A Measure of What was Given

A measure of what was given
A measure of what was lost

A measure of time gone by
A measure of time going by

A measure of time
A measure of empty space

A measure of lost love
A measure of goodness

A measure of strangers on the sidewalk
A measure of words

A measure of words and meanings
A measure of mental images

A measure of days
A measure of years

A measure of what was written
A measure of what was not

A measure of something breaking
A measure of something about to break

A measure of pressure
A measure of release

A measure of things starting
A measure of those things ending



-Jim DuBois
May 13, 2012

The Inertia of Familiar Things

The inertia of familiar things
The inertia of familiar places
The inertia of familiar people

The orbits we live in
The places we stay at rest
The places we stay dormant

Dormant potential energy

The bonds we don't break
The escape velocity we usually never reach
The bubbles we live inside

The ruts we travel along
Those familiar grooves
Those familiar moves

The energy trapped in neural pathways
The memories we always revisit
The moments we repeat through time

The things we always say
The habits we learned long ago
The roads we take without thinking

Repetitive habitual energy

Time for something new

Some unfamiliar territory
Some awkward things to say
Some unpracticed words

Things we don't know how to do
Places we haven't been
Broken bonds, released energy

Dynamite in the foundation
Rocket fuel in the boosters
Fire in the neurons

A new day
A new life
New time

Now


-Jim DuBois
May 7, 2012

not the me

I'm not the me
you used to know

I'm not the me
you're looking for

I'm not the me
I used to be


I shed my skin
I renewed my heart
I opened up
  to the world
  more than ever

Open to more goodness
Open to more sadness
  and despair
  as they flow out of me
Open to more loneliness
  and preoccupation
Open to more of myself
Open to my own power
  and attractiveness


-Jim DuBois
March 28, 2012

More Evidence

More evidence that you're
not alone in the universe:
I've started leaving my change
in your change jar.


-Jim DuBois
Sept 20, 2005

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

Some Alarming Traits

You are displaying some
alarming traits lately,
Mr. DuBois.

Searching in the sandy snow-piles
for change,

wandering through town
in the middle of the day,

these are traits
one normally associates
with highly unemployed
persons.

Do you ever think about
where it might lead?

What if you found enjoyment
in all those little moments
which make up a day?

What if you never wanted
to work again?

Where would we be,
Mr. DuBois,
if everyone believed
they had a right to
the life they wanted to live?

Do you ever think about
your influences on others?

You are setting an example
with your blissfully positive
faith in the universe,
Mr. DuBois,
and I shudder to think
where we would be
if even a few others
adopted your slackerly ways.


-Jim DuBois
Feb 1, 2001

(Discarded Left-over Abandoned Forgotten)Edges + Lost Places

                             vacant upstairs apartment
I broke into the

And crept out onto the roof

I kept thinking of
            the cracks in the sidewalk
            the grass growing in the alley
            the vines on the fence
                  between the parking lots

The forgotten places where
      two things border one another

The discarded, left-over space between
      one clear definition and another

Cracks
            Borders
                        Edges

The places people rarely look into
            like beneath the sofa cushions where the change collects

or
      the strip of trees beside the highway where I
found the skull of a dog
and undergrowth so thick
      you couldn’t walk through it


-Jim DuBois
July 20, 1998

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