"SELF PORTRAIT as retratos de cosas locas y de locos (stolen)" by Patricia Spears Jones

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February 3, 2021  

SELF PORTRAIT as retratos de cosas locas y de locos (stolen)


Patricia Spears Jones
for Papo Colo

Shall we have cocktails while slipping about the 
Edge of Catastrophe—gin and tonic for summer
Whiskey sour for fall. All is not well, yet sun
Illumines green leafed trees, soon bare   soon bare

Our eyes prowl fence edges for morning glory vines
Our ears gallop from the booming bass of pumped up cars
Our legs move as swiftly as a catamaran in dock
We mock the heavens with calls for Paradise Now.

Artist perambulating the shadowed alleys of downtown Manhattan
Memories of dream dulled in punk and rock clubs’ filthy bathrooms
How much of what was is still now in the body in the bones of the body
Calcium loss   teeth loose   wrist smaller so all bracelets     jangle  jangle

Lips call repeatedly a song whose words are traces of tenderness
Yet, sung too softly as if only whispers could make the world hear.

Copyright © 2021 by Patricia Spears Jones. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 3, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem is part of an ongoing use of ‘self portraits’ in my poetry. ‘Retrato’ is ‘portrait’ in Spanish. It is dedicated to Papo Colo, a Puerto Rican artist whose art practice takes place in Puerto Rico and in New York. He posts imagery and musings on Facebook and one was ‘retratos de cosas locas & de locos,’ thus the poem’s title. But this is also about a lovely memory of running into Papo on Mercer Street early 2019. He was about to return to Puerto Rico, and we said we would have cocktails when he came back to New York. Then, the pandemic.”
Patricia Spears Jones

Patricia Spears Jones is the author of four collections of poetry, including A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015). The recipient of numerous awards, including the Jackson Poetry Prize, fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others, she is Emeritus Fellow for Black Earth Institute.


A Lucent Fire
(White Pine Press, 2015)



“canvas and mirror” by Evie Shockley
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“Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh in the Asylum at Arles” by Roger Reeves
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Thanks to Rachel Eliza Griffiths, author of Seeing the Body (W. W. Norton, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Griffiths’ curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year
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