That Other Room

That other room
or wing
or floor
always hidden,
always new.

Reclusive,
expansive,
safe.

It shows up
in dreams
over and over
this secret inner life
of buildings
turning formerly
static places
into neverending
caverns or labyrinths.

There's an extra stairway
or bathroom,
often bathroom,
huge, steamy,
empty bathroom
with the showers
all running,
or stairway
that goes nowhere
or is too large
or too long,
or it's
an oddly shaped room
on a new floor,
sometimes in a basement
or sub-basement.

On and on
again and again
over and over
in dreams.


-Jim DuBois
Dec 24, 2009

More Evidence

More evidence that you're
not alone in the universe:
I've started leaving my change
in your change jar.


-Jim DuBois
Sept 20, 2005

Gone So Long

You've been gone so long
your Tivo has started
recommending things I like


-Jim DuBois
Sept 12, 2005

the deepest dreams

Sometimes it only lies
in the deepest dreams,
    the creosote dollars,
        the flat sand

I don't know what it means
    but I'm saying it anyway
I don't know what it means,
    but the water is running clean,
        free from the sodium pentathol
        free at last!
            from the sodium pentathol

I don't know what it means
I never know what it means
but there's a fountain in the wilderness
and they're all coming to drink
while the stones crumble away


-Jim DuBois
1997ish

Computer summary of my older poems

I was putting together a book of poetry for publication on Lulu.com, and I tried the executive summary tool, just to see what it would come up with. Here's the result, which I enjoy:


            some-times
Shirt,
Shirt,
Shirt,

shirt,
Including time

it’s time
      in time.
      if I lived


-Jim DuBois + computer
Nov 10, 2009

Outside in the Night

                        our carefully laid structures
            crumble under the pressure
of their own improbability.

Outside in the night, the trucks rumble by
            shaking the foundation,

innocent of our passion,
            oblivious to our wandering thoughts.


-Jim DuBois
'96 and today.

Short poems about an old lover

Sleeping with you
beneath purple horse and yellow sky
my heart wakes up

Walking home
thinking of ______
a bird hops by

Walking you home
in my stolen red shirt
the streets are quiet

Swinging gently in my hammock
the knot in my stomach unclenches
I think I just got over you

-Jim DuBois
c 1996