It Doesn't Turn Out Like in the Movies (Feb 25, 2005)

There's that face in the crowd,
a random person in a sea of strangers,
that sets your heart on fire,
and it doesn't turn out like in the movies,
because you never meet them,
and your struggle to tell them you love them
never gets resolved, one way or another.
You just go on seeing them every once in a while,
heart-aching, trying not to let on, trying not to care,
wondering why it seems to matter to begin with,
but not understanding how you can do nothing,
or how you could do anything, anyway.


-Jim DuBois

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.

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

Hollow Metal Phantoms (Jan 25, 2006)

Hollow metal phantoms
hurtling towards oblivion

The roots of the pea plants
tangled around my heart

Wasting and saving time
vanish like ghosts in light



-Jim

Step by Step (April 28, 2005)

Step by step
word by word
penny by penny

bite by bite
stone by stone
moment by moment



-Jim

For Every Time I Saw You (Sep 6, 2002)

I thought maybe
  I’d write a love poem
    for every time I saw you
      from a distance
        and longed to know your name,

A poem for every word
  that stuck in my throat
    when in your presence,

A poem for all the hours
  I spent thinking of
    ways to meet you
      that didn’t involve revealing
        that I already loved you.

But it would add up,
  you know,
    all that paper.

At first
  I’d slowly replace everything I own
    with stacks of love poems,
  but then the apartment would get too full,
  and the door would burst
  open like in the cartoons,
  with papers flying every-which-way
  …and there’s me running around,
  trying to keep things in order,
  keep them contained.

Me, running around making the worst
  hundred thousand poems
    into confetti
      for the impromptu parade
        for you,

And with the rest of the poems,
  building block after city block
    of shrines and monuments
      in your name.



                        - Jim DuBois

My Borrowed Ambition Pen (May 4, 2003)

My borrowed ambition pen:
      doodling,
                  noodling,
                              sketching,

trying to find
      what was lost

trying to arrange
      what is in disarry

trying to make sense of
      what doesn't make sense of


Like a mind of its own,
   it’s searching the shadows of my understanding,
      probing into my broken heart
         looking for the indestructible black box
            that holds the secrets
               to what went wrong


My borrowed ambition pen
   is travelling deep into outer space now,
      chasing comets of lost love,
         skirting the gravitational pulls
            of black hole disaster zones
               where nobody knows… knows what there
                  is there and nobody can.

What is it learning?
   What does it know?

When it gets back to earth
   we’ll have a party
      to study the complete map of the emotional cosmos
         called me,
      and we’ll put big red danger ‘X’s
         on certain spots,
         and never never go there
            except by accident,
            or if we have to because of true love again

Only this time I’ll have a new,
   re-enforced space suit,
      and extra oxygen tanks
      and plenty of food,
      in case I get stranded
         for a long time,
      and probably a homing beacon
         so you can come rescue me,
            all you people who were at my universe party
               and warned me not to go there,
                  but knew I would,
               because who can hold back
               where love and hearts are concerned,
               and who would want to anyway?


My borrowed ambition pen
   is like anti-kryptonite,
      boosting my strength to super human levels,
         and I’m using it to chop down
            forests of primal delusions
               where – by gum! – it’s still beating:
                  this old heart,
                     this old forgotten heart.

It looks like we got here in the nick of time, too,
   but it always feels like that,
      doesn’t it?



            -Jim DuBois