Poet Laureate Emeritus, City of Davis CA. Poet-in-residence for Slide Hill Park. Family man. Suburban hermit. Friend to dogs.
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James Lee Jobe
@jamesleejobe
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Poet Laureate Emeritus, City of Davis CA. Poet-in-residence for Slide Hill Park. Family man. Suburban hermit. Friend to dogs.
Poet Laureate Emeritus, City of Davis CA. Poet-in-residence for Slide Hill Park. Family man. Suburban hermit. Friend to dogs.
IT’S POSSIBLE THAT WHILE WE WERE DREAMING
.
It’s possible that while we were dreaming
the hand that casts out the stars like seeds
started up the ancient music once more
– like a note from a great harp –
and the frail wave came to our lips
in the form of one or two honest words.
.
Antonio Machado, 1875—1939, Spain
Translated by Robert Bly
THE SAD EMPTINESS
Your mouth is shaped out of soap and water,
So that when you speak, your words are washed clean.
Only the tiniest of clean sounds now remain.
You swim in green, silent rivers and still lakes.
Pain;
Clear proof that you are alive.
And far away, war;
Broken corpses and broken families.
People surround your house,
But looking through the window, you see no one.
THE ROMANCE
541 words on my practice of writing and editing poems.
THE BUS STOP IN THE HOT SUMMER SUN SEEMS EMPTY AND LONELY.
book of jobe (@bookofjobe)
THE BUS STOP IN THE HOT SUMMER SUN SEEMS EMPTY AND LONELY. Maybe it is you that is empty, not the bus stop. You check the time; the bus will not arrive for another five minutes. It is noon and the shadows are small. The bus stop sign makes a shadow that looks like a tomahawk. You grasp the tomahawk with your left hand, even though you are right handed. Reaching back, you hurl the tomahawk at an imaginary tree. It whistles through the still noon air and buries into the bark with a dull thud. Birds fly away from the tree, and one loses a feather. In the silence that follows, there is one dark feather on the ground, and while you examine it, the bus rumbles around the corner, pulling up to you at the bus stop. jobe #prosepoem
PATERNAL
The space between my father and I
has not been filled by either time
or forgiveness. He is a cloud
and I am a cloud, riding the wind
in very different corners of the sky.
He is an apple, and I am an orange.
He is a cat and I am a dog.
I wonder if we were fierce enemies
in another life, proudly doing battle,
eye to eye, sword to sword.
How else could I so love him
and hate him at the same time?
jobe
'What We Wanted'
- A poem by Carol Moldaw
https://poets.org/poem/what-we-wanted?mc_cid=b8a0129c84&mc_eid=1785ab1e3a
