Art DuBois Poems and Photos

Blog

  • Uncertainty

    Gratitude came to visit and sit down with Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

    And reminded them that much is not truly uncertain at all.

    Fear was occupied with financial worries,

    While Doubt wallowed in waves of despair of all that could go wrong,

    And Uncertainty was under the stress of health concerns that will inevitably change and eventually end the boss’s life.

    But Gratitude interjected,

    “Every breath you take is a dance with the infinite; even while your life is not infinite, the dance is.”

    Gratitude continued,

    “You will not starve. You enjoy a handful of pistachios as much as a mouth of buttered lobster.”

  • Faces (owed to Carl Jung and Smokey Robinson)

    I studied my face today

    While glancing into the mirror.

    I saw new lines forming on either side

    From the inner corner of each eye

    Trailing down to the nearly the side of the lip on the same side.

    It made me wonder if I cry all night.

    Every night.

    But the tears dry before I rise

    Like they’re doing me a big favor.

    I wonder what speaks to me

    While I try to rest

    And what it tries to say in this

    Rather bizarre way?

    The tracks of the tears

    Tell a story

    And during the day, they provide solid evidence

    That my smile is my daytime face.

  • Poem of Joy

    There are the broken people I’ve come to know

    Who will never heal enough to walk

    Straight

    At all.

    Whose bodies and minds and souls have collapsed under the weight of persistent

    Pain.

    Then there are those,

    The group to which I belong,

    Who live in joy

    With the foreboding fear

    Of the

    Pain

    Returning.

  • Photos 1 Random Selections (more to follow)

  • Art DuBois Video Poetry Feature

  • I will never be ok

    I will never be ok

    There will never be a day where sadness will not feel free to knock on my mind

    And send me somewhere I don’t want to go

    Or a memory will not flood me and make me feel a drowning sensation

    A gasp for air

    A clutch at hope in the face of despair.

    I will never be ok.

    There will never be even a moment when my sense of safety will return

    And a step into any unknown will not generate a fear as if I am dangling at the edge of a cliff.

    I will never be ok.

    There will never be an interaction with another that might not give way to me feeling slighted, insulted or manipulated.

    And hurt will be experienced out of the blue.

    I will never be ok.

                  But I find joy every day anyway.

                  I feel sunshine on my face on cold days.

                  I find beauty in the stars at night, despite the darkness.

    I will never be ok.

    I will be better than that.

  • Celebrate

    I know now why my memory haunts me.

    It doesn’t do it to betray me.

    It doesn’t do it to cause me distress and reliving of hurt.

    It is attempting to bring me back further than the hurt.

    It is attempting to reunite me with my purity of my childhood.

    Before it got complicated and hurtful,

    And before I processed it that way.

    It attempts to go back before each milestone so that I can touch the part of me that which was pure.

    So it stops everywhere along the way.

    I tend to re-feel all the hurt and confusion.

    I forget all those who tried to love me and those that still do.

    I still love all whom I’ve loved. They may too.

    I forget

    All those who reached out to me and I either found their imperfect selves

    Or engaged my own imperfect hurtful self.

    But now I am realizing that as I try to meditate myself back to the initial breath,

    There are loved ones who saw me there.

    Not that I was there, but when they heard me speak,

    They heard my hope.

    When they heard me laugh,

    They heard my joy.

    When I hugged them,

    They felt my love –

    Even when I did not –

    Even when I could not.

    I was not meant to be hurt.

    I was hurt.

    I was meant to shine a personal peace that radiated.

    I was meant to shine a personal love that burst forth.

    Somehow, sometimes I must have done that.

    My memories, when taken in the whole –

    Are something to celebrate.

  • Senses

    As my hearing fades I must consider the good in that. Perhaps now the sound of thunder will frighten me less.And then someone asks, “But what of music, Art?”

    And I glance straight ahead and answer, but only to myself, for speaking my truth aloud would only serve to alarm those who are in the vicinity who still hear well.

    I say to myself, “I will ALWAYS hear music.

    I have absorbed all that I’ve heard and enjoyed

    And even now, with my hearing still partially intact, I compose entire musical pieces

    in my mind to the extent that I hear them clearly and loudly as if played by the geniuses who’ve inspired this highly active imagination.

    The sound of a solo double bass putting down a simple five note funky melody is subtly joined by sweet bleeps of a trio of sax, trumpet and trombone that rise to its own type of thunder.

    A blast of energy blazes through in a blast of precision mixed with the swagger of Stevie Ray and vocals come forward from a mix of Janis Joplin and Bessie Smith

    and I continue to evolve this piece through endless possibilities as my feet tap and my fingers snap to new found options in the music I’ve loved so much

    and I know that nothing can take that away from me.”

    And then someone asks, “What about your vision, Art?”

    And I speak out loud that which I know.

    “That of which I have experienced as beautiful,

    My wife and my children and my whole family,

    My friends,

    My dogs,

    My ocean,

    My trees,

    And all that I’ve taken in with my eyes and experienced the splendor,

    are photographs in the scrapbook of my mind.

    They, too, go with me, wherever I go.”

  • First Light

    It is a hollow set of metaphors

    to say over and over again

    that the sun will come up tomorrow

    and bring a new day,

    without ever having stood in the predawn darkness

    and experienced

    the exquisite beauty of the first blast of light.

  • The Sound

    The SOUND was clear and pretty and insistent as it was melodious.

    I searched the trees for the source.

    I was able to discern the general location and then I heard the SOUND again, coming from the same area.

    I looked carefully and thoroughly all the while the SOUND repeating over and over and over again.

    I grew impatient at not being able to find the bird responsible for blessing me.

    I still had the gift of this beautiful SOUND; this beautiful song.

    And, now, I am ok with that.

    I don’t know the singer.

    But sometimes it’s the song,

    not the singer.