The Places I Think You Might Have Been

Walking by the places
I think you might have been.

Scratch off tickets
litter the sidewalk
that leads to the house
a friend of yours
might
have lived in.


Walking by the places
I saw you last.

Eight years ago
I met you briefly
behind the counter
at the Pleasant Street Theater.

Once at Bread and Circus
we talked for a moment,
but I can't remember
what we said.

Six months ago
we waved and said hello
in the parking lot
behind Thornes
I smiled and blushed
and fell in love.


Walking by you,
a few weeks ago
on main street,
I felt my stomach clenching
and I ducked behind a tree
even though I wanted
to be brave.



-Jim DuBois
June 27, 2005

"steel candy-cake perfume"

I remember that time
that you said
"steel candy-cake perfume"
and
Karl Marx
rose from the dead,
not came back to life,
just rose
straight up
UP
UP
into the air
and disapearred,
heading out
towards the
Oort cloud
and the horsehead
nebula

Well, that's the last time
I'll sing butterflies
of
supercluster cadences



-Jim DuBois
June 19, 2006

Semi-sweet broken hearts

Semi-sweet
      broken hearts

absorbing heat
      from the landscape

of lost love

because somedays

the sun isn't enough


-Jim DuBois
Aug 27, 2008

Fox News, etc

Propaganda machines
of the conservative capitalist empire
running at full force
to cover the cracks
in the foundation,
to distract and anger
the people
from their chance
to help deal it
a death blow


-Jim DuBois
Sept 4, 2010

Old Working Class Women

Old working class women,
smoking in the little park near the parking garage,
gossiping about this guy
who lives in their building -
they can't let each other finish their sentences,
they are agitated, but talkative and friendly.

Sometimes they wish they could afford
a better place to live.


-Jim DuBois
August 19, 2010

Evolution of Existence

I went outside
to eat two bananas
and enjoy the shade
and breeze

Then I reflected
on the nature
of my existence
as people have done
since they were people

Then I typed in
some poems
on my telephone
which sent them
through radio-waves
to some distant
computer server
so I could retrieve them
later


-Jim DuBois
August 19, 2010

Quark Dreams

I had this dream
that I was explaining to Robby
that when electrons jump from state to state,
they sometimes emit photons.

I woke up
and thought about
that living beings
are made of the same stuff,
like electrons and protons,
as other matter,
and that
all those weird quantum things
apply to the underpinnings
of our own selves.

Do we emit photons
every once in an improbable while?
do our protons ever decay?
do we have junk DNA and multiple back up RNA
to compensate for quantum randomness
that might disturb our
cellular reproduction?

I pictured us
as glowing collections
of subatomic particles,
heat, trapped and controlled
by elaborate methods,
like neurons and DNA.



-Jim DuBois
August 19, 2010