Mt. Tom (Sept 17, 2005)

Wandering in the remnants of time
the rotting tree trunks
the glacier-strewn rocks

Lost in the aftermath of the past
the decomposing leaves
the cracked basalt boulders

Even the new trees
root
in the bones
of their ancestors


-Jim

Stealing into your Heart (feb 28, 2005)

I wrote poems about love and longing,
I pined,
I schemed about ways to meet you,
planned what I would say
and how I might approach you.

It's all come to nothing so far.


Here's my latest plan:

You won't know me when I'm near,
because I will not notice you,
my eyes will glance over you to someone beyond,
I'll turn away,
look down,
keep walking,
but late at night
I'll return to my secret task:
digging a convoluted tunnel
to your heart,
bit by bit,
with a bent and rusty spoon
I stole from the cafe.

Any day now I'm sure to break through,
and stealthily enter
the chambers of your heart -
on tip-toe,
in socks,
breathing shallowly
and moving slowly.

I don't want to disturb anything,
I just want to see what it's like
to be in there.

Maybe I'd pause for a bit
and watch how you secretly
love the world
when you think no one else is around.

I might take a nap, too,
before I headed out,
because it would be so warm and comfortable.

The only things I'd leave behind
are a few tender kisses
in spots that wouldn't bother you
or disrupt your days,
a soft string guideline
to make finding my way back easier,
and a note
that said

  "Somebody loves you"


-Jim

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