pulverized diamonds

Robert Bly

Those Being Eaten by America


The cry of those being eaten by America,
Others pale and soft being stored for later eating

And Jefferson
Who saw hope in new oats

The wild houses go on
With long hair growing from between their toes
The feet at night get up
And run down the long white roads by themselves

The dams reverse themselves and want to go stand alone in the desert

Ministers who dive headfirst into the earth
The pale flesh
Spreading guiltily into new literatures

That is why these poems are so sad
The long dead running over the fields

The mass sinking down
The light in children’s faces fading at six or seven

The world will soon break up into small colonies of the saved




from The Light Around the Body, HarperCollins


All Good Things / Jobe

robert bly

finding the father

My friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing - as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; it smashes up the boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow around the sides.

Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to go with him through the blowing and rainy streets, to the dark house.

We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered out in a snowstorm the night we were born, and who then lost his memory, and has lived since longing for his child, whom he saw only once... while he worked as a shoemaker, as a cattle herder in Australia, as a restaurant cook who painted at night.

When you light the lamp you will see him. He sits there behind the door.... the eyebrows so heavy, the forehead so light.... lonely in his whole body, waiting for you.

--

james lee jobe

my fathers ghost


My father's ghost has long arms

And a short memory. He reaches

From a dark place for the shards

Of glass I keep hidden in my heart.

And he never asks permission.

 

--

I'm tired tonight, almost weary. Lack of sleep. Earlier today I had a digital conversation about my father with a friend who lives far away. The conversation weighed down on me like an overloaded backpack. I remembered these two old poems.

all good things, jobe

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

jamesleejobe.livejournal.com

Robert Bly

The Teeth Mother Naked at Last

 

    I

Massive engines lift beautifully from the deck.

Wings appear over the trees, wings with eight

    hundred rivets.  

Engines burning a thousand gallons of gasoline a minute

    sweep over the huts with dirt floors.  

The chickens feel the new fear deep in the pits of

    their beaks.

Buddha with Padma Sambhava.  

Meanwhile, out on the China Sea,

immense gray bodies are floating,

born in Roanoke,

the ocean on both sides expanding, "buoyed on the

    dense marine."  

Helicopters flutter overhead. The death-

bee is coming. Super Sabres

like knots of neurotic energy sweep

around and return.

This is Hamilton’s triumph.

This is the advantage of a centralized bank.

B-52s come from Guam. All the teachers

die in flames. The hopes of Tolstoy fall asleep in the

    ant heap.

Do not ask for mercy.  

Now the time comes to look into the past-tunnels,

the hours given and taken in school,

the scuffles in coatrooms,

foam leaps from his nostrils,

now we come to the scum you take from the mouths of

    the dead,

now we sit beside the dying, and hold their hands, there

    is hardly time for good-bye,

the staff sergeant from North Carolina is dying—you

    hold his hand,

he knows the mansions of the dead are empty, he has an

    empty place

inside him, created one night when his parents came

    home drunk,

he uses half his skin to cover it,

as you try to protect a balloon from sharp objects. . . .  

Artillery shells explode. Napalm canisters roll end

    over end.

800 steel pellets fly through the vegetable walls.

The six-hour infant puts his fists instinctively

    to his eyes to keep out the light.

But the room explodes,

the children explode.

Blood leaps on the vegetable walls.  

Yes, I know, blood leaps on the walls—

Don’t cry at that—

Do you cry at the wind pouring out of Canada?

Do you cry at the reeds shaken at the edge of

    the sloughs?

The Marine battalion enters.

This happens when the seasons change,

This happens when the leaves begin to drop from the

    trees too early

"Kill them: I don’t want to see anything moving."

This happens when the ice begins to show its teeth in

    the ponds

This happens when the heavy layers of lake water press

    down on the fish’s head, and send him deeper, where

    his tail swirls slowly, and his brain passes him

    pictures of heavy reeds, of vegetation fallen

    on vegetation. . . .

Hamilton saw all this in detail:

"Every banana tree slashed, every cooking utensil smashed,

    every mattress cut.  

Now the Marine knives sweep around like sharp-edged

    jets; how beautifully they slash open the rice bags,

the mattresses. . . .

ducks are killed with $150 shotguns.  

Old women watch the soldiers as they move.

  

    II

Excellent Roman knives slip along the ribs.  

A stronger man starts to jerk up the strips of flesh.  

"Let’s hear it again, you believe in the Father, the Son, and the

    Holy Ghost?"  

A long scream unrolls.  

More.  

"From the political point of view, democratic institutions are

    being built in Viet Nam, wouldn’t you agree?"  

A green parrot shudders under the fingernails.

Blood jumps in the pocket.

The scream lashes like a tail.  

"Let us not be deterred from our task by the voices

    of dissent. . . ."  

The whines of the jets

pierce like a long needle,  

As soon as the President finishes his press conference,

    black wings carryoff the words,

bits of flesh still clinging to them.

    *   *   *

The ministers lie, the professors lie, the television lies,

    the priests lie. . . .

These lies mean that the country wants to die.

Lie after lie starts out into the prairie grass,

like enormous caravans of Conestoga wagons. . . .

And a long desire for death flows out, guiding the

    enormous caravans from beneath,

stringing together the vague and foolish words.

It is a desire to eat death,

to gobble it down,

to rush on it like a cobra with mouth open

It’s a desire to take death inside,

to feel it burning inside, pushing out velvety hairs,

like a clothes brush in the intestines—

This is the thrill that leads the President on to lie

    *   *   *

Now the Chief Executive enters; the press

    conference begins:

First the President lies about the date the Appalachian

    Mountains rose.

Then he lies about the population of Chicago, then he lies

    about the weight of the adult eagle, then about the

    acreage of the Everglades

 

He lies about the number of fish taken every year in the

    Arctic, he has private information about which city is

    the capital of Wyoming, he lies about the birthplace of

    Attila the Hun.  

He lies about the composition of the amniotic fluid, and

    he insists that Luther was never a German, and that

    only the Protestants sold indulgences,  

That Pope Leo X wanted to reform the church, but the

    "liberal elements" prevented him,

that the Peasants’ War was fomented by Italians

    from the North.  

And the Attorney General lies about the time the

    sun sets.

    *   *   *

These lies are only the longing we all feel to die.

It is the longing for someone to come and take you by the

    hand to where they all are sleeping:

where the Egyptian pharaohs are asleep, and your

    own mother,

and all those disappeared children, who used to go

    around with you in the rings at grade school. . . .

Do not be angry at the President—he is longing to take

    in his hand

the locks of death hair—

to meet his own children dead, or unborn. . . .

He is drifting sideways toward the dusty places 

        III

This is what it’s like for a rich country to make war

this is what it’s like to bomb huts (afterwards described

    as "structures")

this is what it’s like to kill marginal farmers (afterwards

    described as Communists")  

this is what it’s like to watch the altimeter needle

    going mad

 

Baron 25, this is 81. Are there any friendlies in the area? 81

from 25, negative on the friendlies. I’d like you to take out as

many structures as possible located in those trees within 200

meters east and west of my smoke mark.   

diving, the green earth swinging, cheeks hanging back,

    red pins blossoming ahead of us, 20-millimeter can-

    non fire, leveling off, rice fields shooting by like tele-

    phone poles, smoke rising, hut roofs loom up huge as

    landing fields, slugs going in, half the huts on fire,

    small figures running, palm trees burning, shooting

    past, up again; . . . blue sky . . . cloud mountains  

This is what it’s like to have a gross national product.

It’s because the aluminum window shade business is

    doing so well in the United States that we roll fire

    over entire villages

It’s because a hospital room in the average American city

    now costs $90 a day that we bomb hospitals in

    the North  

It’s because the milk trains coming into New Jersey hit

    the right switches every day that the best Vietnamese

    men are cut in two by American bullets that follow

    each other like freight cars  

This is what it’s like to send firebombs down from air-

    conditioned cock-pits.  

This is what it’s like to be told to fire into a reed hut with

    an automatic weapon.  

It’s because we have new packaging for smoked oysters

    that bomb holes appear in the rice paddies  

It is because we have so few women sobbing in

    back rooms,

because we have so few children’s heads torn apart by

    high-velocity bullets,

because we have so few tears falling on our own hands

that the Super Sabre turns and screams down toward

    the earth.  

It’s because taxpayers move to the suburbs that we

    transfer populations.

The Marines use cigarette lighters to light the thatched

    roofs of huts because so many Americans own their

    own homes.  

    IV

I see a car rolling toward a rock wall.

The treads in the face begin to crack.

We all feel like tires being run down roads under

    heavy cars.  

The teen-ager imagines herself floating through the

    Seven Spheres.

Oven doors are found

open.

Soot collects over the doorframe, has children,

    takes courses,

goes mad, and dies.  

There is a black silo inside our bodies, revolving fast.

Bits of black paint are flaking off,

where the motorcycles roar, around and around,

rising higher on the silo walls,

the bodies bent toward the horizon,

driven by angry women dressed in black.

    *   *   *

I know that books are tired of us.

I know they are chaining the Bible to chairs.

Books don’t want to remain in the same room with

    us anymore.

New Testaments are escaping . . . dressed as women . . .

    they go off after dark.

And Plato! Plato . . . Plato wants to go backwards. . . .

He wants to hurry back up the river of time, so be can

    end as some blob of sea flesh rotting on an

    Australian beach. 

        V

Why are they dying? I have written this so many times.

They are dying because the President has opened a

    Bible again.

They are dying because gold deposits have been found

    among the Shoshoni Indians.  

They are dying because money follows intellect!

And intellect is like a fan opening in the wind—  

The Marines think that unless they die the rivers will

    not move.

They are dying so that the mountain shadows will

    continue to fall east in the afternoon,

so that the beetle can move along the ground near the

    fallen twigs.  

        VI

But if one of those children came near that we have set

    on fire,

came toward you like a gray barn, walking,

you would howl like a wind tunnel in a hurricane,

you would tear at your shirt with blue hands,

you would drive over your own child’s wagon trying to

    back up,

the pupils of your eyes would go wild—

If a child came by burning, you would dance on a lawn,

trying to leap into the air, digging into your cheeks,

you would ram your head against the wall of

    your bedroom

like a bull penned too long in his moody pen—

If one of those children came toward me with both hands

in the air, fire rising along both elbows,

I would suddenly go back to my animal brain,

I would drop on all fours, screaming,

my vocal chords would turn blue, so would yours,

it would be two days before I could play with my own

    children again. 

        VII

I want to sleep awhile in the rays of the sun slanting over

    the snow.

Don’t wake me.

Don’t tell me how much grief there is in the leaf with its

    natural oils.

Don’t tell me how many children have been born with

    stumpy hands all those years we lived in St.

    Augustine’s shadow.  

Tell me about the dust that falls from the yellow daffodil

    shaken in the restless winds.

Tell me about the particles of Babylonian thought that

    still pass through the earthworm every day.

Don’t tell me about "the frightening laborers who do not

    read books."  

Now the whole nation starts to whirl,

the end of the Republic breaks off,

Europe comes to take revenge,

the mad beast covered with European hair rushes

    through the mesa bushes in Mendocino County,

pigs rush toward the cliff,

the waters underneath part: in one ocean luminous

    globes float up (in them hairy and ecstatic men—)

in the other, the teeth mother, naked at last.  

Let us drive cars

up

the light beams

to the stars . . .  

And return to earth crouched inside the drop of sweat

that falls

from the chin of the Protestant tied in the fire.

  


From Sleepers Joining Hands by Robert Bly. Every year or two I post this again as it is one of the most powerful anti-war poems I have ever read. And the fucking war still drags on. 

All Good Things - JOBE

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

robert bly - 2 poems



what the buttocks think


Don't tell me that nothing can be done.

The tongue says, "I know I can change things."

The toe says, "I have my ways."

The heart is weaping and remembering Eden.


Legs think that a good run will do it.

Tongue has free tickets; he'll fly to heaven.

But the buttocks see everything upside down:

They want you to put your head down there,


Remind the heart it was upside down

In the womb, so that when your mother,

Kowing exactly where she was going,

Walked upstairs, you weren't going anywhere.




a conversation with a mouse


One day a mouse called to me from his curly nest:

"How do you sleep? I love curliness."


"Well, I like to be stretched out. I like my bones to be

All lined up. I like to see my toes way off over there."


"I suppose that's one way," the mouse said, "but I don't like it.

The planets don't act that way, nor the Milky Way."


What could I say? You know you're near the end

Of the century when a sleepy mouse brings in the Milky Way.


-- from Morning Poems, 1997, HarperCollins

--

from Jim Nolt:


on Wed, Aug 19, 2009 it’s ...

POETRY IN OUR HOUSE

Our House Gallery Poetry Series

3rd Wednesdays Monthly, 7-8:30 pm
1004 White Rock Road # 400, El Dorado Hills
Montano de El Dorado Center (south of Hwy 50 on Latrobe Rd at White Rock Rd)
916-933-4278 Open Mic.
Come and speak your word or listen to that of others in a lovely Art Gallery.
The setting couldn't be better! ... and the Words ... oh, the Words ... !
Please join us for a fun-filled evening of "spoken word" art.
This is a FREE community event intended for all ages.
If you would like to share your stuff, please sign in by 7pm.
For additional details call 916-933-4278
Refreshments usually available


--

All Good Things, Jobe

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

 

robert bly

dawn

　

Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.

 

all good things - jobe

--

I don't know what sort of a God we have been talking about.

The caller calls in a loud voice to the Holy One at dusk.
Why? Surely the Holy One is not deaf.
He hears the delicate anklets that ring on the feet of an insect as it walks.

Go over and over your beads, paint weird designs on your forehead,
wear your hair matted, long, and ostentatious,
but when deep inside you there is a loaded gun, how can you have God?

--

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think ... and think ... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten --
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire..

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

--

There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word.
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks about is only what he has lived through.
If you have not lived through something, it is not true.

--

translations by robert bly

--

Kabir (1440 - 1518) was an Indian mystic who preached an ideal of seeing all of humanity as one. He was known to be a weaver and later became famed for scorning religious affiliation, seen as a threat to the elite. His philosophies and ideas of loving devotion to God are expressed in metaphor and language from both the Hindu Vedanta and Bhakti streams and Muslim Sufi ideals. Kabir is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. He was initiated by Ramananda.

--

all good things - jobe

--

Robert Bly

Watching Television



Sounds are heard too high for ears,
From the body cells there is an answering bay;
Soon the inner streets fill with a chorus of barks.

We see the landing craft coming in,
The black car sliding to a stop,
The Puritan killer loosening his guns.

Wild dogs tear off noses and eyes
And run off with them down the street—
The body tears off its own arms and throws them into the air.

The detective draws fifty-five million people into his revolver,
Who sleep restlessly as in an air raid in London;
Their backs become curved in the sloping dark.

The filaments of the soul slowly separate;
The spirit breaks, a puff of dust floats up;
Like a house in Nebraska that suddenly explodes.


--

Russell Edson

Ape



You haven't finished your ape, said mother to father,
who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers.

  I've had enough monkey, cried father.

  You didn't eat the hands, and I went to all the
trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother.

  I'll just nibble on its forehead, and then I've had enough,
said father.

  I stuffed its nose with garlic, just like you like it, said
mother.

  Why don't you have the butcher cut these apes up? You lay
the whole thing on the table every night; the same fractured
skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These
aren't dinners, these are post-mortem dissections.

  Try a piece of its gum, I've stuffed its mouth with bread,
said mother.

  Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into
its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.

  Break one of the ears off, they're so crispy, said mother.

  I wish to hell you'd put underpants on these apes; even a
jockstrap, screamed father.

  Father, how dare you insinuate that I see the ape as anything
more thn simple meat, screamed mother.

  Well what's with this ribbon tied in a bow on its privates?
screamed father.

  Are you saying that I am in love with this vicious creature?
That I would submit my female opening to this brute? That after
we had love on the kitchen floor I would put him in the oven, after
breaking his head with a frying pan; and then serve him to my husband,
that my husband might eat the evidence of my infidelity . . . ?

  I'm just saying that I'm damn sick of ape every night,
cried father.


--

Richard Brautigan

December 30



At 1:03 in the morning a fart
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.

I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
   my glasses on.


--

From Tim Kahl:



Presents

C. E. Chaffin
Monday June 8, 2009 at 7:30 PM
HQ for the Arts
1719 25th Street
Host: Emmanuel Sigauke


Craig Erick Chaffin published, and edited, The Melic Review: a journal that distinguished itself not only by its content but through the work of poets at its board in winning and/or placing in the InterBoard Poetry Competition repeatedly. He has won one poetry contest (Desert Moon Review, 2002) and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in By Rose and Thorn. He quit counting publications several years ago but has been the featured poet in various journals over twenty times. He is the author of two books Elementary (Mellen Poetry Press 1997) and Unexpected Light (Diminuendo Press 2009).

--

From Andy Jones:


Dear Friends,

The great actress, prolific author and talented singer-songwriter BELLA MERLIN will headline tomorrow’s Poetry Night at Bistro 33. We hope you can join us for this important event.

UK-based performer Bella Merlin is the creator of LOVE, LOSS AND LYRIC: a kaleidoscope of poetry, song, monologue and mystery. Combining original songs with rhythm and rhyme, Bella invites you to explore the human soul in what promises to be an unusual evening of theatre at Bistro 33.
 
Bella's acting work includes two seasons at the Royal National Theatre (both new works and classics) as well as appearances on BBC Radio and television and in theatres across the UK. Her publications include the best-selling THE COMPLETE STANISLAVSKY TOOLKIT, and her latest book, ACTING: THE BASICS is due out in February 2010. She is currently working on an album of original songs entitled BAREFOOT AND GUITARS, and she is Professor of Acting in the Theatre and Dance department at UC Davis. She will be performing in Jade McCutcheon's new play, ELEPHANT'S GRAVEYARD, at the Mondavi Center in Fall 2009.

I hope you can join us!

Andy Jones


WEDNESDAY, June 3 - 9 P.M.
BISTRO 33 - 226 F Street in Davis
Free Admission
Hosted by Andy Jones
Produced by Brad Henderson
Open Microphone at 10 P.M.

--

All Good Things - Jobe

--

Robert Bly - 2 ghazals



Dawn

Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.



Listening

The goose cries, and there is no way to save her.
So many cheeps come from the nest by the river.
If God doesn't listen, why are we listening?

Very deep water covers most of the globe.
Whenever I see it, I think of St. John.
There is no remedy for deep water but listening.

The King and Queen already know about love;
They search for each other through the whole deck.
While we play our hands, they are listening.

The day we die, we'll each be like the fish
Abruptly jerked out of the water.
For him, it is the end of all listening.

Like thousands of others, I'm eating beet soup
In some Russian inn. People write letters
To me from Heaven, but I'm not listening.

The hermit said: "Because the world is mad,
The only way through the world is to learn
The arts and double the madness. Are you listening?


--

All Good Things - Jobe

 

The Moon

Robert Bly

After writing poems all day,
I go off to see the moon in the pines.
Far in the woods I sit down against a pine.
The moon has her porches turned to face the light,
But the deep part of her house is in the darkness.

--

 

Selecting a Reader

Ted Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

--

 

Alley Cat Love Song

Dana Gioia

Come into the garden, Fred,
For the neighborhood tabby is gone.
Come into the garden, Fred.
I have nothing but my flea collar on,
And the scent of catnip has gone to my head.
I'll wait by the screen door till dawn.

The fireflies court in the sweetgum tree.
The nightjar calls from the pine,
And she seems to say in her rhapsody,
"Oh, mustard-brown Fred, be mine!"
The full moon lights my whiskers afire,
And the fur goes erect on my spine.

I hear the frogs in the muddy lake
Croaking from shore to shore.
They've one swift season to soothe their ache.
In autumn they sing no more.
So ignore me now, and you'll hear my meow
As I scratch all night at the door.

--

All Good Things - Jobe

Robert Bly

Ferns



It was among ferns I learned about eternity.

Below your belly there is a curly place.

Through you I learned to love the ferns on that bank,

and the curve the deer's hoof leaves in sand.



--from Loving A Woman In Two Worlds, Harper & Row


Feel free to email me poems, poetry reading announcements, or poetry links.

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

ALL GOOD THINGS - JOBE

Robert Bly

Dawn
   
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.




David Jalajel

The Ice

The icebreaker flaunts furrows of iron. Its hull ploughs on
And hammers the ocean. The pole's now for swimming, not posing in furs.
Bears and foxes flee south to where the ice holds on.

The air's for Olympus. The mountain robs Mars of his sky,
His destiny. His days slow down. Water works
Its ways underground. The atmosphere clenched in the ice holds on.

Canada's erecting columns at sea. Ships must now pay
Penance for this heat. Crude blood boils from wounds
Spearing the flesh of this final artery to which the ice holds on.

Heaven throws its gauntlet down. Growth consumes
The changing tides. It's a challenge for polyps harvesting the Sun
When the sea heaves. Circling the Earth, the ice holds on.

The gulfstream runs to a recess now. The abandoned coasts
Crawl to their dens while Greenland envisions valleys of honey.
London remembers it's the ides of March, but the ice holds on.

Our ending dream: Fire kisses the frosty wreath
Of Saturn's rings. It's a last dance for Dione and Iapetus —
A midsummer's air. Oberon still loves Titania. The ice holds on.




James Lee Jobe

The Ghazal of Jesus and Abe Lincoln
 
Spring evenings are so long and pale and cool.
The light lasted long enough for Jesus to make it
All the way to India! Sitar and table music filled the air.
 
A wife and three children; we've heard that story before.
Jesus walked East, his family sailed West and some other
Poor bastard died on that tree. Jesus felt the nails anyway.
 
Nails for a crucifixion have to be just so; too large
And the hands rip off, too small and they can't support
The victim. Long, thin, and with a brad like Lincoln's top hat.
 
Abe Lincoln never went to Judea, but he loved to tell the story
Of Jesus throwing the money changers from the temple.
He put Salmon Chase over the Treasury Department - same thing!
 
Jesus loved Mary Magdalene, and often kissed her on the lips,
No matter who else was present. She was beautiful, they say;
The womb and heart of the Magdalene are the true church!
 
You've read a lot about Jesus, James. Not a god, but a priest-king
Who told good stories. So did Lincoln. Like you, and like your father
Before you, James, Lincoln laughed to keep ahead of his sorrow.



I love writing ghazals, the ancient Persian form of poetry. The leaps, the concept of each stanza standing on its own as a little poem. Very cool.

All Good Things - Jobe

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

Jack Gilbert

Foraging for Wood on the Mountain


The wild up here is not creatures, wooded,

tangled wild. It is absence wild.

Barren, empty, stone wild. Worn-away wild.

Only the smell of weeds and hot air.

But a place where differences are clear.

Between the mind’s severity and its harshness.

Between honesty and the failure of belief.

A man said no person is educated who knows

only one language, for he cannot distinguish

between his thought and the English version.

Up here he is translated to a place where it is

possible to discriminate between age and sorrow.





Robert Bly
 
For the Old Gnostics


The Fathers put their trust in the end of the world

And they were wrong.   The Gnostics were right and not

Right.   Dragons copulate with their knobby tails.

Some somnolent wealth rises unconcerned,

Over there!   In the world!   Ponderous stubborn

Sorrow weighs down the flying Gospels.

Some enormous obstacle blocks our way.

The untempered soul grumbles in empty light.





James Lee Jobe


Welcome Home


                        Sorrow could live here
                       -Susan Kelly-DeWitt-


Outside, only darkness.

Inside, a numbness.

Sorrow could live here.


Tomorrow never dawns.

Time itself is silent.

Sorrow could live here.


Sorrow could live here.





Jack Gilbert, “Foraging for Wood on the Mountain” from The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992. Copyright © 1994 by Jack Gilbert. Source for Bly's poem: Turkish Pears in August: Twenty Ramages (Midnight Paper Sales, 2005).  Mine was written on the #1 RT bus on Auburn Blvd on Tuesday after finding Susan's quoted line scribbled down in my notebook God knows when.


Feel free to email me poems, poetry reading announcements, or poetry links.

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

ALL GOOD THINGS - JOBE

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Man Watching


I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.


-Translated by Robert Bly

From The Winged Energy Of Delight, Selected Translations, Robert Bly - HarperCollins

jamesleejobe@gmail.com

ALL GOOD THINGS - JOBE