books

March 31, 2023

I WONDER

As a poet I would be
most interested in learning
what you read when you
are reading one of my poems.

I know it sounds strange, after all
I wrote it, but often when I read
one of my poems it is different
in small or large ways
from the last time I read it.

I know that each reader in turn
rewrites a poem, its meaning
held close, their filters personal,
never obvious to the observer.

So I am left to wonder just what
I wrote when I wrote it for you
for I am certain it would be
revelatory to know what I was thinking
when I put pen to paper on that day
now quite lost in my past.

January 12, 2023

VICTOR

In our time
of never-ending war,
punctured by the briefest
lulls we now call peace,
someone, someones
more likely, will talk
about whom will be
the victor, to whom
shall go the spoils.
Bierce, that perpetual
cynic, reminded us
that peace was a period
of cheating between
two periods of fighting.
But no one pauses
to consider that
in any war there are
no true victors
only the victims
unwillingly offered up
in sacrifice to delusion.

First appeared in Jimson Weed, Volume XLI, New Series Vol. 25, Number 2, Fall 2022
https://view.publitas.com/university-of-virginias-college-at-wise/jimson-weed-fall-2022/

December 24, 2022

BUT

On more than one occasion
someone has come up to me
after an open mic reading
to tell me that they love my work.

I am honored and tell them so
but curious as well, since I
only read two poems, which
hardly counts as my work.

I offer to sell them my book
at a substantial discount,
but they inevitably tell me
“Thanks, but I don’t read poetry.”

December 19, 2022

JOSHU ROTATES THE CANON

If you ask me
to grasp the Dharma
I will read each word
as I unroll the scroll,
but that is but a small part
of grasping it.
The rolling up,
the placing back,
the bow and the return
to my waiting cushion,
each is a reverent grasping.

A reflection on Case 74 of the Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye) Koans

December 9, 2022

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

My mother surrouned me
with books, “read, read”
she would endlessly say.

And if I had a question,
“Look it up, it’s why we
bought the encyclopedia.”

I became a voracious reader,
skilled at finding answers,
never stopping to think.

Now, years later, I know
why I had to read, why
I had to look things up.

What she never said, but
what she clearly meant was
I can’t be bothered now,

can’t be bothered most
ever, so be self sufficient
so I don’t have to mother.

October 8, 2022

SLEEVE

I wear my heart
on my sleeve, he said,
so you know what I’m
feeling at any given moment
and I am an open book
so you can read my thoughts
whenever you wish to do so.

His smile said he was
proud of this state,
and he did say it set
him apart from most people.

She laughed and said
to him, “But you know
by being so transparent
no one needs to spend
any time with you, they
know your story. And, he
added, “If I ever have
a heart attack, they won’t
ruin a good shirt when
they apply the defibrilator.”

October 5, 2022

NONATTACHMENT

There was the collectivist period,
those years when I wanted
a copy of every book on Buddhism
I could locate, a full and nearly
complete library, sutras and
philosophical discourses included.

There was the moment when I
realized the absurdity of all that,
the attachment to texts
to enable me to find the ability
to practice non-attachment,
and I gave the books away,
and finally set off on the path
the books only poorly described.

August 28, 2022

SIN

A poet suggested that sin
was created by the Christians,
wrong, of course, but perhaps
just being politically correct
in not naming the Jews as
its creator, or at least
giving it a name and rulebook.

And on the point of accuracy
the poet might have noted
that the Jews created
the Christians, for Jesus
was one of them, a reformer
before Judaism would allow
anything beyond orthodoxy.

All of which is a long way
of explaining why I am
now a practicing Buddhist.

April 8, 2022

IN MOURNING

I will soon enough be
in mourning for literature
and philosophy for the moment
is approaching when they
will be lost, or I suppose
simply subsumed, swallowed
up in a cloud appearing
momentarily then gone.

The day is rapidly approaching
and if you doubt it
for even a moment, go
to your local library, if
it has not closed, and note
the diminishing number
of books, replaced
by computers, where
everything can be found
while the power is on,
but just try and read there
when a candle is the only light.

February 15, 2022

GUIDEBOOK HELL

When did we decide we needed
a manual for everything, a field guide
to living, tour books piled high
before we leave on a trip,
having meant to read them
and dragging one or two along
to study when we get there?

Ask yourself what you might
have seen in some foreign city
with the time you spent
head buried in a tour guide
learning what someone else
thought was important for you
to see or do, what you might
have stumbled across
just wandering the streets.