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

[Rich]

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

SAT today
[emoji120]


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.

[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

[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]

Clarity on the Cushion

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.