the wheel-barrow full of pointless regrets

Palestinian Artist Laila Shawa

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I must have slept after all.

We might call it sleep, but I wanted to rest my mind,

Not just my body. Instead,

I read long into the night. Outside,

The full moon of August was high and glowing.

My body was reading but my soul was outside,

Walking in the yellow moonlight.

Then I woke up with a start in my reading chair,

The book was on the floor where it fell,

I must have slept after all.

Outside there was the first corner of sunrise,

And a new day. The moon had yet to set,

And so the sun and moon passed each other

At the corners.

James Lee Jobe 

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Although we say the mountains belong to the country, actually, they belong to those who love them. 

Eihei Dogen

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An actor pretending to eat on the stage of the empty theater. The woman who rushes in from the wings has forgotten her lines. O palace bathed in moonlight! The wild-haired woman with her mouth open; the false Prince reaching for his toy pistol.

Charles Simic 

Palestinian Artist Laila Shawa

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O Death, I wait only for your quiet knock on the door.

It is late at night and I suffer for my sins.

My sleep is fitful and I dream that I am buried,

but still alive, my mouth and nose are filled with dirt

and my lungs ache for a single breath of air.

I am dead, yet alive, and totally alone.

Waking up, I turn on all of the lights

as if the darkness in me could be driven out,

but I have always known that can never be.

I watch the clock, even though time means nothing

and most of my life is now behind me.

O Death, I wait only for your quiet knock on the door.

I cannot seek you out, but I will not turn you away.

James Lee Jobe 

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There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

Thich Nhat Hanh

by Tom Ryaboi

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What I Did In The Moonlight

 I planted my grief
in freshly turned earth
A tree grows there now
You should see the size of it

I filled my wheel-barrow
with all my pointless regrets
I put them out by the curb
A truck will pick them up on Thursday

I spent some time following my cat
She led me all around our yard
stopping to rub her face in mint
I rubbed my face in mint, too

The moon shone on and on 
climbing higher above the park across the street
"Who can stay awake longer?" I asked her
as she began her long arc back down

James Lee Jobe 

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Please support this blog with a small donation through the the Buy Me A Coffee link at the bottom of the page. Thanks.

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To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity. It's asserting the value of saying that the America we want and the America that we are proud of is one in which all children can access a dignified education. It's one in which no person is too poor to have the medicines they need to live. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

by Raoul Hausmann

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Fresh sunlight tickles

The east windows at daybreak -

Good morning, everyone!

James Lee Jobe 

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To me, democratic socialism means democracy. It means creating a government that represents all of us, not just the wealthiest people in the country. 

Bernie Sanders

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Information

This tree has two million and seventy-five thousand leaves. Perhaps I missed a leaf or two but I do feel triumphant at having persisted in counting by hand branch by branch and marked down on paper with pencil each total. Adding them up was a pleasure I could understand; I did something on my own that was not dependent on others, and to count leaves is not less meaningful than to count the stars, as astronomers are always doing. They want the facts to be sure they have them all. It would help them to know whether the world is finite. I discovered one tree that is finite. I must try counting the hairs on my head, and you too. We could swap information.

David Ignatow

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james