jopomojo

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...

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****** 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,...

The swallows, martins, gulls, and chirping wrens pay little mind to me along the shore where Kaniatarowanenneh bends around the elbow of the island, more like morning, scented with the after-rain, than later when the sun begins to bake the air, and future memories complain that time is always lurking and will take the sunrise and the morning on its way to afternoon and evening getting dark, the lo...

A saffron blackberry sunrise above the ungainly sweet potato shaped lump of land set down to divide the flow of Kaniatarowanenneh on its way to the great sea. There's something different in the air this morning, a turning point, not the finish line but the thought of a new world and this one changing, changing, no turning back, everything the same but new. The river, the birds, the beaver — all se...

1. Keeping Still, Mountain My heart like a mountain in the rain Like yesterday's rainfall I listened to the news As I drove to the sunrise Awakened by a rush of blood My dreams reminded me of love 2. Influence (Wooing) Like a calm lake in the mountains My mind reflects the rising sun Recalls the breakthrough of light As the memory of rain Awakens feelings of joy A lingering dream's sensation This...

Gongoozling along Little Venice's canals, I came upon a heron loitering for its breakfast in the grey overcast dawn. The heron eyed me, then took flight. There was the suggestion of a sunrise behind the broken blinds of the old sky. I carried an umbrella. My beloved lay sleeping back at her father's cousin's house. What are we doing here? I asked myself as the need for coffee began to press. I ret...

How could the wind refuse to blow when the earth and sky make such a perfect playground for it, and when contemplation takes the form of a gentle wandering breeze in the soft early morning? On such a day the songs of birds carry a wisdom without words and the music of the river hums in undulating whispers, the raccoon hails the beaver, the rabbit eyes the squirrel, and among them I go walking, lea...

Treading on the tail of a tiger while sleepwalking can be the best way. Much easier than when awake. Alternatively, to paddleboard across a lake in the summer, my daughter, can be quite fun. If Sensei Watts is right and it's all a game of hide and seek, then we need not fear treading on our own tail. As a matter of fact, we can have a good laugh about it in a few trillion years today. If the cloud...

The struggle of the sun to rise will be replaced by daylight and the calm realization that the second in command can easily assume the helm of the day as it progresses towards a strange and terrible night of irreducible stars to guide and deliver every lost ship to its port where once again the sun will rise as it inevitably does. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other...

The glory of the sun decreases after the slow explosion of color as of a Van Gogh or a Gauguin — being poor was how they let the coral from tubes of paint squeeze out to the end and fill the whole world, posthumously, with unanticipated splendor. Just like that, I empty my pockets and remove my shoes to pass through the gates of the dawn, empty and strangely alive at the tail end of the dying worl...

the sadness of leafless limbs their sad hallelujahs to the sun seeming to fail to rise hiding beneath birdsong leaves the sun paving a path of gold and answering hallelujah 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 stirring in my heart I felt this morning stirred me to wakefullness in the dim light of the pre-sunrise dawn. I rolled over on my back and touched my neck to check my pulse, wondering about my family history felt in the mirror and the back of my mind, pointing me to an image of the dark dawn, a liaison with death’s dim grim grin looking back at my dim reflection blinding my dilated pupils’ pre...

Salamander sun sliding through the clouds, a revolution accompanied by birdsong, dandelions and rabbits suddenly (dis)appearing, blessed chaos in the backyard. 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 scene is set to create a universe from the mustard seed of a dream I can't recall. I opened my hand at dawn and there it was, almost invisible. And then I blessed it and let it fly. 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

How to Move to Canada 1. 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 o...

"Decrease combined with sincerity" is what this morning's I Ching reading suggests I meditate upon. Canada the mountain above, America the lake below, Myself the evaporation of liquid water into drifting clouds heavy with the bounty of the rain to be transubstantiated into the gifts of grapes and wine and, flowing with the river, love pouring into the simplicity of the vast and mysterious sea. Not...