The Fire

"I finally got my wish."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You know how I wished
my house would burn down
and then I wouldn't
have to worry
about all the crap
I've been collecting
and feel trapped by?
Well, it just happened."

It was just
your defensive humor
and good attempt
to handle a shock,
because really,
it sucked
and who knows
what to do
in reaction
to these things?

We talked some more
and I decided
I would raise some money
for you over the internet,
which I had never tried before,
but it worked out
that I raised $2500
in a few days
and the whole thing
popped me out of
my sense of powerlessness
and made me see myself
in a fresh light
and made me grateful
for the chance
to come to your aid
because I think
we're all really heroes
on the inside,
waiting for a chance
to do good,
to change a part
of the world
for the better
and I'm glad
I saw this chance
and took it.


-Jim DuBois
Jan 28, 2014, written about an event that took place in December 2012.

Still with those two dogs

I lay there with the two dogs,
watching them sleep on the floor
in the hallway.

The older one stretched up
and then lay down again,
and I saw the tiredness
in his scrawny legs,
and saw the scraggliness of his coat
which happens to old dogs.

I thought about him as a puppy,
how energetically he chased
my brother and me from room to room,
and we would jump up together on the big chair,
- since we were little too -
as he came rushing in.

He's really lasted a long time,
hasn't he?
Despite the way we all
ignore him a little more lately,
despite years of sleeping in hallways,
despite the advance of age,
he keeps living well.

The other dog isn't as old
and isn't as spirited.

If he didn't have
the first dog for company
(I think of them as brothers)
he wouldn't make it.

The younger dog
is fatter than I remember him
and he whimpers as I pet him.

Then I woke up
and remembered:
those dogs died
a long time ago.

But,
I guess I'm still there sometimes,
still pleased to be with those dogs,
to be just another living thing,
resting in some random spot,
not left out of the tapestry of life,
not forgotten,
bur preserved by the fleetingness
of the moment.


-Jim DuBois
May 30, 2002
Jan 22, 2014

Relaxing in the late afternoon

Relaxing in the late afternoon
in January,
watching the dusk deepen,
I think of those days
you told me about
where you'd only
work up enough ambition
to reach the doorknob
but not enough to know
whether you'd make it
out of the room or not,
and I appreciate your lack of effort
because these days
nobody takes the time
to stay still for long.


-Jim DuBois
Jan 13, 2014

Your house, without you

Your house, without you
I stopped by for some bread
The screen door clicks shut


-Jim DuBois
May 13, 2010

That story about how I only ate fruit for nine months and lived in a tent in the woods behind Hampshire College (parts I, II, II)

This is the beginning of a poem that has 22 parts and 25 photos. It is about my life from about 20 years ago. It took me that long to be able to reflect on it well.

If you want to get a full color printed copy on 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages, go here.

Or click this button:

See my other printed books for sale.

-Jim DuBois
Jan 2013