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

[Matt Johnson]

"空想の瞬間" (Kūsō no Shunkan)

Twinkle Twinkle satellites
Your internet makes my night
Fill the eye of this empty husk
No it's not all Elon Musk

Premonitions or analytical cognition
Solar flares or Coronal Mass Ejections
Elucidate fragility
Vivid random complexity

In the morning if we are disconnected
See you hopefully when alls corrected
Just a worry, some half-baked vision
A glimpse of fate of mere illusion?

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[John MacBrayne]

An old autumn falls
Herons fish
Stags bark in the woods

Gassho,
J
sat/lah
IMG_2001.jpg

[Matt Johnson]

An old autumn falls
Herons fish
Stags bark in the woods

Gassho,
J
sat/lah
IMG_2001.jpg

Nice John! Question. Do they still allow hunting in Scotland?

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[John MacBrayne]

Nice John! Question. Do they still allow hunting in Scotland?

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

Hi Matt, yes, deer hunting is permitted here along with all the usual field sports, woodcock, grouse etc. It’s big business especially here in Argyll where I live.
Gassho,
J
sat/lah

[Matt Johnson]

再び高校に戻って (Futatabi Kōkō ni Modotte)

Back in High School again.
So many wounds.
I am autism bullied by Ethan
I am ADHD kicked out by Mr. Smith
I am dyslexia forced to handwrite my notes
I am dyscalculia teaching fractions
I don't know left from right
I can't read a map
I don't know where I am
I don't know why I am here
Fuck I missed my period!
Stupid teacher wasting my time!
I have squared off against Dragons
Yet I have haven't been this anxious since
High School

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Tom A.]

Buddha's all here
Buddha is all when
Smelly outhouse


Gassho,
Tom

SatLah

[John MacBrayne]

Morning meditation

Autumn air

A sense of falling away.

I sit in my small shed

The pastel colours of leaves

A contrast

To the summer.

The old flags have seen it all

Come and go.

They whisper to us

‘Keep on going’.

Gassho,
J
Sat/Lah
IMG_2048.jpg

[Tom A.]

I admire your bravery
Your courageous joy is infectious
In the face of your boss’s demands
some insecure Corvette driving
Don Draper in a suit
Crabby and angry almost every day
Your courageous joy is inspirational
You know that compassion is what’s needed
You know it’s
Not justice that is what’s needed
When dealing with your
difficult boss’s
injustice
but compassion
You know that there
Is no therapy that can save you
From yourself
If you refuse to
Show yourself
Compassion
When you’re angry, you say
to yourself:
This hurts, be kind
When you’re insecure
With status anxiety
You say to yourself:
This hurts, be kind
When you think that
life is not a process
but a problem to be solved
Like so many problems in your head
You know you are sore from a long weekend
That you are sore and that you are not depressed
That it is monday
You say to yourself:
This hurts, be kind
I really admire your love for your family.
Your love for this world.

I love you, everyone else in your life loves you and you are doing great!
You are more wise than you could ever think!

Gassho,
Tom

SatLah

[Tai Shi]

Last Cloud of Unknowing

Hibkusha, Nobel Peace
Prize, let us stand naked
Before blasts from Rivers--
Chilidren turned to ash

Humanity steam to ash,
Silence after blasts, stand
One human destroyed F 212
Limbs chared, I remember

Mother showing little
One flesh radioactive
One flesh recited in new
Provided young Child

How do you call him
Charles when he weeps
For NAZZI survivors, race
To developed annihilate

Children singing in paper
Cranes, boats from wider
Paper F 451, paper fire,
Kindles, what skin chars

At riseing bread dough,
What temperature salt
Of tears, drying, child's
Face, licking clean, heave

Another tear, children
Until music stopped, blasts
Silenced, after without quiet,
Quiet, resulting steam

Gas on face, peeled, apple
Dust, Nothing withstanding,
Nothing from rail car screah
To halt, child soft pliable

Like peaches, pulled,
At bones, flesh eaters
Child cries, "Moma,
Don't let this happen

To me, moma, how
Could dadys allow
Such chared remains,
How can momas,

Dadys let such as this
Happen to little ones?"
Hibukusha Nobel
Peace Prize, lasting

Children chared
To oblivion, white
This last Piety, lasting
Horror, fire, fire, fire

Radiation, chared
Remains, lasting
Into night, study
Remnants of caked

Mud, pit encrusted
Into chared remains
What's left, nothing
Small walls crumbling!

Let silence quench
This cheek, flesh
Eaters, nothing left
Wall chared church!

Gassho
lah/sat

[Matt Johnson]

Last Cloud of Unknowing

Hibkusha, Nobel Peace
Prize, let us stand naked
Before blasts from Rivers--
Chilidren turned to ash

Humanity steam to ash,
Silence after blasts, stand
One human destroyed F 212
Limbs chared, I remember

Mother showing little
One flesh radioactive
One flesh recited in new
Provided young Child

How do you call him
Charles when he weeps
For NAZZI survivors, race
To developed annihilate

Children singing in paper
Cranes, boats from wider
Paper F 451, paper fire,
Kindles, what skin chars

At riseing bread dough,
What temperature salt
Of tears, drying, child's
Face, licking clean, heave

Another tear, children
Until music stopped, blasts
Silenced, after without quiet,
Quiet, resulting steam

Gas on face, peeled, apple
Dust, Nothing withstanding,
Nothing from rail car screah
To halt, child soft pliable

Like peaches, pulled,
At bones, flesh eaters
Child cries, "Moma,
Don't let this happen

To me, moma, how
Could dadys allow
Such chared remains,
How can momas,

Dadys let such as this
Happen to little ones?"
Hibukusha Nobel
Peace Prize, lasting

Children chared
To oblivion, white
This last Piety, lasting
Horror, fire, fire, fire

Radiation, chared
Remains, lasting
Into night, study
Remnants of caked

Mud, pit encrusted
Into chared remains
What's left, nothing
Small walls crumbling!

Let silence quench
This cheek, flesh
Eaters, nothing left
Wall chared church!

Gassho
lah/sat

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nobel-peace-prize-laureate-2024-1.7348355

Let it never happen again...

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Matt Johnson]

語り難い (Katari Gatai)

I can never say it
But I must see it clearly
It must be acknowledged
If we are to move beyond it

I never wanted this
I never wanted you
We can never forgive
We can never be forgiven

Here we stand, silent.
Bound by what is unsaid.
Beyond pain, beyond words.
Beyond light, beyond selves

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Tai Shi]

Do, Let Me Write

I sat this morning
In my artificial space
My always not forgottten
My silk Wagasa around neck
Around Rakusu, around shirt,
Around silk gentleman's
Coat, house coat, rag
Washen would not shrink
It was I who shrank
Who wondered what it is
To shrink, realize fingers,
Neck, all after me, sat
All night upon a chair,
With seldom gathered flowers,

Was but flower of device
Wonderment of spice
Real Black his face deep
Brown removed from white
Ancient Germanic, swag,
Unforgetable and true,
Laughter gone away
We found real flowers
In this loam of you, this black
Brown earth, I am finding
At age 73 the real nature
Of humanity, my favorite
Humanity, human give
It up for all marches
across sand sand dollar,
Life without nuances, we
wither, we rust, we become
Frail in readiness in haste
Ours is this Space Frontier,
Our brother's home, her
Place, I held her responsibility
Too old to become mother
All over again, a journey

For younger woman, woman
To women, to plurel, mother
Motherly and ancient seeds
Still burried deep in abasinth
Deep always back to flowers
I've got a wise gift for mothers
Lungs regined, time inhaler,
One thousand aviolai, spell
Nine o clock a.m. in my kitchen
It is here where we live,
I finally understand sanchuary,
Singing here her reality her
Home her real way, he life,
Her alcove, her place, her
Nest, never getting out of place
Where she will be for life.

Gassho
lah/sat

[Matt Johnson]

Rakusu (絡子)

Ahhh!
Here I sit
Sewing a rakusu
Small but connected
Sore neck and shoulders
By the light of stored sun
Warm fire, harvest Moon's chill
Glass of wine, playing an audiobook
Clearly going to hell, these transgressions
Having fun sewing and resewing my mistakes

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Tai Shi]

When We Cannot Find

It is not in my power
I only sit to sit
Not to ring some little bell
This is my mistake
As my notes ring on the air
Shokai my friend for ten
Years, on October 17th,

There was no fanfare,
No demand, only
Willingness to serve,
Forgive if my in my hand notes
Cannot find this audience,
I seek only to serve, not
To usurp this place
Of Elder, better, forgive

One who is only 73, one
Who wonders "Where is
My place?" Thus, klanger
Misplaced, misplaced
What was I to do? What
Was I to do?

Gassho
lah/sat

[John MacBrayne]

A new book
An old man lights the way
To Neverland.

Gassho,
J
sat/lah
IMG_2087.jpg