that cloud - it looks like a flower

"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others." 

Buddha

The Sacramento Valley 

has entered me 

as I have entered it, 

we are one. 

Expanse of blue sky, 

wind and sunlight, 

fertile soil and me. 

Also owls, hawks, 

raccoons, and coyotes. 

We share this space 

between us. 

This vast emptiness 

contains me 

just as I contain 

it. 

Home. 

James Lee Jobe

"The only cats that are worth anything are the cats that take chances."

Thelonious Monk

I see I have arrived a little late

for the end of my life.

I have been in no hurry, and it’s true

that I get distracted quite easily.

An owl hoots and I might listen

for a couple of years.

And that cloud - it looks like a flower,

No, it looks like Liza Minnelli.

The dinner last night took me

several months to prepare.

Just slow down everyone,

What’s the hurry? Let Death wait a bit.

Why miss out on all the wonder?

James Lee Jobe

A man on a bicycle 

floats 

down the street 

smiling. 

Two doves 

make sweet sounds 

as they eat the birdseed 

that I leave for them. 

Today a blue jay 

also dined here. 

“Welcome, friend."

The air is warmed 

by the love of summer, 

and I so love the world, 

right here 

where I am. 

James Lee Jobe

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-bearded old men with no homes and broken shoes-

"As human beings, we are all the same, there is no need to build some kind of artificial barrier between us." 

Dalai Lama XIV

These houses of flesh and bone.

The breath of life moves through a deathless valley. –Lao Tzu

We live in these houses of flesh and bone, 

Walled in by the soul of our own existence, 

Roofed by that love which we can create 

With our own hearts, our own experience. 

In time, we leave these houses and move 

Into the atoms of some other far moment, 

A moment beyond our measure and sight, 

As if we only continue on in the passing 

Of one second into the next, in between 

The breaths of our different thoughts. 

Here, we are men, we are women. 

There, we are the beams of light sent 

From one heaven to another heaven, 

And there millions of these heavens, 

And the beams of light illuminate the road 

That our souls walk through space. 

James Lee Jobe

Flowers 

on the valley meadows, 

like angels. 

At night, 

stars above 

in the meadows of the sky, 

like jewels. 

And in my heart, 

all these poems. 

This is my world.

James Lee Jobe

"Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner." 

Carlos Santana

Pieces of my soul were left in the glade for me to find. On a long journey, I found them by chance. Random things happen around us all the time. There is something to be said for the beauty of coincidence. It was a good day. sunshine and clouds in equal measure. Breeze, but something less than a wind. Stepping out from the trees into the glade, there on the ground, were some pieces of my soul that I had been missing for all of my life. What did they look like? Like bearded old men with no homes and broken shoes. Claiming these pieces made me more complete, and the same for them. Not whole, but better than before. Now I have to wonder if there might yet be more of my soul elsewhere, waiting. Time has no compass, north is constant, and my journeys are most likely behind me. And my soul as it is? It's pretty good. In this way I shall begin the years that end my life. 

James Lee Jobe

"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind." 

Timothy Leary

Sonny Rollins 

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James Lee Jobe

3 short ones

Kindness begets kindness and love begets love. 
Do your best and share your heart.

James Lee Jobe 

Isa Ebrahim

each of us is a planet 

and we are troubled 

by the people that we contain 

are there too many of them 

are they polluting us 

or making wars 

your planet spins in a wild universe 

oh friend 

what is this madness 

that we call life 

-----

a perfect day 

blue sky with little puffs of clouds 

that look like hashish smoke 

from mother nature’s hookah 

sunshine like gold

-----

there are people who say 

that only humans have souls 

others say that everything has a soul 

or is a part of a great over-soul 

even rocks and soil

and yet there are others 

who don’t believe in souls at all 

last night a hard storm came 

and knocked out the electricity for hours 

I didn’t light a candle 

I sat in the total darkness 

listening to the rain and wind 

wrapped in an old blanket 

James Lee Jobe 

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and 
drag and means nothing in the end.  

Jack Kerouac

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Thanks, James 

the truth in the light

“The very idea of higher states of consciousness is absurd. Comparing one state of consciousness to another and saying one is "higher" and the other is "mundane" is like eating a banana and complaining it's not a very good apple.”

Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality

Kylie Woon

the sound of the wind 

the sound of tree branches 

rubbing together 

the sound of dried leaves 

blowing across the ground 

listen harder 

from somewhere nearby is the sound 

of one bird singing 

sweet and tiny moments rest 

in the quiet corners of being alive

_____________________

stories and light can show our truth   

but not always all of the truth  

details omitted from a story   

can hide the harder facts   

and where there’s light there’s shadow  

friend  

what is your story  

how much of your truth is in the light  

and how much of mine 

_____________________

America is now a map of lies, a map of bigotry. Perhaps it always was, and I just didn’t see it. It is easier to buy a gun than it is to find a safe place to live. If you hate the right people, the bulk of the population will love you; your hatred will be admirable, like an achievement. If you hate the right people, the brown ones, the map of lies will unfold at your feet. At last you will have a place to go where hate is love, where servitude is equality. The collective hatred and bigotry will take on the shape of a hot air balloon to lift the true believers up to their make-believe heaven.

James Lee Jobe

Kylie Woon

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Thanks, James 

a warning to ants

"You are not a drop in the ocean, you are an entire ocean in a drop."

Rumi

waking after two hours sleep 

and going outside for the fresh air 

I know this is my country 

the place I belong

when I hear an owl 

and my entire life 

is summed up in its call 

James Lee Jobe 

Tomas Tranströmer - TRACK

2 A.M. : moonlight. The train has stopped

out in a field. Far-off sparks of light from a town,

flickering coldly on the horizon.

As when a man goes so deep into his dream

he will never remember that he was there

when he returns again to his room.

Or when a person goes so deep into a sickness

that all his days become some flickering sparks, a swarm,

feeble and cold on the horizon.

The train is entirely motionless.

2 o'clock: strong moonlight, few stars.

-translation: Robert Bly

watch out, little ants
I'm moving the water hose
to the closer tree

James Lee Jobe  

the heart is wild and hunts 

among the pines of the sierra nevada   

for a great gray owl or a red tail hawk   

the years drip time like a candle drips wax   

along the headwaters of the yuba river   

the wild heart turns white with age   

and hides in the deep drifts of snow  

James Lee Jobe  

if your life is so hard

with your career and your home

--oh how you are put upon--

come and meet  a family from guatemala

that has neither

James Lee Jobe

Miles Davis Quintet -Live in Paris, 1960

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James 

pig blood reflecting light

“A Zen master's life is one continuous mistake.”

Dōgen Zenji

Aegis Strife

poems:

an odd and somewhat mystical gate opened 

and doctors and nurses came to me at last 

with torches and lanterns 

(I think of them as trail scouts)

they will light the way now for me and my cane 

to the final path 

it is alright friend 

I don’t mind that there is only one path left to me 

you see the choice is not between 

having one way or many 

the choice is between having one path 

or none at all 

so raise the lantern high 

dear doctor 

dear nurse 

for wherever this trail leads 

I must walk it 

and I am very much ready 

to begin 

----------

pork chops defrosting on an old chipped plate 

with watery drops of pig blood reflecting light 

from the warm beautiful sun 

a light as soft as a touch 

dappled across the windows 

filtered as it is by the green leaves 

of the crape myrtle trees 

that are taller than the old house 

----------

the weapons have been cleaned and oiled 

and rest now on racks in perfect rows 

waiting for tomorrow’s battle 

some of the soldiers rest as well 

but some are wide awake 

staring into the darkness 

          night on planet earth 

----------

Who poisoned the sky with the language of hate? 

Poisoned the earth and the sea? 

The language of hate 

Is yet another pandemic.

And citizen, it spreads like those germs

That you breathe.

random thoughts: 

-Age 67, and in the mirror I see the face of my Uncle Earl.

-Big money won both of America's revolutions. America is a myth.

-The squirrel wants to be chased by my doggo.My doggo obliges. 

-Why does the earth need 200 (or so) countries? It doesn't. I don't believe in the concept of 'countries.' Let's pick one really good country and run the planet that way. Norway or Iceland. Canada. But not America.

James Lee Jobe 

Gene Vincent & The Blue Caps

Be Bop A Lula

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JLJ 

the space between 2 seconds

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece. 

Vladimir Nabokov

Marko Köppe

we exist in the space 

between two seconds

between darkness and light

the second before 

and the second yet to be

are of no consequence 

we are everything

and everything is us

breathe in 

open yourself 

to the beautiful emptiness

exhale

If you can, hide me.

Cut a door into the gray sky and lock me behind it.

Raise up the edge of the river and let me slip under

while no one is watching.

Hide me in trees, hide me in seas.

I will shave off this beard and change my name,

I will purchase a hat that hides my eyes and shadows my face

and sends a subconscious message to people on the street

to move away from me.

I want silence and solitude.

I want secrecy.

I am dangerous, I am ridiculous, I am nothing.

Nothing.

a cold night 

I shiver as I write down 

the names of the gods I deny 

and then erase them all 

the page is again blank 

memories watch me 

or so it seems 

I rise from the hard straight chair 

and wrap a blanket around myself 

return 

sit 

and pick up the pencil 

to begin again 

this could take a long time 

from behind a memory holds me 

in her whispery arms

James Lee Jobe

LINK: a poem by Jalal Al-Din Rumi, “Where did the handsome beloved go?”

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JLJ