Kathleen Jones

Kathleen Jones Poems

Kathleen Jones Biography

Kathleen Jones is a poet and biographer. Born and brought up on a hill farm in the English Lake District, she lived for ten years in Africa and the Middle East, where she worked in broadcasting, before returning to England. She studied at Bristol University as a mature student with four children and now lives part of the time in Italy with her partner, who is a sculptor. She tutors creative writing and is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Kathleen has been published in a wide range of poetry magazines, is the author of a poetry pamphlet, Unwritten Lives (Redbeck Press) and a new collection 'Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21' published by Templar Poetry in 2011 and winner of the Straid Award for a first collection.)

The Best Poem Of Kathleen Jones

Not Saying Goodbye At Gate 21

(Wellington NZ: September 2010)

The final call
for boarding
hand-luggage scanned,
the last, forgotten,
canned drink binned.
I watch him through the glass
walk to the door and hand
over his printed pass.

He waves,
makes the clown's face
that means 'Cheer up,
this time, I won't be gone
for long'. He turns,
then turns back, lifts one hand
to the terrorist-proof glass. We place
palm to palm
remembered skin
on either side of the cold surface.

Abruptly,
already past tense,
he has wheeled off towards
the journey and, unlike Orpheus,
not looking back.
I watch the swerve
of his head, his coat flap. Then
the screen says
'Gate closed. Boarded' and
I walk away with his absence.

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