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

[Hosai]

受戒 (Jukai)

Im not good with numbers
My wife told me that we had been together
For a quarter of my life

I told her that was impossible because
I had been studying zen for that long
More than twice as long as I have known her

So you plan to live to 100 then?
25 years! Have I been a fraud?
25 years of the most consistent element in my life...

3 refuges, 3 pure precepts, 10 grave precepts
Are nearly meaningless in the face of that time
Eventually, you will out wait your need to realize anything

No book, no belief, no doctrine, no education, no ideology, no story, no habit, no teacher, no friend, no lover,
no relationship can ever be compared.

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Tai Shi]

Frost at Minus Three

Another soft this morning
As frost sits on some blade
Of grass, on dirt beneath,

I wish for more slumber,
Resting from water masses
Beneath grass,

Arthritic pain wastes
Time on me, I am
Not free, enslaved time

By thoughts of my past,
Withstanding nothing, withholding,
All, I sit in Zazen, snow is if

I'm Melted, refrozen. I wish
For an end, for more
Generosity, anything.

Roaches upon morsel of rot
Scintillating, as bacterium
Worms now asleep,

She is free, sandworms blocked
In spring, follow me, blocking
We lie together as another

Pair. Gone from dust-deep
Underfoot, stumble again,
What becomes as dusty as

Multifidous? Money
My organs envelop more,
Not to take my lust.

Gassho
Tai Shi

[Hosai]

蛇蝎為心 (Jakatsu Ishin)

In gilded halls where power meets greed,
The architects gather to plant their seed.
Tech titans dine with those who reign,
A pact is forged, a dark domain.

Algorithms serve the ruling few,
Data twists to shape the view.
What’s whispered low in marble rooms,
Echoes loud in freedom's tombs.

The tools of progress, now turned to bind,
To harvest thought and shape the mind.
A digital leash on every breath,
An empire built on quiet death.

With politicians bought and sold,
The future’s cast in iron mold.
Elections staged, debates contrived,
The oligarchs ensure they’ve thrived.

Surveillance grows, a tangled web,
To crush dissent, to fear embed.
Each movement tracked, each word aligned,
A world where truth becomes confined.

And as they tighten every screw,
Hope is culled, rebellion few.
For when the masters share one throne,
The rest are left to stand alone.

Yet in this dark, a spark remains,
A chance to sever iron chains.
Will people rise to break the scheme,
Or slumber on in this machine?

Beware the pact of wealth and state,
For tyranny wears progress’ face.
The choice is ours: to bend the knee
Or fight, resist and and live life free.

_/\_
sat/ah
Hōsai

[Hoseki]

buildings, bodies and bureaucracy
at rest on a fulcrum of flesh and blood
the weight of a single breath
moves the world

gassho,

Hoseki
sattoday/lah

[Tai Shi]

At Least She bore Our Child

Some would say Christ for our child
Is supreme, gave His life
Some salvation came from anger

Gone. Buddha with His silent
Loving Kindness supremely won,
Reigns with Culpa after Culpa.

What comes ahead for me?
Defeated gnostic women.
When they taught this emptiness?

Mortal men had great ideas,
Love be kind, Love thy neighbor, love
Each other At least she bore our baby

Girl. That child went on
From our shoulders, with her wight
Above our bootstraps. Walked paths

Immortal we never completed our
MA, MFA. Her onto Ph.D. Words of peace
Published for all to see her. Doctorate

Across to Japanese. babies cannot stop
Coming into war, this war always
Babies come more and more,

Pillage sweet, rubble fragile
Rubble, bombed for this humanity
Is sympathy, my empathy

As I see Hezbollah sinking
Into sand, covered with bricks
Into Hospitals, Red Crescent life

Into milk and honey, with this child,
Satisfied fathers, but women cry.
Rockets pepper sky. Brothers,

Weep with stone sacrifices,
I would find our Brotherhood,
Our Sisterhood. Why we cannot

Cling to life, so find shelter? Babies
Come, come on. Why more births--come, wring
Our hands, ring bells of war, Beware. Come

Again. Nothing comes of nothing. Soprano
Of death. All disappear, whole degrees are
Gone. Villages exploded into sky, This.

Destiny. Nonextant paths of war.
Tunnels that do not exist, see
War. Are babies gunned? Our child

Hears of Allah, Buddha, Christ. of Gods
Of all reality into night, or children
In drifting sand. All cannot disappear!

Gassho
lah/sat
Tai Shi