away with a shrug,

like the skaters who, skating slow,

fall, get up, brush off, start to go

past the only cemetery in town,

the only haven, where like a crow,

they can rest cold feet.



The painting of animals

in pastel, the dolor of autumn slumber,

the clinging to what is left of old snow

make you want to wrap the sun in a jar

and spill your last bit of grief and longing,

after all attempts at finding love,

into bowls the cats will lick

in the driveway.