The cold scurry of ghosts.

3.11.2025

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

The Dreams I Report Here Are My Actual Dreams

I am dreaming, and I need to use the word 'obsequious' in a sentence, only I am not sure of the definition. A dream can be like that. Some mad need that leads to a ridiculous adventure, sometimes fun, but sometimes tense or even frightening.

So I then find myself traveling, looking for a dictionary, or at the very least someone with a larger vocabulary than I have. The landscape is varied, sometimes it is a busy city, sometimes a lovely countryside.

And then the dream changes again, as they often do, and I am touring Unitarian churches in Egypt, then riding a train where the porters wear white jackets and tams. I have tea with some British senior citizens, and then wine with a beautiful woman whose accent I can't quite place.

Another change, and I arrive in Baltimore, it is late 1941 and war is upon us. The shipyard is busy and I am offered a job with a union. The boss sends an assistant to fetch us coffee, and as we wait he whispers to me, "That will give the obsequious little turd something to do for a while."

jobe

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Vincent Van Gogh

A poem by d.a.levy

to jim lowel's goldfish

there is little or nothing
of the minds nightwork
so there is pretending & amusement
a goldfish in a toilet bowl
a piece of the captured sun
the heart of a melons wisdom

if of the Spanish marauders
a ripping up of alabaster by its iron roots
carries this treasure off to store in a
galleon that is to die young

instead, i anchor him with old memories
and change his water by day
he thinks it is the tide

d.a.levy 1942 — 1968 CE

When d.a. levy (always lowercase) died he was 26. Suicide. A single shot to the head. There was, early on, speculation that it was murder made to look like suicide by the local police. levy was very active in protesting the war in Vietnam. But it isn’t so. levy spoke of suicide often, especially the last three years of his life. It hits me hard; my son was 25 when he died, with his 26th birthday approaching. Not a suicide, but far too young.

jobe

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Whispers and shadow.

The cold scurry of ghosts.
A thousand empty midnights,
A thousand dawns
That couldn't come soon enough.
No solace for the losses.
No balm for the invisible wounds.
Time is a bitch.
Moments that move slowly,
Slowed by the weight of ghosts.
The weight of whispers and shadow.
Whispers and shadow.

jobe

If you don't stick to your values when they're
being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies.

Jon Stewart

Photo by Alejandro Alas on Unsplash

What lizards do.

The lizard is quite brave, like Hannibal,
And he dashes out on the trail right in front of me,
Stops, and looks up at me.
He has stopped me in my tracks.
I drop down to my hands and knees,
And I bring my face very close to his.
He doesn't run. He just cocks his head
And looks back me, and so in this way
We regard one another. A man and a lizard
On a Sierra Nevada trail in the heat of the afternoon.
This is his world, and I grow weary of the encounter
Before he does, and so I stand, say goodbye,
And start walking back down to my own world.
And he dashes off, too,
Back to whatever it is that a lizard does.

jobe

You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine;
otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.

Ken Kesey

Everything above this is for everyone, all subscribers. Everything below is for paid subscribers. Why, why, o jobe, do you do this? In hope of having more paid subscribers.

Thanks for reading this. You are appreciated.

jobe