Bad Garden Poem

Having a Garden is great fun
The plants grow under the sunny Sun
But it’s not for Everyone,
Because Weeds grow by the ton.

Do you see
What’s happening to me
Because I must judge the contest of poetry?

Now I’m done
Look what I’ve become
I’ve wasted time
With shitty rhymes

I guess there are worse things
… sings
… rings

Etc


-Jim DuBois
June 28, 2016

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

It's All About Rhythm

-Jim DuBois
March 2014

Riding My Bike Back From the Mall

Yeah,
you knew this
was coming,
right?

I got a bike,
I write about
    everyday things,
and voila!

I know
it's not deep,
or obscure academic
    poetry.

It's comprehendable,
not dada-esque --
revered dada-esque.

It's not even
Charles Bukowski
drunk pathetic
poetry.

No metaphors,
no rhymes,
no special names of plants
or other things
no one really knows.

O Robert Frost,
this is not
your poetry!

I'm not counting
my syllables,
dear Haiku!
haha!

I'm not
going to a "slam"
to recite this
while I bob
back and forth
and angrily
try to make it
more than it is.

Instead, I'm telling
a simple story:

I rode my bike
  back from the mall
  and I was happy.


-Jim DuBois
June 19, 2013

Sometimes - eBook

I have a new poetry book in eBook format, available on the iTunes Bookstore for $2.99.

It is a collection of early poems by me, featuring themes of love, loneliness, space travel and spirituality.

Many of the poems have not appeared on this blog.



Get a copy.

Or view my all my books, eBook and print, as well.

Saturday Afternoon Ennui in America

lounging around,
looking for something to do,
wondering about meaning and existence

passed through town earlier,
disconnected but relaxed,
writing poetry now,
because, well, at least
I can,
I can create
and record
and re-order


-Jim DuBois
Jan 19, 2013

Return of the Slacker - The Book!

I made another version of my blog: a printed one.

It contains all the poems on this blog, except the two right before this entry. That's over 200 poems from 4 years, all in this one book.
Click here to get a copy

Click here to get a copy.

gotta write a poem

gotta write a
gotta write a poem

      "When in the course of..."

No, no!
Not right

gotta write a poem

      "I think that I shall see..."

No!

Done



-Jim
Feb 20, 2011

Bone Memory Poet *

Bone Memory Poet
dwelling in the
blood marrow caves
telling the ancient stories
of the genetic ancestors,
the primates of days past.

These bones,
these caves,
were grown
so long ago
no one really remembers
but everyone knows
they go further back
than some find comfortable,
to rodents and bacteria,
mud and rocks,
strands of protein
from unknown shores
off the planet.

Bone memory leads us back
to the calcification
of our own skulls,
to the womb,
to the very first vertebra,
back further
to Africa
via our individual paths,
to tiny mammals,
an ice age
and the extinction
of the dinosaurs.

Speak, bone memory,
speak, bone memory,
speak!

Remind us of our
elemental nature,
of calcium and iron,
of our siblinghood
with water
and oxygen,
of our ability
to generate
electrical pulses
and create chemicals.

You've seen
all these things
and encoded them
in mysterious genetic runes
and protein alphabets.

Bone Memory Poet,
reminding us
of our foundations,
of our inner structure,
reminding us
that below
the cleverness and cognition
we are physical entities,
forces of nature.


-Jim DuBois
Jan 6, 2010

* title line from a friend of a friend

Computer Summary Poem #2

When I put my whole blog through the summary function of my word processer, this what it came up with:


Shirt,
40 Short Poems

This poem
Run
Run
Run!!!


a love poem
loving
running


- Jim DuBois + Computer
Dec 20, 2009

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

Great themes in poetry

1. Quit procrastinating,
         you’ll be dead soon


2. Flower = vagina,
         please have sex with me


3. This government sucks,
         but I can’t say that directly


4. I am lonely, angry,
         (fill-in the blank), etc.


5. This poem
         is a self-reflective poem


6. I’m a fairly clever intellectual


7. I actually love you,
         and could tell you over and over


8. It’s spring,
         life is filled with beauty, possibility and newness


9. It’s autumn,
         life is rich but impermanent

-Jim DuBois
March 20, 2005

Because of You (Make Another Poem)

Two summers ago I was trying to make up a simple poetry form. I wanted something simple, positive, and rhythmic. An easy form and way to remind other people that they matter to us and the world.

Here is the result of it. Please make up one or two and post them!

The rules:

1. The whole poem is to someone in particular who has made a positive impact on your life. You pick who.
2. Three lines, each starting with "Because of you"
3. One of the lines (you pick which one) has nothing else on it.
4. The other two lines have concrete details of what is better in your life and the world because of the person. Try to be as sincere as you can. And be positive.
5. When the poem is done, post it on their profile, or send them an email of it, or send a copy in the actual mail, or recite it to them, or something friendly like that. (Also, post it here in a comment, so we can see it too!)

Here's a recent one:

(To Kara)

Because of you.
Because of you
    there's a lot more love
    in my life these days.
Because of you
    there's a lot more love
    in the world.


Here are my two, from that summer. (I also posted them on their Facebook walls):

(To Phoebe)

Because of you I'm sleeping better lately
Because of you I sang part of a song as I walked along
Because of you


(To Kristen)

Because of you
Because of you I'm happily reading the last Harry Potter
Because of you the lives of my friend and her child are better

My Dance Shoes ( + Make a poem )

I wrote a poem a year or so ago, and then invented a poetic form from it. Here's the poem:

---
My dance shoes,
black,
slightly worn,
resting after a night of lindy hopping.

Meanwhile,
the milky way
hurtles along its billion year journey.
---

Now here is how you can use the same form, and make a poem, which I really really hope you will do, and post in a comment on this blog. Just follow the directions below.
(the numbers are what line it is, and anything in ( ) is a direction about what to write on that line. Anything besides numbers and directions should be written in the poem, like punctuation and "meanwhile".)

---
1. (concrete, knowable everyday object(s) ),
2. (adjective describing the object(s) ),
3. (a short phrase describing the object(s) ),
4. (an 'ing' phrase [resting, running, reading, etc] about what the object(s) are doing at the moment).

5. Meanwhile,
6. (a very large almost ungraspable concrete object. Meaning something that exists, rather than an entirely abstract concept, but one that is hard to comprehend entirely)
7. (what that object does right now, using a present tense verb [runs, eats, sleeps, hurtles, etc] ).
---

Previously posted on my MySpace blog, with poems after it by other people

Many Words on a List

Red
Car
Music
Pizza
love
Day
Pretty
Sky
Blue
Cloud
Dirt
Grass
Run
Run
Run!!!


-Jim DuBois
1999ish

List

Poetry
is
more
than
a
list
of
words
red
it
is
an
art
form
art
form
dog
car
stereo


-Jim DuBois
1999ish

The Earth's Last Poets

Scrawling defiant love poems
on the debris of a crumbling society

Flinging meaning-laden words
into the abyss of consumerism

Bearing the human standard
inches ahead of the flames of war


-Jim DuBois
Aug 1, 2005

More Hobbies of an Unemployed Poet (May 21, 2005)

I guess I'm
collecting feathers
again

And aimless moments.


Wandering in the lost places
again

like the hillside below the abandoned state hospital
and the broad empty lawns of Amherst College.


-Jim

Hobbies of an Unemployed Poet (c. 2000)

Looking for change
Beneath pay phones and parking meters

Sweating shirtless in the sun

Hanging out in parking lots
    and on sidewalks

Abandoning practicality
    to study the mysteries of
        life and death,

Abandoning practicality
    to study faith.



            - Jim DuBois

Poetic Grace (July 13, 2007)

I read about meaning
  and poetic grace
  and then
I fixed my toilet


        -Jim DuBois