Birds at the Feeder

-Jim DuBois
2006ish

Lame Little Bird

Lame little bird,
leg stuck out sideways,
dragging across the ground,
hopping around like everything is normal,
you are made of
Quarks and Protons, too!


-Jim DuBois
August 19, 2010

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

---

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

Away

My friends
are away
on a trip
but at least
I get
to be lonely
and clean up
cat puke.


-Jim DuBois
March 15, 2010

Old Cat

Look at the
O-L-D
cat lying in the sun

Look at the
green green grass

Look at the Cat

Look at the Sun

Sun
Sun
Sun

Cat
Cat
Cat


-Jim DuBois
Nov 21, 2003

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

Stars, and Ice

Walking back through the front field at night,
after feeding the cats at the barn,
we used to lay down and stare up at the stars
and feel the enormousness of their distance
and what it would be like
to just keep falling
up into the sky.

Sometimes when we came back that way
in the winter,
the whole hill would be covered
with ice-encrusted snow
and we used to lay down on our bellies
and slide slowly
all the way down.


Jim DuBois
Jan 1, 2010

That Long-Dead Dog

I keep dreaming about
that
dog
that
long-dead
dog.

Rushing to attack
the post officer,
in a strange ranch house,
struggling to escape
my restraining grasp.

He is like symbol,
or a message
that I don't understand.

Nobody liked him,
but I guess
I liked him
more than I thought.


-Jim DuBois
March 10, 2004

Sometimes

I put together another book of my poetry, which you can get online from a print on demand service. This is a larger collection of poems I wrote in the 1990s, and it covers a wide variety of themes, including love, spirituality, nature and space travel.

Sometimes - a collection of older poems

Fat Little Birds

Fat little birds,
  in the dirt and sand by the roadside

Fat little birds,
  in the dry leaves under the car

Fat little birds,
  my hands are cold
    as I zip up my coat


-Jim DuBois
Oct 30, 2002

Summer, anyway

Bird, hopping on a gravestone

Bird perched on a tomb

The green green grass

Sweat standing on my neck



-Jim DuBois
July 20, 2003

Haircut

Haircut haircut haircut

sittin' at Tracey's wedding
thinkin' 'bout my haircut
it didn't come out how I wanted
but things don't always, anyways

I forgot a belt today,
and the flute playing didn't go how I thought -
which is neither good or bad,
just how it is

I thought I was losing hearing in one ear,
and worried about it a little,
but watched this little girl
bopping a balloon into the air
with her head
and she really wasn't worried,
just energetically bopping the balloon,
and it reminded me of this little dog
I saw once that ran all around energetically,
and maybe a little oddly,
and I didn't find out 'til later
that the dog was totally blind

The funny thing was it almost seemed to not know it was blind,
and it definitely didn't care
or get held back in any way about it
and I thought,
it's ok that I forgot that belt,
and I can live with this haircut,
'cuz hair keeps growing and changing anyways

And what is hair?
The beautiful uncut grass of heads...


-JIM DuBois
Aug 16, 2009

Ordinary Days on Planet Earth

The light from the sun
travels to earth every day,
soaks into the ground,
        the dirt,
        the water,
        the rocks,

and the plants burst upwards
in a multitude of colors

and the animals grow
and change
and evolve,
wandering over the land
and in the sea

and the people
are simply starlight
with brains and hands

they create marvelous art and music

they solve incredible problems
with knowledge, ingenuity
and vast imaginations

they invent technology
to communicate with each other
and transform the lives
of billions

and though they
don't always know it,
they are
        striving striving striving
to be good,
and kind
to one another.


-Jim DuBois
Aug 11, 2009

Three Snakes

I saw these three snakes
and a ton of frogs
and it reminded me
of when
things like that
really mattered


-Jim DuBois
April 24, 2007

Crows

But those crows
    up in the bare
                         winter trees

Reminded me
                    how to live:

Go somewhere,

Open up your mouth
            and make some noise,

Go somewhere else.

            Repeat.


-Jim DuBois
2000?

Transformations (Dec 15, 2008)

The wolf and the crow
    visited me one winter night,
    whispering,
            "Your true self is waiting,
             Your true self is waiting,"
and I snuck out
    into the cold and dark
where I ate wild grubs
    of the present moment
and foraged for bark
    from the tree of life
until my clothes turned
    brown and grey and green,
    the colors of the woodsfolk,
and I could run one hundred miles
    without stopping
and my wings finally regrew
    and I disappeared into the sky.


-Jim DuBois

Back in the Kingdom of Me (Dec 13, 2008)

Back in the kingdom of me,
the dust has gathered on the floor
and birds nest in the high tower,
but I have finally returned,
so I light a new fire in the hearth,
clean up a little,
and look out at the land
I have missed for so long.


-Jim DuBois

And Love is Like (May 11, 2005)

Love is like
    a demon loan officer
    possessing and re-possessing
        my heart,
    demanding timely payments
        of imagination and memory,
    held at bay
        only by obscure signs
            of blood and fire.

And love is like
    a lion you find unexpectedly
    in your home.
You fling scraps of poetry-covered paper
    at it in a wild despair,
    hoping
        it will be delayed long enough
            for you to escape out the
                window.

Love is like a tornado,
    scattering your carefully arranged loneliness.

Love is your shadow.


-Jim DuBois

Randomly Regarding Infinity (Oct 1 2005)

Randomly regarding infinity

Compiling lists of words

Lost in the wilderness of time

I talk to dogs and other mammals




-Jim

Hidden Landscapes (June 2003, May 10 2006)

I don’t mean to alarm you,
but just outside the yard
there’s a pulsing landscape,
filled with ever-blooming flowers
and the un-dimmed dreams of youth.
All you need to do is raise your eyes
ever so slightly from the TV,
and cast your glance out the window
at the billowing clouds or
the momentary flight of birds,
or the sun going down
    over the hills,
and
        Bam!
you might never find your way
    back.



      - Jim