The Sunday Poem: “Wrong Address” – by DB Jonas

June 22nd, 2024

The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.

DB Jonas reads his poem at its conclusion.

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Wrong Address
…………….Following a break-in where nothing was taken

Mingus flipped the kitchen switch,
flooding the room with light,
just as, seeking purchase in the slippery sink,
I tumbled through the unlocked window.

He was after beer. I was after
electronics mostly, firearms, jewelry, cash.
I’d thought the house was empty,
they’d been so quiet. Handing me a Bud,
he led me down the darkened corridor
into a smoky, murmuring, mood-lit parlor,
and proffering a well-stocked humidor,
introduced me to the room.

No one really heard his courtesies at all,
over the Ellington, the Dolphy and the Palestrina,
but there I’d swear stood Henry Miller
hunkered deep in hot exchange and fratrasie
with Roscoe Mitchell, V.S. Naipaul (and,
as I recall, some ancient anorexic ballerina),
while Malcom Lowry, peering in at them,
lingered out behind the jalousie.

I can’t remember every one of them,
those figures huddled close in little groups, yet
I’d wager Messiaen was one, whistling woodnotes
to a rapt Agrippa, with Tu Fu looking on,
as Arthur Rimbaud traded Yiddish lullabies
with Francis Picabia and (was it?) François Villon,
and in the shadows, in a brass-buttoned blazer,
Old Bill Occam stood alongside Maugham
and Sweeny Todd, and grimly thumbed his razor.

I chugged my brew in haste,
and made a quiet exit past the countless rows
of Anasazi vessels, Inuit soapstone,
Inuit serpentine, and tumbling headlong down
an endless stair, no stereo in sight, no Tiffany
or Fabergé, no sign of car-keys anywhere,
I made my way across an endless sea
of Central Asian weavings, and at long last
issued panicked into the soft gigantic night,
disgorged into its consoling, liberating air.

I’ll need to reflect now how I ever wound up
in that improvident place, devoid of value
to those of my profession, and take good care,
my next time out, to preselect a household
somewhat comprehensible, some cozy
little sanctum of amply stocked domestic bliss,
chock full of articles at least prehensible,
replete with furnishings more readily fenceable.

Listen to D.B. Jonas read his poem

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DB Jonas is a New Mexico poet whose first poetry collection, Tarantula Season and Other Poems, is available for purchase on Amazon by clicking here.

Listen to the 1963 recording of Charles Mingus playing “Solo Dancer,” from his album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady [Universal Music Group]