As I have aged, I hope
I have gotten smarter
or at least more able
to adapt to life’s issues.
But there are still areas
where knowledge fails,
where you cannot hope
to attain what you want.
World peace is one such,
honest politicians another,
and the list could go on
but you get the picture.
The ultimate failure however
is imagining that you can get
Adobe or Microsoft programs
to do what you want and need.
It is one thing
to build a wall
that others
stop and admire,
yet make it
high enough
they don’lt think
of climbing over it.
Walls are meant
to keep, in
or out is never
clear, and actually
it is always both,
for a wall
takes no sides,
a silent sentinel.
And no wall
is impenetrable
and unscalable
save that surrounding
the heartless ones
who are destined
to die alone
in anger.
Arising into night
the departing sun
tangoes away with its cloud,
memories soon forgotten.
Other dancers take the stage,
now a romance, now
a war dance, feathers raised
in prayer to unseen gods.
Night will soon bring
its curtain across this stage,
the avian cast’s final bows taken
the theatre will darken, awaiting
another performance,
a new script tomorrow,
but for this solitary moment
of frozen grace, it is we
who write the conversation,
our lines sung by actors who
know only nature’s
unrelenting song.
Barchu, for the slugs of the Chinese
knockoff AK47 which tore
through his legs, twisting
to avoid the artery and nerves.
Barchu, for the moon hanging
in the frosted night
seeking shelter in the mist
cutting into me, lashing me
to reality.
Barchu, for their memory
the small circle of candles
that burn eternally
in the rain.
Barchu, for the sleep
that slides over him
and sets him free
if only for an hour.
Barchu, for the evening
and the morning,
another day.
First Published in AGON Journal, Issue 0, 2021
The newspapers pile up,
their headlines scream
out, sections of business news
or the arts, and a half
completed crossword.,
They sit patiently, knowing
much has happened that we
ought to know, but we
have grown tired of death
and so each week we
place them in the bin
where they are taken
to the dump where
the lessons of the news
go to die forgotten.
I realize now just
how old I have gotten,
no laughing any longer
at the old men always
tucking pills into a sorter
neatly marked by day and time,
for I now do my own
weekly, the number of pills
seeming to propogate by month.
I suppose it is time
to begin working in earnest
on the playlist for my funeral.
I’ll be damned if I
will have an organist
and somber melodies
although I may be
damned regardless, but
that is something beyond me.
It will be a long list,
but you can suffer for a bit,
and you know that I will conclude
with my favorite songs
in their full jam band version
by the Grateful Dead.
When the master takes his seat
what do you expect of him?
Do you watch his posture
or how his hands are set.
Do you stare at his lips
and what do you hear
when they move, but no sound
comes from his throat.
Listen carefully, for here
the dharma unfolds
like the first chrysanthemum.
A reflection on Case 79 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
There will, I am certain, come a day when I will need to do nothing. My computer and my apps will know what I want, will obtain it without asking, will expect my thanks when it arrives, even if they are incapable of understanding what thank you means in a human world. They already plague me with offers and suggestions, if I liked that or even looked at it, I must like this. And they do it with a certainty that only an algorithm can possess. They know me, or so they are programmed, for they cannot think, and they cannot begin to imagine how fickle I can be, or what that term even means. But I know Jeff Bezos won’t give up without a fight. At least if there are a few more billion dollars to be made.
This is the season
when the maples
began their rain
of colored tears.
It may still be so,
but not here,
and the palms
know no seasons.
Once there was
a veil of lilac,
bushes trying to
outdo the others.
But at least
the magnolias care
nothing for distance
offering their beauty
here and where we
now have only
memories of the ebb
and flow of seasons.
Peel back the veneer
to discover the object
always below the surface
for all objects have veneers
and the true object
always lies beneath.
Grasp this new object,
study and consider it
then peel back
its veneer and discover
the true object’s
true object.
Continue as though
playing with
an infinite set
of Matryoshka dolls
until you realize
the true object
is no object at all.
an old writer and his words 