there is no calendar, no clock, no schedule

6.27.2025

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

poems and prose-poems by jobe

I love this book of my failures
each failure is a diamond or a bar of gold
waiting for its turn to be polished
I spend my time with a polishing rag
going from failure to failure
buffing
shining
it is a very large book
for I have many failures
still — a blue sky today
and in the distance
the sounds of birds

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Sister
when the road is long
you can rest here in safety
brother
when your stomach is empty
you can knock on this door
and I will feed you
child
when you make mistakes
I will help you
I will not strike you
friends
when you hear me speak
the words come from my heart
we are all the same
let our lives be true

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Wasps, by the bucketful, cover my face like a mask. I have begun having dreams where I am someone else, not me at all. In one dream I was an old man who loved a young girl the way a child loves Jesus. In another I was an angry gangster facing down the police. These are dreams that smell of meat, and taste of sadness and guilt. With my hands I rub the sound of dreams, sound that floats over the surface of a pond. I am not gentle. Strong images of courage, stupidity, and love wasted. Looking into a dirty mirror, I tell the wasps that their mask is beautiful, but is it really me speaking, or the reflection? Am I even awake?

---

Time to travel - the mountain snow
has melted into streams that feed the rivers
the flowers are in full bloom
cubs and fawns are out in the world
we should be too

---

In this dream the sick flowers are coughing blood on the feet of the nurses. Here, the river is charging down the side of the rusted mountain, washing the low places before it. You can see for yourself. Sinatra is singing something about the supernova of yet another dwarf star.

Here, , and no fences to hold back the stomping feet of time, no need to exhale, only to inhale.

In this dream the sick flowers are dropping to the emergency room floor, and a code has been called, but no one is answering it. The river has washed away the blood, and the nurses have turned away, and one by one they have begun to climb the mountain.

---

We are different
from the owls in the pines
our lives are different
and so are our songs
but if we reach inside ourselves
we too can fly

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When the young wake in the summer
they are immortal
at least they can feel that way
by age sixty you know better
you've stood at too many graves
you've seen too many coffins
lowered into the earth
but also this you kissed
the babies’ ears and tickled
their tiny perfect toes
that counts in life just as much
no — it counts more

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Watching the sky taught me how to read
each star was a word
galaxies were sentences
and the universe was a story that lacked an end

I didn't know the dharma
but I bought a house on dharma street
I planted fruit trees
the peach tree did alright
but not the lemon tree

walking into the creek
where the water came up to my waist
I felt clean
not just to my waist
but all over me
my life felt clean

whatever man I am
I am
at some moments I am a fool
I know that
but there are other moments
when I am a part of everything
all at once
the one

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jobe (James Lee Jobe) is a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Davis, California. Among his five chapbooks are What God Said When She Finally Answered Me, Rattlesnake Press, and Red Skelton’s Ghost, Cold River Press. His poems have been published in magazines, journals, websites, and anthologies across several decades. He practices Zen Buddhism and is retired from a second career in radio.