jopomojo

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the tipping point of dawn like a boomerang returning but flying just beyond the reach of your outstretched fingers as the morning proceeds in unostentatious yellow the bright hem of a dark skirt of clouds above the eastern horizon concealing credit for the accomplishment and only reveling humbly in the golden changing of the night into day of the day into many days of the summer season suddenly in...

Each person is a genius — extruded from the collective unconscious, the family of things and non-things burgeoning into the light of morning, the lovely light of the dawn. Imagine a boat anchored through the night now awakening with a family on board ready to break their fast and hoist their sails, each member playing a part in the yin and yang of the embarkment into the final joys of the summer t...

Three poems from Tulips for Elsie , pp. 120-122, written and performed by Jonathan Potter — from the jopomojo poetry podcast. 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

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 color of morning / as a ripening peach / the amble of sunrise / as an old map that changes / take a breath or look away / and suddenly the day begins 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 struggling sun well risen looks at me like a glum lover tired of grinding through the smoke and grit of another sky in the grim infinity of possible skies of August. Through the trees, we exchange glances, the sun seeming insubstantial compared to my solidity, my own air-conditioned skin feeling the faint beginning of the summer's smoldering end. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

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

Hanging fire like an old suit in the closet of high heaven, the sunrise takes its sweet time blinding the eyes of morning while breakfast's thoughts of lunch get run over on the road. The silhouettes of lampposts line the highway, some surveilling with mounted cameras the dawn while paltry hopes and slim fears compel the coming storms to hasten from the ocean. Meanwhile, up above, the blue and the...

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 morning clouds came and went, came and went, and the breezes pink made mauve-gold dimples where green grass bent. The night was empty for having spent its last gold coin on a deep drink of morning clouds where they went across the ripples that lent the surface of the river's ink these mauve-gold dimples where green grass bent like the glassy eyes of an old gent staring out and starting to thin...

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

****** Click above to listen to a replay from the jopomojo poetry podcast, 2023 ^ Three poems from Tulips for Elsie , pp. 110-112 (Korrektiv Press, 2021). * Note the correction in the last line of Sonnet #8 Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wi...

savannah of sky / sweetening the view / lightening the weight of day // my coffee cup half empty / my morning half full / of the joy to come 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 blood of the sun / is on the water / where the water and the air // for a moment become one / in the bleeding heat / and simmering light 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 point of this exercise is to walk the stepping stones of gold light from the sunrise, to let gold infuse one's bones with faith to walk on shards of light without submerging back to night. The sun has crept up behind a wall of cloud to convey an eye peeking through a blind, a line of sight to belay the boat that might today set sail to take me where it cannot fail. So I imagine taking my first...

A calm pink and blue sky sets the scene for a return to normalcy and light. There is a change in the air, a feeling of the mending of the structure of reality. The birds in the garden partake of the poetry of the replenishment of the water from the hose coming from miles and miles away to sparkle in the rising sun. Jesus said deliver us from evil and lead us not into temptation. And when deliveran...

how the sun rises / how it never stops / can be easily explained // people can be taught and trained / science and theory / from old history 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

A poem from my book, House of Words (Korrektiv Press, 2010, p. 11) and a recently unearthed earlier version published in The Whitman College Pioneer (Feb 12, 1987, p. 9). Written and performed by Jonathan Potter ( jopomojo poetry podcast , 2023). Listen to the audio above and let me know in the comments which version you prefer. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts...

The opening of the gate may be early, may be late, but enter, don't hesitate, this is your time, so seize it, grab the sunrise and squeeze it onto your tongue to please it like an orange ripe with juice, like an ace against a deuce, like a river to a moose, like the time I kissed your lips, like the time you spread your hips, like the gate through which time slips into eternity’s smile, into parad...

The focus of the present is to share this moment of mystery with someone, your traveling companion and guide to good manners, perhaps, on this strange journey into the vastness of tomorrow and the day after the day after that, the days lining up like birds on a wire preparing to fly away one by one as you trace their flight paths across the horizons of their inevitable migrations to lands unknown,...