#18, #19, #20

Jonah in Three Acts
By XII

Jonah: Act I - A Man in the Wilderness

When I go to the grocery store
Do not follow behind me
Lest you are branded a heathen
The men in the tower are always watching us
My yew bow is bent, broke, out of all arrows
I want their eyes off of me in an immediate way
Too many friends have gone gutter diving for pearls of wisdom
If I bake a cake, no one make a metaphor
Help me hurry last chances out of the door and into
the Volkswagen waiting on the street
Motor filled with cigarette ash and the blood of wicked men
At the grocery store they asked for my ID
I ran into the street crying, got a bloody knee
All of the furniture in my house was gone
When I crawled in my front door
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Jonah: Act II - Finding My Own Home Again

I caught you like a lucky break on a Saskatchewan side road
You were falling out of an oppressive-Ford (Model T, green)
I laughed at your scrapes and you cried a little
Told you I was from a time and place that no one wanted
I love seesaws and coarse language with you (all of us)
At the Canadian border I thought to not cry at all
Then you came along like a rolling prophet, saving my soul
Hope that I never die in a fire, like I love the medicine
Your tongue knows stories about Mayan ruins
It told them to me in sequences and Shakespearean asides
;My hair shakes in the fall when I understand peace and
want to write a thesis on your back
I can work a little every night, build a wall, girl
Meet at Stonehenge but don't laugh when I tell you why I'm terrified
Dominated by the winds of change again
Our presence in that town carved a river (a Grand Canyon)

Jonah: Act III - In The Woods, Make An Echo

I am tired and also writing a novel-novella?
Dear book stores of the world, buy me to assist your business
Mountainous beard on my face, grass brown like wheat
Made to go home again like shutting down a fountain
The tower men, goddamn, what is their deal?
Carry my banjo down to the tree line, make a noise to make a way
I'll shimmy out the bathroom window
Packed some extra underwear, tight around my harmonica
Told the people that I don't carry a single cent
Don't care to mention how my time was served
In jail again, cups on top of a pile of my belongings
I hurt daily, trapped in town
Nothing worked like a map of the suburbs did
Can you hold the tower door open?
I am ready to walk on broken bricks (wait for my signal)