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Jim is relaxed. 1:41am
Jim needs paper bags. 1:50am
Jim is pondering the wisdom of the sages. 1:50am
Jim is maybe calling this a poem. 1:54am


-Jim

Paper-cut

I got a paper-cut
opening my health insurance
notice.

- Jim DuBois

All of Broken-Down Humanity

All of broken-down humanity,
raging like crazy people in the night,
desperately searching for connection,
or holed-up in private castles
hoarding crumbs of affection and sparse memories of being human.

All of broken-down humanity,
getting drunk and fucking
like it's a miracle cure,
or watching hour after hour of mediocre tv shows,
killing time with endless scrabble games.

All of broken-down humanity,
trying not to feel,
trying not to face it,
or burning up from the agony and terror
and going down in flames.

All of broken-down humanity,
this is why you did heroin,
this is why you started wars,
this is why you hurt and rape and kill.

All of broken-down humanity,
lost in the wilderness of society,
pretending it's ok,
wishing for more... maybe,
forgetting how to dream,
forgetting how to want,
forgetting who we really are.

All of broken-down humanity,
searching for answers in weird mystical places and practices
- astrology and acupuncture and hundreds of religions,
and the only real answer is:
there's no room to be you!
we got fucked-over and are lonely,
we must build a new world.

All of broken-down humanity,
- we can only fuck and fuck-over
because we've forgotten love,
forgotten how to love.

We need a change
we need to remember
we need to make room for our humanity
we need to recover from the ages
we need to rest
we need real love.


-Jim DuBois

Transformations (Dec 15, 2008)

The wolf and the crow
    visited me one winter night,
    whispering,
            "Your true self is waiting,
             Your true self is waiting,"
and I snuck out
    into the cold and dark
where I ate wild grubs
    of the present moment
and foraged for bark
    from the tree of life
until my clothes turned
    brown and grey and green,
    the colors of the woodsfolk,
and I could run one hundred miles
    without stopping
and my wings finally regrew
    and I disappeared into the sky.


-Jim DuBois

Back in the Kingdom of Me (Dec 13, 2008)

Back in the kingdom of me,
the dust has gathered on the floor
and birds nest in the high tower,
but I have finally returned,
so I light a new fire in the hearth,
clean up a little,
and look out at the land
I have missed for so long.


-Jim DuBois

Oberon Escaping (Dec 13, 2008)

I cast a circle of protection.
I cast a spell of invisibility.

I walk the back roads,
and hidden paths.

I call upon old oaths
and forgotten pacts.

I break your enchantment
and return to the land of Faerie.


-Jim DuBois

Like a Radio Wave (Sept 2002)

Like a radio wave,
  moving steadily outward
    into the universe

Like a radio wave,
  or an echo,
    or light travelling from distant stars,
      informing viewers of events
        that are already well past
          in history

Like a radio wave,
  having no fixed point,
    only appearing
  to exist
    when there is a radio

Like language,
  encoded and encryted
    meanings –
      meaningless
        without a listener

Like a moment of history,
    or a book,
  sending out ripples of influence
    into the future

Has the moment passed?
    …
  Or just some of it?

Like evolution and procreation,
  providing an unbroken line,
    a varied but cohesive system of life forms

-- One moment,
                many appearances

Just one moment
  without a beginning or end
Just one self-modifying,
  everlasting moment,

Expanding like the universe,
  being picked up once in a while
    by various
      sensors and receptors.

Just a moment of existence,
    like a radio wave,
      moving outward.



-Jim DuBois

The Perfect Book

(Come see the original at my house some day)

-Jim DuBois

Let's Find It! (Nov 24, 2008)

Let's go on crazy weird adventures, Tony.
Let's go on crazy weird adventures, Bob.

Where is that animal within?
Where is that crazy primal essence of life?

Let's find it!
Let's bring it out to the people!

Olé!



-Jim DuBois

Coulda Been (a few days ago)

You coulda been mine, yeah...
you coulda been mine, but...
...yeah, you coulda been mine.

-JD

Dream Roads (June 23 2007)

Walking down a familiar dirt road,
I feel content,
and then I realize
    I have never been there before -
  except in other dreams,
    and that there's a whole
    landscape I visit over and over
    in dreams (and memories of other dream roads)
and then I realize
    even those memories
        are dreamed up.


-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

And Love is Like (May 11, 2005)

Love is like
    a demon loan officer
    possessing and re-possessing
        my heart,
    demanding timely payments
        of imagination and memory,
    held at bay
        only by obscure signs
            of blood and fire.

And love is like
    a lion you find unexpectedly
    in your home.
You fling scraps of poetry-covered paper
    at it in a wild despair,
    hoping
        it will be delayed long enough
            for you to escape out the
                window.

Love is like a tornado,
    scattering your carefully arranged loneliness.

Love is your shadow.


-Jim DuBois

Oct 27, 2008

Caught up by desire,
suddenly afraid of a real yes
because of "what if?"


-JD

Down A Long River (Sept 16, 2008)

There's that far away place,
usually down a long river,
where you can dive off the rocks
and go for a swim,
but you don't know exactly where it is,
or how to get there,
only that it is wonderful and mysterious,
and you've been there many times,
at least in these dreams,
and it might not always be the same place physically,
but it has the same feeling,
the same empty watery feeling,
the same rocky primal feeling,
and sometimes it is the river,
and sometimes there's a powerful tall waterfall you are swept over,
or maybe jump over,
and sometimes it's a huge steamy bathroom
with tons of empty showers running
but it's really the same place somehow
and sometimes the showers are right near a pool
which is by a waterfall
which leads you out into the wilderness
and to that rocky diving spot,
or below an ancient temple,
and you're not sure if it's ominous there or not,
but you remember other times,
in dreams that are similar,
sliding down crazy water slides that go underground,
and swift-currented rivers you are propelled along,
and on and on,
until you wake up.


-Jim DuBois

Short Poems, Short Affair

All fucked-up
      and tender-hearted,
waiting for you to call

Long, open-hearted hours,
at the green bus stop,
      and in my dream-like room

I love you already,
I miss you
      even after one day

Real love is so simple
I don't have much to say about it,
      but I want to keep saying it

Confusing conversation -
you like me... but...
not ready right now?

All fucked-up
      and broken-hearted,
and wishing you were mine

I kissed you goodnight
I took that flower you gave me out of my pocket
I put your number back with all my other numbers


-JD

Spiderman Retires

I.

Spiderman retires
and takes up
watercolor painting
in the countryside
because he gets so tired
of all those tear-jerking moments
where his friend,
who was his enemy for a while,
dies after fighting off
the real bad guy,
who probably wasn't bad,
just misguided.


II.

Gandalf goes to therapy
and starts to realize
that the shadow of the past
is only a shadow,
and a ring is only a ring,
and even though he wishes
for a dramatic solution
to soothe his dark memories,
he starts to understand
that the best thing he could do
is live in the present,
and save Frodo and the other hobbits
a whole lot of trouble.


III.

Young Bruce Wayne
never becomes Batman
because some helpful social worker
realizes that Bruce just needs
to cry and cry
about his parent's death,
and explains that all his
dark fantasies of revenge
can never bring back
mom and dad.
Instead of growing up
to be a costumed vigilante,
Bruce becomes an artist.


-Jim DuBois

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