Sound Barriers

Sound Barriers

Last night when you asked if I heard what you
said, I guess I could have told you that the
human ear hears a range of sound between
20 and 20,000 Hertz, and that maybe your voice
explored a territory beyond those boundaries,
or that sound travels at a rate of approximately
660 miles per hour, so your words must have
whipped by me when I wasn't looking. I could
have told you that at the exact moment your
sound waves attempted to enter my ear to begin
the second phase of the semiotic process, a
semi drove by outside with its air horn blasting.
Maybe I should have tried the sensitive approach,
that the dense fog of my emotions was
too thick for your words to penetrate, or that the
frequency collapsed against the cacophony
inside my head as I listened to the words you
didn't say.
But the truth is, I just wasn't listening.

Justin says, "I check your blog almost every day. Why don't you post anything?"

Well, I must admit that he's right. I haven't posted anything, but I do have an excuse, which is that I've been scribbling down the story of Augie's journey from mean old man to not quite so mean old man. The first draft is now done, so now I guess my measly excuse has become nothing more than an ex-cuse (whatever that is).

Justin, I promise to be more diligent in the future. Somehow I must regain my blog appeal.

Why I haven't added to my blog:

It seems like ages since I've visited this page. In fact, I only returned after Sharon asked what happened to the blog. That doesn't mean that my writing's gone to hell. It just means that right now my novel "Clay" is sitting beside me in the front seat, the poems are locked in the metaphorical trunk, and I've got the pedal pressed to the floor, dizzy from the journey unfolding onto the pages of "Clay."

Bear with me.

Be patient.

I'll be back with some tasty poetic tidbits.


In the meantime, google search jimbozoom once in a while. You might find something new.

Yours truly.

Jimbozoom

Literary Liaisons

Literary Liaisons

When he tells his wife that he's going
to the Library, he doesn't say that
it's the name of a gentlemen's club

where he studies the slinking gyrations
of Jasmine Joys, reads the curves
of Virgin Wolf, and researches the confused

stare of Teaser Eliot while they write
their literature onto a mirrored runway
with the nibs of five-inch stiletto heels.

Yet, he finds it odd when she says that she's
going to the library and applies a fresh layer
of mascara, then leaves in her lowest-cut dress,

and returns five hours later cradling
a taxidermy text. She's never shown
an interest in that discipline.

Whitey

Whitey

Mama said you had the moonglow,
but everyone knew you were albino.

When the old man got drunk
down at the bar and beat you
to erase his mistake, you didn't cry.

After he split and Mama went to the bar
and spread her legs to catch a man who'd feed us,
the kids at school yelled, Hey Whitey!
Who'd your mama fuck last night?
Pink-eyed and pale, you charged them,
but they just laughed and threw you
down to scrub your face in the sand.
Still, you didn't cry. You never cried.

Then when Mama froze on the asphalt,
too drunk to find the car ten feet away,
we went to school the next day
'cause we didn't have nothing else.
You stood in the hall, your head down,
and your fists balled-up in your pockets
while they screamed that Mama
was nothing but a whore anyway.

And as you used your shirt-tail to wipe
the tears from my cheeks,
I gazed up, hoping you'd
rub through to my moonglow.

Memo

Memo

I keep a picture
of my father
in my wallet
and look at it daily
to remind myself
how often he told me
I was not his son.