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

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  • Tai Do
    Member
    • Jan 2019
    • 1455

    #91
    Originally posted by Tai Shi
    The pharmacy is mailing my Simponi pen should be here in the morning then the less I leave the house for an AA meeting only.

    Keep distance
    Six feet or more
    Avoiding corona virus
    Never avoiding
    Those we love

    This year washing
    Washing I apply
    Lotion, clean smell
    Softens safety
    Make sure to wash
    Hands 20 minutes
    Always 20 minutes
    Each time, then
    Touch only ones
    We love close
    Every time we
    Bump

    Elbows, shower
    Stay home
    So much
    Stay home watch
    Movies at home
    Popcorn and drinks
    Not alcohol that
    Used instead of wash
    Wash your hands
    Feel safe,

    Tai Shi
    sat/ lah
    Gassho


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Lovely, Tai Shi.

    Mateus
    Sat/LAH
    怠努 (Tai Do) - Lazy Effort
    (also known as Mateus )

    禅戒一如 (Zen Kai Ichi Nyo) - Zazen and the Precepts are One!

    Comment

    • Kokuu
      Dharma Transmitted Priest
      • Nov 2012
      • 6867

      #92
      Tai Shi

      That is lovely but you probably mean 20 seconds rather than 20 minutes or that is a long time at the sink!!!

      Gassho
      Kokuu
      -sattoday-

      Comment

      • Tai Shi
        Member
        • Oct 2014
        • 3438

        #93
        Correction wash
        Hands 20 seconds
        Lovely smell, racy
        Times, wash 20
        Seconds, keep
        Hands away from face,
        Yes, yes, use
        Tissue or wash
        Hanky’s cloth
        Nose wipes
        Wash often, be
        Good to yourself
        If you can shower
        Or wash up,
        Stay clear
        And clean
        Stay in with family
        When you can
        We all reduce hospital
        Needs and we practice
        Good Buddhist cleanliness

        Tai
        Shi
        Calm
        Poetry
        sat/ lah
        Gassho
        Deep Bows



        Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
        Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

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        • Tai Shi
          Member
          • Oct 2014
          • 3438

          #94
          My book, For Patty Brown..., will be completed, I must admit, a bit delayed-- because of illness.

          Tai Shi
          Gassho
          sat/lah
          Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

          Comment

          • Tai Shi
            Member
            • Oct 2014
            • 3438

            #95
            If I Were Not Dying

            I sit often, just
            Sit, no recognition,
            My weeds gone from ancient
            Garden, flowers of delight
            Morning blossoms, Forget
            Me Not; sacrificed desire,
            With Sunday morning
            Auden's sorrow practiced
            Friday Human rights
            Making Easter gone
            Sequestered bodies, rooms
            Where we hide from death,
            Great harvest, scythe
            Striking each stem
            Spiral on flowers coughing
            Weeds, of Speech to blood,
            Lungs in prayer, to chant
            Messages lifting death
            Into open air, mouth devours
            Cross with red blossoms up,
            Finding air to restore
            Sacrifices of old, or young
            Recovery from smoke,
            Gardens crowded with wild
            Wheat burned-- bodies
            Into crematoriums
            Smoke wafting into air,
            Into our eyes once
            Beholding colors show
            Human hair, hands, feet
            Nailed black skin, their
            Eyes with remorseful tears
            Blue or hazel, black orbs
            White vision gone as blue
            Lilies morn above coffins
            Our chants rise up
            With incense to dispose
            Of Life, eternal these fumes,
            Becoming life everlasting
            Fewer people burned, rise again
            With beating heart above virus
            Corona pitted flowers bring
            Life; sprout again
            With oxygen our atmosphere
            Petrol gone. We must regain
            Vernal Equinox To taste and see,
            Worship love, present each
            Other as Mum
            Of Spirit-- another light
            Ancestral vision, seeing
            Through eyes-- prisons, colors
            Of flame into life, rainbows
            With any race welcomed
            No hate, all changed
            From poison to value
            Our Vegetation, Earth's plea
            Animal life finding our answers;
            Soil, rock-- Friends recovering
            With Compassion, Christ's
            Love in space,
            The Agape of our Bodhisattva
            We offer to our flowers
            A garden to Plant again
            No heaven or hell,
            Only open sky our mystery,
            Mountains where columbine divide.

            Tai Shi _/|\_
            sat/ lah
            Gassho
            Last edited by Tai Shi; 04-06-2020, 03:04 PM. Reason: Spelling, editing.
            Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

            Comment

            • Kokuu
              Dharma Transmitted Priest
              • Nov 2012
              • 6867

              #96
              That is beautiful, Tai Shi!

              Comment

              • Tai Do
                Member
                • Jan 2019
                • 1455

                #97
                I loved it, Tai Shi. Thank you for your poetry.
                Gassho,
                Mateus
                Sat/LAH
                怠努 (Tai Do) - Lazy Effort
                (also known as Mateus )

                禅戒一如 (Zen Kai Ichi Nyo) - Zazen and the Precepts are One!

                Comment

                • Tai Shi
                  Member
                  • Oct 2014
                  • 3438

                  #98
                  Brief Recovery Essay
                  Yes, I am an alcoholic. Tai Shi is my grateful Dharma name, given twice in Dharma call, For Sangha I believe daily I live each second at the moment. I have put together more than 32 years, 7 months with Precept against intoxicants. Recovery depends upon reaching out. I have been told I am old. Truth be told, you and I have years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, so I am told, "Live at the moment." Where did I receive such gift, shall I recite my affirmation, "Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all of our affairs." These are words I only try to live and I live to the best of my ability, for love and tolerance is our code, with my rakusu, I chant Verse of Atonement which I shall call the 5th step, Four Vows which I shall call step 11 learning in Metta, steps 6, and 7 reflecting on my humility referring back to step 2, never giving up all shortcomings which I may never claim else experience slips away. Then Step One the bedrock recognizing my humanity, We were (are) who we are; our lives have become unmanageable, so we reach out. Shortcomings felt again in 8, and 9, then admitting 10 the only recognition of addiction, and my humanity, all is worked reaching out for the Wisdom, the Buddha, three, Christ-like, 3, the Sangha, and 10 attainment by giving up, asking forgiveness. All becomes Dharma teachings, scripture, Our Spiritual Awakening. Then we turn, "I take Refuge in the Buddha, I take Refuge in the Dharma, I take Refuge in the Sangha." Then learning of compassion, no anger, no fear, no greed, We come to that choice of Agape, walking in foot steps of each Master. Step 12, giving all away; we are like attainment, sitting Shikantaza for others. Those who find another way, we are nothing but sand, and we are Free. We review this list placing all from one to twelve to give it all away into nothingness.
                  Tai Shi
                  sat/ lah
                  Gassho
                  "
                  My book shall take another turn.
                  This Saturday evening we shall sit.
                  _/|\_
                  May the crowned knot of fire..."
                  Last edited by Tai Shi; 04-06-2020, 02:48 PM. Reason: Recognition of amends, HP, list. Surrender
                  Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                  Comment

                  • Tai Shi
                    Member
                    • Oct 2014
                    • 3438

                    #99
                    Oh dear Kate, I've reread the entries in this our thread, all of us Kokuu, all our Sangha where I take refuge in a thousand jars upon Pine Mountain where I became as young man at age seven my father ran away. Mother gone more than two decades I have regained my father as he returned. This pandemic my mother did not live in Des Moines, Iowa, her return among corn and beans. My father calls our little home on Northern Plains, upon prairie; we venture into city, 10, 15, 20 miles (ca. 32 km) away. Dear Kokuu, dear Kate, when Tai Shi and Marjorie, pearl of South Dakota, found in ancient sea beds, will you remember us if pandemics strike us down, suffocate us, damage our bodies? Smashed upon millennial shore of Bodhisattva?
                    Tai Shi
                    sat
                    Gassho
                    Last edited by Tai Shi; 04-06-2020, 02:41 PM.
                    Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                    Comment

                    • Hensho
                      Member
                      • Aug 2018
                      • 183

                      For TaiShi, as we endure together

                      How shall I not remember you, dear
                      one, as you have called me, summoned
                      me, bade me to speak, given me
                      life from your words, your shikantaza
                      breath?

                      How shall I not know you as the warbler
                      who visits the woods behind my house
                      every fall, every spring, parsing a twig
                      from a thicket, living the very suchness
                      of life?

                      How shall I not hear you as the call
                      from my neighbor through my studio
                      wall, with no one, not a single relative
                      living but still enduring this life, with joy
                      resolute?

                      How shall I not remember you indeed, TaiShi.
                      For you are every rain, a silken thread, both
                      being and non being, an imprint indelible,
                      all buddhas throughout space and time,
                      this very hour.

                      Gassho,
                      Kate (Hensho)
                      sat/lah
                      Hensho: Knitting Strands / Stranded on a Reef
                      "Knit on with confidence and hope through all crises." -Elizabeth Zimmerman

                      Comment

                      • Tai Shi
                        Member
                        • Oct 2014
                        • 3438

                        Kate, you give me freedom like a sea full of clouds, for me its not the surface, but the whole ocean like Dogen spoke of in Genjokoan and the depth of sea is more than sea, its the whole ocean this trout, an ocean trout knows how to swim into expanse, and divine calm, greater than god or is it simply God, it is what Christ was pointing to a wonder that those men and women at that Packing Plant crammed into working space killing hogs, piglets for hot dogs disguised me as killer, but forced to give their lives for meat, by the air of Covid 19. What's to become of this human race, so emerging from ocean of death which is not so bad except many had grandchildren, children, wives, husbands, families who ate that meat, depth of swine brought to our own promises as we all enter into water baptism Dogen knew of air into which geese flew infinitely into death as they ate fishes. We end no end Shikantaza, no time, less Earth, Less Space and Time, before I was there, now am there with Serenity Prayer. "God, grant me the serenity to except the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, wisdom to know the difference..." then, "Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next." This is the "SERENITY PRAYER" in its entirety. This is what I live for as Dogen knew, and that poet who I have studied all my life. It's not "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," name of furniture company in St. Louis. its more "Ash Wednesday." Turned out of a guyed grove as Yeats reached for without Christ, nor Sailing to Byzantium, A beauty to keep an old man from falling asleep in his leather easy chair, more furniture gift for his wife to give to him, so blessing cattle, finally blessing cattle knowing he will join those people after Covid 19 forever. All this fevered coughing blood soaked tubes to respirator gone into eternity because we are powerless over things we cannot change viruses, flu, Covid, even common cold, all from tiniest organisms known to science, born replicated in human lungs. Shall we leave that yellow mucus, sputum of creation as it propels into ocean life forever into eternity...
                        Tai Shi
                        sat/lah
                        Gassho
                        Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                        Comment

                        • Tai Shi
                          Member
                          • Oct 2014
                          • 3438

                          "We are powerless over alcohol, and our lives have become unmanageable." first in perfect surrender, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs." These twelve steps never working the eleven in perfection especially this 12th which is Buddha Nature for me, and 5th and 9th when I practice verse of atonement and this readiness in 2nd, 8th, 10th these making sure I make these poems each my inventory only to correct myself to Buddha nature, as I sit patiently looking neither left or right as I see my crooked spine leaning right then left, as I rise from seated cushion, shall I ever make Christ's perfection risen to take on death as Buddha lived life to be teacher of that surrender. So from 11th especially 3rd surrender into God's will giving all to others, in daily step work preparation for daily 12th giving that away, daily earning bread of salvation until body become nothing thy day to air, form is nothing, nothing is form in Shikantaza where I feel no pain, shall I "Enfold myself into the tongued knot of fire,"{Giving over my cremation into smoke, ash, and air, matter is energy. Mass is energy, found in dust attic of the mind, I shall die} as I sat in Shikantaza, I will take refuge in the Buddha, into Jesus Christ, into serenity...
                          Tai Shi
                          sat/lah
                          Gassho
                          Last edited by Tai Shi; 04-20-2020, 03:48 PM.
                          Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                          Comment

                          • Tai Shi
                            Member
                            • Oct 2014
                            • 3438

                            This thread is dedicated to the writers I live with, from TS Eliot to Kokuu, from Kate to Emily Dickinson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, To EVERY poet in our Sangha, to all my friends who ever raised a pen or keyboard to write a few lines, or more, To Dyo an accomplished poet, to those who join the fellowship of writers though they may never show their work to a soul, part of a family of human beings who make the art of writing something beautiful, their preoccupation, their passion, or a passing fancy, or the work of a dedicated poet. You all are part of this sorority/fraternity. "Come on Without, Come on within, You've not seen nothing like the mighty Quin...when Quin the Eskimo gets here, everybody is going to jump for joy." Bob Dylan, so please, please, jot a few of your own lines here, let your writing flow, be delighted because there is a pandemic, let us NOT give up joy, please write something sad, or happy and write in the face of danger-- oh do not be afraid. Write!
                            Tai Shi
                            sat/lah
                            Gassho
                            Last edited by Tai Shi; 05-01-2020, 03:45 PM. Reason: correction
                            Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                            Comment

                            • Kokuu
                              Dharma Transmitted Priest
                              • Nov 2012
                              • 6867

                              Hello all

                              The UK poet laureate, Simon Armitage, writes of lockdown, weaving together older stories with the present moment...


                              Lockdown

                              And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
                              of infected fleas

                              in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
                              by the tailor’s hearth

                              in ye olde Eyam.
                              Then couldn’t un-see

                              the Boundary Stone,
                              that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

                              thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
                              purging the plagued coins.

                              Which brought to mind the sorry story
                              of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,

                              star-crossed lovers on either side
                              of the quarantine line

                              whose wordless courtship spanned the river
                              till she came no longer.

                              But slept again,and
                              dreamt this time

                              of the exiled yaksha sending word
                              to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

                              a cloud that followed an earthly map
                              of camel trails and cattle tracks,

                              streams like necklaces,
                              fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants

                              embroidered bedspreads
                              of meadows and hedges,

                              bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
                              waterfalls, creeks,

                              the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
                              and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

                              the air
                              hypnotically see-through, rare,

                              the journey a ponderous one at times,
                              long and slow but necessarily so.


                              Gassho
                              Kokuu
                              -sattoday/lah-

                              Comment

                              • Kokuu
                                Dharma Transmitted Priest
                                • Nov 2012
                                • 6867

                                Weavers

                                In times to come it will be proclaimed
                                by skalds*

                                The spring when we came together
                                from being apart

                                Watching the flowers grow
                                outside of our windows

                                And our children grow
                                inside

                                When we gathered the scraps of humanity
                                to weave a blanket

                                Wrapping it around the whole world
                                to the moon and back

                                Until we all fell asleep under its warmth
                                and soft smell

                                Of jasmine.


                                *a skald is a medieval Norse poet and story teller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skald)


                                Gassho
                                Kokuu
                                -sattoday/lah-
                                Last edited by Kokuu; 05-17-2020, 10:28 AM.

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