DAVID JONES' TIME
(1895-1974)

All the varying magnetism
in his minimalism of painting,
amid the anchors
of an enigmatic plastic art
and anachronism of history
David Jones emerges
as literary genius
trying to sum up the age
with thumbs up
to every contrary audience
of the nations
at a religious variance
by the silence of variations
in his legendary mysticism
as in "Parenthesis"
to glimpse Celtic poetry
with the Imperial Roman,
Saxon, Welsh,Western,
in a poetic forum
of facts on the archaeology
theology, architecture
in an editorial to sum up
the psychology, anthropology
in the artifacts and dry bones
covering over a memorial
of a culture's intimacy reaching
as our own bard's
extraordinary inner psychology
in parts of a dramatic verse
of man's hardened
lost humanity
in the cross hairs of horrors
of the First World War
in a span of a sorry sighting
from lairs in the near and far
of Flanders Field
he abides as heroic author
in our own English literature
relating to a modernist
who atones
in his own conversation
and Christian conversion
from a vision
not locked in stone
from his boasting soldiers
shields of a Holy Ghost faith
from a poet running into
all of politician's betrayal
and reward by holding onto
a poet's sword of the spirit
from a Holy Grail
which deposits
his last breath and blood
reflecting a heroic epic battle
in the muddy flooded dunes
between the English and Welsh
in an itinerary of "Y Gododdin"
with strident actuality
and vibrant sacramental reality
from his holy water
vessel of the Church
in his hands he ventures out
with a missal
and searches with slings
at the battle of Catraeth
taking his legendary wings
with Malory's Morte D'arthur
in his own pastoral version
of Eliot's "Wasteland"
from his emerging reputation
and his accidental iconic
legendary "Anathematata"
Jones never boasting
like Esau
with prudent discipline
but is humble in the law
as he gave and forgave
his enemies
in a vision of his own salvation
and from his expiation of sin
telling of the consecration
in details of the Mass
which encompasses history
in a fragmentary paradox
as he completes an epic
not seen since
Milton's "Paradise Lost"
and in his folio art
going back to the ancients
which rends to our history
by caves and rocks
of Lescaux
 (whom like Marcel Proust
or BZ Niditch)
confounds the language
in remnants to save
and sum up the age
of homo sapiens.