Apocalyptic Narrative CL

Jones ( Transparent Gestures ) is a poet of many resources. One is diction, curious and distinctive. In ``The Privilege,'' the narrator glimpses ``the sullen, algebraic face of a cow,'' and our glimpse of the line sweetly detains us. For another, consider his imagery, and its surprises. In ``Fantasia of the Bride,'' a woman's body is described in terms of ``small bones curdled of starlight, salt privacy / Of elbows and knees, secret estuary of skin''; in ``Progress Alley,'' drunken bums sleep ``with the spidery stars of a faded velvet heaven / falling into their beards.'' Jones is also an impresario of tone, slipping from the mordant to the ecstatic without seeming to arrange it. He is a thinker and feeler, a meditator and a lyricist. These are some of the reasons why his fourth collection of poetry takes time and rewards reading. It moves from states of nostalgia to darker reappraisal, decides ``to run with a full stomach under the sun, to play in the simple water,'' and to seek ``that heart that ripens in desolation'' and in ``ruin.'' The imagination of the book is singular but sane, and the balances won are intriguing. (Oct.)