laughing with the tree cutters

5.16.2025

May 16, 2025

∙ Paid

One can only guess the amount of magic mushrooms a sane person would have to consume to believe that a frisbee constituted a genuine threat to roughly 3,000 police officers.

Mark Thomas

The red river — the sabine river

red dirt river and lake country

tornado country

I was on a crew cutting a right of way

for a power company

through tall trees — bois d’arc and oak

and mushrooms growing in the neighboring fields

in the fresh cowpies

wash ‘em clean and swallow quick

chase it down with coca cola after work

watching the starry sky like van gogh painted

up late

laughing with the tree cutters

jobe

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

Alice Walker

When I pray

it’s to the universe

not for wants or wishes

but to say thanks

jobe

a poem by Charles Bukowski:

i can't stay in the same room with that woman for five minutes

I went over the other day

to pick up my daughter.

her mother came out with workman’s

overalls on.

I gave her the child support money

and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one

Manfred Anderson.

I read them.

he’s great, she said.

does he send this shit out? I asked.

oh no, she said, Manfred wouldn’t do that.

why?

well, I don’t know exactly.

listen, I said, you know all the poets who

don’t send their shit out.

the magazines aren’t ready for them, she said,

they’re too far advanced for publication.

oh for christ’s sake, I said, do you really

believe that?

yes, yes, I really believe that, she

answered.

look, I said, you don’t even have the kid ready

yet. she doesn’t have her shoes on. can’t you

put her shoes on?

your daughter is 8 years old, she said,

she can put her own shoes on.

listen, I said to my daughter, for christ’s sake

will you put your shoes on?

Manfred never screams, said her mother.

OH HOLY JESUS CHRIST! I yelled

you see, you see? she said, you haven’t changed.

what time is it? I asked.

4:30. Manfred did submit some poems once, she said,

but they sent them back and he was terribly

upset.

you’ve got your shoes on, I said to my daughter,

let’s go.

her mother walked to the door with us.

have a nice day, she said.

fuck off, I said.

when she closed the door there was a sign pasted to

the outside. it said:

SMILE.

I didn’t.

we drove down Pico on the way in.

I stopped outside the Red Ox.

I’ll be right back, I told my daughter.

I walked in, sat down, and ordered a scotch and

water. over the bar there was a little guy popping in and

out of a door holding a very red, curved penis

in his hand.

can’t

can’t you make him stop? I asked the barkeep.

can’t you shut that thing off?

what’s the matter with you, buddy? he asked.

I submit my poems to the magazines, I said.

you submit your poems to the magazines? he asked.

you are god damned right I do, I said.

I finished my drink and got back to the car.

I drove down Pico Boulevard.

the remainder of the day was bound to be better.

Charles Bukowski, 1920—1994

**Bukowski was friends with my cousin, the poet Joan Jobe Smith. He encouraged her to finish her education and to keep writing poems. That was in the 1960s. Decent of him, I think.**

A field

and after that a pond

with shade trees

and a rather large snapping turtle

a rural east texas oasis of sorts

my friends and I would skinny-dip there

my cousin eddie was concerned

that he would be gelded by the turtle

he said one could never live that down

“there’s dickless eddie jobe or maybe

I’d get a nickname — ol’ stubby jobe

or falsetto eddie.” we swam anyway

the turtle had its own agenda

and it didn’t include us

jobe

We are asleep with compasses in our hands.

W.S. Merwin

It will happen

the sun will go supernova someday

it won't matter then where you were born

or what color your skin was

and it won't matter who you slept with

or who you prayed to

just BOOM it’s all gone

jobe

Tao defined is not the constant Tao.
No name names its eternal name.

Lao Tzu

December cold, and the night dew becomes mist, and then, in the most silent hour, becomes a soft rain. I am up late, putting my life into words that no one will read. What use is this world of men? I shiver violently from the cold, even deep within this thick, soft robe.

jobe