Frontiers and Membranes

The river meets the bank –
      the garbage,
      the old bricks on the beach
      the dead fish

Discarded signs of life
      washed up
      in a useless
      forgotten place

Nobody knows,
      Nobody cares,
            Nobody goes there,
                  down where the
                  bushes are scratchy,
                  down among
                  the poison ivy
                  where the aluminum can
                  and broken Styrofoam chunks
                        are resting

And what about the bugs
      we don’t even know exist?
What about the bacteria
      that live in colonies
      on our skin?
What about maggots and dung beetles?

Their whole existence is on the
      edge of another life,
      between the lines of someone else’s
            plans

The things we were done with
      the places we couldn’t use


-Jim DuBois
Oct 1, 1998

Down A Long River (Sept 16, 2008)

There's that far away place,
usually down a long river,
where you can dive off the rocks
and go for a swim,
but you don't know exactly where it is,
or how to get there,
only that it is wonderful and mysterious,
and you've been there many times,
at least in these dreams,
and it might not always be the same place physically,
but it has the same feeling,
the same empty watery feeling,
the same rocky primal feeling,
and sometimes it is the river,
and sometimes there's a powerful tall waterfall you are swept over,
or maybe jump over,
and sometimes it's a huge steamy bathroom
with tons of empty showers running
but it's really the same place somehow
and sometimes the showers are right near a pool
which is by a waterfall
which leads you out into the wilderness
and to that rocky diving spot,
or below an ancient temple,
and you're not sure if it's ominous there or not,
but you remember other times,
in dreams that are similar,
sliding down crazy water slides that go underground,
and swift-currented rivers you are propelled along,
and on and on,
until you wake up.


-Jim DuBois