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

[Tai Shi]

July wanes like half moon in sky
Of my summer light from window
Approaching my Wednesday.
Soft cool air, silage on the wind,
Fresh singing from neighbors
Who must be drunk again.
This is my time of promises
When day comes like my old dog,
While I write poetry. Revisions,
Twenty-two days into decisions
I made long ago not to drink,
Strong my desire for your touch,
Magnanimous heart when young.
I'm 70-years into my winter now.
Facing one more hard delusion
Smashed, less substance in my blood.
I'm free once more from fate. Still,
Thirty-five years, five days passed.

Tai Shi

[Artien]

A moment of just,
A big tree,
A Universe full of me,
All stars and dust.

Gassho,
Artien
Sat.

[Tai Shi]

Sitting in the Exquisite

I shall always live alone
With loneliness, my diseases
Which taught me living
Friends walk away, all
Dead are with me, I wait
For father's dust to join
His three wives in death,
All I see is disgust in eyes,
I walk west making dust.
One day we all pass away,
Stars which formed me,
Alone, even with my wife
Who calls my wailing at four
Rain which comes in hundreds
Of painful disgusting winds,
Knows not equanimity
Of my crushing load, she
Buys me sandwiches,
While I stay at home her
Delight to Put me to bed,
At eleven O'clock, my desire,
Hold her in my arms
To comfort her compulsions,
Her dying song which grows,
I walk alone, my feet hurt
In Discomfort turn to dead
Tears, she calls me ignorant.
Too emotional, straighten
Up, my painful bones crack right
In shoulder, left I cannot move
Hand. Creak in back,
In morning darkness at eight
O'clock. Alone as men start
Give Gas to pickups, enter
Solitude. Alone in big cab
For People. Never share rides
With anyone, alone we never
Meet Except knowing I will
Complete my M.F.A. word art
Praise in writing, exultations
Another of my beautiful poems,
Joy in Lonesome poetry, verses
Of my fear, of being alone
At four O'clock. I reach out
To say my brain surgery
Was successful, I've read
More books in seven months
Than they have read in life.
Perhaps in dust they turn
To stars, they leave like me
I will comfort finally growth.
They will live as star dust
So exquisite. I follow breath
I follow them, I follow my wife.
As we meet with gusts
Of solar wind, radiation created.
I finally meet my daughter.
I finally hold my wife to comfort all.

Gassho
Tai Shi
sat alone
Helped by another.

[Tai Shi]

Sitting in the Exquisite

I shall always live alone
With loneliness, my diseases
Which taught me living
Friends walk away, all
Dead are with me, I wait
For father's dust to join
His three wives in death,
All I see is disgust in eyes,
I walk west making dust.
One day we all pass away,
Stars which formed me,
Alone, even with my wife
Who calls my wailing at four
Rain which comes in hundreds
Of painful disgusting winds,
Knows not equanimity
Of my crushing load, she
Buys me sandwiches,
While I stay at home her
Delight to Put me to bed,
At eleven O'clock, my desire,
Hold her in my arms
To comfort her compulsions,
Her dying song which grows,
I walk alone, my feet hurt
In Discomfort turn to dead
Tears, she calls me ignorant.
Too emotional, straighten
Up, my painful bones crack right
In shoulder, left I cannot move
Hand. Creak in back,
In morning darkness at eight
O'clock. Alone as men start
Give Gas to pickups, enter
Solitude. Alone in big cab
For People. Never share rides
With anyone, alone we never
Meet Except knowing I will
Complete my M.F.A. word art
Praise in writing, exultations
Another of my beautiful poems,
Joy in Lonesome poetry, verses
Of my fear, of being alone
At four O'clock. I reach out
To say my brain surgery
Was successful, I've read
More books in seven months
Then they read about life.
Perhaps in dust they turn
To stars, they leave like me
I will finally grow.
They will live as stardust
So exquisite. I follow breath
I follow them, I follow my wife.
As we meet with gusts
From the solar wind, radiation is created.
I finally met my daughter.
I finally held my wife to comfort her.

Gassho
Tai Shi
sat alone
Helped by another

[Tai Shi]

Sitting in the Exquisite

I shall always live alone
With loneliness, my diseases
Which taught me living
Friends walk away, all
Dead are with me, I wait
For father's dust to join
His three wives in death,
All I see is disgust in eyes,
I walk west making dust.
One day we all pass away,
Stars which formed me,
Alone, even with my wife
Who calls my wailing at four

Rain which comes in hundreds
Of painful disgusting winds,
Knows not equanimity
Of my crushing load, she
Buys me sandwiches,
While I stay at home her
Delight to Put me to bed,
At eleven O'clock, my desire,
Hold her in my arms
To comfort her compulsions,
Her dying song which grows,
I walk alone, my feet hurt
In Discomfort turn to dead
Tears, she calls me ignorant.
Too emotional, straighten
Up, my painful bones crack right
In shoulder, left I cannot move
Hand. Creak in back,
In morning darkness at eight
O'clock. Alone as men start
Give Gas to pickups, enter
Solitude. Alone in big cab
For People. Never share rides
With anyone, alone we never
Meet Except knowing I will
Complete my M.F.A. word art
Praise in writing, exultations
Another of my beautiful poems,
Joy in Lonesome poetry, verses
Of my fear of being alone.


Others sit At four O'clock.
To say my brain surgery
Was successful, I've read
More books in seven months
Then they read about life.
Perhaps in dust they turn
To stars, they leave like me
I will finally grow.
They will live as stardust
So exquisite. I follow breath
I follow them, I follow my wife.
As we meet with gusts
From the solar wind, radiation is created.
I finally met my daughter.
I finally held my wife to comfort her.

Gassho
Tai Shi
sat alone
Helped by another

[Kokuu]

Lovely poem, Tai Shi!

[Tokan]

I've only just stumbled across this thread, what a great idea, and I think I need to start from the beginning and work my way through. A small offering from me, off the cuff...

How can words express that which is beyond expression?
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Yet there is something behind or within the words,
Something that shakes my sense of who and what I am,
Leaving me grasping at the broken threads of self.

Leaving my desk I go outside to inhale and exhale.
It is warm, my skin feels good, and I relax.
Children laugh and shout, car tyres screech and fade,
leaving only the chatter of the birds. My last thought,
"No deeper meaning than reality just as it is".




Tokan (satlah)

[Tai Shi]

Her Journey to Breathe

Journey with me down,
What first appeared zazen
Becoming Free, appearing
Obstacle course of course
Becoming college courses
Because college, so very very
Difficult for me with twenty-two
Years I faltered then gave, give
These hundred page papers
I can see my back through her,
My circuitous route through
My brain surgery. I bow I am
Those papers become Eliot
Milton gray cat. Bow for food
Here, to bow again and know
Acceptance for altered time,
First time, I am her fashioning
Her stolid look my pain emerges,
Her first breath so our child cries,
I am not worthy, I am worthy.
This resembles my breath.
I breathe again. It is time, it is
Father, are you Music? I do love
With all my heart, I will in mind,
Wisdom I enfold into flowers,
Lotus Sutra, calluses, wonder
Of My hands, this pained shares,
I so share to see our pain as
Child was given back to me
To look at beauty is free. Silent,
Free as a woman this time to be.

Gassho
Tai Shi
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

leon, please, such delight, I accept this time and place, I am on my computer giving praise. Can you make more joy?

Tai Shi

[Tokan]

leon, please, such delight, I accept this time and place, I am on my computer giving praise. Can you make more joy?

Tai Shi

Inspired by your beautiful words my friend

Gassho, Toakn (satlah)

[Tokan]

Sat on my zafu, sun streaming through the window,
The net floating on the breeze, wavering patterns on the carpet.
I recall once sitting here with the vigour of youth,
spine erect, energy tingling through my body,
not a hint of pain, a mind empty of a life not yet lived.

Now the eyelids hang heavy, the threat of yawns - begone!
Pah! Tiredness, sore knees, a back that will not yield.
Only the mind is more supple these days, such that it accepts these woes.
My younger self would not have understood,
The place these battle scars take, alongside the good.



Tokan (satlah)

[Nengyoku]

A toad sits on the lily
The lily does not rush anywhere
I sit on a zafu
And my mind races

Gassho,
Nengyoku
Sat

[Tai Shi]

Empty Midwesten
Midwestern Hope in Yellow Butterfly

Empty wading pool, electrified hands, pictures, taken with his used camera,
Body, accept Trees, maple planted here Midwestern United States silt
Willingness of smoke or torrents of water, burning hot doubt laden water,
Leave it to come to sweet spot to buy big dull V-6, V-8 pickups, :Luxury
Cars, live in $1200 a month apartments, work in credit cards, work at J.C.
Penney, teach new children, Black, Roses, Tan in a hundred shades, teach
English. Trees experienced at Parks where Monarch Butterflies flit no more.
Release, diadem of lunch, food plentiful when bread is $3.50 instead of $5.00
Reading, writing, cannot keep teachers because they will not pay living wages,
Essential is blue sky, jobs plentiful in fast food because work cannot kill earthen homes,
Of Gapping corn fields plowed under into acres and acres and acres brown clay,
Front yards of cheap houses built in fashion to make green money back,
Keep our valley, no buildings commence, factory of fabricated cement pipe,
Restless gather camera long zoom, short focus, walk safely to City Park,
Knifing incident west, shooting East, death it's happening everywhere, City Park
Wave black DSLR 18 to 200 auto Tele Zoom lens giving way to roses, no children,
Safety because see you shooting camera with squirrel, wren, flying creatures
Cannot enter safely clear magnet of other Park named with flowers, flowers,
This year, any type, give large postage stamp acres of petunias, begonias,
Calla Lilly, succulent so rare, this year yellow swallowtail butterfly, hope again.

Gassho
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

In State Park Flowers

Time after time, Roses
Bloom of Black Eyed Susan, Begonias
Time of flower smell over in flight
for, less flowers more exhaust, people
Exploding, Pizza, Hamburger, pic nick
Not Lemonade from Connivence Store?

Enter child, three or four or five, popsicle
Suddenly Buddha Nature fills corner
Of dozens of flowers, some already in late
August gone to seed, more Stupas,
Of Day Lilies where lay the Hip Bones

Of the Buddha, Remember thus, We
All have capacity to become Bodhisattvas.

Gassho
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Do Not Think

Pain whitens bones
In August while the next
Rain will wait for ended
Sides like at first pandemic
Now invented; more strains as
Public gets used to Chinese
Strains of viruses, so monkey
Pox invented to deal boasts
Of genetic engineering
To round eyes, destruction
In love nested lovers beginning,
Destroying another child in womb,
Deaminizing our eyes she gets
Inside. No one is listening,
In paradise without eyes.
My body wracked with pain
Wrist sieve around flesh
Without pupils dilatated flesh
Written over in delicious ending.

Gassho
Tai Shi