Terry Jones’ debut short collection, Furious Resonance, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2011. That same year he was the winner of the Bridport Prize. His work has also appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, The New Statesman, Agenda, Ambit, The London Magazine, Magma, Iota, Communist Review, The North.
Sun
Let X be the sun:
between number and number the rage star burning; Xanthic helllight, Sunflower atom-pisser, imaginary
ghost flower.
Starts with clot of ochre
Impasto sun-mould the ur-text in outline paradigm mud-pat
A child’s sun isotope of yellow wax its surface storms
Upstroke the sun’s sign
On papyrus whirlpool of x-rays
a violent flower at zero
Furious stalk the inferno uncodes and black it is black a black funeral
feather World-black negative dark flower Gamma plant blazer Anarchist icon
O common star Sulphur flower the light star’s dark grammar
Is hossanah breath and bone swastika Solomon’s Seal
At heart it reads off Signifier Sigma
Sonne sunne A sol-fa
its energy a base petal pions’ spore Morpheme it flashes out
Struck flint Mi
Mi
Mi
The dawn flower Alpha Aaron’s Rod Gospel gold-leaf
To liquid sets elixir the dusk rose Giaconda Will-o-wisp light text
Glows oil out plumes out
Marigold Madonna Yellow ink on paper
Its syntax figured
complex Flowering Kells Book wrought Of roots enchanted Carnival chromosome
Writhing writing Rag-and-bone strange rose Torch of anti-matter Old rope manuscript
Ultra-violet hieroglyph
but penned
Coded.