in a dream anything is possible

raindrops like teeth   the enamel of god

a horse of lightning   a tractor of thunder

the muddied boots of the children

waiting forlornly by the front door 

a wet winter here to move water 

back to the earth and back to the ocean

you can cry or laugh or find a drum to pound

you can catch a bus to dayton or tulsa

this isn't fate   this isn't preordained

if I were foolish enough to make predictions 

or claims I would tell you of dark-haired 

dark-eyed girls dancing to romani music

I would say that the government is lying 

about the shape of the world

lying about the dreams that wake you 

with a hard shudder

lying about everything 

I am living now in the silence of things

sleeping in the dusty corners

accept the finality of the human experience

raindrops like teeth   the enamel of a god 

I am a being of light

and I refuse to answer to anyone 

james lee jobe 

Jan Killian

The bad news: You're falling through the air with no parachute. The good news: There's no ground.

Chögyam Trungpa

The mirrors are still at last, and you are so tired. You are listening to the wheezing breaths of the smokers. Even your mind is tired, and you don't really want to think anymore, but you don't know how to stop. From a dark corner of your consciousness you sense that the animals are slowly returning to the forest, and you wish that you could join them. You will die one day and until then you will never be free of this reality. Yes, there are cracks in time, you've seen them, but they are too small to slip through and escape. Your life is a slender being, moving from shadow to shadow, slinking in memory and loneliness. The room smells of disinfectant and the nurse with the cart is bringing the medication. You check the mirror one more time and then look up at the plain-faced clock and see that three minutes have passed since the last time you looked.

james lee jobe 

Just Enough

Soil for legs

Axe for hands

Flower for eyes

Bird for ears

Mushrooms for nose

Smile for mouth

Songs for lungs

Sweat for skin

Wind for mind

Nanao Sakaki

Grandmother went to sleep full of the emptiness that everyone is afraid of. She is sleeping across a blue landscape, under a green sky. This is a land that smells like jasmine, but that doesn't tell us much. Grandmother is dreaming of a day like this one, only in heaven, not here. She wants to take walks above the shore. She wants to sip tea and read those old books again, the ones she always loved. In a dream, anything is possible—flying, a new love, you can even be young again. Grandmother isn't afraid of the emptiness, she knows better than that. Look at her, smiling in her sleep. So peaceful, so relaxed. Grandmother isn't waking up again.  

james lee jobe 

Mohamad Hafez

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James