Whether Or Not Trees Believe

As the rain poured

its sound against

unforgiving ground, 

the clouds pretended

they knew the way back
to sunshine,
lightnings thunder
told lies heard by
unbelieving
trees
while
leaves leave
their
unwanted
homes
uncovered
and soon
whether
one wants it
or not,
the skies
make us
cry as though
we knew
who made
them.

Jim Hime©2015

Common American Tragedy

The cool air dank and misty, cars flying by at sixty,

Wrapped up in jackets still warm from trailer homes

Walked from to this waiting area for the school bus

To arrive on time or not, but we were there just 

In the nick of time to see that most common
American tragedy.

We loved the sixties for cars
As kids we drove them in our minds eye,
Across pages of tablets intended
For academic pursuits we drew
Life into the beasts and the muscles
Power of engines protruding
Through metal cut out of hoods
Uncovering the burgeoning blowers,
Blowing our friends minds with
Adroit adaptations of the commoner
Cars that our parents drove
Like the two that collided
Before our eyes
On that early morning
Ending of lives
Before our virgin eyes crying,
Limbs and people strewn across
A bloody highway at the entrance
To Ole South Trailer Park
Where we waited
For the school bus to arrive
On time or not.

Jim Hime @2014

I Wish

I wish that I could not cry 

but I am not afraid 

enough to stop this 

torrent of tears 

bleeding as it were 

from eyes that 

have seen too much.

I wish I could not laugh 

because I cannot stand 

to be merry 

in the midst of this 

dearth, this evil 

that abounds

in the sound 

of my hearing.

I wish that I could not speak 

and tell the tales 

of woe and misery 

that complete my 

existence that 

no one loved 

or cared to see.

Jim Hime @2014

Placid Face Lake

Which song should push forth in this night
In the midst of foggy shores along lakes divine.
The placid face of it shall surround us
Inside minds of hazy dreams
When the wind blows
Its knowing waves
Retreating and advancing
The sound lapping at our belonging
Dreadful darkness advances it’s ending
As the moon pulls tears from our faces
We are pushed you know
We are pulled
To this place of waters placid face
Deepness seeping up slowly
Clouds lose their luminosity
To the emergent suns revealing
For us this meaning.

Jim Hime ©2014

Loves Nothing

Every day I come 

to this page 

in my life and 

before it turns 

I look intently
at the emptiness
it reveals without
words to express
its loneliness and
boredom.

Alone, therefore,
the page without
its words, without
its longing or desires
says nothing,
expresses nothing,
lies about nothing,
imagines nothing,
implores nothing,
escapes nothing,
loves nothing.

Jim Hime @2015

Hard Times

You know

what a poem is

I wish someone 

would tell me

I have seen
lights turn
to dark
I have found
money in
the cracks
I tripped 
and fell on
hard times.
Writing is
no way to
survive
it just
makes it
seem like
it makes
sense.


Jim Hime ©2015

Hegel Hegel Hegel

Hegel, Hegel, Hegel;

What must I say of thee?

To know, to know truly,

The shape of a tree.

In Winter the frame revealed,
By Spring clothed by it's leaves,
In Summer fully formed,
It maybe in Fall felled.
To keep me warm,
To warm my bones,
Bones formed in my Mother's womb,
She now long gone,
The dust she became,
The dust she always was.
Life moves on changing
Geist flows on languid
What you see is not what you get,
Hegel, Hegel, Hegel,
You were true once,
But no more,
Superseded, suspended, supplanted,
Reprimanded,
By smaller minds,
Like mine,
Aufheben to you,
Always there negated,
We stare at thee Hegel,
Like the man hanged on a tree,
Only yours felled by me,
Your words like the leaves,
Raked into a pile,
And burned like your bones,
Kindled by hell's fire,
Keeping mine warm,
In the warm afterglow.
I drink a stout gestalt to thee
Hegel, Hegel, Hegel.

Jim Hime c1999

Seeing Reality

Drawn to light 

like a moth 

to a flame, 

is it a shame 

that we must die,
it is not a shame,
but a lie.
For in dying
we live.
So,
move to the light
little moth,
let not the heat
disturb you,
it's warm and drives
the darkness away,
it will surely
warn you
that all you see
is but illusion,
for the thing
that is real
is the thing
that you
cannot see.

Jim Hime@2015

Out Of The Minds Eye

One must not think too long upon

The things that one thinks upon

For if one lingers there in time

A line of thinking forms its creeping

Seeping between the cracks that
Form the lack of knowing in the 
Mind its mindful showing nothing
In the dearth of what we know or
Knowing or thought we knew but only
Sensed like a fleeting soaring alone
And lonely something flying low
And lowering then high and higher
Just out of sight of the minds eye.

Jim Hime©2014

Bee Death

In the sunlight's bold brightness

Rolling hills joined the sky on the

Edge of the world that also rolled

Into the endless repetition of seasons

Slowing for no creature willing to miss
It's trek through time upon moving time
Until the bee curiously crossed a path
Which ended its life and stopped
The buzzing vibrancy of its flight,
And the seasons stopped,
And the world that rolled,
They stopped like  the dead
Of the night.

I wonder if the wounded dog
That limps along the road,
Barely missed by the death
Assuredly awaiting his next misstep,
Is aware of his predicament,
And if he longs for the end
Of his hunger and loneliness.

Sunlight keeps rolling on
Until the night's shadows are
Strolling toward the dawn,
Throughout the dark time,
Wandering creatures move along
Paths and roads that carry
Them to an end that seems
To have no meaning.

Jim Hime ©2013

The Pill

The pill there is to take 

To numb our fear of our 

Mistake in thinking we 

Should guide ourselves
Alone amidst a world of
Hurt as go we on into
The dirt.

And go we on our feeling gone
Not good, not bad, not anything
At all.

Over the sink I turn the light
Upon this face that shines
Reflects in time of things that
Know or should have known
But it's too late to go back now
The thing that's out will not go back
Into its box it's bottle knocks
Against my head my inner dread
That finds me here before this void
That peers at me and taunts and screams
It's me yew need
Not life,
Not God,
Not forgiveness.

Jim Hime ©2014

Loons

In that room
I sat there with
All the other loons,
I sat mystified

In my own mind

It had finally come to this,

Like ignorance is bliss.

I did not come to believe 

Until I learned to bleed

Learned to bleed

In the metaphorical sense.

Alone there I sat

Where no more room was,

In my head felt trapped 

Like a lonely loon there,

Where no more room there was,

Among the other loons

And the darkling doom.

Jim Hime ©2014

Dog Fight vs. Man

Teeth gnashing 

Mashing snarled 

Grunts growling 

Hair flying 

Blood letting
Ripping rolling
Biting tearing
Flesh and bone
Exposed
In a torrential
Excitement of
Primal order,
Howling,
Who let the people
Into this dog fight?

Jim Hime©2014

As The Crow Flies

If never I had loved 

then ever have I loved 

that dream that was 

meant to betray me.

Alone we enter into
this misty languid world
unsure of what we know
until evil strikes and
As it does we must
then choose to embrace it
like love cold to life
that knows it not,
Or not.

The crow flies low in our vision
of steely things that mar
creations beauty,
but we do not see
blindly the ground that
grinds us down into
its grip, its knowing, its pain,
its embrace choking
us to death carrying
us back to dust
to dust.
Or not.

Jim Hime ©2014

Like This Would Never End

Speeding along side each other
In machines of sound and thunder
Down a dark and foggy lane
Late at night feeling no pain.

This early morning we together  

Over that straight and narrow 

Road we raced, we faced fear

While coursing through our veins 

With blood, courage to drive against 

Unknown, unimpeded, unheeded.

Faster we went, we drove 

We passed signs which warned

Of impending doom 

If we continued

Like the loons we were, 

We knew, but we cared little  

In the looming lesser light

Of a moon which shared  

What it could 

Like a friend

That understood

This need to speed

Against the odds, 

To live like this

Would never end.

Jim Hime ©2015

All Said And Done

Words don't always 

come together like this 

they don't come 

at all they 

just miss
unfortunate that
it was you all along
that it was you
just you or
someone
like you
indispensable
and insensible
drowning in the
wrong words
that would not come
at just the right time
to rhyme
with other words
that floated away
into a breezy sleazy
sleeping
when all was said
and done.

Jim Hime ©2015

Cowboy Hat And Girls

When driving with my mom and stepdad 

in the Pontiac station wagon they owned in nineteen 

sixty-five I found myself among my sisters, three of them, 

on this long trip we took from North Little Rock Arkansas 

back to San Antonio and I was wearing a cowboy hat
made of felt that was, of course, for all young little
boy Texans from San Antonio, an absolute necessity
because our grandfathers wore hats like these everywhere
they went, taking them off whenever they entered a building
unless it was an ice house to grab a dr. pepper or a big red
because, well there is no place to hang a hat in an ice house,
I thought everyone knew that. So we were driving, to continue
my story, and girls can be such a pain for young boys
such as myself and usually I let them know it
to remind them that I needed none of their obnoxious
commentary especially concerning my cowboy hat that
apparently annoyed them to no end since
it was an extravagance of which they could not partake
as girls of the fairer sex not wanting to imitate their grandfather
in any way at all, not even to stop at the ice house for a big red
and some peanuts or a snickers bar or a powerhouse.
I am sure I did not understand them at all.
So they threw my hat out the back window.

Jim Hime ©2015

Love Stories Lies

Love stories
more often
than not
lie to the storied

fantasy like 

hearing an old time 

gospel tune

that forgot 

that man is a liar. 

Like a phantom 

in the night

like a thief 

that believes

in the way 

he sees it,

like unknowing

the knowing

of the flickering

bugs light

floating like

the bumble bees

irregular flight

humming birds

wings blur

passed the eyes

of unbelievable

love stories

lies.

Jim Hime ©2015

Crush The Enemy Inside Me

I laid my life upon the line 

and surround myself with 

what I find alone or so it 

seems to be until the 

moments flash with what
I've seen to spare my life
upon the line this knowledge
is not known but it exists
apart from me it sounds
like love and scares me
and holds me calming
my fast beating heart
it holds me in its scary
arms and hands that
crush the enemy inside
me.

Jim Hime ©2015

Your Last Supper

Every supper is the last supper,

eating, devouring like there’s 

no tomorrow,

drinking the drinks 

of violence, holding on
to rage, an ugly face
facing the stark disgrace,
passed over pulled and
pushed along like you
knew all along what is
wrong with all and everything,
like a pass over passed you
over, like blood on the wall
was not yours, like eating
could assuage your pride,
your lie, your longing, like
you just ate your last supper.

Jim Hime©2015

That Time This Time

And so anyway there we were,
there we were among the young,
wondering how did the time slip
away so swiftly in an elegant

silence reminding us that we
were like that once,
we were young,
we danced,
we drank,
we lived like there was no tomorrow,
but then tomorrow came
and we cried,
we didn't cry for long,
just a short time,
and then we decided
it was not so bad,
we could do whatever we
needed to do
and then we did it,
and again the time
flew by and suddenly
we were near the end
and this time we laughed.

Jim Hime ©2015