Duncans Mills Ceramics
—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento
I AM NOURISHED BY STONE.
—James Lee Jobe, Davis
The beggar breaks the rocks, and I eat them. My soul is nourished only by stone and great lament. By sorrow. Every day lasts for a thousand years. At dusk, I give the beggar a few pride-less coins, just barely enough to keep him until morning. Throughout the cold night I lie on my back and search the dark sky for a friend. Just a friend. I shiver, and my heart is empty. I have nowhere to go.
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ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!
—James Lee Jobe
My thumbs are the captains of my hands. Attention! Fall in! These captains issue orders to the fingers who rush to obey. Together they fight many battles. Typing. Getting little things out of the sink drain. Replacing the minute screws in the frames old eye glasses. Typing out a poem. Some battles are won, some are lost, and there has been more than a few minor casualties. This particular battle has just been won.
____________________
JOBE, NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER, CLIMBS THE MOUNTAIN
OF LOVE.
—James Lee Jobe
Your voluptuousness is luscious! You are a mountain of love for me to climb. And look! See me scurry among your canyons and wooded valleys! I climb ever upward, my dear, surrounded by the flesh of your love.
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IT WASN'T A TYPICAL DAY, WAS IT?
—James Lee Jobe
The grandfather clock packed its bags and caught a train back east, hoping for new opportunities while there was still time. The curtains blew away on the wind, flapping madly as if waving goodbye, then shooting out into the sky like a thing frightened. The dog left, just giving up and walking away, and the cat took up with the neighbors, saying sullen things and lurking under bushes. The apples ran away with the wine, someplace more romantic, I suppose; I hadn't been aware of the relationship. With each loss I felt a bit freer, and lighter. Night was coming on, and looking pretty good. What now? —I asked the heavens. There was no answer, of course, but the sky was lovely, and the setting sun was so warm.
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JOBE FOLLOWS THE WESTWARD MIGRATION IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.
—James Lee Jobe
How nice to be sane at the end of it all, I thought. But even then madness smeared the sky with colors that were wrong. Yellow. Green. Dogs and cats made love together in the chaos of the streets. Suicidal squirrels raced in front of fast moving cars. Children laid down their toys and moved off west, singing about Leopold and Loeb. And I began to have doubts. Deep in the roots of my poems questions appeared, in that place where life, language, and sanity all run together, each claiming victory, each claiming a part of me. Finally, I moved off west also, carrying it all on my back as I shuffled along.
—Photo by Cynthia Linville
BUZZ, BUZZ
—Timothy Sandefur, Rescue
Honeybee's sweetness hides an amber sting;
She knows a precious, a dangerous thing.
Hides a dagger under her ring.
Want more from life than it's ready to give?
Want to be, more than to live?
Won't repent. Won't forgive.
The sultry heat of Carissa musk
Ripples in liquid red until dusk,
When the dance begins; whom to trust?
Her silky flesh is ripe with life;
Her brisk eyes bite with golden light;
The natal swell of hips invites.
Swerve from the plum and circle around;
Thorns like horns all the way down.
Clutch at the clouds on the way to the ground.
Buzz, buzz. The flowery hedge
Is not a boundary, only a ledge.
Life is sharpest at the edge.
Honeybee's sweetness hides an amber sting;
She knows a precious, a dangerous thing.
Hides a dagger under her ring.
Want more from life than it's ready to give?
Want to be, more than to live?
Won't repent. Won't forgive.
The sultry heat of Carissa musk
Ripples in liquid red until dusk,
When the dance begins; whom to trust?
Her silky flesh is ripe with life;
Her brisk eyes bite with golden light;
The natal swell of hips invites.
Swerve from the plum and circle around;
Thorns like horns all the way down.
Clutch at the clouds on the way to the ground.
Buzz, buzz. The flowery hedge
Is not a boundary, only a ledge.
Life is sharpest at the edge.
____________________
FOLLY PROMISE
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
The fool promises of love
are not for a night
in a noisy warped
amusement park
when emotions climb
like roller coasters
which flood light over us
in a spectacle,
what about
our shredded nerves
of a Dear John letter
in the morning
for convenience sake
kept in a music box
in a deafened past
that often makes
us cynical,
yet love is obliging
when Eros calls on us
with lighthearted gestures
upon a melancholy day
and slips out like cat
in a black handbag
with big changing mirrors
you carry
by the fun house
in your over-sized look
of goodbye.
_____________________
WHAT IS REAL
—B.Z. Niditch
Forgetting my music
for one night
and tuning in
to Tuesday Weld
in Pretty Poison
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
The fool promises of love
are not for a night
in a noisy warped
amusement park
when emotions climb
like roller coasters
which flood light over us
in a spectacle,
what about
our shredded nerves
of a Dear John letter
in the morning
for convenience sake
kept in a music box
in a deafened past
that often makes
us cynical,
yet love is obliging
when Eros calls on us
with lighthearted gestures
upon a melancholy day
and slips out like cat
in a black handbag
with big changing mirrors
you carry
by the fun house
in your over-sized look
of goodbye.
_____________________
WHAT IS REAL
—B.Z. Niditch
Forgetting my music
for one night
and tuning in
to Tuesday Weld
in Pretty Poison
about a cheerleader
then Snakebite
which scared
the pants off me
all because
you passed
in living color
the three "R's"
rebellion
rejection
and resentment,
having no answers
to your album
of questions,
preferring to open wide
my third-story windows
along the Channel
and play tenor sax
until a luminous dawn.
_____________________
MEMORY
—B.Z. Niditch
then Snakebite
which scared
the pants off me
all because
you passed
in living color
the three "R's"
rebellion
rejection
and resentment,
having no answers
to your album
of questions,
preferring to open wide
my third-story windows
along the Channel
and play tenor sax
until a luminous dawn.
_____________________
MEMORY
—B.Z. Niditch
Nature, like time
pardons
every memory
its forgotten miles
of word loss
from the cold reality
from an emerging affair
as you trudge up
the great blue hillsides
trying to find that crevice
of your former love poem,
it's summer now
in your absence
with a new watch on
my wrist for luck
by these rootless bushes
bidding a farewell
to a curious letter
I cannot locate
framed to the earth
into innocent oblivion.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
THE THREE FOLLIES OF LIVING
—Caschwa, Sacramento
—Caschwa, Sacramento
• Getting older – the vitreous floaters are move about with the energy of Olympic competitors to see which can irritate me the most
• Getting up – I have to make sure all the parts are working just as people do with their automobiles before a long trip
• Getting hungry – oh that omnipresent appetite…
____________________
—Medusa
—Photo by Cynthia Linville