book of jobe

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the roof of midnight

the roof of midnight

2.4.2025

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book of jobe
Feb 04, 2025
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the roof of midnight
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The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

Jack Kerouac



god is an empty carton of eggs
or would be if there was a god
and I had eaten all of the eggs

jobe


Link: Pound and Brodsky in Venice, a poem Megan Fernandes


In Kyoto,
hearing the cuckoo,
I long for Kyoto.

Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694 CE



As a boy, my mother would paddle me with a metal serving ladle. It hurt like hell and I called it The Big Spoon. If I was on the edge of being in trouble, and I often was, my mother would scream, “Jimmy! I’m going to get The Big Spoon.” Her booming voice carried across the rowhouses of Baltimore. It was a voice from Hell. Sixty years on, I still wonder what the neighbors thought.

jobe


Link: From the Stone Age, a poem by Alice Corbin Henderson



I am hiding from the world
seasons pass — then years
then decades
my hiding place is a strong one
far from view
when death comes looking for me
it will have to search hard
behind the trees
and behind the clouds

jobe


selective focus short of Guy Fawkes mask hiding behind plants
Photo by Javardh on Unsplash


Link: an armistice between my dead folks and my delusions, a poem by Ra Malika Imhotep


Here where I live,
lakes on the left, rivers on the right,
you leave islands, follow shores back
to mountains out front, ridges behind.
Looming east and toppling aside west,
they harbor ebb and flow of breath,
arch across and snake beyond, devious
churning and roiling into distances,
clifftop ridgelines hewn flat and true.

Hsieh Ling-yün, 385-433 CE


I am a few months into Substack at this point, and I believe I have found a form I am happy with. From now on the posts, like this one, will be a little longer and a little less often. Each post will have content for free subscribers and some content for paid subscribers only. (Paid subscribers get everything, to be clear.) I will post these on Tuesday and Friday. For people, like me, who also use Substack for their social media, I will put random solo items on notes, almost daily.

Thanks, jobe


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