walking — the sky full of stars

3.7.2025

Mar 04, 2025

group of sea lion on brown wooden dock during daytime — Photo by David Maunsell on Unsplash

San Francisco. Goddamned Fisherman’s Wharf.
March. 7 goddamned AM.
That dock where the goddamned gulls scream.
That goddamned bell on the buoy.
That goddamned bellowing bull seal.
That fisherman pulling in a goddamned foot-long spiny dogfish shark.
That wet, cold air, just before the goddamned rain.
That goddamned bicycle messenger riding down the wrong side of Jefferson Street.
That fat tourist shivering in goddamned ridiculous short pants.
That goddamned footstep close behind you; you don't turn, and you don't look.
jobe

A poem by Dennis Schmitz

The Shaming Of The Egg Thief

As the Pusateri’s clerk caught
him, shaking open
the man’s coat to deliberately break

the eggs against him—
it was the summer of fourth grade,

which, I dimly knew, only flowed one-way
to the harder summers of adulthood.
I knew baseball rules; I thought them that

I got the moral outcome of movies
to the degree that now,
in the present, I could play myself

in the movie version of the Pusateri’s drama,
my feelings magnified by the make-up

that will make me a boy—anything to heal
the wrong. Who in the drama really
committed the crime, an anomaly, so that,

in a movie’s kind of time-warp,
the trees in the park have devolved to sticks

& garden chips, that our little river is trickling
away with entitlements & the many flushes
of rental housing & Pusateri’s itself in the present

is ironically reduced to a 7-11?

Dennis Schmitz 1937 — 2019 CE

note: Dennis Schmitz was cool, and he was local, maybe the best known poet in the Greater Sacramento area. He taught at Sacramento State, and was a huge influence on a lot of poets around here; he taught many of my favorite poets. I had lived in this area for a couple of years before I met Dennis; he walked up to me in the audience at a poetry reading and addressed me by my first name. “Hello, James.” Just that. I was blown away; Dennis Schmitz knows my name? Did it make my day? It made my 1990s. Later on, I knew him a little better, a very kind and polite man. He is missed.
jobe

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Yogi Berra

our lives are like the splash
of one ocean wave on a rocky beach
it comes in – it goes back out
and is gone
finished
jobe

cluster of blue petaled flowers blooming — Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Try to think of that flower without the soil from which it grows, without the sunlight that helps it grow and illuminates it, without the very space in which it stands, or without the particular time in which it is there. Suddenly you no longer have a flower at all.
Filip Holm

Since the funeral.

the dust of the desert — in the mouth
and in the eyes
a dry wind to eat the heart while it still beats
for what it lacks
walking — the sky full of stars
the stomach twisted from need and loss
the ache of an empty life
one foot goes in front of the other
a step at a time — this desert goes on and on
the night passes one second at a time
"tell me, angel — what of tomorrow”
"tomorrow will be the same, jobe, inshallah”

jobe

People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush,
but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.

Li-Young Lee

The above video is from 4 or 5 years ago.

It’s goat milking time.

“cast a shadow across the sundial and darken it
pretend that sundown has come
gather the goats and bring them to the barn
for the evening milking”

"— but we have no barn
— we have no goats
and the sun is blistering hot as it is noon
if there is a shadow at all — it is in you
and not across the sun dial”

“so there is no goat milk to be had
but there is still a lot of this day yet to live
and that counts for something”

"a barn would be nice”

jobe

You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
Timothy Leary

My friend.

what have we been given—
and what do we deserve—
time is our equalizer
what we earn matches only
what we have given
and we what deserve
is the ability and strength
to make our own choices
nothing more

jobe

From "Tao & Zen"
Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.
Resist nothing.
Ajahn Chah 1918-1992 CE

a person kneeling down on a red carpet — Photo by Imad Alassiry on Unsplash

The age of rage.
in an age of anger
and rage
I am asking for your mercy
those who hate —
forgive them
those who legislate intolerance —
forgive them as well
we do this for our own sake
anything less and we risk
becoming that which we oppose
and losing that which we could be
mercy is a wonderful gift
when you give it to someone
you also give it to yourself
so give and give again
and yet again
jobe