a kind of bragging

No one to bother me, I like that

Look at the sky

It is like the palette of an artist 

Who works with shades of gold and blue

Morning sounds from the first birds

Sunrise comes over the Sierra Nevada Mountains

James Lee Jobe 

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

Jack London

Let silence be the conversation I seek

What is speech but a kind of bragging

Shut up, James 

In life

You have already succeeded

James Lee Jobe

A quiet house. I am up late reading Matsuo Bashō’s ‘Narrow Road To The Interior.’ The haibun are pleasing, and I fall asleep in my chair, just an old man with his book in his lap.

At night the house settles

The occasional creaking sounds

Are very welcome

It’s our erroneous belief in a separate selfhood, with its insistent refrain of 'I, me, mine,' that keeps us from hearing and seeing directly.

Shinge Sherry Chayat Roshi

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let life enter

Seiho Takeuchi

The onset of winter

Short days and long nights

Tired from looking at too many words

I finally rise from the desk and go outside

To see some sky

The moon is hiding halfway in his house

But half can be seen

The sky holds a few clouds

Like an old man holding on to old regrets

I close my eyes

Cool air on my face

There are days when all I all do 

Is work on poems

James Lee Jobe 

Do not look at the faults of others, or what others have or not done; observe what you yourself have done or not done.

Dhammapada 4.7

Feet squared on the soil, the good earth

Heart open wide to let life enter

A barn owl’s hoot blesses the night

James Lee Jobe

 

Heavy With Crows

"Now the black horses rear in the foggy pasture." -Georg Trakl

These fields are dew-wet and heavy with crows and gloom, and it is still a long walk to get to the house of the poet. Just past dawn and hungry, a biscuit and black coffee was all, two hours ago in the darkness, the night before spent in prayer and shivers, under the staring eyes of the grandfather clock. One cold tick at a time. What is this weight of grief? What is this ghastly tonic that fails to heal? There is no promise waiting at the house of the poet. Is there even anyone there to answer the door? And now the shoes and the pant-legs are dew-wet. The heaviness of crows is a weight upon the soul, and the first light is not burning away the fog. From the far end of the pasture, hidden in mist, comes the sound of hoof-beats. 

James Lee Jobe

Every time you find yourself at home in your body again, let it be a moment of appreciation and celebration.

Kate Johnson

Heart Sutra, 1981

, by Ay-O

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James 

Everyone is a teacher

A stormy week in the Sacramento Valley

Rain on and off, on and off.

Above, in the high passes of the Sierra Nevada

Deep drifts of snow, are the bears sleeping

Down here, rain on the rooftop

No finches, no crows, no owls to be seen

And like them all, I am also laying low

It has been days since I even went outside

James says it doesn’t matter where you are

It is what you do that counts.

James Lee Jobe

Why are you giving drinks to the mice?

Old Hungarian expression used when asking kids why they’re crying

Let the old resentments go

Everyone is a teacher, everything is a clue

James Lee Jobe 

B.B. King - The Thrill Is Gone

Poems where far too much happens

Poems where nothing happens at all

Look at me; I’m just an old man 

Scribbling on a legal pad with a pencil

Waiting for the coffee to brew

James Lee Jobe 

Link: Club Paradise, a poem by Ishion Hutchinson

May some kindness come our way today 

Be it giving, receiving, or both

James Lee Jobe 

When I surrender to beauty, I’m letting go of the ways in which I’m protecting and guarding myself. I’m allowing myself to expand, and I’m letting go of the sense of who I think I am, and then beginning to experience and touch into the actual expression of spaciousness. 

Lama Rod Owens

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Thanks! 

James 

the daylight grew and covered all of the sky

We are all just children breathing, look 

Our hands are open

We rest in the quiet rhythm of the earth

The quiet rhythm of being human

We need peace after so many years of war

Our hearts are so tired

If only presidents and kings could meet in their dreams

If only the soldiers would set aside their weapons

And hold each other close through the long nights

Each one feeling the chest of the other 

As it rises and falls

There is no war in us when we sleep

James Lee Jobe 

Fierce compassion means seeing the suffering of our times clearly, and being willing to take a stand, to act to relieve that suffering however we can. 

Kaira Jewel Lingo

I try to leave some emptiness in life, it feels right to do so. Only one day happens at a time, and that works for me. I can see through my life to my death, and likewise, I can see through my death and so better enjoy living. Just now the daylight grew and covered all of the sky. How lovely.

James Lee Jobe 

LINK: In the Woods of Language, She Collects Beautiful Sticks, a poem by Valzhyna Mort

I wrote too many poems, I suppose

Who did I think would read my nonsense

When morning came sliding toward the end of night

Or evening came to the length and breadth of day

And candles flickered casting shadows

That flutter against the troubled walls

The words, the images, line up

Like heavily armed, young paratroopers

Ready to leap into the raw wind

And become the children of gravity

Time is nothing, merely a concept

And the stack of poems no one will read

Grows like a weed in midsummer 

James Lee Jobe 

We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone's calling, to lead a life that helps.

Barry Lopez

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

Rumi

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James Lee Jobe 

safety and kindness

It was more than forty years ago, so cold

The old rotten shed was fully engulfed in flame

I had pulled off some old boards for a small fire

To keep from freezing, sparks

From a stout north wind did the rest

And me just standing there in the snow

As the sirens got louder and closer

__________

Sunlight, clear and as sharp as a knife

And for tomorrow more of the same

And for the next day and the next

I begin to doubt that rain exists

Looking down to see 

The shape of my body in a shadow 

Listening to the soft sound

Of my footsteps as I slowly walk

Through the dry and uncut grass

__________

My friend, in this life I choose the light.

__________

Let this day be spent in unity, not divisiveness 

A day spent in the heart, not the mind  

May there be safety and kindness 

If there is victory, let it be in not needing to win 

James Lee Jobe 

Steve Kuhn Trio - Confirmation 

The here and now is always a good place to take shelter. Don't leave home without it.

B. D. Schiers

__________

But do not ask me where I am going,

As I travel in this limitless world,

Where every step I take is my home. 

Dōgen Zenji

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James 

mind is a trickster

Those mornings in winter 

When the mist of Tule fog covers the Sacramento Valley 

The early hours that pass like words between friends 

The harvest is done 

Empty fields shrouded with the mist

Dew on the grass in the warm morning sun 

Mount Diablo tall in the gray distance 

Summer 

Singing while I walk 

The mind is a Trickster, fools us 

The breath is true right up to the end

Which one will you follow

We are walking, with every step our shoes caress the broken sidewalk. An old song comes to mind and when we are sure we are alone we begin to sing aloud.

James Lee Jobe 

Hank Williams, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 

He who binds to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

William Blake

I consider poetry the proper speech of mankind. It doesn't argue, but convinces by its own integrity. 

 Alan Watts

Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.

Dalai Lama XIV

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throughout this life we are blessed

Election year

Do I want the fool who is President now

Or the idiot who was President before him 

I vote for the moon to turn golden 

And shine down on us all 

I vote for children that sing 

And I vote for my doggo 

Doggo in the moonlight for President 

Let the children sing 

Now 

James Lee Jobe 

Holding on always comes at a cost: primarily disappointment, and peripherally, exhaustion, because things are neither lasting nor dependable. Getting what we want is hard enough, but to keep what we have is impossible. 

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

At day’s end we are blessed with darkness

At night’s end we are blessed with light

All throughout this life we are blessed

With the truth of change

Bless’d change

James Lee Jobe

My whole desire is to burn myself away.

Hāfez

Shivering on the north bank 

Putah Creek rolls on under my reflection 

The creek moves along 

But my reflection remains still 

A cold winter morning in Winters, California 

James Lee Jobe

Thanks for reading today's post here at the poetry zendo. You might consider supporting this blog with a small donation through the Buy Me A Coffee link just below. Many thanks, James 

everything sings

Li Po, Hanshan 

I keep their poems handy

After hundreds of years passing by

Their poetry still shines like new

It’s the same with the blues - I still listen

To the same Muddy Waters records

Howlin’ Wolf, John Mayall, Mississippi John Hurt

Those notes still bend the sadness

Then my wife says,”Look at those old shoes

Honey, you need to buy some new ones”

Don’t worry, feet 

I know what feels best

---

Your mouth was created from soap and water

And when you spoke, your words were clean

Now, only tiny sounds remain

You swam in green, silent rivers and still lakes

Pain, proof that you were still alive

Far away it was war, broken families and corpses

People surrounded your house 

But looking through the window, you saw no one

---

A scientist might say that flies do not sing

And a poet might say that everything sings

This is a brand new moment

How will you spend it 

James Lee Jobe 

Boz Scaggs - We're All Alone 

The value of emptiness lies in the movements it permits or in the substance which it mediates and contains. But the emptiness must come first. 

Alan Watts

---

Future generations will looks back on TV as the lead in the waterpipes that slowly drove the Romans mad. 

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

---

No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.

Ajahn Chah

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James  

being alive right now

Franz Kline

The caws of a magpie are a reminder
That death is always near That’s alright Life is also near Always 

James Lee Jobe 

Think with your whole body.

Taisen Deshimaru

I have no fear of death 

Why should I, I’m not dead yet 

I live in this moment, not that one 

And I am alive right now 

What happens when we die 

Is there a heaven, a god 

I don’t know and I don’t care 

I don’t believe there is anything at all

Do what is in front of you to do

Sweep the floor, wash the dishes

One moment is equal to the next

So go ahead shoot me, stab me

Run me down on the highway

All I have to do is finish this poem

James Lee Jobe

Buddhism taught me that the way to change your karma is not to respond, but to feel the feeling without responding. Then it is passed on. It does no harm.

David Guy, “Trying to Speak: A Personal History of Stage Fright”

Holding my son again

After so very long

And now he is a man

Like me I feel the strength in his arms

His familiar scent

Oh, sure - you can say 

That it is only a dream

That it isn’t real at all

And yes, I am asleep….

….but I will take it

What else do I have

His ashes rest nearby

I will hold on

James Lee Jobe

Thanks for reading today's post here at the poetry zendo. You might consider supporting this blog with a small donation through the Buy Me A Coffee link just below. Many thanks, JLJ. 

a larger blessing

The valley and the creek hold their charms

Like a child holds laughter, brimming over.

From above, looking down,

The trees are like green lakes

Scattered among the well tended fields.

Crops grow.

Often at sunrise, when I am most alone,

I am touched by all of the life around me.

The dew-damp earth.

The purple sky to the east.

I bow with no one watching.

It is a simple bow, but genuine.

__________________

Let the day turn under, and let the year turn, too

Life has an order, but we don’t know it

And it doesn’t matter anyway

Let the day turn as it will

Everything that goes right is a blessing

And everything that goes wrong is a larger blessing

Just go with it

Tomorrow and all of life

Can handle themselves

_________________

We are driving through our town

Davis, California, and my wife asks

“Why are you taking this street” 

And I reply

“Oh, I just don’t want to go the same old way”

But friend, it isn’t true 

I so love my city

That I just don’t want to miss a single street

Who knows what we’ll see; a perfect redwood tree

Or a sweet child on a bike, followed by an old dog

Looking up, the sun blesses us with golden light

James Lee Jobe 

Rolling Stones - Sister Morphine

Life is like improvised jazz. We cannot regulate all the variables. We must play it with panache and flair as best we can.

     — Haemin Sunim

_________________

The future is made up of only one substance and that is the present moment. By taking care of the present, you are doing everything you can to assure a good future.

     — Thich Nhat Hanh

_________________

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James 

O life, you strange rubber band

1972 Jeep J4000. No special reason; I just like it.

Lumps of flesh 

Shaped into an old man 

The image of a human being 

What do I know anyway 

Just poems and dreams 

And such 

James Lee Jobe 

LINK: The Good Arabs, a poem by Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch

I must take care 

The rope I climb is long enough

To hang me 

And if I should actually make it to the top 

There’s nowhere to go 

But back down again 

O life, you strange rubber band 

Up leads to down 

And then back up again 

Reason is so seldom involved 

James Lee Jobe 

Art Pepper - You'd Be So Nice To Come Home to

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.

Linji Yixuan

-For Edna- 

It’s hard for me 

To remember your face now 

I’m closing in on 70 

And you’ve been gone some 40 years 

Dying at age 29 

I was told that you were cremated 

So perhaps you’ve gone the whole cycle 

Ashes, cast in a river 

Becoming part of the watershed 

Flowing downstream 

No more worries 

Joining a bay, an ocean 

Evaporation moves you along 

And tiny bits of you 

Maybe your heart 

Rise up into the air to become rain 

Pushed inland by the wind 

To fall upon the crops in the fields 

And you, Edna, nurture life this way 

And then return to the watershed again 

Cycle by cycle 

Season by season 

That’s how I’ll remember you, Edna 

As a part of Everything

You are Everywhere

James Lee Jobe 

A life has passed and nothing has been accomplished. Others call it failure. I stand alone.

Han-Shan

Meditation then strong black coffee 

Music from Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis 

Editing and blogging some poor excuses for poetry 

So starts the day, most days 

My doggo watches me 

With a look that says 

“This is a good life, friend”

And so it is

James Lee Jobe 

Pico Verde Jobe, conure and friend.

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James