Category Archives: Poetry and love

eyes, jas. mardis, love, Mardis, memoir, poetry, Poetry and love

I Don’t Want It All Back

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“What I Miss?”
I don’t want it all back
   just that one morning 
      when I put my phone on the bumper
    and you wore that orange shirt dress
       and shook your head 
     at the idea that everything was going to 
                        work out
          that the angle was right 
     not to cut off our heads
          not to slip off the bumper 
       when the ten second timer hit
     not to have a hundred shots of sky
       on nights like this
         in the middle of the moon
      when the phone has six thousand pics
    and only one 
 of big hair   an ebony hue  an orange blur
       and endless
            endless 
                blue sky
        .

.

.

. (Oh, well…)

Jas. Mardis

Culture, jas. mardis, poetry, Poetry and love

A Thought of You & Time

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“She Has Her Pick…”

a-thought-of-you-time.m4a

I thought of you and time today

    about how you use it
      in conversation 
  like a belt
    a strap 
       sometimes worn
     an adornment wrapped ‘round you
    for your companion to consider 
.
.
    
   picked out    especially for this moment 
       selected 
      to hourglass your presence 
     that heaven of sand above
        that ocean floor below
    and you
      giving out luxurious patience
      one grain  
          sliding out of order
        tumbling turning tilting 
    fitfully    into your companion’s histories:
          I saw your smile
         I drank in your laughter 
    I imagined the wet, soft press of your lips
         I felt the echoing air as you rose 
      and took your leave
        and 
       in the hourglass of you
 a grain of time ticks against the ocean floor 

.

.

          in your absence
there is a remembrance of you
      tapping like raindrops on dry wood
          hammering away at my soul 
building layers of moments into joy
  taking up the grains like old dreams
     dropping their exhausted husks
        against my closed eyelids 
      and listening to their exploding songs
    lulling me to a fantasy of doing it all
            again
         again   again 
            when you return 
         pushing the air ahead of you
              back into the room where I await
         the next island drop of sand 
        to fall 
              delicately deliciously decidedly 
            into the ocean

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.

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Jas. Mardis

jas. mardis, love, poetry, Poetry and love, poetry posts

Poetry: I, Eye

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I Eye–audio

                    I, Eye

certainly
there is some other way of naming your attraction
some other ways
of counting out the names that I have given to your beauty

some simple method of calculating the hours spent remembering

all the joy
made possible      simply and wonderfully by looking upon you

and knowing  that
no other person or thing or moment on this old Earth
is ever going to bring me such a wonderful aching
until it returns   comes back around     knocks…enters…home

so,
tell me again how I first came to be in your eyes

dancing my old bones and flesh thru the sunset rivers of your stare
holding your browned, honey glazed look upon me
and being swallowed into your pupils   as a precious light

just      once      more
say my name   without opening your mouth
without parting your lips     without any sounds  at all
like you do on your pictures
taken from above your head    from your camera’s phone

selfish selfies

with the whole world wanting to be part of such a moment
men and women     themselves  watching for their turn in your eyes
willing to settle for a moment    of you   thru a lens
wanting silent credit for capturing all of what you want    just me to see

and  moments later     there you are

the distance    miles of roads   acres of grass and river waters
steps and tip-toed inches   erased with a button’s push

and you

your eyes so brilliant and bright and beckoning me into that flash moment
your silliness     your awakening into morning light    your muscle work
spilling out from my phone
sighted   suddenly    like lonely sailors must have seen Mermaids

missing home      watching  dark water       a noise
the  glass eye  raised to see         whatever could it be

“Captain, my Captain…oh, my soul…”

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Jas. Mardis  (06/ 2015)
(4nomi/)

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame and Editor of KenteCloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora, UNT Press

poetry, Poetry and love

Between Then & Again…

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(audio: Then And Again)

between seeing you
between having a moment of your smiling
and the absence of you
between the early afternoon sun on your face
and the memory of wanting to keep you longer than one meal

between then and again
the same again of wanting and waiting
the same again of hoping and having
the same again of knowing and wanting to know more

between  all the stops and starts of doubting
between every ounce and measure of experience
between each one of my days and nights of aloneness
and the heavier weight of choosing rightly who to kiss  twice     first

between every moment that chases me toward the   again
I am awash and dumbstruck by the moment of  THEN

I remember every step that I’ve taken in your presence
and every time that you turned toward me
every flash of recognition in your eyes
each of your tentative smiles   each parting of your lips
the opening and closing of your mouth  to greet me  and to send me on my way

I had thought of you before   from a collection of distances
thought of you married    thought of you otherwise taken and claimed and loved
thought twice of you younger   twice your dynamic  in that youthfulness

I had checked and held my breath in your presence

checked for those awkward, low whistles that the body creates around breathing

checked on my taking in and letting out

checked out those risings and fallings of your small chest

checked on the way your stomach fills to a tightness then yields to the belted waist of your black dress when you chuckle

checked off all of the reasons to leave you in the distance

THEN

checked off all the reasons to close that distance

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He is an awarded Poet and Fabric Artist living in Dallas,TX

love, poetry, Poetry and love

Lily of the Valley

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      Photo credit April Anue

Lily of the Valley



by now

we are clearly smitten

unsure of the end but certain of the path to it

all at once I understand something that others have wanted me to read

or at least the reason for so many to agree
it is a simple coming together

the rising voice of two people who know truly of love

somewhere along the way

their tongues have merged into a single song
you and I know it as kindred spirits

we already know what the hours ahead of us hold

so few minutes make up a night together

that we are both out of time before the clocks have run full circle
I want you to be sure of the brown bud

frozen outside your window

baked brown into a dormant husk in defiance of the driven snow

and laced poorly with the ice-cicled web of a lone spider
I want you to know that it is a bud of the Rose of Sharon

again cast against the shadows of another fair Maiden

the sun darkened lily of the valley

biding time in the season of bitter cold and frozen brambles
and so, let’s answer the question rising and falling within your breast

the one that begs at the corners of your mouth

the one that is awakening the unfamiliar craving tugging

riffling and running with your blood’s fire thru your soul
listen, Sweet, as I speak with a plan of love on my lips

with every intention of your flowering and blooming

of covering and protecting              of comforting and pleasure

listen, like this bud in repose, for a strum of the web in your Winter
Our’s is not the Solomon Song

but You can be the dark maiden come in from the sun

breaking free from all of the known words of men and sisters

pressing your head gently to the thunder of my welcoming breast
you have been found

every whisper of your heart song is heard without need for reprise

each of your nights are calling for voluminous joy

endless is your destiny        evermore becomes the only answer
and so to your soul I speak:

  Lily of the Valley      Rose of Sharon

    do not bother with the brambles that have so long entangled ’round you

press into the shadow of their brittle vein and thorns
come forward to my arms and favor

 wipe the weeping memory of any binding rope

    untie the warm caress within you

  undress the trembling, waiting, loving, searching hopes.

Jas. Mardis    12/28/2017

Jas. Mardis is an award winning Poet, Commentator and a Fabric Artist living in Dallas, TX. Jas. Is a 2014 inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame.