James Lee Jobe and Stuart Canton
Monday, August 17, 2015 at 7:30 PM
Fremont Park, between 15th and 16th and P and Q
Host: Bethanie Humphreys
James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His online publications include Convergence, Knot Magazine, Poetry 24, Poetry Superhighway, and The Original Van Gogh Anthology. Jobe has authored five chapbooks, and his blog is PABLO, at jamesleejobe.blogspot.com. He has lived in the Sacramento, California area for 25 years.
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CATHY KOCHANSKI: CALAVERAS BIG TREES PARK
The Redwood tree was 1000 years old
and I opened my sleeping bag for a nap.
There were actual openings in the side of the tree
the size of small rooms. No one else was around.
Inside the tree I dreamed of a day we never shared.
We climbed rocks along a swift mountain river.
It was a hot summer day, and we stripped naked
and jumped in. We drank wine and you kissed me.
“Why did you have to die?” I asked you that, finally,
after thirty years of mourning you. “Everything hurt.”
That’s all you would say about it. You knew I loved you,
so I didn’t say it this one time. Then you smiled
and asked me if I wanted to swim again.
And I did. I really did.
James Lee Jobe
-from CONVERGENCE, Summer 2015
Stuart L. Canton is a student at CSUS where he is studying literature. He was most recently published in The American River Review, Calaveras Station, and WTF!! His poetry has recently found some connection with ecological concerns while he has been experimenting both with surrealism and language, trying to find the right combination of words and sounds for his poems.
signs
we walked the whole day- 24th to 36th, 36th to 3rd, 3rd to 16th : talking about things
that we would never remember but it was the sounds: the affectionate sounds, the inquisitive tones, the softer notes and then the excited louder ones. All the data would sift away like the muck gold panners had thrown back to the river. This same river we
went to in Old Town, looking for golden things between us, refusing to acknowledge the pyrite. We walked over the cobblestones and down to the docks, to the water, and we found two sea lions lying side by side in the sun. A large bull and a smaller cow- the male had one flipper laying over the top of the female. The male was still and he slept, or just rested with eyes closed. The nestled female would squirm then rest then roll then shift- the bull would be still a while before turning his head to look at her, or adjusting to accommodate without making a large move. As we sat cross-legged on the boards and watched these animals, it seemed to me that seeing them here, like this, this almost meant something.
