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

[Tai Do]

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

[Kokuu]

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-

[Tai Shi]

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

[Tai Shi]

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

Tai Shi
Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

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

[Kokuu]

That is beautiful, Tai Shi!

[Tai Do]

I loved it, Tai Shi. Thank you for your poetry.
Gassho,
Mateus
Sat/LAH

[Tai Shi]

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..."

[Tai Shi]

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

[Hensho]

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

[Tai Shi]

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

[Tai Shi]

"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

[Tai Shi]

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

[Kokuu]

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-

[Kokuu]

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-