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

[PeaceMan]

Deep in the woods
The path
Revealed itself

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mMb...w?usp=drivesdk

Jon
Sat

[Jundo]

Shawnzen
Member

This message has been deleted by Shawnzen.
Reason
I am dissatisfied with my poems, and so I have decided to delete a majority of them.

Shawn,

I am no critic of poetry, even Zen poetry ...

... but I do know that most of the critic often exists just between our own two ears. Perhaps you might repost them.

Gassho, J

STLah

PS - For what my opinion is worth, I truly really liked your poems.

[PeaceMan]

desire -
the babbling brook
flows around it

[Tai Shi]

There are no critics here. We post our poetry, and as is often the case with me, they are impromptu meanderings through the woods of words-- don't worry-- no one will criticise, and within reason, all are welcome-- we claim no bad or good-- we just are and we like it all-- Shawn please come back-- you are welcome here. I welcome you.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Seikan]

There are no critics here. We post our poetry, and as is often the case with me, they are impromptu meanderings through the woods of words-- don't worry-- no one will criticise, and within reason, all are welcome-- we claim no bad or good-- we just are and we like it all-- Shawn please come back-- you are welcome here. I welcome you.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

Tai Shi said it perfectly. This is a wonderful space to share our poetry with no unsolicited critique. I know that my own work won't resonate with everyone, and that's fine. If we're moved to share our work in the first place, that is all that matters.

Please do continue to share. The more the merrier!

Gassho,
Rob

-stlah-


Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

[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]

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

[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-

[Shawnzen]

Not seeking objects
Not clinging to views
I abide as I am
Without knowing right from wrong

Like a little boy
I drink my coffee
Abandoning my mind
I stumble forward

I cannot find enlightenment
I cannot get rid of delusion
Some things make me feel good
And other things hurt me

Sat today

[Shawnzen]

This person that I witness
And his relationship to life
Is good in some ways,
Bad in others

A constant feeling
Of being bad
And trying very hard
To be good

I could not become a Buddha
By percieving the three marks
Nor could I become a jnani
By negating all forms

Looking upon people like Christ and Ramakrishna
A breath of fresh air fills my lungs and my heart is softened
Why do I like these people?
Perhaps because I feel that they are without judgement

My own judgements are harsh
Towards myself and others
I understand what the Buddha said,
But I cannot bare to try to be like him anymore

Sat today
Gassho
Thank you all for the kind words

[Shawnzen]

Gradually learning to let go of unhappiness
And learning to be kind to others.
In the past, I have sinned
By hurting others.
In the present,
I abide as awareness and watch my life happen.
In my body,
I practice Zazen every day and try my best to uphold moral virtues.
Sometimes I feel like shaving my head,
And other times I do not feel like shaving my head.
The tall oak tree stands amongst blades of grass.
The blades of grass tickle the base of the tree,
And the tree offers the blades of grass some shelter from the elements.
As the wind blows,
Both the tree and the blades of grass sway from side to side.

Gassho
Sat today

[Shawnzen]

Hi. One more poem for today. I promise I won't delete them again. I just need to learn to get past my own embarrassment.

Sitting on the couch,
The world is my self.
Even though I am different from the world,
I identify with the world.
Even though the world is different from me,
I merge with the world.
Sitting on the couch,
I allow all things to be as they are.
Allowing all things to be as they are,
I practice patience, kindness, humility, and love for self and others.

Sat today
Gassho

P.S. also, a question. I see some people writing "lah" in their posts. What does that stand for?

Thanks for giving me a chance to share my poetry with you all. I hope you all have a nice day, whereever you are.

[Koushi]

P.S. also, a question. I see some people writing "lah" in their posts. What does that stand for?

Thanks for giving me a chance to share my poetry with you all. I hope you all have a nice day, whereever you are.

Hey there! Embarrassment is normal I think. Us writers and poets are always so self-critical. Please keep sharing, they’re great

LAH is short for “lend/lent a hand”. Where signing ST/Sat/Sat Today is what you’ll see most, LAH is usually after if someone feels called to share

Gassho,
Jesse
ST

[Seikan]

On Call

I'm not a doctor
Or civil servant
Yet I'm always on edge
Always waiting
For the other shoe
That may never fall
Few and far between
Are those sublime moments
When I let my guard down
Welcoming the anxiety
As an old friend
Who stays only so long
Before taking their leave
And I go back to pretending
That they're still here beside me


Gassho,
Rob

-stlah-

[Tai Shi]

This Buddha Nature

He began to prove
From clouds found
In mother's eyes,
His Miss Emily
Her poetry like death,
Still in days she heard
Him cry, lost,
Blind to Buddha
Nature, left
His mindfulness,

In India, or Iowa,
In skys of stone.
Sioux Falls in spring,
Where Buddhists
In their Theravada
Robes were worn
Not for his cry for
Freedom. He ran

From darkness,
This loneliness,
His second chance.
Their seated Buddha
Statue free from spite.
Now Shikantaze.
Inspiration
His lost darkness.

Of 12th century
She walked in Kyoto,
Never in mountain
Shrine Eihei-ji temple.
In time of winter time,
Then to Black Hills
Highest Mountains
West of Rockies.

He could walk without pain
For a time, Turtle Creek,
Not to Dogen yet,
He found himself
His poetry, his pivcytures great,
This temple comes
Only for monks who wait.
Give Lay Members
Jukai undertaking.
Precepts do not show

Window vows taken
In youth, complet
As dawning in eastern light
Skies, through day, then
Sunset of life for each other.
As they climbed
They saw their days
Looked back at what
Was closed to them.

With his Inner world,
He dreamt of Zen, found
Years gave way
To meditation,
At fifty found again,
Freedom from drudge
His reward from school,
Teaching easys, lesson plans,
Dedication giving way
To difficulties not forseen.

Let them go, not student,
Not teacher, nor scholar,
His life in ordinary work.
Again he knew winter.
Felt arthritic spine
Inflamation, feeling
Ever ill, then poetry
Found delight in words again,
He found his Bower of Bliss,

Then September Jubilee,
Still more delight at sixty
Years set free by pain
Explore his inner world
Again, Good poetry, good food,
Then Shikantaza in 2014,

His ease, Insight meditation,
Counting Breath his reward
She sought to see.
Her eyes legally blind,
Her world dim with sight,
Marked by blindness
In left eye,
He helped correct,

With his cameras, composition
With Nature in magisterial
He was cloth cut clean, color
Theory, now she is his autumn.
He lives her spring,
She is his Queen of Peace,
His eyes forever
Her sight restored in him,

She is set free.
She ministers
To his body, takes his
Suffering away,
She is Zendo practice,
His final acceptance.

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Shawnzen]

Already perfect,
I sit down and celebrate my wholeness.
Sometimes I am confused.
Sometimes the blue sky is obscured by a veil of grey clouds.
The scenery of the sky is not a hindrance for the sky,
Just as the branches of the tree are not parasites on the tree.
Sometimes my heart is insecure.
Often I do things and then regret those things later.
Abandoning my need to be perfect,
I forgive myself and others.

Gassho
ST

[Horin]

what a strange thing, this life is.

between tugging, clinging and pushing away

we find the peace to drop everything.

[Tai Shi]

I am so happy
Today someone
Thought of my need
Of understanding
They gave back to me.
My gift, card sent
Without mail said,
"Enjoy," So, I am
I live too, I am
Acknowledged in winter
Snow where one lives
Abidingly relived
Happy angle reality
Forgiveness in gratitude
Heightened, relaxed
Another 10 degree day
Daughter headed East
To Vermont, her Middlebury
Rebound of Japanese
Study, Great Library
Snowy Mountains
Of Nobel Laurel
Her name a garnet
Become ruby jewel
In Ring of scholarship
Above father's reaching
Her desire for scholarship
Woman, now she
Faces COVID-19 vanquished
In books of Japanese
Intent back to Vermont
Great libraries witnessed
In happiness, two angles
Reality together ever
Friends in Japanese,
One Librarian, the other
Teacher, Poet, Scholar
Like father but higher
Her dissertation underway,
Her greatest ambition
To know, to see, to be,
Yes, today I'm happy.

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Book Leaf

Book is my fig leaf,
Unforgotten in blizzards
Of yesterday's wind.
!00 kilometers an hour
I count this day
White snow to books
Yes, eternal yes,
This is my tower.
These are my ideas,
Not Bodhisattva.
Gassho
Sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Never Stone

Her Tales,
In grammar,
Morning star
Each moon,
Our meditations grow
Then Shikantaza
Dawn In Canterbury's
Eastern light.

Without her coat
Cold comes in waves,
Simple caves
Of thread, She stitches
Days of poetry
My cover her rakusu.
Verses grow,
Her blue eyes

Our Shore of light
My stories of ancient
Diggings wherever
Is Home, is ours,
Our residence
House on Mary Lane,

In South Dakota eyes,
Visions in sight returned
He becomes her eyes
Her Western night,
Never stone.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Seiko]

The Ordinary


Two black cats guard this temple -
It's just a house.
Who would live with such companions?
Razor claws and needle teeth.
They fly at intruders like dragons.


I sit and stand -
Meditating without meditation.
Alone in the world,
All my friends on the cushion with me.
Looking both inwards and outwards.


Cars, phone, a woman cooking,
A knock at the door.
Disturbance
Not ignored,
Not hated,
Not given importance.
A glittering boring perfect normal day.


Delight in the ordinary.
Live, breathe, eat, sleep.
Painfully, beautifully empty existence.
Not waiting, or wishing, for a better time.
All of life is our temple.

[Seikan]

Seiko,

Simply beautiful! More please!

In particular, the following line resonated quite strongly with me as that is such a perfect description of most of my days. Brilliant!

A glittering boring perfect normal day.

Gassho,
Seikan,

-stlah-

[Seikan]

Tai Shi,

I somehow missed these last few of yours until today. Always a pleasure to read your work. You have a very gentle rhythm to your lines that just feels so natural and effortless to me.



Gassho,
Seikan

-stlah-

Never Stone

Her Tales,
In grammar,
Morning star
Each moon,
Our meditations grow
Then Shikantaza
Dawn In Canterbury's
Eastern light.

Without her coat
Cold comes in waves,
Simple caves
Of thread, She stitches
Days of poetry
My cover her rakusu.
Verses grow,
Her blue eyes

Our Shore of light
My stories of ancient
Diggings wherever
Is Home, is ours,
Our residence
House on Mary Lane,

In South Dakota eyes,
Visions in sight returned
He becomes her eyes
Her Western night,
Never stone.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Seiko]

An English Buddhist Does Yoga

The young woman's voice said, "relax",
In a Doncaster accent.
I relaxed.
"Allow yourself to sink into the mat."
I couldn't stop myself.
"Feel your body in contact with the ground".
I melt into the mat.
"Sink deeper."
I melt THROUGH the mat.

There is no separation between my body and the mat.
I and the mat are one.
There is no body, only mat.

Later she asks, "Open your eyes into the dark and warmth of your palms".
Nobody hears.

"Namaste".
There is only mat.

[Tai Shi]

Hackers Into America

Computer mind of perty
With no defences
Hacking in illeagle
Posting Politics, lies
Lies, Right Wing
Defeated in Rruth
As bird flies in
Computer truth
Foxie liying in wait
Kill the Beast
Kill the Buddha on the Road
Is this the end of all America?
For certain reason, thoght
John Lock smashed before plastic
Bottle industry gasoline,
I am American, I weep
For the name as democracy
Founders on Shoals,hard
Truth turned inside out,
Do we take refuge as those
Given shots cannot respond
Paralyzed Dharma I reach out
To dear Sangha, Help me
As all that I hold dear sitters
Shikantaza, death, will reighn as
Rich crush children in tiny
Microbes not seen through optical
Tube, we are dead in water. oh anger
Stop, stop, stop, as All colapses, fight
Cruze tip of iceberg as Titan flounders
In Atlantic, Pacific mess, death to others
Oh Buddha principle of LIFE be all
Who seek the flower of irriliougious peace.

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi.

[Tai Shi]

Seika and Seiko, thank you. You both comment well. The best critic praises all that's best, the best phrases, the best sound, the best images, the best metaphors, intrinsically knowing what comes next, and what has come before.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Seiko I don’t mean this to be a mutual admiration society but I love this thought and feel of yoga beyond my body. I love the mat, i love the oneness the simple things that populated your everything you have brought me with you and I cannot practice yoga because of my pain and arthritis, but in your poem I find it momentarily one without fear of pain. Thank you.
Gassho sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Margherita]

EMPTINESS

I'm sitting on a chair
and my spine is aligned
I breathe, settling my mind

I hear a barking dog
a frustrated car horn
my own far away thoughts

The emptiness within
is the hollow axle
that is moving the world


Gasso,
Mags
ST

[Seikan]

Lovely poem Mags!

I particularly enjoyed your last stanza--such a wonderful image!

The emptiness within
is the hollow axle
that is moving the world

Gassho,
Seikan

-stlah-

[Shawnzen]

My life is a river of bliss,
Ebbing and flowing here and there;
Always stationary and unmoving,
Always changing and on the move.

I am unborn and unbound;
I watch this play as it flows.
Faces, places, and circumstances
Reveal themselves as a mixture
Of pure happiness
And unbearable sadness.

ST

[Shawnzen]

No "my life"
No "non-self"
No practice
No attainment

All things, not-self
Self, undivided
Formless, I am all forms

Not here as opposed to there
I am here, I am there
I am empty
One Fullness

Gassho
Sat today

[Tai Shi]

Nice


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[Shawnzen]

Words, words
Like flying birds
Drifting through the sky
Like clouds in my mind
Feelings, feelings
Leaving me reeling
In pain, in pain
'Til I learn to let them go
Abiding in emptiness
Unhinged from forms
I disappear, I disappear
Unborn, unborn

-

Who am I, really?
I like to assume
Various things about myself
Confused, consumed
By obsessive thoughts
And emotional turmoil
Closer to death,
Oh, so afraid
Oh, such devastation

-

Worried about the future
Plagued by anxiety
Committed to dharma
For the sake of peace
Praying to the Lord
For safety and protection
From harm

ST
Gassho

[Tai Shi]

Shawnzen you have reminded me of my love of poetry and words. I love to even look at your name and wonder what it means. Thank you for writing a poem about words and poetry with heart. Poetry has been my life since I was 17 and you remind me why.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi


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[Shawnzen]

I tried to sit in the lotus posture,
But my legs fell asleep as they always do.
So,
Rather than torture myself,
I uncrossed my legs and sat in what people call "Burmese."
Abandoning my notions
And putting my faith in the practice,
I found some rest in this simplicity.

Gassho
Sat today

[Joe_in_Texas]

Easygoing

This moment is
What it is
And needs to be
Nothing more

I look
Through a window
Tinted with kindness
Kindness I feel deeply
Towards this moment

Allowing it to be
And feel
Just so

This is buddha

I finally understand
Why we bow
In gratitude

Sat today
Joe

[Shokai]

[Tai Shi]

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi


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[Tai Shi]

Departure

My pain runs deep, my jaw, my sleep
Renounce the dark, and do not weep
Day comes on in gray, no where to stay,
Remember we are but ash, mother
Do not stay immortality renounce.
December is far behind, my jaw
My head seems without relief, mother
Do not return, but far you wander.
From star to galaxy, no way for me
To gather my ashes yet, I live alone
With her my Bodhisattva in our house,
She makes our food with honesty,
Her love a kindness, I asked her once
"Do you mind my care as your work?"
Retirement there, she sleeps yet
Each morning through, ten penny
Nail removed from my chest with
My Lidocaine, my rest, she snips
At clothe backing with bandage
Scissors in her hand this verse
Of my atonement gone, four vows
My refuge from desire, just one
Man my friend, in unity, my universal
Planet Ganymede and Io demi gods,
Where I shall rest my ash, in mausoleum,
Within my spectral light, where no one
Sees my days, where more money
Is saved, mean while where days
Do not grow dim, supplant grief Not
Time for tears, reach for Buddha age
To learn his wisdom of suffering lost
Life regained, my head filled with
Poetry I reach out for my friend
Ask him to slowly give what can
Be essence of my deeds, my
Equanimity, my gratitude, my loss,
When I depart her love I see
Myself clearly giving back my mind
Her genius fulfilled finally we rest.

Tai Shi
sat/ lah
Gassho