Richard Jones
Subtitles
I had grown old but I decided
I was going to be young again.
I walked through town in the rain
just as I did when I was a young man
living on pennies in New York City
and could never afford cab fare.
I started smoking French cigarettes
like I did when I was in college
and renting videos of foreign films.
As a teenager I was anxious to read
every book I could get my hands on
so that I could finally figure things out.
I was living in the last millennium,
going farther and farther back in time,
and everything was going along fine
until the late-night phone calls started.
I’d be standing in my childhood home
and the phone would start ringing.
A gruff voice would utter my name
and then nothing, an eerie silence.
It occurred to me that in my fantasy
I hadn’t thought to specify how young
I wished to be—in my twenties?
A teenager? Maybe I was destined to be
a little kid who was afraid of the dark.
Maybe my parents had gone to a party
and I was left alone without a sitter.
The big empty house frightened me.
Rainy nights passed like empty taxis
full of ghosts. Time moved backwards.
I was getting younger and younger,
an orphan on his own and frightened.
My coat drenched and my shoes soaked,
the French cigarettes only made me cough.
And I couldn’t fathom the foreign films.
What the actors were saying was a mystery
and the translated subtitles were of no use—
I was so young, I hadn’t yet learned to read.
Also by Richard Jones: "On Living," "I didn’t expect my father," "Impermanence," "Painting at Night," "Here on Planet Earth," "Selva Oscura," "The Nomenclature of Color," "The Way," "The Silver Cord," "Devotion," "Walking Meditation," "Folly," "True Country," "The Fortune-Teller," "The Study"
In the store: Avalon, Avalon (limited edition), "Devotion" (broadside), The Minor Key
Review: reflections on Richard Jones’ Stranger on Earth
Photo: Sarah Jones