Me and Trane and Miles

Picasso, 1907 Selfie

Farewell, Western Black Rhino.

Horned and rather nearsighted,

I have relatives like that. Indeed,

If one looks at just the skull,

There is a human quality there.

The Western Black Rhino, extinct.

Birds warned them when danger approached,

But in the end the dangers outnumbered the birds.

What can you do?

I wonder now if got it lonely toward the end,

With the last of the great animals wandering about,

Seeking out their kinfolk,

Just wanting to see a friendly face.

And then the final one,

The last Western Black Rhino,

Perhaps knowing the poachers were out there,

A bird screeching at the sound of human footsteps,

And the last beautiful creature just waiting,

Not even caring anymore,

Preferring death to the endless loneliness.

James Lee Jobe 

Do everything with so much love in your heart that you would never want to do it any other way. 

Yogi Desai

I said to myself: Some things do not blossom in this life.

Robert Hass

Wynton Marsalis plays Haydn

“Why do you put your death in so many poems? You’re alive!” 

“Clearly. I have to write about my death now, during my life. Very little gets written after one dies.” 

James Lee Jobe 

I feel blocked much less often though it happens. It's important to try towrite when you are in the wrong mood or the weather is wrong. Even if you don't succeed you'll be developing a muscle that may do it later on. 

John Ashberry

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Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.

Henry James

Granddaughter, JLJ

My friend, there are two skies in this life,

One is above, and the other is within.

You can rise up into one, or down into the other.

Or you can stagnate, and go nowhere.

It's a choice we make. I want to go down, within.

I choose to know the sky that is within myself. 

James Lee Jobe 

LINK: a group of poems by D.R. Wagner on the Medusa's Kitchen site

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They  bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.

Barbara de Angelis

Still Life with Hammer, Melon, and other crap. JLJ

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

Robert Frost 

Spring and autumn are the tide rolling in 

summer and winter are the tide rolling back out again 

so it was 

so it ever shall be 

James Lee Jobe 

rapidly aging poet

The writing is easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult. 

Charles Bukowski

You say that you are too busy to meditate. Do you have time to breathe? Meditation is your breath.

Ajahn Chah

When I give poetry readings I often change the words in poems as I read, I improvise. A lot. I think of John Coltrane doing riffs off of 'My Favorite Things' or Miles Davis taking 'Porgy and Bess' to new places, different places, in every performance. Me and Trane and Miles. Imagine that.

James Lee Jobe 

Photo by JLJ

Wind in the cave:

movement in stillness.

Power in silence.

Deng Ming-Dao

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Rumi

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jlj