Desire

Sometimes desire is so simple:

wanting to go walk around
in the fading light.


-JD

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

Unknown and Unfinished (July 31, 2001)

I was lost.

Unknown and unfinished,
I sat in the parking lot
while the rain threatened to fall
and finally did.


-Jim

Brief Encounters (Sept 5, 2000)

I saw the fading slogans
  of ever lasting love
    decorating the rusty railroad bridge
      in dare-devil
        spots.

I wondered about
  the people who wrote them,
    10, 15, 20 years ago.

I wondered
  if they still
    remembered.

I thought of you
and I wondered if
    our brief encounters
    were like those slogans,
  thrown up in a momentary abandon,
  left like relics
    for future lovers to find
    and wonder over.



-Jim DuBois

Universal Echoes of an Ancient Truth (July 1, 2006)

Universal echoes
of an ancient truth
filtering down
through the technological canopy
of today

distorted
by cellphone towers
and cheap plastic goods

corrupted
by escalating vices
and polluted waterways

forgotten
beneath a mountain
of pop-up windows


Universal echoes
of an ancient truth
seen here and there
in thrift shops
and the crazy buttery eyes
of select strangers

Universal echoes
of an ancient truth
whispering between the words
of religious propaganda

Universal echoes
of an ancient truth


-Jim DuBois

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

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