Author | Lightnews

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 16h

noooooo

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 16h

All my life
I’ve padded softly through the kitchen,
gently kicking the crumbs off the bottom
of my feet, stealing a piece of raspberry
coffee cake from the counter. To indulge
is to live and I intend to live...

Ashley Kirkland in boats against the current
boatsagainstthecurrent.org/poetry/gravi...

gravity — boats against the current

a poem by Ashley Kirkland

boatsagainstthecurrent.org

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 17h

I will watch / as you blink in and out of recognition. / I will watch your leaves yellow and learn / a new name for you.

— Wheeler Light in @tupelopress.bsky.social
www.tupeloquarterly.com/poetry/wheel...

Wheeler Light — “Itinerary”

Later, we will be friends/and after that, we will be strangers./Do you want to be strangers,/smiling at each other for the first time?

www.tupeloquarterly.com

1

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 2d

In fact, since it’s majority young/amateur poets I’ve talked for a long time about asking some people from “the real world” to join us as featured performers

1

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 2d

Absolutely discord.gg/QQwnkegU

Join the A Circle Close to Home Discord Server!

Check out the A Circle Close to Home community on Discord - hang out with 123 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

1

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 2d

I do open mics on Discord

1 1

Reposted by Jacob JB

sarah clark (they) @sarahclark.bsky.social · 2d

phonecall is ready for his first halloween!

Phonecall the handsome Betta fish Photoshop into Alex from A Clockwork Orange

3 13 49

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 4d

poets.org/poem/smallho...

smallholding

through low cloud / jones mountain

poets.org

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 4d

from the Academy's poem of the day, smallholding by Brian Teare, dedicated to the bloodroot that will bloom in Shenandoah NP this spring

1

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 4d

If this beer was a glass of yellow string, my
enthusiasm would go on unending like, oh,
Weezer’s dead sweater or a magic-scarf shirt,
like tendons not taxed by reverie and rack, full
in becoming the inner ear where a squeaky
cart could wheel me past you without end.
—me, apparently

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 10d

Real honored to be in this phenomenal issue of a consistently excellent magazine. Here’s one of two pieces of mine in the Autumn issue.

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · Sep 28

“A painter doesn’t have to eat the paints
to be sickened by moonlight. Dizzied pleasure
stalks us all. We careen through the night
in a double pursuit. We climb into its mouth
and suckle its tooth...”
From “A Sober Spell” by Jacob J Billingsley in ISSUE 27

Reposted by Jacob JB

Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 5d

From Andrea Cohen's book, Everything: bookshop.org/a/862/9781945588686

#poem #booksky #writing

1 10 43

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · 10d

Real honored to be in this phenomenal issue of a consistently excellent magazine. Here’s one of two pieces of mine in the Autumn issue.

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · Sep 28

“A painter doesn’t have to eat the paints
to be sickened by moonlight. Dizzied pleasure
stalks us all. We careen through the night
in a double pursuit. We climb into its mouth
and suckle its tooth...”
From “A Sober Spell” by Jacob J Billingsley in ISSUE 27

Jacob J Billingsley "A Sober Spell" — THE SHORE

POETRY

www.theshorepoetry.org

Reposted by Jacob JB

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · Sep 30

“She was a bluff
yes, coastal,
dropping
into the thick
of an orca pod,
nestled under one
seafoam comforter.”

From “The Taste of Sweet Pea Leaves” by Ruby Cook in ISSUE 27!

Ruby Cook "The Taste of Sweet Pea Leaves" — THE SHORE

POETRY

www.theshorepoetry.org

2 4

Reposted by Jacob JB

Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 16d

Today’s poem is selected by Zoë Fay-Stindt (@zoefaystindt.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

“Children Listen” appeared in Poem-a-Day, by the Academy of American Poets, 2018. Shared here with deep gratitude.

2 3 4

Reposted by Jacob JB

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · 24d

“It is never about what you think
it will be. It is never about

when you need it most, never
about the blue before sunrise

uncapturable on camera. The blue
in the eye of the beloved. Blue”

From “Language at Large” by Eleanore Tisch in ISSUE 27!

Eleanore Tisch "Language at Large" — THE SHORE

POETRY

www.theshorepoetry.org

1 2

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 10

John Phillips in the current issue of Noon Poetry

Tyrant.

The toy children
on his train
never grow up

They are killed
by real soldiers

7 13

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 7

In trying, I am reminded, over and over again, that I need to stop orienting towards our executioners. Not merely in the explicit, the external, but in every facet of my being. To k!ll the cop in my head means to stop letting my anger overtake my capacity to function.

—Em Roth

ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Aug 6

"No, I am listening with one ear to the constructed world of death-making and surveillance while, with another, I am listening to the sound of contented munching, of something real and visceral and of this place I call home for the moment."

—Em Roth

anmly.org/ap40/em-roth/

Em Roth – ANMLY

anmly.org

4 5

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 7

Last week, hope felt tangible. This week it is a discipline. This week it is a practice. And this letter hasn’t done a perfect job of that practice, has it? I guess it’s more real this way. But I’ll leave you with one thing that my heart has held lightly.

—Em Roth

ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Aug 6

"No, I am listening with one ear to the constructed world of death-making and surveillance while, with another, I am listening to the sound of contented munching, of something real and visceral and of this place I call home for the moment."

—Em Roth

anmly.org/ap40/em-roth/

Em Roth – ANMLY

anmly.org

4 5

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 7

“A helicopter passed over us just the other day, dumping something across the fields.”

(This happened to me last week—and they don’t grow potatoes around here.)

ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Aug 6

"No, I am listening with one ear to the constructed world of death-making and surveillance while, with another, I am listening to the sound of contented munching, of something real and visceral and of this place I call home for the moment."

—Em Roth

anmly.org/ap40/em-roth/

Em Roth – ANMLY

anmly.org

4 4

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 6

Oh yeah! It’s very good

2

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 4

The other day I read this series of June Jordan's, which concludes with a fascinating, breathless travelogue at and around Pompeii. But I like this little rainy poem which speaks (in my reading) about solidarity and the ways we fail to realize it. She's the best.

Palm Sunday

(we)
duck underneath umbrellas
covering a snug an ugly
light of the wonderdreadful
faces that the watering streets
the concrete textures of transition
literal to rain like faulty colors
strip away
to livid blameful coloring
a wet a temporary
ransack through the earlier
when the rain started up so
unreasonable like one
child as the whole house
atmosphere
the separate bodies
separated
dry when no one will
try
the umbrella
no one will try
anything
anymore

1

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 3

When a ﬂood recedes,

the ground looks unfamiliar.
Everything is out of place

and all the witnesses can say is
this is where the water was.
—Liza Hudock

Flood Editions @floodeditions.bsky.social · Jul 31

Read the title poem from Liza Hudock's Reveille, forthcoming from Flood Editions in August!
friendsofwriters.org/2025/07/30/a...

1 5

Reposted by Jacob JB

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · Jul 17

today is the release day for A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems (@animalheartpress.bsky.social)!! here is a poem from the book I’m particularly fond of—many, many thanks to all the folks who have preordered a copy already, it means the world to me & I’m so grateful for your kind support :’)

Sonnet

In the dark room a reliable ocean
sounds mix on YouTube replaces day
and night with barely
-perceptible differences in volume
between high and low tide. No birds
ever seem to get near the mic,
which is like a miracle if the kind of miracle
you’re into doesn't have birds in it.

In the reliable ocean sounds mix on You
Tube’s comments section, there's one guy
with no likes or replies saying “Thank you,
this video helps my son
fall asleep, nothing else has worked as well
as this video.”

6 22 73

Reposted by Jacob JB

ACLU @aclu.org · Aug 1

BREAKING: We're suing ICE for unlawfully targeting and arresting people who show up to court for their immigration hearings.

840 8K 37K

Jacob JB @jajobi.bsky.social · Aug 2

Seclusion of course means far from the world
…no sounds of a market day or night
I burn dry leaves in my stove to make tea
and to patch my old robe I cut a cloud by the cliff
lifetimes seldom fill a hundred years
why suffer chasing profit and fame

—The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse

A cat looking alert from inside the white and wood-tone cube of his cat tower. His right front paw is poised on the entryway to the cube, ready to pull him forward in exit. His gaze is fixed on something to the left of the camera, the slim vertical white streak that marks his nose adding to the pointedness of his gaze.

1