Selected Poems by Jon Corelis

by Jon Corelis

Poems by Jon Corelis. This second edition (2021) includes slightly revised versions of poems from the first edition and adds a few new ones. A few poems include adult language or violent imagery.

From the book:

When the sun

When the sun clicks into place
and miraculous sparrows peck at icicles
and the children let the dew erase their slates

then the clocks will drain themselves of infection
and we will utter stones in the black light
and you will shelter my nakedness under the wings of your mouth
and the wind will be our water
and the sky will be our bread


The City

You make me think of a city
of spires and minarets
suspended in the purple
focus of a dusk
that seals the bitter bargains
of sinister bazaars
where gems and crystals mingle
the clatter of their light
with dizzying aromas
of saffron, incense, mint,
where silks as pale as moonlight
and red as blood on snow
and blue as desert noons
stain the heavy breeze
that falls through crumbling alleys
and stirs the scented curtains
of richly cushioned chambers
where lacquer, brass, and jade
receive helpless blossoms
of indolence and passion,
while from the far horizon,
beyond the groaning spars
that throw a crazed lattice
across the dying sky,
startled gulls reiterate
their clean, remote despair.

159 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2021

About the author

Jon Corelis was born in California and grew up in and around Chicago, where he earned a degree in Classical Languages and Literatures at the College of the University of Chicago. He later took a doctorate in Classics at Stanford, and taught Classics and Humanities at Stanford, the University of California, and the University of Minnesota. After a subsequent career as a software specialist in Silicon Valley, he now lives in Wisconsin. His poetry and other writings have been published in print and on web sites in eight countries, and he has given lectures and readings by invitation in America and Europe.

He more recently has turned to composing songs and instrumental pieces. His music has been featured on the web site The Flexible Persona, has been performed in concert by the Wisconsin ensemble a very small consortium, by the New York State flute quartet Party of Four, and at Denison University's TUTTI 2019 Festival, and has been recorded by flutist Robin Meiksins for her YouTube recording project 365 Days of Flute, and by clarinetist Emily Mehigh for her YouTube recording project The Miniature Month of May.