taste

March 11, 2023

ACCESSIBILITY

Technology has afforded those of us
with impairments the ability
to more fully participate
in the world around us.

However we can never lose sight,
a painful use of the phrase
in my case, of its imperfections.

Perhaps it is merely anticipating
the future of our species, as when
the phones captioning decided
a somewhat elided Marsha and Barry
was in fact Martian berries.
As crazy as that seems at first,
looking around at how we
have laid waste to this planet
exobiology and exobotany
may be the last and only
hope for our species, but
I do wonder how they will taste.

February 25, 2023

THEATER OF THE ABSURD

If Aristophanes were suddenly
to arrive here, he would no doubt
pause, but with the eye he had,
would soon discover such a treasure
trove of material, he could produce
comedies to last several lifetimes.

The problem would be in finding
the right audience, for here we have
little taste and patience for the sort
of comedy at which he was so adept,
and wit in language has long been
forgotten in our blunt, in your face
world of entertainment, and his
natural audience in ancient Greece
would never imagine a world
so badly screwed up that even
Kubrick would be hard pressed
to bring Dr. Strangelove into the present.

November 28, 2022

ONE FLAVOR ZEN

How far must you wander
to taste the pure essence,
hear the pure note,
see deeply into beauty,
smell the first flower of spring,
touch another heart.
Will you grow tired
from standing still
in total silence
contemplating this?

A reflection on Case 65 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (Trud Dharma Eye)

August 25, 2022

STRING QUARTET

The violinists’ laughter and tears
are flung from her flying bow,
drip from his elbow,
and wash over the stilled audience –
we can taste the sea
as we threaten to capsize.

The viola is the older brother
now steadying, now caught
in the wave, riding
its dizzying course,
dragging us in its wake.

The cello is a torso, the cellist
a surgeon, her hands
plucking small miracles
from stretched gut,
shouting for, then at,
the still stunned gods.

Somewhere, Brahms
must be smiling.

First Published in The Right to Depart, Plain View Press, 2008.

August 11, 2022

CURFEW

We sat in the cramped kitchen
huddled around the stove
the open oven door spreading
a faint warmth that barely
slid through the winter chill.
The bare bulb in the ceiling
strained and flickered
fighting to hold as the generators
were shut down, and darkness
enveloped our small world.
The sky was lit by the flares
and the odor of exploding shells
seeped through the towel
sealed windows covered
in the tattered bedsheets
too thin to afford warmth.
Ibrahim had been gone two weeks
sneaking out of the city
to join his brothers in Gorazde
or Tuzla, or wherever it was
that they were struggling
to save what little was left.
We huddled under the small table
and dreamed of the taste
of fresh bread, or even pork.
In the morning he would run
among the craters in the streets
in search of the convoy
and the handouts, which we
would raven as the sun set
over our war torn hell.

First published in Legal Studies Forum, Vol. XXX, No. 1 & 2, 2006

June 30, 2022

INTO THE BRUSH

I have carefully peeled
back the skin of a hundred snakes
and left their twisted forms
curled around mesquite
as so many skirts. Canadia geese
follow carefully worn paths
across an October sky
undeterred by storm clouds
giving chase from the west.
A wolf wanders down
from the tree line to the edge
of the highway. She can taste
the approach of winter,
bitter on her tongue, her coat
grown thick, watching
for a buck to be thrown
to the gravel shoulder
by a passing truck.
In my closet I have
a pair of boots, nothing more
than simple cowhide.

First Appeared in Amethyst Review (Canada), Vol. 8, No. 2, Winter 2000

June 10, 2022

ANCESTRY

Children have an innate sense
of their ancestry.
I was a child of the city
it’s streets my paths, always
under the watchful eye
of my warden – mother.

Dirt was to be avoided
at all possible cost,
so I never dug my hands
into the fertile soil of my
village in the heart of Lithuania,
or tasted the readying harvest
that dirt would remember.

I never stole a nip of poitin
only the Manischewitz which,
in our home, masqueraded
as wine fit for drinking. It is only
now in my second childhood
that the ancestry very deep
in my DNA has finally found
purchase in my mind and soul.

May 25, 2020

WHERE WISDOM CANNOT REACH 正法眼蔵 語十七

The wealthy man
has an ornate cup,
the working man
a very simple one.
The poor farmer,
nurturing the tea plants,
has no cup and all,
but for each of them
the tea is the same.
What is it
that you taste?

A reflection on Case 57 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dhama Eye)

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:

Bird-of-the-day.com 

 

May 21, 2019

WARRANTED

We have police for almost everything
these days, ports and airports, cities, towns
transit authorities and those whose beat
is good taste or lack of it.
Most enforce laws, some merely
regulations, a few making them up as they go.
My phone rang this morning, an 800 number,
And knowing better, I answered it.
It was a bank, one where I have never
had an account, telling me there was a problem
with my ATM card and I needed to call
immediately to reactivate the card.
Unfortunately I didn’t write down the
the call back number, and now
some poor scammer is sitting by his phone
with time on his hands, imagining
the free meals he might have had
doing federal time for wire fraud.
If only there were the telephone police,
but they have all gone to work
for the NSA, recording my callback numbers.