Nachos at Fire & Water

They used to
bake the Nachos
in the oven
at first,
back in the day,
20 years or so ago,
at Fire & Water
and I remember
eating them
on a particular day.

Even though
they took longer
to make,
they came out great,
but then
Fire & Water started
using the microwave,
and they
weren't the same
anymore.

It was
a long time ago
and I never expected
something as ordinary
as that particular
plate of Nachos
to have such resonance
in my memory.


-Jim DuBois
Dec 19 2015

Specific Memories of Particular Food

Usually, you can't pinpoint
the time you ate
the best version
of any particular food,
especially everyday food,
so those times
when I can
stick out in my mind.

The first time was
a basket of french fries
I had at Holy Smokes
(now defunct) BBQ
in Hatfield MA.
They were so great that
when the cook
came around
to ask how everything was,
I said they were
the best fries
I'd ever had,
and asked how come.
He said that they
double-fry them,
but it also depends on
the moisture content
of the potatoes
and that depends on
things like the weather
while they were growing,
so they can't control that.

The other time
I was a fruititarian,
so I ate a lot of kinds of fruit
just for variety
in such a restricted diet.
I decided to give
golden delicious apples
another chance
one day at Atkins
(fruit stand - not defunct).
I bought one
and it was amazing,
and for a few days,
all the golden delicious apples
from there were
actually delicious
and then that faded,
for a still undetermined reason,
and I have not
truly enjoyed an apple
of that variety since.


-Jim DuBois
Dec 19, 2015

Daniel and the Spaghetti

Daniel and I
were so hungry -
him because the dining hall
    was closed already
and me because
    I was homeless
    and always hungry, -
so we cooked some spaghetti
    in the dorm lounge
But didn't have a drainer
    so tilted the pot
over the sink of dirty dishes
and yes, it fell in,
so we cooked another batch
    bu that fell in too,
    right in the backed-up sink
But we were so hungry
    we fished it out
    and ate it anyway,
even though
we didn't mean to.


-Jim DuBois
Sep 7, 2015

I Remember Richard

He used to say,
"I'm the only
Jewish Indian!"

Born in Brooklyn,
he'd gone and lived
at Pine Ridge reservation
back in the '60s or '70s
and gotten to be
one of the tribe
somehow.

I met him at
Fire & Water,
and we would talk
about things I mostly
don't remember now,
except that he had
spiritual things to say
about ordering pie,
like,

"We pay not for goods
and services,
but out of kindness towards
the people who worked
at making it,"

and,

"Since we are only
here for a short time,
it's important
to enjoy things like pie."

He was also the one
who told me to read
Lame Deer, seeker of visions,
because I think he knew
Lame Deer personally,
and that book's the reason
I say hello to squirrels
out loud now.

Richard was one of those friends
you'd see randomly
at the cafe,
so its hard to say
when the last time
I saw him was,
but its been a while now
since Fire & Water
even existed
and he was old back then,
so who knows
where he's gone to now,
and I'm not sure why
he came to mind
all these years later,
but here is
my message for him
wherever he is:

"Shalom aleichem,
Toksa ake waunkte."


-Jim DuBois
Aug 30, 2015

The days pass by

The days pass by
  like lovers
    and old friends,

Unfolding in ways you didn't expect,
  and turning into memories
    before you can grasp them


-Jim DuBois
July 20, 1998

How I used to write poems

Like the sun
Like gravity and hurricanes
Like the first day of spring
Like the first snowflake of winter
Like the smell of rain on warm pavement
Like the secret fort in the stone wall from long ago
Like those early friendships
Like the ever-expanding universe
Like a radio-wave
Like first love
Like possibilities
Like nothingness


-Jim DuBois
April 12, 2015

Chasing Sunsets

I remember
getting up late
in the winter one year
and going out to chase
the last bit
of sun
and running into you.

We went to Fire and Water
and sat there for a minute
before inspiration struck
and we decided
to go climb Bare Mountain.

Even though
it was pretty late,
we thought if we rushed,
we could make it to
the top for the sunset.

Of course, it was January
and there was slick
ice-covered snow
all over that steep trail
and we had to drive
a half hour to start,
but we went
and ran up that trail,
and fell over and
slid back a lot,
and missed the sunset
but reached the top
and then falteringly
made our way down
in the dark.


And it turned into
a thing we did
that winter.

Not planned,
always at the last minute
when we bumped into
each other in town,
we'd say "I bet
we can make it up
______ mountain
and see the sunset
if we rush!
Let's go!"

And we'd get
partway up
and notice the sun
going down,
and head off-trail,
straight up the hillside,
punching holes in the
ice crust to keep
our hold,
and rushing, and slipping
and sending ice-chunks
zipping down behind us
and never make the top
in time
and laughing at each other
when we fell over
and over
on the way down.

We never, never
saw the sunset
from a peak,
but it was
such a good winter.


-Jim DuBois
Dec 22, 2014

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

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

Done Anything Good

I don't know
if you've ever
done anything good,
but I have,
or so they tell me.
It always seems
that my memories
of doing good
fade so quickly.
I can't quite
grasp them.
I probably can't quite
understand who I
actually am.
My self image
is out of line
with reality,
but I've decided
to go on this quest
for the truth
about myself,
to try and remember
the good things,
to commemorate
and celebrate
the things I've done
and if one of those
fleeting memories
comes back
for a moment,
I must grasp on,
and write it down,
to get a better picture
of what my life
has really been.


-Jim DuBois
Sep 12, 2013

The Other Side of Familiar Things

I took
  a path

I knew
  by heart,

but it
  was overgrown

and I got lost

- just enough
to come out
20 feet
from the
old trail entrance

and there
was
a beautiful old
stone wall
with a drain
through it,
a lost bit
of the old
state hospital
which I
had walked by
for years
and never known.



-Jim DuBois
Sep 25, 2013

There was that time

There was that time
we decided
to camp
up on Bare mountain,
to sneak off the path
and set up camp,

But we didn't know
how to make
a good fire,
so the smoke
kept stinging
our eyes
all night long,

But we weren't sleeping
anyway
because the sound
of the chipmunks
scurrying around
scared us,
as did the thought
of bears.

I tried counting
backwards from 500
to get to sleep,
but kept forgetting
what number I was on
and it didn't work.

We maybe slept an hour
that night
and when I got up,
you were not around
so I went looking
up the trail
and there you were.

We had forgotten
to bring water
but we walked about
3 hours anyway,
drank at the park,
And walked 3 hours back.

All along
our hike,
we kept seeing
all these
different frogs.
They kept
magically appearing,
in the trail,
in the swamps and trees.

Then we settled down
for another horrible night,
But after an hour,
we had the good sense
to give up,
pack up in the dark
and hike down
the mountainside
in the pitch black night.

We slept so well
at my apartment
and were happier,
but I still miss
those magic frogs.


-Jim DuBois
August 14, 2013

I write these things down

I write
these things down,
because someone
should do it,
and I decided
it would be me.

I don't think
it needs to be
too clever,
or too dramatic.

It mainly
just needs doing.


-Jim DuBois
March 31, 2013

Noticing

Late at night,
the clean sink,
the dream catcher,
memories of clear light
in the afternoon.


-Jim DuBois
April 12, 2011

A Certain Peace

The first time I remember
    walking down route 9
    by St. John's church
    in Northampton,

I had given up hope
    and was carrying
    a rolled up blanket
    and looking for a place
    to sleep.

I had given up hope
    of finding people
    of finding my way
    of finding a home,

but there was a certain peace
    that settled over me
    in that moment
    (maybe because
    I had stopped trying)
    and then Julian pulled up
    on the street
    (in Steve's british car
    he was borrowing without asking)
    and took me to stay
    at the Cummington Community
    for the Arts
    for a few days.

I remember wandering around
    up there,
    going into the weird little cabins
    (which I later learned were private),
    sitting in a field
    playing flute
    which echoed back nicely
    from the hills
    and imagining
    I was the long lost son
    of a woman I imagined
    lived in the little old house
    nearby.

I remember eating a lot of carrots
    and seeing Lauren's
    circular art cabin,
    with the hand-made walk,
    nestled in the edge
    of the woods.


Now it is nearly twenty years later
    and I am sitting on State street
    on the low stone wall
    by Edwards church
    and I am trying
    not to try
    and to give up hopes
    I have of other people,

and even though
    I've had insomnia recently
    and my best friend's husband
    died three months ago
    and we (including her three
    and a half year old son)
    haven't found our bearings yet,
    a certain peace
    has settled over me again
    and I am using it
    to relax,
        to remember,
            and to write.



-Jim DuBois
Nov 13, 2010

Faded

I.

I never thought
those times would
become faded

Or that my voice might be
the spectre of the past
calling out,
reminding you,
reminding me,
of something…

…something indistinct
but important,
locked away in memory,
in childhood,
in these faded photographs
of who we used to be
but can never be again.



II.

I never thought
those times would
become faded,
but these photographs
tell the true story,
that we weren’t who we
thought we were,
and we still aren’t,
and it’s only by a trick
of the mind
and avoidance of the sight of our old bad
hair cuts
that we convince ourselves
that nothing’s changed.



III.

Sometimes something
indistinct can tell us
more than something precise,
because what is essential
is dynamic and can’t be captured…

…we can only be reminded of it,
and experience it anew.

We have memories and feelings
about the past
but no more moments of it.



IV.

I look out the window,
watching the grey weather
quietly drop snow onto Northampton
as I write down some thoughts
that came to me
after looking at these old pictures.

I know that one day,
this moment will also fade,
this ink will disappear and
the paper crumble.

Until then
I just want to say:

We still have time
to be who we’ve
always been.



-Jim DuBois
2005?

We Will Remember You

We will remember you,
said the stars and the rain

We will remember you,
said the flames of the sun

We will remember you,
said the mass of humanity.

We will place you
in our collected memories
and pass you on
    and on
        and on



-Jim DuBois
June 12, 2010

Somebody Else

He used to be somebody else,
but he rarely remembered who,
and even then
it was more of a feeling or a dream
than a clear memory.


-Jim DuBois
May 2009

It Was A Good Day

Going to bed last night,
I suddenly remembered
you, barefoot,
calmly leading the Clydesdales^*
out to the pasture,
while I ate mulberries
and watched
from up in the tree,
and later,
we ate red raspberries
off the vines
and talked about
how the world
keeps on giving.


-Jim DuBois
April 13, 2010

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* a Clydesdale is a type of horse. They are very large and stocky.
Learn more about them