ARTS: Big and Little Poetry--free verse, any verse.

[Tai Shi]

When sitting on a Thursday morning

I open my flower,
for as a man, I am woman
I mean not in sex
I mean in spirit
non extant without love
and freedom into night
Love of flowers
Love of song, equality
In thought, smell
Perfume of roses, undone
Chain of being, we explain,

We wonder about daffodils,
About chrasanthamums
about TOPICS OF ZEN
Sitting of Soto, so what
Of Soto, what does it mean
No bad sitting, among
Flowers, among crowns
Of stem, of petals
Tibia of roses, of all
Flowers, sitting
Upon stems no chaos
Sitting just sitting
Shikantaza, Jukai,
Final Rakusu, Precepts
Freedom to live one's life
In accordance
With loving Kindness
and equality of each flower?

Tai Shi
sat today/lah
Gassho
Deepest Bows.

[Tai Shi]

Every member may post here, no restriction about kinds of poetry, never violate common sense, attitudes of respect for others' equanimity, even prose or other poets from all cultures.
sat today
Gassho

[Beldame]

Wordsworth "Expostulation and Reply":

"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,"

Gassho--
Deborah

SatToday

[PeaceMan]

desire -
the babbling brook
flows around it

[Tai Shi]

desire -
the babbling brook
flows around it

Yes, I babble just like a brook. As a young man, I said little. I grew older more and more water eroded my stones. I am now smooth. I babble.
Gassho
sat / lah
Gassho
Tai Shi

[Rich]

dreams of spring flowers
Counting winter Chrystal stars
The sun king expands

SAT today



Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Tai Shi]

Honesty

from the 12 X 12 of AA

Who wishes to be rigorously honest/and tolerant?
Who wants to confess and make Restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer?
Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A,A,'s message
To the next sufferer? No not the average alcoholic, self-centered
In the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect--
Unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.

[Tai Shi]

Again--all members may post here any poetic prose or poetry that follows our Precepts, new members, old members, just any person at all, deep bows, Gassho Tai Shi.

[PeaceMan]

Thoughts racing, turning, chasing
Changing
Coming, leaving all at once
Grasping
Grasped
Gone
Underneath the storm
Is silence
Peace
Present
All along

[Tai Shi]

Thoughts racing, turning, chasing
Changing
Coming, leaving all at once
Grasping
Grasped
Gone
Underneath the storm
Is silence
Peace
Present
All along

Very, nice, For me, so long as I relax, zazen is peaceful.
Gassho
sat/lah
Gassho

[Tai Shi]

Let Us Remember Joy

Let us remember joy
Because of light unto
Another sky of Love,
Compassion,
Letting go of memory
Simple like wrens
In flight before Sun
Predicting spring
Compassion because
Wrens do not go south
For winter, stay
Outside in evergreen
Bushes building little
Hideaways below windows
Where our heating vents
Stay warm all winter.

"Oh Father, you made
That willow reed whistle
At Lion's Camp in spring,
While birds sang in morning
As I sat in warmth
Singing my song
After night with you."
Sun came at six a.m. light,
We sat together
My dad, my surrender
As finally after sixty-six
Years I asked, "Oh, father,
Do you love me,
Do you love your sons?"

My brother asking much
Like stone before sky
Of orange morning lust,
"I love you each in different ways,
I love you both because that's
Part of families, that's
Where we go, that's what we do"
Like birds sustaining
Days I never spoke
Or never gave him
Warmth because we'd flown,
Finally brother came to me
Asking, sat before morning
Allowing distance two-thousand
miles of sand I did not have,
"That's part of families
Unspeakable Love,
Never said at birth,
We,ve known it all along
Since we were born.
You must believe."
I asked the hollow
Truth, solitude writing poems,
Nesting chartered in our path
Outside my window,
Crack of dawn, took flight
In snow predicting hatchlings,
They never left in winter
But sang hidden songs
As Songbirds of morning light
Cold, ruffled into day
Given over predictions
Of spring, constant

Love, Father, we are yours
Son's with love found again
Communion of nature
As February into expectations
Of days without cold,
Without cold in Midwestern
Frost on snow, as our Western
California days became compassion
Father with my brother across billions
Of miles singing electric apples
sounds into sunlight
Foreshadowed as we talked
Of daughter Laurel
In St Louis singing books
My wife Marjorie, my pearl,
Brother Robert obstinate,
His son Ian invisible,
Ian's son baby Hudson,
Me, strongest, without pain
With sanity brought us to father
Like some Buddha nature
Like Christ risen from death
A different crusification of us all

In compassion of light
Took flight into air
We gathered family
No more leaving,
Finally coming together
To dare giving each others'
Mothers gone like wrens
Who leaving in morning light
Or heaven deeply gone
We loved us each other
Compassion in memory
We lived again, all of us
Family alone beyond winter
Beyond death, foreshadowed
By both our belief in love,
Divisions of divorce melted,
Away, but my brother still
From winter's night would give
Nothing, but we gave eternal warmth
To him living in generations immortal
Risen yet again, that Love
I'd finally found our father
Each of us alone, together
Like Birds nesting in spring
Our birthright recognition,
Given once again silent
Except in kindness,
Our father's gift.

Tai Shi, 2-12-2018
sat this morning/lah
Gassho and deepest bows

[aprapti]

Each of us alone, together
Like Birds nesting in spring
Our birthright recognition,
Given once again silent
Except in kindness,
Our father's gift.

Tai Shi, 2-12-2018
sat this morning/lah
Gassho and deepest bows

Tai Shi, i wish you all the best with your knee-surgery.


coos

std

[moshezhang88]

I try to hold the name of something, (pin the name on the donkey) but that name keeps falling off.
I try to maintain the characteristics of something, but those characteristics keep falling off.
I try to guard the meaning of something, but that meaning keeps falling off.
How miserable..... no.... how wonderful!

Shou An
Gassho
Sat Today

[PeaceMan]

Wrong is not the opposite of right
Wrong is right astray
Pushing and pulling everything in its way

[Seikan]

Wrong is not the opposite of right
Wrong is right astray
Pushing and pulling everything in its way

Jon,

I really like this one. In particular the line, "Wrong is right astray". This is good food for thought/non-thought and dovetails nicely with our ongoing precepts study.



Gassho,
Rob

-stlah-

[Michael Joseph]

Flaw

These days, practice is difficult,
bowing to soap scum in the mirror.
Birdsong is not just birdsong.
Skin: parchment-illuminated.

Gassho,
Michael
Sattoday

[Tai Shi]

My knee is a success, and I am walking on two legs with two artificial knees working well. So, I will walk to the park, three and half blocks away in a few weeks--thank you for ALL your thoughts and sitting, Shikantaza and mindfulness. THIs SpaCE is for the ENTIRE SANGHA, and anyone can and can post here your writing, big and small, prose and poetry--please post.

Tai Shi
sat today
Gassho

[Jundo]

My knee is a success, and I am walking on two legs with two artificial knees working well. So, I will walk to the park, three and half blocks away in a few weeks--thank you for ALL your thoughts and sitting, Shikantaza and mindfulness. THIs SpaCE is for the ENTIRE SANGHA, and anyone can and can post here your writing, big and small, prose and poetry--please post.

Tai Shi
sat today
Gassho

It seems a kind of Kinhin (walking Zazen) with all your small steps.

I am glad that your are recovering.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Rendulic]

In an attempt to stay engaged and avoid my smartphone, I have been writing haiku during breaks in meetings or when I return to my seat and the discussion has not yet begun:

A five-minute break
lurches bull-like against stalls
of time and purpose

[Myogan]

Frustration isn’t who,
Frustration isn’t what,
Frustration isn’t how,
Frustration isn’t why,
Frustration isn’t.

Sat

[Getchi]

On one turn,
the river banked.
Its faith is
reward ed.

- fishing for dinner, Sunfaced buddha revealed mountain pass.



Gassho,
Geoff.

SatToday
Lay.

[Meishin]

An eastern screech owl
sits zazen
in a branch outside this window.

She is a small mountain
we walk beneath.

The tree holds her gently and securely.
High winds don't seem to bother anyone.

Gassho
Meishin
Sat Today LAH

[Tai Shi]

Today my leg--knee itches
For the first time
Sign of oncoming muscles
I make arrangements
For exercise, free two months
At hospital gym.
I will find something
Of upper body there,
Then back to senior center
Supervised exercise rooms
Thankfully I volunteer there.

Tai Shi
Gassho
sat today/lah

[Tai Shi]

It's morning 7:14
Wondering why comes so late

Why our Zendo gives no poems
We sit in unconventionality

Nothing of other poems
In our online Zendo, please

Please write with heart, or
Mindfulness, ours is a silent

Zendo Shikantaza sit 5 minutes
Or 10, or 20, or 35, or 60,

No limit or expectation, into no
No expectation into nothing

Let us rise, gaining into nothing
Rise to poems or mental exercises with body

Silent half days from 2:37 a.m. rise from sleep
Poems for ALL, all may come to write Zen

Buddha nature into silent moods, comfort
Requiem Agnus Daie

May we understand each other in spite of death
We write with pens of pain no sorrow, nothing

No mouth, mouth, no pencil, pencil, let go
Write for mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, Zendo,

More, all may come here, no restriction, all
May come, bring any mindfulness, bring any soul

Bring your sorrow, bring your pain or celebration
All are welcomed with joy returning as to father

Son, into open arms, caring for those by roadside
Those left to die, our responsibility, our middle way.

Tai Shi
sat this morning
Gassho, deep bows to all our Zendo
Come and write most anything.

[Billy]

The candle’s flame,
Once new and bright,
Diminished over time,
The wick grew smaller,
As it cut,
deeper into the center,
The flame is now small,
The light is now fainter,
And flickers quietly,
On the last piece of wax.
If I were to grab it,
It would burn me,
Just the same.


Gassho,
SatToday,
Billy

[Mitka]

the crimson sun sets
beneath a dying world


I continue my meditation

[Mitka]

An allosaurus roars.
The herd of stegosaurus stampedes.
This too, is Buddha.

[Getchi]

Once, I wounded,
Yet still I think.

When I was young,
it was a fantasy.
now I'm here,
She with me.

A great tragedy is all
I see.
Sitting,
Sitting,


I sat.
I wait.



Gravity itself drives me forward.
Towards........
What?.



Once I cast a spell,
To remember, or
something, I forget.



A sunbeam.
A flower.

This minute.
This hour.



Gonzo makes what Gonzo gets.




Yet still,
Something....




must be said

[Tairin]

Rushing, rushing
No place to go

[Mitka]

It's You vs. You.
How?
I am one, not two.

[Mitka]

I am unborn
I am undead
I am immortal
I am invulnerable

I was born
I shall die
I am slowly dying
I am fragile

[Mitka]

A pile of poop
Sat in zazen in the middle of the lawn

The surrounding blades of grass were annoyed

They said Mr Poop
Your practice stinks

[L_Moore]

Never read or heard better. Jane SAT/tried to LAH

[Myogan]

Something from my pediatric residency days

I look upon an empty room where someone was before,
I see the walls all stripped and bare an feel the pain once more.
What was it that I’d hoped to find where people felt such gloom,
It’s not the child he is no more and does not need the room.
But through my tears I find a peace, a thought that comforts me,
Although a cure I could not give, from pain I know he’s free.

Dedicated to Chase Gribbens

Gassho
Sat

[Kokuu]

Yours is really moving, Myogan.

Deep bows
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Kokuu]

A pile of poop
Sat in zazen in the middle of the lawn

The surrounding blades of grass were annoyed

They said Mr Poop
Your practice stinks

Ha! I love this one.

[Hoseki]

Confidently Proselytizing to ghosts
tripping in fetters
illusion giving way to illusion

Hoseki
Sattoday

[Frank Murray]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Shokai]

But through my tears I find a peace, a thought that comforts me,
Although a cure I could not give, from pain I know he’s free.

Myogan;

Beautiful, Thank you for sharing this teaching

Gassho, Shokai

stlah

[Ryumon]

Fly buzzing around
Mind flitting from thought to thought
Moonlight, long shadows.

Gassho,

Kirk

[Troy]

In a boundless field
The morning sun rises
Field lilies ablaze in fire

Casting long shadows
Dew kissed feather reeds
Whisper the wind’s desire

On a broken ash tree
A merry meadowlark
Calls its cantata alone

Grandma rests in peace
On top the hill’s crest
Her bed marked by stone

Although she is silent
I softly say to her
Hold on don’t let me fall

Through the stillness
She whispers to me
The boundless field holds it all



Sat2day

Edit: Inspired by Kate’s recent Alzheimer's post. It got thinking about my grandma.

[Kokuu]

This poem, a sonnet, was written by the current British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the armistice of World War One, to be celebrated on 11 November of this year.

The Wound in Time

It is the wound in Time. The century’s tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place;
the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you know, brave
as belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love
you gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Archpoet]

All along
The peaceful shore
Waves of thought
Roll in
Caught
    Like breath
They, silent, simply
    Roll back out
Again

Gassho,

Chris @archpoet

[Richard1]

Rather than give the body relief
Give relief to the mind
When the mind is at peace, the body is not distressed.
If mine and body are both set free
One no longer needs
To escape this daily life.
Anon

Richard

[Kokuu]

Rather than give the body relief
Give relief to the mind
When the mind is at peace, the body is not distressed.
If mine and body are both set free
One no longer needs
To escape this daily life.

[Nengei]

I Am Awake Now

O Cosmic Mudra
You are perfectly sized
And perfectly shaped
To accept the cold, wet nose
Of a German Shepherd,
Seeking my belly.

Gassho,
Joseph
Sat/LAH

You deserve to be happy.
You deserve to be loved.

[Kokuu]

O Cosmic Mudra
You are perfectly sized
And perfectly shaped
To accept the cold, wet nose
Of a German Shepherd,
Seeking my belly.

That's lovely!

[Horin]

i love haikus and gave myself a little try:

"the way just a game,
nothing has to be done now,
perfect attainment"

and

"Sitting at night,
Grashoppers are clittering -
in and out are gone"


Gassho,
Ben

Stlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Ben

Your second one has great images!

English Language Haiku (ELH) and other western forms do not have to be written in 5-7-5 format which refers to Japanese sound units which are shorter than syllables for the most part. Freeing ourself from this tends to give greater license to focus on images and seasonality.

Chrysanthemum is a good German language resource for haiku: http://chrysanthemum-haiku.net/media...nthemum_24.pdf

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Horin]

Hi Ben

Your second one has great images!

English Language Haiku (ELH) and other western forms do not have to be written in 5-7-5 format which refers to Japanese sound units which are shorter than syllables for the most part. Freeing ourself from this tends to give greater license to focus on images and seasonality.

Chrysanthemum is a good German language resource for haiku: http://chrysanthemum-haiku.net/media...nthemum_24.pdf

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

Thank you very much, Kokuu. i will have a look!


Gassho,
Ben

Stlah