Noel, I forgot you were dead

"That's where
I met Noel
selling paper ephemera
at the sidewalk sale.

He's this interesting guy...

...well, he was...

I forgot: he died
this past winter.

We would
bump into each other
around town,
play a little magic
or poker,
he would tell me
about being italian,
about his Sicilian hertitage,
and then we wouldn't
see each other
for a while,
six months or a year.

I guess I figured
this was just another
of those
in between times.

Maybe that's
a better way
to think about it
anyway."


-Jim DuBois
Aug, 4, 2016

The Trees Above

The trees above
the sidewalk outside
Amanouz at night -
protecting me from
the infinite universe beyond.

Aug 30, 2014

It Began

It began
with the smile on Jake's face.

Someone dropped their keys
Someone else fainted.

Jake kept smiling.

The people on the sidewalk
felt their neck hair stand on end
and their skin tingle.

Many looked to the sky.

Up on the 30th floor,
a woman turned into a sparrow
and flew away into the clouds.


-Jim DuBois
March 30, 2016
(revised some old scraps of writing from the 90s)

Hope and Dread

Hope
    and
        Dread,

Hope
    and
        Dread,

as I walk down the sidewalk
I last saw you on.


II –

I don’t know how to say it
and I don’t know how to not say it:
to believe it or deny it:

“Yes, ______”
“Yes, ______”
“Yes, ______”


-Jim DuBois
1997?

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

I've Been Struggling Lately

Sitting at the Roost
in the middle of the day
feels so desolate,
but much less than
sitting on a stone stoop
on market street,
wishing for friends.

But then I glanced
at someone's laptop
and discovered they
were playing
Settlers of Catan online
and realized they were killing time too,
faking activity,
distracting themselves from desolation,
and it made me a little happier.

(Because I usually imagine
that everyone else
has lots of friends
and deep meaningful lives
and that I,
somehow,
was the only one who got screwed
out of those things)

And I won't let myself
end on that note,
because I have meaning in my life,
it's just that
I've been struggling lately,
like all humans
sometimes do.


-Jim DuBois
March 30, 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

The World is Mine

I like to go downtown
get a 33 cent pad of paper
and $1 pen
and sit on a bench
and draw
and write
and feel like
    the world is mine


-Jim DuBois
Oct 22, 2009

(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

Another Short Poem

Sittin' here,
doin' nothin',
it's all
Sun and Now
and Whatever

-Jim DuBois

What To Do Next (Jan 11, 2009)

"I'm a free man
and it doesn't matter
what I do right now,"
I thought to myself
and it completely
left me stumped
about what to do next,
so I stood on the corner
by the car place,
spit into the snow
and watched the shiny fringe
flutter in the sun.


-Jim DuBois

Jenny It's Friday (Dec 15, 2006)

Jenny,
it's friday
and I want a hamburger,
and if it was summer
we could walk down
to Serio's
and get some,
so where the heck are you?
And where has summer gone?


-Jim

Sitting Outside State Street *

Everybody's rushing around here
but I don't know
what to do next.

I ate a banana
and a peach
and now
I'm sitting outside State Street
watching the cars go by.



-Jim

---

* State Street is short for State Street Fruit Store, a grocery store near where I live.

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