Even from behind these bars I can hear the sound of rain. Even locked in this cage I can dream of blue flowers and tall trees.
-jobe
Hey, YOU. Tarfia Faizullah is so good.
These fields are dew-wet and heavy with crows and gloom, and it is still a long walk to get to the house of the poet. Just past dawn and hungry, a biscuit and black coffee was all, two hours ago in the darkness, the night before spent in prayer and shivers, under the stare of the grandfather clock. One cold tick at a time. What is this weight of grief? What is this ghastly tonic that fails to heal? There is no promise waiting at the house of the poet. Is there even anyone there to answer the door? And now the shoes and the pant-legs are dew-wet. The heaviness of crows is a weight upon the soul, and the first light is not burning away the fog. From the far end of the pasture, hidden in mist, comes the sound of hoof-beats.
-jobe
If men had wings and bore black feathers, Few of them would be clever enough to be crows.
-Henry Ward Beecher
The lake of my heart, does it mirror the sky? Is it deep and cold?
-jobe
Not every lake dreams to be an ocean. Blessed are the ones who are happy with whom they are.
-Mehmet Murat ildan
A poem by the late Tomaž Šalamun (below):
We Build a Barn And Read Reader’s Digest
Quick ostrich. Quick ostrich. Quick sand. Quick sand.
Quick lime. Quick grass. The white juice from celeste Aida,
and forgot-to-take-it dries up. The one
trampled by sheep (down below), Grischa and Beatrice
(up above) converse. They’d recognize each other in
a cover, a box, a jacket, a picture, in moss and trampled
dirt. At this angle of the sky
no pictures are allowed. Corpses are wrapped up like
sheaves. Dismiss the footprint. Wipe your eyes.
Stop pilfering. Grapshot gets tangled up.
I go paying visits with my lives.
Here I just romped and touched the rug
with a yellow shoulder. I don’t know what a word is.
To cry out moth! when on your white towel you see
a scorpion? El Alamein! Where is the difference?
Rommel was kissing heaven’s dainty hands, and yet
from his airplane above the Sahara, my uncle
Rafko Perhauc still blew him to bits.
I love California, and I have ever since I first came here decades ago. Live somewhere else? Why on earth would I do that?
In the summer of 1994, or perhaps 1995, I was driving alone to a literary event not far from Santa Cruz, California. I drove down from Sacramento the afternoon before the event, planning on getting a night’s sleep at a Holiday Inn-type joint and being fresh for the event.
Traffic was light for Northern California, plus in summer the sunset is later in the evening, right? I went straight to the beach in time to watch the sun set into the sea. I was wearing shorts, a t- shirt, and sneakers, so to get wet all I really had to do was take off my shoes. So I got wet.
There was a support group I was in back then that had a chant for beginning our meetings, which were usually held outside with a small fire. Sometimes a bigger fire.
“Namaste, Luna, Luna. Solar.”
Combining the Namaste blessing with the moon and the sun. I don't remember where the chant came from, possibly one of the other members just made it up. I’m not sure that I ever knew where it came from. But I really liked it, still do.
The bottom of the sun was almost touching the horizon on the Pacific as I waded in up to my thighs. Any deeper and the waves might have knocked me down. I raised my arms up to the sky and began the chant.
Hell, I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t planned. I’ve just always liked rituals, and an impromptu ritual felt cool at that place and time. I began softly, and as the minutes passed I got louder. I kept it up as the sun went below the horizon, seemingly burning its way into the water.
I stopped chanting, and from behind me I heard the chant still going on. I turned and saw 5 other people in the water, chanting. They came to a stop as I waded back to the beach, and one of them called me ‘brother’ as I passed.
I love that about California. 30 million people live here, and not only are they just fine with a guy wading into the ocean to chant, there’s even a few who are willing to join in. That’s home, brothers and sisters.
-jobe
12/20/2024
my yoga teacher kassandra, a poem by Andrei Codrescu
Blues Franchise, a poem by David Henderson
At day’s end we are blessed with darkness, and at night’s end we are blessed with light. All throughout this life we are blessed with the truth of change. Bless’d change.
-jobe
