A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems

By Jim Jewell

The poems in this book are jim jewell. He selected them from 60 years of writing poetry. They capture the image of where he came from (Lebanon, Tennessee), who he is (many, many things) and how he feels about those many things. He hopes people enjoy this insight into who he is, enjoy what he has written, and think about what is written here from their own perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491821398

Jim Jewell

From grave digger to AM/FM disc jockey to sports editor to Naval officer to mister mom to executive coach to Organization Development and Business Development consultant to columnist to tugboat programs director, jim jewell has always written poetry. Jim, a Lebanon, TN native, lives with his wife, Maureen, in San Diego, CA.

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© 2013 by Jim Jewell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/03/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2137-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2138-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2139-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917758

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Prefatory

A Pocket of Resistance

I—Thoughts

All Is Calm

Do You Know

of little consequence

Noticings

The Rain

Too Long

git

Feelings

A Plea

wicked web

Secrets

Brief Thoughts On New Year’s Eve

Late in Summer

tired

i dreamed last night

futile

Smoked Dreams

believing

buffalo bob and jeezus

a synopsis

II—Love

Confessions: a Love Story

a poem once

napping

a furtive glance at what might have been

Fourth

A Rose

To Suzy: A Fantasy Revisited

To Susannah:

To Judy

To Judy, II

several thoughts on a break up a long time ago

The Kiss, II

To Maureen: little things

Two Dreams

lunch with a young woman

Muse

Darkness In the White Snow

Womanchild

wicked web

My Woman

To Sarah: On Mom

III—Stories

oblivious

William Strange

Rhonda Sue Baker

Cordell Blue

A winging

graffiti

Thoughts about the discovery of the well-preserved and very old remains of an Incan boy and young woman high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, circa 1995.

Tennessee Steam Engine

Flight

Wilson’s Ride

Billy Was a Bad Boy

A Funeral in Wichita Falls After a Wreck on the Highway

Nonsense

A Small Fire

Dancing Fairy Tales

IV—Aging

Going Quick

eyes of age

awakening

Fossil

thoughts about an old age male and others like me while walking a very old dog on an Indian summer evening

Music

past tense?

Waiting Grace

V—Navy

and the Sea

i was a sailor

Magnificent Men Marching

halloween at navy ocs several years ago

Ode To OCS

Of Memories and Dreams

Thoughts One Night at Sea

Shaft of Light

Morning at sea

On Mount Miguel’s High School’s Class of ’69 26th (sic) Reunion

Full Moon

woman gone and sappers

eternity

Sea Dream

Transition

A Flight To War

See

Written After Everyone Else Had Hit the Rack

A Pier and Its Vicinity

Morning Drive to a Pier

VI—Family

On the Foxhunter’s Dying

Hands

Ode to Three Sisters and Their Mother

Ode to the Last Sister

To a Daughter, Long After One Of Us Has Come Of Age

To Sarah

two daughters

Thoughts to My Daughters on the Younger’s Eighteenth Birthday

Whispers from the Dead

Cass Done Gone

VII—Places

Too Long

Way up in the Wasatch Mountains

Mount Miguel February Sunrise

Down on Third

Grand Canyon

southwestern spain

September in Korea

Morning Beauty

Summer Day

To Maureen:

The Beginning of an Epic Poem

Rides

A Lonely Thing

Grissom Street

The Silly Fat World

i want to go to the zoo today.

To Maureen, 1990

Porn

Cedar Grove

Several Deaths Over Two Years A Long Time Ago

Santa Ana

Off the coast of Masirah, Oman, 1984

sea cat

the dark side of the hill

hawk, on the fourth

crying jag

VIII—Writing

Dreams and Innisfree

Land of Yeats

Needles

lament

Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother

To My Two Daughters, After a Rejection Notice

frustration: the root of all my problems

the fix

Dedication

To my father, James Rye Jimmy Jewell. He served as my main source of inspiration and my best friend until he passed away on August 14, 2013, just six weeks shy of his ninety-ninth birthday.

Prefatory

I’ve called this book of selected poems A Pocket of Resistance because that’s what I’ve been for most of my life. (My older daughter Blythe calls me a contrarian.) These selections reflect my resistance, my contrariness.

Sometime around the middle of my Navy career, i realized i didn’t think like the rest of the wardroom or crew. i always seemed to have a different perspective. I adopted this term pocket of resistance in both my writing and my life.

It came to me while i was standing a mid-watch (midnight to four a.m.) as officer-of-the-deck (OOD), studying about our position over the navigator’s chart table in the after starboard section of the pilot house aboard U.S.S. Anchorage in the South China Sea. The thought struck me that a pocket of resistance seemed to fit. It still does.

My two daughters, Blythe Jewell Gander and Sarah Jewell, have given me significant help in this creation. Blythe was a great help in editing. She is the best editor I’ve ever experienced. Sarah has listened and read most patiently, and provided wise comment and encouragement. The three of us will next collaborate on a storybook for youngsters.

My wife Maureen has supported me throughout this effort in every way possible. She and my daughters have all provided inspiration for many of these poems.

I also have great appreciation for Author House and its print-on-demand service, which made publication of this book possible.

jim jewell

A Pocket of Resistance

i have said several times,

i am a pocket of resistance

. . . and shall be, will be, until i no longer be me.

in the gray of twilight tonight

in this high desert

where only a few souls should survive

on a meager existence,

yet

we have pumped in

life as we thought it should be

only to find out it wasn’t wouldn’t won’t

be quite what we imagined

i wondered who i be

because

i ain’t what i thought i would be

yet i dream of being what could be me

in a land far away over the rainbow

and

she walks into my reverie

and

i marvel at all the things she has become

recognizing she will never be what i dream

because she is not a dream

and

she does not know me

who could not be what wasn’t me

for neither do i

and

the world rolls on

and

all the life around me is important

and

as strong as the dreams are

i may not have the strength to give up a life

for what is certain to become something else

other than what we would want it to be,

yet i have a will to make it good,

make it right,

and

tonight, i walked up the hill

where i looked west into the pacific of the ocean

with tones of gray and pink

long after the green flash had its chance to

knock me dead with disbelief

and

i knew

it is good

and

i am right and should be what i could be

if i will it so.

she did that for me.

I—THOUGHTS

All Is Calm

the sun is shining outside, but it is cold;

the sky is blue outside, but the trees are bare;

the wind whispers softly, but its coldness bites into the skin;

the windows reflect the sparkling sunshine, but the glare hurts the eyes.

i walked to the top of the hill and looked down on the lights of the city,

hoping to remember something beautiful and warm,

but the memories brought sadness

because they were of the past instead of the present;

a tear came to my eye, and the wind made the