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

The Still Small Voice
....within a one sentence story

A twelve hour hospital shift is so long though I have gotten used to it, pace myself, and try to make an eight hour day out of it such that I spend the morning— well before the sun rises, and when most people are not awake and certainly not up for a visit—meditating and doing yoga so that when they are awake, oriented, and want to talk, I am ready to listen to what they often do not say to anyone else— and on that day when I appeared on the locked unit and asked if you’d like at visit at 3 p.m., I thought it was a safe time— especially for someone on suicide watch as the early morning haze had passed and night’s chill had not yet seeped inside the pain soaked walls— so I was ready for you when you shared that you are married to the opposite sex, have two children seven and nine (one of whom who is on the Autism spectrum), that your wife has a live-in lover with whom she is always quarreling and urging him to move out in her attempt to break up with him, and that you are gay, depressed, and suicidal, saying that you have not been able to get out of bed all winter since you were denied a promotion after eleven years on the job-even after quitting and being rehired as a potential fit for the new role- and that your supervisor is awful and criticizes everything you do, pleasantly adding that you drink a case of beer a day and some vodka and have not been sober in a year and have come here to dry out and hopefully gain some clarity on how to move forward because you feel so trapped with no where to move and that is a lot to unpack in an hour and so I put your concerns in mental quadrants so as to look together first at each issue separately, and a huge color-coded puzzle emerges in front of me, and you say you see it too, asking about this and that and then back into its colored box it went throughout our intimate rapport with no filters or judgement and then our time together is up, and you smile broadly suggesting to me that you’ve felt seen which is confirmed when I see my colleague the following week and she tells me that you stopped her in those same halls which seemed a different color to you and said our visit was “phenomenal” and “I felt like she was reading my mind” which prompts me to wonder whether perhaps all my years of meditating on nothing has meant something.

Simply awesome!

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[ctaube]

The Still Small Voice
....within a one sentence story

A twelve hour hospital shift is so long though I have gotten used to it, pace myself, and try to make an eight hour day out of it such that I spend the morning— well before the sun rises, and when most people are not awake and certainly not up for a visit—meditating and doing yoga so that when they are awake, oriented, and want to talk, I am ready to listen to what they often do not say to anyone else— and on that day when I appeared on the locked unit and asked if you’d like at visit at 3 p.m., I thought it was a safe time— especially for someone on suicide watch as the early morning haze had passed and night’s chill had not yet seeped inside the pain soaked walls— so I was ready for you when you shared that you are married to the opposite sex, have two children seven and nine (one of whom who is on the Autism spectrum), that your wife has a live-in lover with whom she is always quarreling and urging him to move out in her attempt to break up with him, and that you are gay, depressed, and suicidal, saying that you have not been able to get out of bed all winter since you were denied a promotion after eleven years on the job-even after quitting and being rehired as a potential fit for the new role- and that your supervisor is awful and criticizes everything you do, pleasantly adding that you drink a case of beer a day and some vodka and have not been sober in a year and have come here to dry out and hopefully gain some clarity on how to move forward because you feel so trapped with no where to move and that is a lot to unpack in an hour and so I put your concerns in mental quadrants so as to look together first at each issue separately, and a huge color-coded puzzle emerges in front of me, and you say you see it too, asking about this and that and then back into its colored box it went throughout our intimate rapport with no filters or judgement and then our time together is up, and you smile broadly suggesting to me that you’ve felt seen which is confirmed when I see my colleague the following week and she tells me that you stopped her in those same halls which seemed a different color to you and said our visit was “phenomenal” and “I felt like she was reading my mind” which prompts me to wonder whether perhaps all my years of meditating on nothing has meant something.

[Kaitan]

Craving more books
can't even finish reading one
this month or was it last one
new year feels like 100 years ago
wood snake
The Great Gatsby
I need to practice some German



stlah, Kaitan

Willingly driving 3600 km
with step daughter and aging parents
Toward the US's flaccid penis
Just because some can't sit still

is proof:

1. there is no God

2. zen is a pussycat

3. level up

_/\_
matt

[Gean]

Walking the path seeking Buddha
We find nothing, we learn nothing.

Walking the path seeking nothing, learning nothing
We find Buddha.

Gassho,
Gean

[Tai Shi]

Today I made two new friends
Kaitan, and Matt
Matt is soon to receive
his Dharma name, and when he does
I hope he passes on his meaning,
Do do for my mind to know what you
w ill be.
I also learned that Kaitan has
A way with words
I beg him please let me know
W hat this new brother’s name
May mean.

Ga ssho
lah/sat
Tai Shi
calm poetry

[Kaitan]

Doubts about being certain
Certainly is confused
Thinking about thinking
Thinks that is thinking about thinking
But is just thinking
Ambitious yet insecure
Worrying about worrying
Not worrying that is worrying about worrying

Observing and contemplating the open sky
Murmuration of birds
Seems like a glitch
Always been there
Laughing and enjoying
Trying to survive

Gasshō

stlah, Kaitan

[Tai Shi]

I think today I made a friend
with this simple word of peace
Zen, I made a friend as we
Celebrate Peace, enclave
of Tre e leaf, thank you Matt!

Gassho
lah/sat
Tai Shi

zen

[Tai Shi]

zen

[Tai Shi]

The Last Snow

Thus, begins snow, even
As nightfall covers this
Land of corn stubble
And dry bean bushes,
My wife dawns her coat,
As she has pulled
Polyester parka over
Her shoulders.

What would I do
Without her, removing
Snow from this drive
Way, near our steel
Siding, what would
I do without her filling
My multi-colored pill
Keeper filled with relaxers
For my pain, diabetes
Medication for sugar
That could kill of my
Various mood stable
Pills, so what are their

Names, she shakes
This day's snow out
Of her hair, she asks if
If I would like to go,
"Would you like to go to
Active Generations?"
This senior center
Fourteen miles away,
Are always streets
Packed with snow,
Ice, will we slip, slide
Down through fair?
Can we fill this car
With gas, so we drive
Down Highway 38,
Easier than Interstate
90, we hate the traffic.

Arrive beneath awning
Before skidding the door,
It's automatic too, designers
I have thought of everything
Old people can easily
Walk over a warm grate
Blowing air through
Vents, warming entrance
Then I pull on my sneakers
So this fitness center
Won't get wet, won't
Soak the tiled floor, will I
Bring the janitor into exercise
Room to mop up this mess?
There are signs posted,

No food or drink, always
Take off street shoes,
Two locker rooms where
Women and men change
Into sweats, winter
Folks do not wear shorts,
Even most in sweatshirts,
To avoid this cold air
Floating down hallways,
Through passages, we
Cannot fight the subzero
Weather, there is no TV
On purpose so folks cannot
Tune into news, not even
Radios are allowed.

How do we find the weather?
News to know to go
Home, you'd think folks
Would know enough
To stay home, use their
Exercise equipment
They bought it last Christmas,
Speaking of which,
Come in less than
Ten days,

Our daughter will
Be flying in from Denver,
Her new University job, she toils
This year, students have
Told her in their impromptu
Evaluations that she is piling
Too much homework, three told
Her best class ever, hours and hours
And hours of work, writing
Calligraphy, she is Professor
Of Japanese, still our daughter
The holiday tree is not up, Some cards
Are not sent, snow has kept worried,
We all were inside for several days.
My wife wants to clean
Our home, me? I will exercise
Our equipment in her bedroom,

There was a time when we
Never slept alone,
Now she takes the bedroom,
I'm in the recliner, and can't manage
"Stiff as a board," bed, she always
Takes at 2 am, Says perfect for her back
We both have pain and have both put on
Pounds, my severe arthritis
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Rare rheumatoid state,
I even have trouble walking
Up steps, the doctor says, "No more climbing?"
I had a terrible fall last summer and all
They have decided I can't

Use these steps or any
Steps or any steps at all, must
Use my walker, never a cane
Again. I will never use my cone
I can't shovel our walks,
Snow, so she has taken
On this job of toil and grind
I know, my days are numbered
Then I will be in a wheelchair.
Rheumatologist said
No, if I will exercise more,
As every other day I travel to the gym
Maybe I can avoid a wheelchair,
I might even return to cane
Again, if I could, I would

Celebrate this finest
Christmas with our daughter,
We would imbibe our
Fake wine on Christmas Eve.
I know, mom has bought us
All iPads for Christmas, I went over
Board. She already has her gift
The exercise bike sits stationary
In our daughter's room,
When she cleans, she
Uses it, I have other extraordinarily
Nice gifts for them both,
Our house is floating in Christmas
Gifts; we love each other, every
Christmas, ergo overboard
I buy from the best mail-order
Companies, so I don't have
To venture to the malls,
That is all, everything
Is piled high in my study, I have
started my fourth book

I hope it is by the next
Christmas, complete. I foresee
It all, finished book in my
College Library, better
Than shoveling snow.
This book contains the best work
Ever. This book brings to mind
My friends like water seeping
To walk after thawing into cracks
Then to refreeze.

Gassho
lah/sat
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Christmas War in Palestine

When writing poems
On snowy days, when birds
Come back on winter wings,
We shiver in our cold American

Homes beath of Arab war clouds
With rain withheld upon the desert
Rock dwellings, with dead roses
In villages ravaged by Israeli troops,

Children beg for bread,
Girls with baby dolls round
Campfires, wish for Ramadan
While across borders sing

More children for oil in Menorah
Light with Jewish song,
Why war rages with lamps
Until oil comes to Synagogue

Of God, how many days can
People live without food, where
Palestine was destroyed, and another
War where there's no Peace, treaty

Won with blood from the hospital
Attacks with drones flown
Into buildings of Lebanon,
Why Earth, those Christian's time

In North America, it finds
Buying Greatest Retail Saga
Money changes hands to wealth--
These are Children yet to cry

As Christmas trees bright
With electric lights, flame
With sight on Rohatzu evenings, where
Buddhists sing another Peace

When Black men ring
Bells in windy afternoons
When discount stores
Complete with the biggest sales,

Of toys In history, bitcoin rises
In value, when stocks are sold
In record Booms, another
Satisfied customer buys presents

For familiar US News Reports
Of the greatest volume, sold; ten
Thousand miles away, retail chains,
Snap shut drawers of change.

I sit next to my gifts,
Bought with my Social Security
Allowance, now I remember
Children of Middle Eastern

Wish only for food to fill
Hunger, divided loaves of bread
Of fishes multiplied in magic
From UN trucks across the camps

Roll into wars again, only
To navigate hunger. While children beg
For food, Old men, and women cry
For their family's return to Palestine.

Gassho
lah/sat

as if in a competition
i was
striving for recognition
waste of effort
nothing to win
nothing to compete for
I'm here
existent
all victories have
always
been in hand

Gassho,
Paco
sat/lah

[Jundo]

Buddha hanging out with Buddha
Buddha crying about Buddha
Buddha crying with Buddha
Buddha helping a Buddha
Buddha scaring Buddha
Buddha carrying Buddha
Buddha being just Buddha
Buddha sitting above Buddha
Buddha discussing with Buddha
Buddha is thinking about Buddha
Buddha thinking a lot about Buddha
Buddha is thinking about Buddha
Buddha thinking about Buddha
Buddha is thinking Buddha
Buddha thinking Buddha
Buddha not thinking Buddha
Buddha dreams with Buddha
Buddha meets another Buddha
Buddha dreams that is not Buddha
Buddha seeks again for another Buddha
Buddha writes a poem about Buddha
Buddha seeks for another Buddha
Buddha can not find Buddha
Buddha meets the Buddha
Buddha Buddha
BuddhaBuddha
Buddhuddha
Buddddha
Buddha

[Kaitan]

Buddha hanging out with Buddha
Buddha crying about Buddha
Buddha crying with Buddha
Buddha helping a Buddha
Buddha scaring Buddha
Buddha carrying Buddha
Buddha being just Buddha
Buddha sitting above Buddha
Buddha discussing with Buddha
Buddha is thinking about Buddha
Buddha thinking a lot about Buddha
Buddha is thinking about Buddha
Buddha thinking about Buddha
Buddha is thinking Buddha
Buddha thinking Buddha
Buddha not thinking Buddha
Buddha dreams with Buddha
Buddha meets another Buddha
Buddha dreams that is not Buddha
Buddha seeks again for another Buddha
Buddha writes a poem about Buddha
Buddha seeks for another Buddha
Buddha can not find Buddha
Buddha meets the Buddha
Buddha Buddha
BuddhaBuddha
Buddhuddha
Buddddha
Buddha

Gassho

stlah, Kaitan