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A TRAIN OF THOUGHT
and other poems

A TRAIN OF THOUGHT

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

I want to catch that train
It seems to always be on my brain
It?s been so long it drives me insane
I miss it so when I hear the whistle blow
I want to go with the flow
Wherever that train will go
Will it go slow? I really don?t know

When I was younger and full of glee
The train had a spell on me
Late at night with the echo of
The train through the valley floor
I dreamed I?d ride again once more
Now that I?m 50 or more, sometimes sore
Finding that home gardening is a bore
I walk along the core.
Will I ever ride again?
In my mind it?s not a sin
But if I ever get a chance
You bet I will at that
Thank you, Train of Thought


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RAINSTORM AT THE LANDFILL

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

A shimmering twilight exposes the night.
The rain has come and lightning might.
The Landfill Folk are wet tonight.
The rain drops come faster, harder.
Sounds like a pecking order on a tent roof.
It creeps slowly into all my waiting.
The coyote bushes brush wet
Against everything from head to toe
No matter where you go.
At first it seems such a delight
Especially at night.
You have to keep hold of your sight.
I know all the trails by heart.
I move as if I were a dart.
I?ve been here five winters of my time.
The first rain hasn?t changed a dime.
Being a Landfill Folk is hard.
I no longer carry my I.D. card.
Everything is wet and glued to the ground.
It beats your mind so bad you want to whine
That?s not very good or kind.
The storm gave way to an angry woosh!
Last night in the Landfill
The anger and the growing plight
The years I?ve been here.
Wetness sticks into your soul and sight
What a night.


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PEACE IS A BITE AWAY

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

I feel the Rebel tears run down my face.
The blood is pounding in my brain.
Anger is a kiss, an afterthought.

The days have been five and only water.
The hunger pains return from childhood.
The spell is broken.
The eyes stare at lost light.
Reflections of a shadowing dawn.

The mind is not, a cloud of mist.
The tears are forced out of the eyes,
Heavy with unwanted sleep.

Nothing is or what it was,
Forecasting another doom.
Ages of music bounce off the sky.
The wind struts immediate dread.
The earth?s floor slides in front,
Gleaming at my feet, wondering, intense.

The birds play a broken record.
Happy at Spring, shimmering with lust.

I feel like a floater catching fish.
The shade rocks, the trees talk.
The Bulb of blue with a whiff of fog,
Strutting across the sky.

The fog smashing upon the ground.
Changing time, for change it craves.

The body is wracked with hunger,
Eating itself.  Only the water revives.
The giver of life.

Coming to terms with the pangs,
A knowing loss.
The days are blended together like mud.

Peace is a bite away.


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FEAR

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Fear the police,
Fear the smog,
Fear being homeless,
Fear death,
Fear not.
Fear is the mind killer.

Mind is fear.
To think is fear.
To have sex is fear.
To never fear is painless?

Angels cannot fear,
God is not fear,
Children consume fear.

Fear breeds more fear.
My head aches with fear.
Fear is smelled by no fear.

Therefore you live longer
    Without fear.


*******************************************
 
LANDFILL FOLKS

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

      In memory of Rabbit, John Paul and the many People who made a home on the Albany Bulb.

Landfill in its own right, bright.
Little noise here at night.
No more of the Landfill flight.

Now people have walked on it like flies
Every type and every size.
People wanting to know the hype
Of the Landfill sight.

A Landfill movie, now in time,
Shows that there was no crime.

As I come back on my roam,
The city gleams across the bay.

Moving sound rebounds,
Making many buzzing thoughts abound.

Daylight plays twilight, making the mood
Mellow, thoughtful, meaningful.

Clouds? spark and blue-bank streaks of
Light play on the mind with laughter.

The winter haze has exited and
Spring has sprung its zip.
Painting green upon once-faded places
New things replace last year with new hope.

The night sky zooms towards you aqs
You stand over the bluff.
For the other side seems endless,
Twinkling lights pounding on the iris.

The look of glass, the ocean,
Spots of blue, fresh view.

A whole world different than any on earth
Built from trash and whatnot.
A time machine, so many types of
Trash and old seeds.

The wind freezes the sound waves,
While the sun stets.
Now the wonder of the Bulb?s night returns.

No sound, clear and sharp as night can be.
Bushes talking as they dance.
Beating on the mind, fear of the unseen.

The shadows of the night are rapid.
Moving animals, moved by hunger.
They circle the Bulb at lightning speed.
The abandoned camps offer little food.

The spring chill bites into every unloving and
Living soul as the circle of new life goes on.

A new park for Landfill folk?
What?s their fate?

A Rabbit working to help so few.
Who are left?
The Bulb will always show his trails.
Four years of no rest, he chatters.

The Bulb now remembers one of our own.
John Paul, I think of him now and then.
I know he?s happier being the wind.
A part of home.


*******************************************

LANDFILL FOLK

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Uprooting the Landfill Folk,
For the time zone is coming
Coming down on top of their heads,
Like into a white bone.
Land folk scattered in anger and thought
For their camps sit abandoned and
Their tools start to rot.
The very thought of a march came true
But the newspapers make out that
Everyone was shabby and blue.

The birds don?t seem to sing or hear,
They fear a time zone flashing here.
The summer has peaked its glory out here.
The landfill is divided and ready to shear.
I hear a time zone near.  It?s here.

The council woman has no thought.
She?s never been hungry plus she lies a lot.
The landfill folk know each other by name.
But those who govern Albany
Point out others? blame.
Pray for the fleet to go away.
Landfill folk really want to stay.  I may!


*******************************************
 
ALBANY LANDFILL

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Moon burn on an April night
Changing into May Day flight
Landfill changing into a time zone,
White bone.
The hold out?  That the ocean
Gives them no rest.
I only hope for the best!
I?ve kept this place, betting
To end a race, beating time.
The flowers are blooming
Birds are singing near.
But I see a time zone coming
On a full moon night.
Goats hide in bushes, delighted
At following the silvery
Haze of the moon?s flight.
By day the sun shines a blue
Clarity as in no other place.
For the time zone keeps coming,
Flashing closer.
The ocean knows somehow.
So as all things here,
Even the residents are unsure
Their ears tied to the ground.
For five and one half years
I?ve spent here,
Watching the seasons come and go.
But this time I want it real slow.
Landfill fleet, here to go,
I?m sorry but not crazy.

Jimbow the Hobow (James Lee Bailey) is
a longtime Berkeley street person who has
been homeless and ridden the rails a lot.



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PLANTS

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Plants cast upon you a strange light.
They fold up to go to sleep at night.

You say you don?t believe?
Take a look at a fern under its sleeve.

Don?t get lost in the
Warm green moss.
Rose is for love.
Sunflower?s a gift from above.

So don?t pick flowers when you walk.
You?ll stop the plant talk.


*******************************************

THE BIG ?08

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Anti   Crist
    Undercover
        Cellphone
    Cry Wolf
        Three Times
    No One Home
        New Age
        Hobow?s
    Looking
        Upside Down
            In
            A
        Dead Ditch
            To
            Anywhere
        Except??????????????????


*******************************************

A NEW ERA

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow 6-16-09


Welcome to the 21st Century. 
Wars have flowed unabated
The banks fold under while
Cars don?t sell well.
The World?s money problems call
For one hell of a bail.
Houses don?t get no slack
People losing jobs like dice in a game
Their overspending has now caught the mouse
A move to pump the fake money,
That isn?t for real
The World has shrunk in media size
Smaller spy stuff so no one can hide
Not even the C.E.O. can change that demise
Our new leader is pushing,
Not much,
Everyone seems to have his trust
For all of us, it?s a game or bust.


*******************************************

STREET LAW

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow 6/24/09

I?m writing in the library of law.
I cannot see a fake, without
Your time is crushing me.
Why is everyone playing with themselves?
Can I now speak??
Unto the laws that make us social animals.
Push my clock into a place,
Where much to deal with isn?t right.
I no longer have friends on the horizon.
Which means, I need the book
Of law.


*******************************************

UNTITLED

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

The stock market crashes.
The rich tell a forboding tale.
The world?s poor scrounge as bugs.
While Bush employs a lasting lie.
The war machine dresses like a whore.
The patriot idea enholds no fear.
The blood runs from the young to
Please the oil.
        Not the sun (son)
The game of chess is played on the backs of the unjust.
To keep the circle moving, only to
See it repeat itself.
The freedom to lie in the name of a
Threat that cannot be.
Only to keep knowledge from the eye.
Anyone with common sense can see
The tides are turning.
As the moon moves another inch since the
Dawn of time
Will the rotation throw our race to an endless Earth?


*******************************************
 
BERKELEY CITY

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow
Written on 2/27/09

I came upon a mound
Deep in the city.
This is what I found
How to be a homeless man
By banging my tin can
Smelling the food from a dumpster store
No longer sets it out for the poor
Their own people need it more.

Being homeless now is not by oneself
It?s plain to see why so many don?t think,
It could be them.


*******************************************
 
T.V. SET

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

Slash kindness
Console faith
Road rage
Phone page
Dead trees
Out of breath
A human bomb
Loose upon the world
Drones
May I spy
Black President
Cold mud
Cool thoughts
Hot sex
See sports run
Eighth grade
T.V. set
Lookback
Intense
Reject
Delete
Exit
Forward.


*******************************************
 
CHANGE (WHATTE?)

  © by Jimbow James Lee Bailey Hobow

We know what this land has become.
Most people I talk to are not that dumb.
What?s the future?
What?s it to some?
I know now that the streets
Are as cold as I.C.E.
More problems and they?re not nice
You beg the streets for money
It?s so hard.  It?s really not funny.
Way back around ?71 it was kinda fun
There was music and sights on the streets at night
Nowadays the nights, a jungle entwined in lust or bust
The police are only looking for the poor
To trap, taking a nap.
Snore no more, for their ears will find them.
Crack the dawn, and move on down the line.
As the ants will arise, small for their size.
Now the corn is made to fuel,
For the food there is no
Golden Rule.
What are people eating over there?
Seems their own government doesn?t care
While the starving can only stare.
The weather is beating us over our heads
So many fires, so much dread.
Seems the news isn?t good,
For the head, that said.
The poor are killed because of their kind.
The Earth has become a smog filled place
Is there any chance for the human race?,
Or is there enough space?
Is it true?
That we can still change the scene?
To take back the world and try to dream?
Let?s try to do good for our fellow man,
Try to understand that we must all change
Hope is always there.


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