jopomojo

How to Move to Canada is the title of a book snagged from a Free Little Library and packed up with the thousand things jammed into my ailing Highlander and squeezed through the needle's eye of Sault Ste. Marie, mon amour in the passanger seat and navigating along the northern shore of Lake Huron through Sturgeon Falls, with a stop for lunch and to see her lovely tante et oncle. I am neither a rich...

The border guards raised their eyebrows at the amount of stuff we were hauling into Canada from the land of the insane to the south. So we had to get out and make an accounting. A friendly interrogation ensued, since the mutual love between our two lands persists despite ongoing questions about obliviousness and drunken driving of the ship of state. My love and I answered their questions satisfact...

The Sleepy Hollow Motel, between the thumb and forefinger of westernmost Gitche Gumee, is where my love and I lie in the innocence of love and the guilt of humankind. We’ve dined on peanut butter and bread and the last few ounces of the Monkey’s Shoulder we brought with us from Washington State (a gift from a Spokane friend, now transformed to emptiness). And now, after making love, we sink into t...

From Devils Tower in Wyoming to the Black Hills of South Dakota, arriving on the set of the old west Deadwood and tracing the footsteps of Wild Bill and Seth Bullock to await the dawn over the presidential district, we walk the gulch and gawk at fellow gawkers hearkening back to the 1800s and keenly felt in the inner truth of the present madness afflicting these United States and all of us teeteri...

Sunrise off the interstate syncopates our Montana sojourn waking up in Billings to the music of regrets merging into a melody of love’s momentous consolation in the family of things, in shared memories and plans, in the motel breakfast buffet, in the foibles of friendship and the knowing what not to say when politics and friendship collide. At the Wyoming state line meadowlarks begin to sing in ea...

Sunrise separates the night from the day. And on this day I'm driving away from the gray with lightning and hail at my back and the music of the mysterious mountains before me, the imprint of the constantly changing dance of light and dark and meaning and chaos playing out like a piano scroll made of dark pavement and painted lines and rumble strips keeping me in line. I repent of my too harsh jud...

The family of all things, as Mary Oliver put it, is where we struggle to find our place. When I think of my father's love and the legacy of love he left, I see myself standing there. Then I think of my mother and her grief in the wake of him disappearing across the distant horizon where the river empties itself into the ocean and the sun sets for us all. But then I think of this dawn, this sunrise...

Early morning traffic under the brutal comfort of the unangry orange and gold sunrise, vermillion and scarlet, pale pink and cobalt mauve moving into a deep and infinite blue. Something heavy being pulled along the unforgiving solidity of the highway, the driver listening to right wing radio conspiracy theories and taking gulps of coffee. A sedan with headlights befitting five a.m. gliding in the...

Inwardly free of sorrow, the sun radiates its fullness to the sheltering morning as the verdicts of wisdom shine forth and the dull-wittedness of the deceptive is revealed in the sudden early light of summer speeding into spring, and the location of dawn on the eastern horizon inches to its maximum point in the land of the midnight sun. I wake from a solid sleep with the aching bones of old age hi...

The abysmal morning carries me on a current of dismay at abyss upon abyss, and yet the river of friendship continues to flow toward the Sea — I must believe it does and that these many changing lines must point to a place downstream past these eddies of confusion and propaganda to where the river turns again to flow toward the places I love, west past Umatilla, The Dalles, Hood River, Multnomah Fa...

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The bent branches of dawn sway to the music of the sun, finding the right moment in the moment of sunrise to face the day's trials and awaken with joy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

As promised, I circled back around to fill in my gaps in Writer Pilgrim by So Elite ’s month-of-May song-title poetry challenge — and got my entries in just before the clock struck midnight on May 31, 2024. So I’m reposting the letters I’d missed along the way: A , B , Q , R , S , T , U , and V . I followed the rules and limited myself strictly to song titles (with some poetic license applied to c...

The lake, the youngest daughter, receives the light of the sun who is, at sunrise, the father. My pondering of the I Ching this morning tells me to tread lightly down that golden path. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The sunrise woos me to wake up just as my beloved woos me to continue dreaming into day while she rides the train of love to endure her day of work, wooing me silently every breathing moment of the workday she suffers through, every twinge of her torn meniscus continuing to hobble her best intentions to run after me in triumph. What else can I tell you about my bedazzled beloved one? She inhibits...

The sky at first glance today was like a cave painting from a paleolithic morning and I felt my sleep had been cut short by its music clinging to my heartbeat till I woke and went outside to fathom with my seven senses the dimensions of the day. I couldn't get away from the intensity of that sky even though for a moment I tried and thought about returning to my bed to fall back to the sleep of my...

The generous sky spreads out a table of righteousness before me in the presence of my enemies and friends. The latter thankfully are far more numerous, I wager, and I hope to make friends of the former by the day's end. But for now, I stand in the brisk air of early morning in Spokane and accept that I am a mere whisp of the breeze stirring the leaves of mid-spring on its way to summer and autumn...

Whiskeytown Excuse me while I break my own heart tonight dancing with the women at the bar, waiting to derail, too drunk to dream. Take your guns to town , Captain Smith , the rain won’t help you when it’s over, pawn shop ain’t no place for a wedding ring . Somebody remembers the rose, black arrow, bleeding heart. 16 days, yesterday’s news, reasons to lie, don’t wanna know why. X Your phone’s off...

* sequel to yesterday’s photo and poem, for paid subscribers everyone This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Randy Newman (The Girls In My Life, Pt. 1) Sail away, Suzanne. I love L.A., naked man. I think it’s going to rain today. It’s money that matters, old man. Little criminals in Germany before the war — Sigmund Freud’s impersonation of Albert Einstein in America. You can leave your hat on, Linda. You’ve got a friend in me, Marie. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subs...

Kansas Dust in the wind, how my soul cries out for you. Don’t open your eyes, lonely wind. Carry on wayward son, nobody’s home. Stay out of trouble — Angels have fallen. Play the game tonight, the pilgrimage down the road, the devil game. Fight fire with fire — Don’t take your love away. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,...

I once had a mother named Mom Who had a secret identity in Guam, She used to take trips To the store to get chips And come home with a nuclear bomb. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

* Second image and poem for paid subscribers everyone. (unpaywalled) Then one morning you wake up To birdsong in the garden Outside your window, and light Streaming into a swept-clean Space of possibility Waiting for your thoughts and dreams. You feel buoyant and awake, As though the mountain ranges Of the world sprawled at your feet, And the oceans splashed blessings On your brow, and cedar trees...