what falls away is always

what falls away is always





















Keith Kapleau
Moondrifter
Marinship Marina
Sausalito, California











Acknowledgment is made to the following publications for poems which originally appeared in them.








Espresso:
Picasso's 91st Year


Loon Magazine:
Nothing can refute


Sun-Lotus Haiku:
howling and storming outside;
after the winds all day;
four blackbirds.




















dedicated to my past; to the soul of my present;
dedicated to this future.

Contents




Sails Beautiful Sails 11
Evening on Houseboat Moondrifter
After Reading Robert Bly 12
It is raining. 13
Raindrop Soggy Raindrop Song 14
after the rain has stopped 15
Storm Tail 16
quiet on the water 17
What Gods Speak With Ticking Voices? 18
A Picture Frame is Worth a Thousand Turds 20
north wind choppy 21
howling and storming 22
Out Into the Nighttime Bright 23
Restless 24
Mountains of Buildings, Buildings of Mountains 25
even after a day of 26
am I a fool 27
now climbing 28
I would have written some other 29
low low tide. the fog 30
foggy morning 31
it is a long day 32
The Vanishing City 33
chewing gum 34
first drop of rain 35
I want 36
the heart is open 37
Slight Submission 38
ferry coming in 39
Young Summer 40
Afternoon 41
Nothing can refute 42
a brown dog barking 43
after the winds all day 44
four blackbirds 45
Rest After Chores 46
1776 : The Destroyer 47
traffic roar 48
Lunch Break 49
If only he could remember - 50
It Is Not Friday 51
let every day 52
Picasso's 91st Year 53
On a Sunny Afternoon 54
he could speak as strongly 55
reluctant to light 56
O I know 57
If I am mad 58
At the End of a Day 59
it's on an evening like this evening 60
this is when the tide 61
AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHICAL DATA


Grandparents On father's side: carpenter-cobbler and seamstress;
on mother's side: landed farmer and Boston socialite.

Parents Harvard Professor and socially active housewife

Born April 12, 1948. Aries. Boston, Massachusetts.
Christened: Keith Howard Emmons

1951-1952 Lived in Briton, France

1953-1964 Schooled Elementary, Junior, and High School in rural
Sudbury, Massachusetts; attended a boy's sailing camp
on Cape Cod annually

1964 Summer, labored on a Swiss mountain farm, traveled in
Europe

1965-1970 Attended Harvard University; graduated Cum Laude in
Applied Mathematics

1968 Summered in California

1969 Summered in Arequipa, Peru

1970 Declined full graduate school scholarship at Harvard to
travel throughout the US with aimless intent

1970-1971 Wrote and read for three months solitary in a New
Hampshire cabin; hitchhiked Boston to Berkeley,
Berkeley to Boston - five US crossings; wrote with Daniel Sadhaka Moss, Every Now and Zen; hitchhiked to New Orleans; traveled between Mayan ruins; for three months managed "La Fraternidad," a Mexico City rock group; hitchhiked four months, one trip, Cambridge to Berkeley; wrote Visions of Perpetual Dawn, a work of haiku; took the name "Kapleau," after Philip Kapleau - Abbot of the Rochester Rinzai Zen Center - for all writings.

1971-1972 Berkeley, California - worked as a picture framer; first
poetry readings - Berkeley, San Francisco; affianced to Jane Dolores Amatruda; wrote The Creation with graphic work by Cyrus Charters.

1973-1975 Married; lived on Houseboat Moondrifter, Richardson Bay, Sausalito, California; worked as a picture framer, carpenter; wrote Bittern on the Post for Harvard Junior Fellowship Appointment by Leonard Bernstein; wrote Moondrifter, the second work of haiku.

1975-1977 Moved to Houseboat Fortune Cookie; first published: Picasso's 91st Year in Espresso; wrote The End of the Veil: A Few Facts Surrounding and Determining the Fate of the Richardson Bay Waterfront Community, a work of prose-poetry; wrote and compiled what falls away is always.















SAILS BEAUTIFUL SAILS


Sails beautiful sails! flowing white across the water -
effortlessly full, you fly. I will fly!
say the sails, to a weeping wedding day
and sadly to this sea I'll say goodbye.

Sails beautiful sails! you reach the foggy islands -
you appear, disappearing, whiter.
Pass by, says the surf-slap, keep your bow above the sea,
set your compass-eye for oceans that are wider.

Sails beautiful sails! you have left the far horizon -
the fog ambles and swirls, wondering.
Welcome! says the sea, whispering on its shores,
quietly hinting white where you are wandering.













EVENING ON HOUSEBOAT MOONDRIFTER
AFTER READING ROBERT BLY


sitting in my cabin-boat
I am still
and the whole world rotates outside my window.

the oil lamp is silent with it's yellow flame;
the houses on the hillside are specks of gold;
Moondrifter sways in the wake of a passing tug -
the gold-specked world is bobbing in my window!

it is peaceful here floating on the water,
the moon the loudest voice in all the sky.
the mimosa on the sill, two naked little twigs,
have folded up their leaves and gone to sleep.











It is raining.
It has not always been raining
nor will it always be raining.
But today it is definitely raining.

Esquire has articles about
beating up your neighbor
with an Oriental martial art;
about laser-weapons; about which team
will have them first.
I know nothing of these things:
I am an oddball.
I enjoy the weather.
My boat sways on the bay-water;
the wind howls about the hull
as though it were the only stump
in a desert of water.

There is water below me.
There is water
falling from the sky.
There is water in the bilge
below the floorboards.
I live with a moat
that enfolds the entire world.










RAINDROP SOGGY RAINDROP SONG



If it's a rainy day you'll find me
sitting swaying in my houseboat
sitting rocking by my fire-warmth
playing my finger flute
while the rain
trickles down the window pane.

If it's a rainy rainy day
you will find me
fogging my glasses in a teacup
by the window by my fire-warmth
playing jolly on my flute melancholy
while the rain falls on the rain.

On a rainy rainy day you will find me
listening to my roof
tapping time to my flute-tune
while the hills are wrapped in tea-mist
out the window by my fire-warmth
and there's water all around me
sitting swaying in my houseboat and the rain
falls on the rain falls on the rain.





















after the rain has stopped

a single drop

drops through the roof








STORM TAIL


on the water scampering the sun
in the sky brimming
with clouds scurrying
to the sea silent with invisible sea folk,
I on the stern cross-legged inhaling
the north wind lifting the pelicans
splashing for anchovies while the shore people
slumbering awaken to another blasphemously beautiful day.

now the nighttime has receded. the dinghy
no longer rubs restlessly against her mother-boat,
Moondrifter,
swaying on the undecided bay.
now the morning flames lick in potbellies afloat
and sea-sleepers lean against gunwales
stretching away sleep-sack drowsiness.
now they must reorder the lines,
protect against chafing,
assess the erosion of the storm
seeking with the sea
to make everything its own.

a fisherman with a yellow cap
puts the tide to his advantage.
behind him the hills burst into the air
whisking with cloud-puffs
in the dawn warmth scented
with smoke of fresh pine
skimming the water flecked
with the tails of white-lipped breezes
abandoned frantically scurrying
searching for their north-born sea-gone father.















quiet on the water
oil lamp, waking,
fresh air on the bow.
gulls call for the sun to rise
but fog covers all.

O! would I could stay
to watch the morning
warm the fog away
but my hands are full of oars
dunking their heads
through circles Jane
has classes and I
monday morning -
go to work.






WHAT GODS SPEAK WITH TICKING VOICES


the great white god of prospect
rises on the horizon saying:
nothing is as simple as we first expect
and sometimes simpler
for what could be simpler than nothing?

to live on a boat
is not enough our feet
must feel the ooze of soil between their toes -
mushrooms sprouting
tasting of earth
we must pluck them trusting god of opportunities
that they must be unpoisonous but
no mushrooms root in the hull of my boat
the bilge sloshes senselessly.

buy acres of mushroom dirt god of incentive
and when the multitudes
are dying for their taste
sell them dearly
the horizon
is silhouetted with pulpy umbrellas -
caps of dollars and cents
pluck them
god of timeliness
for the kingdom of clocks is upon us
and we are ticking.

go to the lord of records
and find where fungi grow;
look into the eyes of clerks
to divine what secrets there;
let no cost deter you O god of investment
for we are less important
and our blood thinner
than the voice of a single watchtower
ringing with the bells of ritual gears
diverting the lives of thousands now
we must wake
eat
work
sleep



for the kingdom immutable turns its metal teeth now
we must feed ourselves feathers
digest pastoral tunes
turn our feet into tires
and sing the psalm of traffic
for the sun is a pendulum the earth
is a small ball
soundlessly rolling in space -

rolling with a mushroom silence
pushing its cap through rotting leaves.
O god of transition, perpetual companion,
which way now?





A PICTURE FRAME IS WORTH A THOUSAND TURDS


this is where
when the bosses arrive
I must work
advancing the argument of rectangles.
the only remaining circle is the sun.
O! how the framers of the world
would glue their brick-a-brac about the sea,
would tame the fish in tanks,
would file the teeth of the barracuda
one by one.

the hands of the king approach the nine!
my cigarette shortens,
the hum of the transit bus
hurries its cargo to be corralled
in boxes for the day. then
the yellow sphere
will roll through the soulless streets
poking its head disinterestedly
into barrels of trash.

the rat
rules the alleys;
the moon
is hanged before dawn.
the steeple deafens the passersby,
indelicate poodles
defecate on the pavement,
policemen tell us when to stop and go;
the palm of the king is ticking;
when the shop door creaks
this morning
will self-destruct.

and the eyes of the fresh-born day
will squint to a razor edge.
















north wind choppy
Moondrifter bucking
pots and spoons
jingling as swells hit the bow
swells from Canada swells from Alaska
wind from the Arctic
chilling bay-dwellers inside
harboring the small warmth
of galley fires the air
flings too many spray-darts wave crests
are pointed and reckless even the cormorants
can't bear the water's surface today
and for peace must dive
deep to where winds are made of water
blowing in liquid slumber.





















howling and storming

outside, I pour myself and drink

a glass of water.







OUT INTO THE NIGHTTIME BRIGHT


moon
is an old word
playing accordion music on the water;
moon
is a pinball
popping into the sky,
a gumball of wolf-cries,
and fish beneath the white-stroked
circles play tag among the weeds.

moon
is a one-eyed car
driving straight across the night;
is an old word for a man whose face
wears the pocks
of a million breathless years.
round above the hill.
dissolving in ripples.
buttering the waves
with sequined snakes.

now a waterbug
rowed by two people
plies across the moon;
the moon flees
in a giggle of children -
minnow schools are out!
it's a holiday for gazing
and houseboat howls
raise aloft the hills
rustle their fir and the moon

old useless word the moon
breathing the oceans inward . . .
outward smiles a silent smile
for those who come out to see.
















RESTLESS


all morning long I have wandered
back and forth inside my boat.
a storm is coming, but that's not it.
I look into the water
seeing patterns of ochre. slate-blue. gold.
pink under the island.
chiffon of melting clouds.
wandering to and fro I stand
looking off the bow at the open water.







MOUNTAINS OF BUILDINGS, BUILDINGS OF MOUNTAINS


just a few words . . .
just a few words among
real estate, houses,
downing a dollar a day.

(take him to the cliffside -
take him to the cliffside
and let him drink.)

this automobile
needs a transfusion, this lass
needs company for at least an hour.
but stamps must be stamped,
slick glue on your tongue,
the thousand envelopes yawn
and the typewriter crackles chatters
like a flock of mechanical grackles.

(let him go forth
where the pavement ends,
the butterfly is a flower
without roots.)

and this is all to . . .
the purpose of this
is to slay the future
and drop it in our pockets
with a jingling sound;
to bury our chipped fingernails
in the soil and let them grow strong;
to lie splayed in the afternoon
with our hair entangled in the grass.

(go back!
and fly in the cities
with your flesh of concrete,
rub the corners of buildings
round.)
















even after a day of
hammer and
bang those nails!
he could sit across from his Jane
and his woodstove flaming
so thinking:
ah beans
boiling in the belly of a fasting mind
perhaps tomorrow I'll work
hammer bang but
tomorrow, perhaps,
I will say, "today
is forever" and wander
in the woods.

where the redwoods grow.











am I a fool
sitting on a mountainside
in a volkswagen painted with stars?

I flick off the key
the windshield wipers stop, the rain
metallically taps on the roof.

what haste
halfway up the mountainside
to go up.
to go down.

the rain is descending.
the eucalyptus line the road
with tall arms reaching into the air.

when a car rushes past
the whoosh! shakes my little dry volkswagen
and I think:

I will make a note of this
and I will make a note of that.
the earth's green tongues are speaking;
the road ascending beckons and I go.





















now climbing

here

where the bees


















I would have written some other

but the heron floated silently

across my sight.













low low tide. the fog
has almost hidden angel island.
a few gulls call the falling dusk;
a man whistles
walking home from work.

now is a time of lighting lamps;
of stoking the potbelly into fire.
now is a time of sitting
hunched in a chair, sitting without expression
and thinking nothing.

the potbelly warms;
the new-lit lamp sways gently.

perhaps I will make
a pot of hot tea
over the hill the fog
slips slowly slowly it slips
down to the waiting water and by dawn
it will cover all as the sun rises
with the rising tide.






















foggy morning
city invisible
shore invisible wake
and row away
















it is a long day
beginning without sleep
the lumps in my bed the wind buffeting
seeping through the sashes
to feather my naked neck.

the hangers in the closet
clacked all night the dangling pots
swayed without a single kitchen sound.
the waves grinding against the hull
and the moon blown over the hill.

but when we arose
and brushed our dreamless hair
and coffee boiled and we rowed away
we knew that Moon upon the water,
and we would again be sleeping there.

















THE VANISHING CITY


Perhaps I write best when I'm sleepy:
no thoughts, no worries.
The San Francisco wind is chilling -
who cares? the sun is warm.

The autos arrive at the intersection.
Pedestrians meet and pass.
Above, the white clouds fly before the wind.
They fly and pass quickly over city and bay.


















chewing gum

arrow
on street

sitting
on
bricks
cars

wait
at the light



















first
drop
of rain

I
will go
drink

wine




















I want
I want
I want
I want

what do I want?

I want
I want
I want






















the heart

is open
the wind

does not fall












SLEIGHT SUBMISSION


With darkness closing down the ocean
yawning into night I am frail
agitated at my work
smoke too many cigarettes
have too many obligations leaping out
rudely grating on the silent stars appearing.

It is a time to rest to drink tea sit
in a rocker by the fire,
my toes cozy in knitted mukluks.
now I must forget the day
and if throughout my supper I can -
not meditate tomorrow.

Dusk is not in a small man's power
creeps stealthily upon us
until our hands are invisible before our eyes.
it is time, then, to let our rush be rest;
to humble our gaze and step indoors,
patient for the sun again to rise.





















ferry
coming
in

bittern
on
the post

squawks



















YOUNG SUMMER


knowing that glass
sometimes penetrates the heart,
I know also that barefeet touch the earth
and willingly cast away my shoes.



















AFTERNOON


sitting
on deck
gazing at
white sails on
blue water
doing nothing
with all my might.




















Nothing can refute

three
red
peppers

on a tabletop.


















a
brown dog
barking

seagulls
swarming

a man
throwing chunks
of bread.





















after the winds all day

this perfect silence.

is that a horn?






















four blackbirds

fly overhead. a long time

I watch them












REST AFTER CHORES


this boat
slowly
progressing from
boat
(where hull
dominates all; where grass
is all splash)
to curtains and
soap dish and
mirror
with pictures of babies both
Jane and Keith
to
heart to
house to
home.
(where home
is the night outside; is
the lap rocking us;
rocking us sleeping
into morn).















1776 ; THE DESTROYER


great guns!
floating by in the bay; thinking
of the cambodian victors.
ah, my horizon is exploding:
a great waterborne
machine of war;
a machine
to kill men
floats on my horizon.

"get that fucker outta here!" I yell.

meanwhile on a windy day
balancing in my dinghy
I am painting Moondrifter
red, white, and blue.















traffic roar.
gull squawk.
can you hear my song
rising from another land?

the plane scratches overhead
yet can't even fly the route
from ear to ear.

tea steam.
pen squeak.
it is monday morning.
the slumbering beast wakes up.

over the bridge
his groggy eyes;
into the city's belly
to be eaten.

spit up on friday.







LUNCH BREAK

drop robin
pop cloth
the mind is a naked caterpillar,
an opera singer,
a cigarette squirming upon the pavement.
this is all because all of us have forgotten
to attend church on Plum Sunday
and to receive benedictions
from the potato:

the ocean
is an acre of grass;
the potted gardenias
have fallen in the wind.

we must remember that all of this
is happening at a restaurant
where the Atlantic salad
has coasted onto the table
littered with aircraft.
roquefort is flotsam
and jetsam
is running out of gasoline at the airports.

the tomato
speaks with a tongue of carrot;
the neighbors
descend into lettuce with scuba gear.

and I, armed only with a fork
am assigned to devour sargasso
until the sea bottom is a porcelain plate
and the crab clocks are calling
go to work go to work
go to work.















If only he could remember -
if only he
could remember what he wanted to do.
and he was the only one to have forgotten,
who could he ask to aid him;
who could remember?

Actually
when he did have a flash of recollection
he realized he wanted to do nothing,
he wanted to try to do nothing
the only difficulty that
nothing could be accomplished
by wanting or trying to do anything.

He needed money, they said.
that was the cause of his demise because then
he barefoot entered the world asking:
where is this thing called money,
and where should I go that I might pluck it?


















IT IS NOT FRIDAY


it is not friday
and yet
it almost is, knowing
friday comes
almost every week.




















let every day
be a Picasso -

who can say what the mind brings next;

the old men were sages
the young men
fire.













PICASSO'S 91ST YEAR


Picasso arrives wearing many skins.
he loses a lamb-skin,
devours a wolf-skin,
plays in a goat-skin,
lives in a clown-skin and even that,
from time to time, he sets aside
to appear without a face, without flesh,
a bullfighter's cap floating above a cloak
flowing behind a suspended pair of shorts.
his invisible legs vanish into animated sneakers
which he removes while New York gasps.
his cap sails and his cloak settles
like a crow across Spain's dismay.
the shorts dance, mazurka and malaguena,
they jump, they spin. Picasso begins
to remove them! Obscenity! cries all Paris
turning its head, covering its eye,
peeking later to find
nobody there.








ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON


I would be peaceful today
if only today were full of peace, he said,
imagining for a moment not longer, hopefully,
than a lifetime, that a day
could be anything but peaceful.

he - this he being I - was not ready
to admit that what is
exfoliates from within and that what is without
must pass the borders of self
to be again what is;

and what is, he said
repeating all the creation, is not
will not be
what we would wish is were -
unless we wish it so,

and if we so wish, he said,
stripping off his pants to sit naked
in the sun, it is easiest
to wish what is
itself to be.

in this way, we being ourselves, we find
not one but many selves all true
and all some ripple of peacefulness -
and though the sun may seem
to wage a blistering warfare on our skin,

we slowly tan.












he could speak as strongly
as his resolve
was effortlessly true;
he found
he did not find himself at home
when he was out
looking for himself, so he sat . . .
and prepared a cup of tea.

gazing into the scent and steam
he saw
a small fawn by ferns
with moons in her eye;
a man piloting a boat
thousands of miles from shore.
he smelled
the salmon cooking for supper; saw
the sun sliding in patterns across the wall; heard
the wind whistling through cracks in the door.

the door
he had shut behind himself
and the world then disappeared
and his only task remaining
was to be that fawn that man that salmon
was to be
that cup of jasmine steaming
as he slowly sipped it away.





















reluctant
to light
the lamp

I sit in the shadow
of the purple
mountain



















O I know
I am mad to love this place
but when the cormorant dives and red sails
on the horizon slightly move . . .
















If I am mad
(if I am permitted to be mad)
while my Jane
jibbers in the kitchen with the kids,
then I would be
a coconut
atop a tall palm, resting there.
about me
an only occasionally shimmering frond.




AT THE END OF A DAY


At the end of a day
the day is ending -
little more to be said than that.

is this life
is this life
I am living?

a mist sticks to the city-walls;
street-walks spot as pedestrians pass;
the traffic is voicelessly rumbling.

I am come a long way,,,
a long long way
I have to go.

a brown-bodied sandhill crane
flew to winter by my houseboat;
he stalks sopping logs for quick crabs, anchovies.

I am afloat on the water . . .
even on land
I list and roll.

he has feathered his roof!
his twig legs
never shiver in the rain.

I carry a mind full of sprouts,
my thoughts are green fibers
awaiting spring.

when he wishes, his wings extend.
he wafts above city and bay
silent above lights at night.

the sun has fled away
but I am by my lantern waiting
to assist the reticent dawn.













it's on an evening like this evening
the sun a yellow few moments
from the dark edge of the westward hills,
a radio melody rises - the big band sound -
from a board-shack dwelling behind
a congregation of one-eyed cars;
a dog yapping, a light breeze
with the faint moon risen in the sky.

it is on an evening
like this evening
I sit on a volkswagen bumper,
sit by a brown puddle, by tire tracks
and hear the shore sounds,
the idling hauler, the gull crying
behind me by the sea.









this is when the tide
is neither high, is neither low;
when reflections on the water which is not still
seem still; and whether the moon will rise this night as last -
still full - we do not know.

it is a time of which we know
in which to speak would only show
that we know nothing; in which to say
"ah moon," in a guise of recognition
would be a speaking soundless undersea.

the sun is at last!
this we know.
the sky will not fail
nor will the fraying rope
that moors us nowhere in particular
be loosed to leave us free
to wash upon the shore.

we know this.
yet listen though we might
we hear no sound; the tide is lapping
the ripples slapping on the stones
have voices without wings.

and we are left
yet neither on the sea, on neither shore
the moon flying gathers her tides about her -
mother! where are you going?
father . . . what will you be?

The Creation

THE CREATION














Illustrations by:

Cyrus Charters

Poems by:

Keith Kapleau








Note: each poem is written to accompany a line-drawing by Cyrus Charters, not yet included in this blog entry.






THE WAKING

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.


Theodore Roethke










The stone. the source
from which the water came.
if there were no stones
there would be no oceans.
and if there were no oceans,
no great lakes or little ponds,
no tricklets dappled in the shadow of forest ferns,
then where would the imagination freshen?
if after rainfall no stone with a dent
held a brief palmful of reflection,
then where would the moon alight?
what white would we use for ink?
how would we know shadow from shade?
and would not every crater of our mind be black?
and would we not walk on a water as hard
as stone and would not stone be soft,
and white?

But these stones are black.
what stones are black!
this artist is a fool.






























A twig of the imagination cannot be resolved
into counterparts of black and white,
into a code of lines and purposed specks.
What is, broadcasts itself;
what is broadcast, is.
in this way the grackle scrapes a tune
as sweet as any nightingale;
the nightingale sings sweetly surely,
yet who has ever seen one, heard one sing?
and who has ever heard the music of these leaves?
has felt their wrinkled slopes
or if their undersides are moist or dry?

Only the eye that sees the weight of a hole,
that weighs the face of the artist
to know it weightless -
only this eye knows the hue of blue,
only this eye has read these purposed lines.




















Five - the withered stalk.
And yet we know no stalk
has ever withered, nor seed
has down-sent roots nor flower
turned to seed.
The cleaver of vision has no edge.
Yet still, it severs and five
rests proudly on its stem, its corners
intense, sharp with intellection, ready to impale
the delicate foliole of affection -
perhaps we have gone too far.

What is
and what is made
both are, and yet
birth is the berth
of death, and
perhaps if this five
does not appear the just fruition
of an immutable maturation,
then death is not what it is
but what we imagine,
and we have still far to go.

















many eucalyptus died this year.
they approached from the far side of time
defined the present and disappeared:
the green sprays clustering on the hills;
the bitter knife of the season's night;
the peeling trunks, their brown arms shivering, quivering in moonlight kill
a notion of omnipotence.

In the stalled winter‑mind enthusiasm chills -
the blood flows backwards and the past
is a seedless memory best forgotten.
the rotten self on whom you stand
has a stinking sterile hand . . .
the soul balks . . . a blink is an hour
and the power to coach the crocus
is an acrid memory best forgotten, when -
sitting quietly, doing nothing,
spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
















THE LANDSCAPE OF SPRING

In the landscape of spring
there is neither high nor low;
The flowering branches grow naturally,
some long some short.
Thus when we say,
"your time is up!"
We prove there is no time
and down is actually summer.

In the evening breeze of summer
the moon is always at noon;
A yellow bee is humming,
he ferries illusion upstream.
This is when we say,
"ah! eternity -
Eternity rises as blue as the corn
and is subject only to fall."

Ah! fall ‑
Always arriving early,
Strapping men and moon indoors
to rest in sun-struck memories.
Death, death is as sad as a birth;
it's a long long growth to a seed
And a pod
is the home of a fool.





In the white husk that is winter
a man knows his own trail
In the untrodden snow.
In the cold he hears the smallest flame.
But if the windchime tings
as he stands in a dozy ignorance
And in his ears rings nothing,
perhaps he knows -
Perhaps he walks upon the snows, is wide awake,
and sings of spring's appearance.








THE FACTS OF THE MATTER



the leaves will roll
and the ocean rustle

a birth at dusk
at dawn: death

the leaves will roll
and the ocean rustle

a man with a beard
a man without a beard
two women without a beard

the leaves will roll
and the ocean rustle

















1.

Man will not survive his own future;
he will not survive.
Look at him now for now -
for now is his future
and his future is already past.

I was a man and will be -
yet I tolerate no man.
it is too facile to live among men,
to live among thieves manning the ramparts
of yes and now, of no and then;
for in dichotomy confusion lies to prove all things;
and truth, the only truth,
the truth beyond this or that,
which is between sea and shore
also lies . . . and again lies.
The truth is before men
yet they do not see it.
It is above men
yet they trample it to fiction.
The truth is indiscriminate, embracing all men,
yet they shun it and brand it foul.
and the more it reveals itself
the more they see themselves
the more they fear
and flee.









2.

I dream of an isle. (I am a fool.)
I dream of a splash of sand
in an open receptive sea lapping to caress
not to crush. I envision a land
in which a man may meet the eye of a man
and inspire a smile in both;
in which a flower's whisper is heard,
is breathed from ear to eye to arm
and leads men to invoke their sense
so flowers are tended
and may tend the mind of man.


3.

I dream of a society impossible
for it is peopled by men
and today can show no man.
Its people tend themselves and do no injury to others. No man hides from what he sees.
Each man values himself as important as any,
and every man as important as he.
Each seeks the advice of his fellows
and offers no word without request.
No man aims to control his brother
but strives to be a brother to himself.
Each looks to the yes and the no of himself,
improves upon himself,
shares his best with others
and does not waste himself
abasing others for what frailties they may suffer.









4.


There is no race like this I imagine
where each man and each woman
and each child and each elder
again enfeebled to childhood -
where all open their hearts
and where each looks direct
into his brother's eyes to read
of joys and woes, and to celebrate
with him
cherishings of love and to weep
with him
if any be lost in sorrow.

I dream of a land where this is not true
and that is not false;
where facts are not facts unless they are loved;
where what any man loves is declared true by a11;
where everything
and nothing
are true.













He dreams of an isle.
yet what isle was ever dreamed
but of oneself, surrounded by one's personal sea?
Those three palms, swaying, rooted in yellow sands
are they not his hands that stay the dreamy calm?
and are not the gentle breezes tousling the fronds
his fingers, pleased, tickling those palms,
edging them toward his own fruition?
Yet what fruit will appear
save the nearest bloom his heart will bear,
on the closest beach which accepts beyond wear
the clashing booming sea?
What will it be - a sprouting of crescents,
a bunching of inedible moons?

He devours himself.
he consumes his costume,
eats his appetite, slakes his thirst
yet parches on the sands, dreaming
of the milk of impossible coconuts.
His thirst dries his eyes, denies
that the sea dashing upon his shore
caresses his dream-shore more.
Let him not dream, not think.
Let him lower his palms
to raise to his lips to drink
the ocean of dry division until
the mirage has vanished . . .
and he basks upon that isle
as an isle no more
while the yellow sandy sea
crashes on every shore.










Intrusions of reality -
as if reality could ever push itself aside.
What is
is not
cannot be
what we would wish is were;
even creating is, we do not modify.
So here we are.

a man in meditation
sits amidst sorrel. beside him sits
a yellow‑shirted yogi.
the single‑centered sun
now shares its center into pairs.
it shines itself - as if it could - upon the sorrel blooms,
beams itself as if it cared upon the hairy fly
who zooms the air
until it reaches perfect silence there, sunning
on the sole of a man in meditation.

The fly arrives
and will depart
in perfect abnegation of desire;
his wings are windows stained
with strains of
some fuzzy buzzy cathedral choir.














we do not believe the stones are green.
we are keen on truth
but do not listen
unless it is we who speak.
we are sword fern
lancing green syllables toward the sun;
we are sod speaking to sod.

What merit has this artist?
why, no merit at all.
His purpose is not to appear
but to become invisible;
to work hard and accomplish nothing.
This is why his failure is such success,
why finding friends is to be hindered:
With no friends on whom can one rely?

The more we see
the greater is our burden
and we need lose more
until our blindness is complete.
Then, life slips from our grasp like water.
For the first time seeing all
we are alive.








So much effort
to repeat what is.
If only we could naturally grow from the rubble,
but no, we trouble ourselves invoking stones
to dance, finding them here
hauling them there like ants
carving a home
deeper and deeper into darkness.

slowly the stone dissolves to water.
the water is in the sky;
the water is in the stream.
it wets the mountain iris
and the mountain iris dies.
what better way to stay alive than die?

And when we are done
we see our only error
is what we have begun
and that is nothing.
The water wears the single stone in two.
the brooklet splashes about the roots of sorrel;
it slips to an inside vein,
and creeps steeply toward the sky.

a stream nudges pebbles downstream.
the moon reflects till we die.

Welcome

Dear Reader,

This blog presents most of my Works since 1970. They are collected within five categories representing my life’s progression: On the road; Waterfront writings; Hard ashore; In the world; and Leaving the world.

I’m not so far from leaving the world, statistically, even though I told my children I hope to live to be one-hundred-eight. Wish me luck!

The next life category probably is Three Year Retreat: I and my Spiritual Partner will enter into a three and a half year silent meditation retreat in November of this year, 2010.

To prepare for the Retreat, I’m collating and posting the poetry you see here, bringing it to a point of some completion, so my mind can be less distracted by unfinished business during the Retreat. My sweet Lama and Guide, Geshe Michael Roach, says “It’s so he won’t be pestered by poetry demons during retreat.”

If you wish to learn more about the Diamond Mountain Great Retreat, please visit Retreat4Peace.org, where you will find my statement plus entries by others of the thirty or so of my spiritual brothers and sisters who will join the incomparable Geshe Michael Roach on the 2010 Three Year Retreat.

The entry following this one lists the Works, showing an asterisk ( * ) before the title of those currently posted. Do a text search for the title to quickly jump to any specific title page you desire. If your search doesn’t find the title you seek, go to the bottom of the blog, click on “Older Posts,” and search again. Also you will find a “Chronological listing of works by Keith Emmons” at the beginning of the Work titled: White Dog Warrior and, for your convenience, as the very first post made below, all the way at the bottom of all the posts.

We don’t know where life takes us, even as we try to be in charge. My Teacher has instructed me, “No writing for a year and a half,” while in retreat.

Will I write after that?

We’ll see.

I hope you find value here, for your own life, in the poetry below.

Muchlove, Keith Emmons

Posted Works

Works by Keith Emmons posted at KeithEmmons.blogspot.com

An asterisk ( * ) preceding a title below means this Work is posted below. Works are posted in reverse chronological order, most recent writings appearing first.

Title (listed chronologically) Dates Type Pages

On the road:
Visions of Perpetual Dawn 1970-1972 Haiku 48
*The Found Poetry of Keith Kapleau 1970-1972 Poems 108
*Kapleau Sonnets 1970-1972 Sonnets 24
*Before the Creation 1971 Poems 81
*The Creation 1972 Poetry, Illustrated 24
a collection of blippoems 1970-1974 1-3 line poems 153


Waterfront writings:
Moondrifter 1972-1976 Haiku 73
*Waterfront Hanshan 1972-1983 16-line Poems 23
*Waterfront Hanshan II 1972-1983 16-line Poems 23
Bittern on the Post 1972-1975 Poetry Textbook 177
What Falls Away is Always 1972-1977 Poems 83
Magnolia and others 1972-1983 11 Short Works, poetry 164
*The End of the Veil 1980 Prose Poetry 65


Hard ashore:
*Sausalito Interlude 1977-1979 Poetry 84
*The Developer’s Song 1977-1980 Poetry 68
*The Course of this Chaos 1978-1980 Poetry 47


In the world:
*The Joyful Oblivion 1979-1983 Poetry 52
(Ten years, no writing) -------------- --------- ---
*First Rain 1993-1996 Poetry 51
*All Day Is Not Too Long 1997-2000 Poetry 85
*A Month of Keith 2001 Poem-a-day 60
Two Candles on My Altar 2002-2004 Poetry


Leaving the world:
*Slayer of Death 2005 Poems 29
*Lady of Diamond 2006-2007 Poems 32
*Tsechu 2008 Poems 41
*White Dog Warrior 2009 Poems

From White Dog Warrior 2009

WHITE DOG WARRIOR







KEITH EMMONS

Author’s Note











Dear Reader,


Most poetry books are “collections.” Such books contain poems the poet or publisher feel stand alone; these poems are seen crafted as individual separate creations. Possibly they are timeless.

The poems in these works are closer to a narrative. They are the music of a particular time in a particular man’s life.

Life has spectacular moments as well as missteps and sadness; it has exultation as well as annoyance and boredom. Together these moments weave the tapestry we wear, the personal garment expressing our individual life.

These works are meant to be read straight through, from the first poem to the last: from start to finish. This is how we live – dawn to dusk, birth to death; moment to moment.




Chronological listing of works by Keith Emmons




Title Dates Type Pages

On the road:
Visions of Perpetual Dawn 1970-1972 Haiku 48
The Found Poetry of Keith Kapleau 1970-1972 Poems
Kapleau Sonnets 1970-1972 Sonnets 24
Before the Creation 1971 Poems
The Creation 1972 Poetry, Illustrated 24
a collection of blippoems 1970-1974 1-3 line poems 153


Waterfront writings – Anchored Out:
Moondrifter 1972-1976 Haiku 73
Waterfront Hanshan 1972-1983 16-line Poems 23
Waterfront Hanshan II 1972-1983 16-line Poems 23
Bittern on the Post 1972-1975 Poetry Textbook 177
What Falls Away is Always 1972-1977 Poems 83
Magnolia and others 1972-1983 11 Short Works, poetry 164
The End of the Veil 1980 Prose Poetry 65


Waterfront writings: Hard Ashore
Sausalito Interlude 1977-1979 Poetry 84
The Developer’s Song 1977-1980 Poetry 68
The Course of this Chaos 1978-1980 Poetry 47


In the world:
The Joyful Oblivion 1979-1983 Poetry 52
(Ten years working in Silicon Valley, no writing) --------- ---------
First Rain 1993-1996 Poetry 51
All Day Is Not Too Long 1997-2000 Poetry 85
A Month of Keith 2001 Poem-a-day 60
Two Candles on My Altar 2002-2004 Poetry
Reunion 2003 Poetry 37
Songs of Samsara 2004 Poetry 24
Flight to Diamond Mountain 2005 Poetry 28

Leaving the world:
Slayer of Death 2005 Poems 29
Lady of Diamond 2006-2007 Poems 32
Tsechu 2008 Poems 41
White Dog Warrior 2009 Poems 26











Darkness wraps around
the naked tree
while he reads poetry
as if it could set him free.

The trains keep ripping through
the night. He calls his wife
to say, “Goodnight.” Then leans
in closer to the light.

Dickenson, Williams, Stevens,
Frost. He turns the page,
he seeks what he has lost.
The hands show shadow
on his face –

he’s lost his place
his eve’s delight
the trains keep ripping
through the night
they hunch his shoulders

while he reads poetry.
As if it could set him free.












She slipped in and loved me
although I didn’t know Her name
don’t remember how She looked.

A long time after, I lay awake
even through blessing all beings, the Angels
thirty-two dissolving into four

the One the mirage
smoke sparks
the single candle flame;

the white expanding, the heart
burst open spreading its wash
of orange warmth . . .

Still I didn’t rest until She said,
“Dawn’s far away for those who sleep.”
The three-thirty AM train.











I used to be so happy
imagining myself as Hanshan,
hair disheveled, communing in no-thought
with mountains, brooklets and stones.

I was free as a cloud.
I never gave a thought for anyone.
Alone on Mt. Tamalpais, whenever I wanted,
I sat cross-legged to write a poem.

Then Geshe Michael came along
to tell me this messed-up world
is all my fault – my past deeds!
All this suffering, the wars, the genocide,

the home of all the flowers and birds
collapsing around our smog our cities –
it’s all ripening from me.
Look at this mess I made!

I used to enjoy life;
now I work hard all day.


















It used to make no difference
if he lived or died.
That was all right, for that time.
The wind chime rang again and again
its one pure note;
the misty smoke from his fire
drifted lazily among the pines.












Dear Love, one more time I walk
from the lower to the upper house.
It’s tsechu. The breeze casts cherry petals
ahead of me on the graveled way.

Today the Chinese kill more Tibetans.
“Deeply lost in love,” my poem began.
“It is age that forced us to stop.
The same goes for making love,”
Picasso said. “You still want to
but you can’t do it any more.”

What will stop the Chinese?
Struck down with a club;
struck down by time –
is there a difference?
The slender shoots bear flowers, then fruit.
Let me kiss you, one more time.



















slow moving hearse on a

mountain road . . . pulls over.

the living zip past.














Throw out my back
while making my bed;
just a matter of time
until I am dead.

Whatever the hell
what month it is;
since “just in time”
I’m a little bit late.

Teaching the word
on wobbly legs;
speaking the dharma
from a mouth full of pegs.






Being Buddhist
I left the upturned roach
immobile on her back
where her crab-shell legs
must have pawed the air
in her last vain moments.
And I reflected each time
I walked down the long hall
past the vinyl laundry floor
where she lay how
I too one day
and you too
will one day gasp our last
and slowly settle into our stiffening joints,
our heap of decaying carcass.

My kids’ Great Aunt Imogene
died today, they say.
Her son phoned to tell me so.

It’s the end of an era –
her memories of Boston sophisticates,
hats plumed with Egret on the Commons,
elbow-length white Kid gloves;
then the Roaring Twenties,
the Depression, World War II;
and her husband’s suicide.

Later, on the phone with my own son,
“So she’s done with all that,” I said.
“Or just beginning,” he replied.

No doubt
they’ll burn up my aunt.
I pitch the roach
in the trash.



















I move that dog poop

out of the walk. Dried in the sun.

Hard as a rock.












We witness
the heart-wound open;
the bull roars out
goring the passersby.

How many times
do you lose your family?
Yama rips and
burrows in the chest.

Talons
rend water from the eyes.
Breath has no purpose . . .
until the bull cries

and She appears
all around him soothing:
“Weeping is the birthing
of My heart.”












Heart drives the mind.
Without heart, nothing.
Please, lend me Your hand.

Do I ask too much?
I give You my life:
without heart, nothing.

Perhaps I am worthless.
That’s why I ask – please
lend me Your hand.

I sit blank in the morning.
Breath lost it’s purpose. Heart
drives the mind.

I know Your love is not to take,
only mine to give. Please
please take my hand;
my heart, without Yours, is nothing.











White Dog Warrior cannot be stopped.
The heart may stop.
White Dog Warrior cannot be stopped.

Do not let me see Your love –
I will love You anyway.
Strip me of my friends –
I will bow to You anyway:
White Dog Warrior cannot be stopped.

There is no answer in the morning;
and night cannot take it away.
Your love is not Your gift to me.
Though I stumble in how –
I know I give this love to You.
I told You I came to pester You.
“How?” You said, knowing that’s impossible.
White Dog Warrior pesters himself;

his heart reignites –
he hears it drumming –
White Dog Warrior cannot be stopped.
I


Not much thought.
Fall into ritual, rhythm.
The gods are asleep –
they wait while I awaken.

Altar in front of me
I turn my head to the left –
gaze out the window.

The trains are still;
the spring leaves on the pistachio
are still; the candle flame
on my altar is still.
Smiling from the photographs . . .
my Lamas, and Irene.

Practicing tummo
the First Incidental,
leaves stir on the pistachio;
a bright yellow and black songbird
flits from twig to twig
nibbling at the blossoms.






II


Six weeks between terms –
Vajrasattva recitation, sutra study, transcribing,
paying bills, on the phone, construction business –
even washed my truck! no time
to practice tummo.
Irene and I did practice
and She, as red element,
and I as white said prayers
hand in hand,
stretched in yoga many mornings
a few nights, our condition of our bodies,
our vision of ourselves,
our toleration, our expansion
our wonder
as well as our dismay
at one another.

First morning
returned to Shantideva House
I arrange water bowls
I pray, I write
I visit the shimmering
crimson column –
The Channel of Dance –
awakening in emptiness and flame.




III


Second Incidental.
Returning to the heart
to the present
to this
without that.

Thank you Lamas
for Your patience
with this
so so kiewo.
The bull lay down.

It’s good again
to reach the beginning –
an old friend –
two lovers meeting
after a long absence –

determined
to try
all over again.



















warm morning breeze pink

roses blooming our sweet love

is in Spring again













In the mirror I see You showering
as I place a rose on our bed.
You raise Your arms and water and soap
sweetly scent hidden places and folds
in Your pinkness only my hands go,
wrapping You in my arms as morning
gently opens Her eyes Her warmth
Her heart Her soft mounds pressing
along my chest my heart my cheek
caressing Her cheek Her sweet breath.
Not a day younger – I don’t care:
Spring is in love again.








She sings to me –
He and She
in Union at my heart.
He and She
hold court
with Angels.

Angels
dance from every pore,
winds whirling
and playing
are my Buddha field,
my Paradise,

the Redwoods standing,
Buckeye flowering,
the Mourning Dove,
Jays squawking,
Juncos pecking crumbs;
a purple butterfly

floats breezes
bloom to bloom.
She
is his heart of hearts;
She is in everything:
of this

I sing.








It’s me she takes inside her –
silent slider, darkness hider –
on Her inner light
I ride her.

She gives me who
I am I know;
she gives me wings –
to her I go.

On Her wings then
we’re the rider –
the darkness glider
the light inside her;

Her song they sing –
their darkness hider –
set free inside her
Her light their wings.

They reap the light
they seed the sower
inside the night
they ride to know Her;

They join the light –
let him divide her;
he gives Herself
to fly inside her..









Frustrated genie stuck
in a bottle of flesh and doubt
and bully bombast –
sit – sit yourself down
and contemplate generosity.

“If you still think the key
starts the car,” my teacher says,
“you still don’t believe in karma;
you still doubt emptiness.”
After years of practicing
I understand practically nothing.

Where does happiness come from?
From joy in doing good.
From the first-pure-thing-space
our deeds ripen.
When our actions are perfected
the bottle falls away.

Save all beings?
Save all beings?
No problem.

















Note: “first-pure-thing-space:” the literal translation of the Tibetan word often translated as “Buddha Nature.”











This thing, called Keith, will one day die.
When She enwraps me, let me keep my head.
Although all die, there’s no one dead.

We love to die; so many times we have.
This death like this is why I live.
Enwrapped in She, I’ll be “exactly there.”

Today, tonight, we don’t know when,
don’t wait before You take me in.
This thing called Keith, will one day die.

When I am gone, let me reside:
a whiff of bliss on air I ride.
As She returning, part my hair –

For you and all of yours I’ll care:
I’ll wake you when they’ll say you’ve died.
When I embrace you keep your head:
although all die, there’s no one dead.












Press my underpants and lay them in a row.
Then they’re ready when it’s time to go.
Don’t be saying, “O, I didn’t know.”

I put it off as long as I knew how
but all things finally fall in place.
Then they’re ready when it’s time to go.

Don’t be thinking what we should have done:
it’s not they didn’t tell us time is short.
Fold my under things and set them in a row.

We know we’re here but barely know the place.
Before I go I’d like to know it’s taste.
Don’t be saying, “O, I didn’t know.”

The sky alone will be my fate,
my breath will breeze across your face.
Lay out your wings so I will know
we’re ready and it’s time to go.










She lilts along the forest path
the oak leaves rustling
her sandals of crimson beads
idly kicking and musing:
"Tsechu. Perhaps I will be chosen
by the Lord."

Her pert lips
her breasts adolescent
her nipples tickled -
standing up -
the silk tunic teasing them
as she hops along.

"I will lead him to the edge
and if he can
from there
he'll fly!" She smiles
her perfect pearl teeth
a sharp sparkle

her lip sliding up
Her glistening fang.


















Could She
Her lip curling slyly up
entice him, seduce him
into Union
with Her inner core and drop?
to drop his self-pretension?

Could She fool him -
let him believe he conquered,
achieved on his own -
Her gift
Her heart
Her door

to every dream imagined?

Each day
he prays She will.










Her renunciation
deep and profound;
her shallow - her renunciation
of renunciation:
she clings to renunciation
like a burning raft.

While he
a drunken sailor
leers and casts
his clumsy bouquets
enticing Her to sail
his uncertain sea.

From her window
on the hill she hears
His bell and incantations;
before dawn, into the night,
sober and calm
he casts off lines.

Her purity draws them
yet keeps them far -
until the Heaven of the Pure
calls Their Union.
And with the ocean far below
They fly.

from Slayer of Death, Lady of Diamond, and Tsechu

SELECTIONS FROM:




SLAYER OF DEATH


LADY OF DIAMOND

AND

LERUNG




KEITH EMMONS






SLAYER OF DEATH





KEITH EMMONS










Why not pick joy?
Why not pick joy?

Appearing as this teacup
Shakyamuni Buddha enters all things;
this sweet amrita – I slurp it down.

The butter lamp sputters and spits.
Shakyamuni Buddha in Bodhgaya is
appearing as this teacup?

Dead twenty-five hundred years –
who could possibly claim
Shakyamuni Buddha enters all things?

The Tatagata enters all sorrow?
The Tatagata enters all joy?
There is no amrita: who slurps it down?

The unborn Tatagata never dies.
Who can tell bitter from sweet?
This butter lamp burns forever.
This sweet amrita – I slurp it down.

Why not pick joy?
Why not pick joy?














They say Yamari is the Slayer of Death.
They say The River of Deathless Nectar
tells how to defeat death how
death is an illusion, a fabrication,
a mistake made in the mind.

It’s all about emptiness, they say.
All things we see we cannot find
when we go looking. And . . .
they blossom from our root of deeds.

“Stop complaining,” Khen Rinpoche told Geshela:
“If you don’t like it,
do something about it.” Plant the seeds.
Plant the causes of your pleasure palace.
Don’t fear death – annihilate it.

Easy to say, easy to say.
I wake, make bag lunches
and meditate day to day.
One day I hope to understand my path.
Today I study, I contemplate, I meditate.
My projection? The road passing by my truck.



















What’s that whistle? As I

study tantra four blackbirds

inspect my window.


















"You see your Lama
as a Perfect Holy Being
because you need one
and you know
that's the only thing
that will bring them,"
I recalled Christiela's words.

"Cawrr!" rasped one blackbird.


This is no rock:

this is my love
my live and beating heart
streaming beams of my thankfulness
into your precious heart

this is my love
for your countless years of Teachings
offered so freely

this is my tears
when you revealed the nine
after I had sat, ignorant, for ten years
in subtle dullness

this is for the wisdom of emptiness
answering my questions
banishing my purposeless wandering

this is for the heart of Sangha –
your precious diamond realization –
and our sincerity to try to follow you

this is for your heart connection
with the ancient Sages, reconnecting us
with ourselves in the three times

this is for your Vajrapani Vajra Chedika Lung
without which I would never have met
my Diamond Partner

this is for the Incomparable Wisdom
of Buddhahood, which I promise to pursue,
following You, with your Blessing, in this lifetime
to reach Perfect Unexcelled Buddhahood.

Please accept this rock
and warm it with your hands.
May the love then streaming from it
reach out to embrace every living being

and may each and every one of us
know the purity and the beauty
and the incomparable joy and wisdom
just to know my Perfect Teacher.










Waiting in line to get bonked
I suddenly see the great sham:
what, did you really believe
in the Power of the Lama?
That the water transformed?
That it had to be kusha grass?

Of course, it does make sense:
do good deeds. Be good –
you’ll have a good life.
We’ve done the Eighteen
so now we know.
Behind the curtain, Geshela laughs.

Now he’s happy to grant us
every power we’d ever want –
“Go forth and multiply, do good;
make many good lives!”
This is my Lama’s dream …
just as I am my Lama’s dream.

Bonk me twice dear Geshela -
once to finally get it
and once to get going:
O mandala mine, make merry!
Sprinkle holy water everywhere!
May good seeds sprout and bloom everywhere!!












From the emptiness of the Crown:
equanimity toward all persons.
From “blame with no one to blame,”
to “bliss with praise for everyone.”

“Be careful when you pick your Lama
because you’ll become just like them.”
O this is something to pray for!
Prayer flags of all the world

Set this wish free on all the winds!
Carry this prayer on the inward wind
Carry this prayer on the outward wind
To cool all angry hearts

To move all idle hearts
To free all suffering hearts
From the invisible chains
Of self-inflicted pain.




First it’s circumambulate clockwise.
Then, when the Angel appears,
circumambulate counter clockwise.
First you’d better watch out or
the danger of desire will surely
cast you into the pits of hell.
Now you have a commitment
to go find your Diamond Partner:
“There is no sin in the entire
three realms of the universe
which comes close to that
of giving up desire.
And so now you must never
lose your love of desire.”

Go meditate to improve yourself:
this is how you help others.
“Do it with your right hand.”
“I shall perform all actions
with my left.”
How can this all make sense?

Open your wisdom Lover
until we two rising
melt into one descending
through the four; be kind,
open your door to this Paradise.

Then, surely, I will return
as you; you will return
as me and neither of us
will be opposite or know opposites,
and no one will be there
to obstruct our joyful efforts
to plant the seeds for everyone
onto the Joyful Path to Bliss.









“God, if you exist,” I yelled at the sky,
“do something to prove it!”
I was ready for anything; I was ready
to be struck down.
But nothing happened.
The sky stayed blue.
The grass stayed green. The great gray oak
and the stone wall stood in silence.
That was the day I gave up god.

O Great Deities, if you’re so enlightened
why are you so much trouble, so coy?
Why don’t you show yourself right now?

O, I’m not ready. O, you’re my projection.
O, you’re no being at all really; not
enlightened, not wrathful,
neither here nor there.

“When you see Buddha you’ll throw yourself
on the floor. It’s automatic!” says Geshela.
“First you turn yourself into small animals,
dogs and cats…” “No, really,” he exclaims.

Of course I believe none of it. Tell myself
who lives after I die to come shake my hand;
when I see Buddha have I gone mad?
Because I pass through the diamond door
to hold no existent thing, does this mean

no existent thing exists? No wall, no tree
no god, no me? I sit crosslegged, fill
water bowls, offer stinky tormas to the Deity:
I have to do something to fill the time!













This doubt, of course, is tantra’s ultimate sin:
all emanations of the Angel – you, me,
that rock; everything the union of bliss and void.

“Rub it, cut it, melt it,” commands Shakyamuni.
See if it’s pure, then you can believe it.
And in believing X, is Y denied?

Why fear you have something to lose?
“But if I present a questioning word
the one-thirty-four might strike me down!”

Strike me down, lift me up –
what difference does it make?
Save all beings or let them drown;

the choice is mine;
the choice is yours:
the world turns round and round.










Offer them flowers six times…
what am I, a florist?

No.

I am the source of flowers!
I am the source of flowers ungrown
and I offer them
to my emptiness –
to your emptiness
appearing there as you.

Shut all the shops on Sunday!
Then Monday, Tuesday, all the days:
we need more time
to celebrate!
Unplug my phone
and light five candles:
my Lama burns as five
dispelling the ghosts of ignorance.
Bring flowers to my altar.

Then bring one more.
Burn steadily Diamond Partner flame;
vanish through the nada into emptiness.
When you reappear
you will find me bowing here
before your altar.







We edge carefully
left foot forward
into the treachery of tantra.
“Don’t think this is easy”
my Master said. “Try
living three years in a yurt
all day every day with someone
at one hundred fifteen degrees.
Some days you’ll hate it.
And it’s the fastest way.”

All our lives
we’ve lived for this.
All that sitting –
was it just for
all that sitting?
That time is gone.

There’s so little time.
We seem so old.
Our memories failing
and our knees in pain –
now we must
rise up and sprint?
Have mercy.

Here’s mercy:
to offer you every paradise.
Here are the vows
to gift us enlightenment.
Here is the vortex of love
to save every living being.
What we give away
is what we receive.
So why would we want
any other way?
















Roosters crow and pink slowly seeps
into the Bowie dawn sky.
I don't know if I woke up
because day is coming
or if day is coming
because I woke up.

Morning after morning
I sit at Shantideva House.
Sparrows and Finches scuffle about
the dusty driveway by my window -
they hop excitedly on their little stick legs.
When they spot a bug

they gobble it down.
Lobsang Chunzin says I made these bugs.
These pipping birds' next life
will be as bugs for sure.
Again and again I eat myself.
How can I stop this carnage?

Step onto the Blissful path to Bliss.
Slip into the Channel of Dance
and crack the Wisdom of the Light.
Dissolve Your body drop by drop.
Then return each dawn as many bugs.
Offer Yourself to the hungry stabbing beaks.












I give myself to You;
please take me.

I hold my hands before my heart,
I bow my head,
I kneel before Thee;
please take me.

All I thought I knew,
I give to You.
All armor around my heart
I drop for You.
Please forgive the fool I’ve been;
please take me.

Where You go
please take me there.
Into the ocean of Your heart
I offer my fragile craft.
I give my life to You –
please take me.










LADY OF DIAMOND






KEITH EMMONS













Go silently; like a train.
Hold your whistle.
Plow steadily through the night.
Racing across the rails
darkness cannot stop you;
mountains and plains cannot stop you;
anger and hatred cannot stop your
bursting into dawn
hair streaming with the wind of will.
No heartbeat can resist you.

Panting and hissing, at rest
in the center of the city
your full cargo of roses
spills onto sidewalks, fills cafes
with bouquets and amazed strangers
as you press into their hands
and hearts,

Her love.









This Dream will never die -
how can you kill a dream?
It can fly through steel
even blindfolded
in a cage captured
under a raging waterfall.















"Out, out!" says Nicole's

broom as she sweeps the Matrix.

"Yesterday's dust - get out!"

















Be as busy as you like -
there's not much to do.
Open your heart.

Move over and make room
for your Angel
waiting to hold your hand.

At the stupa
I straightened the prayer flags;
I gave a few moments.

That's a day's work done!







Nameless One perched on a twig,

tent flaps still in the rising dawn,

I awaken to your song.









Thisday morning. Tea.

Sitting on a rock;

sun outside, sunshine in.









"I want some too, I

want some too!" says the fly on

the rim of my teacup.












Angel
be my spirit, my breath;
be ripples
on the wind of life
flowing within my heart.

When they criticize me
let me remember:
of course
it is not You
they are speaking to.

Let me remember
of course
they are like me:
Angels
at play.

And so may I love Them
deeply – from the heart –
and protect Them:
please, let’s not damage
Our still wet wings.


















Thank you, Sweet One
for waking me into this dawn.

It's a game we play
saving all beings from death.

The day to give up my familiar self
is looking out the window already.














She said
we could let our lions
out of their cages
and it would be OK.

Mine's been pacing for years
turning its head impatiently
then meeting the bars again,
circling again.

I thought You could tame him
or make me forget.
Now I learn
You have one too!

I offer my naked chest:
do what you have to do.
Stand still! Reveal Yourself -
show who You are
Lady of Enlightenment
shut the door
on self and other now
You wrap me in Your wisdom
I diamond of the Angels
of Highest Bliss surrounding You
unnamed lady of ultimate wisdom
Keeper of the Diamond
dancing in your laser ruby light
touching all beings transformed
into shimmering emanations
of rainbow bliss.

No, move! Dance whirling
dervish of elaboration
now pure
by ignorant desire
untouched swirl
in ecstasy giving up
nothing denying
nothing exalting in
nothing all-named
playground of buddhas'
field of enlightenment
move onto me please
take me there please
for I am ready.

Love me caress me
take pity on me be
hard with me merciless
flood kindness
on me I work I pray
I study concentrate meditate
I bow to my Lama
to You please melt
capsule of love
on knee offered
to You to all;

I who am nothing
but Your sacred voice
promise to be space
without obstruction for You -
sweet mercy of Your blessing -
please fill me and re-emerge:
Your heart, Your love, Your breath.















The moon now
is not illusion -
is enlightened mind;
or mind of nirvana.

In Arizona the moon
remains the moon;
as in California;
Teotihuacan.

But the moon rides higher -
higher than the cleft
dives deeper into the valley
of your heart.

O how I wish
to ride that moon -
to plunge into that darkness
to fly into empty nighttime sky.












Wonder Woman
straddled the entire earth
as they explained
only She -
She was the only one
who could save every single one
of its countless suffering beings.

Did She have any choice?
Could She afford to doubt them
and cast every one She loved -
every one Her own mother! -
into bottomless burning hell?

But then,
glancing at Her appointment book
She realized
She had time
only on Thursday and today
was only Tuesday and
"O well," She thought,
I guess they'll just
have to wait.
And off She ran.










What touch, between Lovers,
is not holy?
This is what gives it breath.
O my spirit!
how it longs to go home –
to be held
in the cradle of Your heart.

To touch You
within Your heart
is to touch God
in His moment of creation.
From Your hand
my spirit moves

and all my works arise:
the body radiant,
the written word,
joy at small things,
and with great things too.
And without Your touch
all falls plain.

And perishes.






LERUNG






KEITH EMMONS
















I can say things fancy
but let’s make a deal:
I’ll say them plain
then you can fancify them
any way you please.
Who has time these days
to adorn things anyway?
We stick bits of cheese
on globs of bread and ghee.
They say that’s enough
to satisfy gods and spirits:
why should you and I need more?
















Day after day in retreat
I push myself counting mantras.
After two weeks I play a CD
called “Everyday Ecstasy.”
I sit by the fire
and listen to the rain.

Someone once thought
to explain The Great Mystery
and we’ve had trouble ever since.
Be who you are:
isn’t that miracle enough?
Why struggle so to change what is?














We bump and grind our daily lives
while dreaming of paradise.
They say … She takes you away
to a mind with no body
and only bliss. This
is why we sit

and mummer Triple Ohms
a hundred thousand. This
is why we sit scribbling notes
at the Masters’ feet:
this secret path – revealed.
She waits, They say.

Or appears one day
when you are ready.
O Angel of Love, I pray -
Your kiss of compassion.












Suddenly it seems so lonely
this enlightenment business.
Save all beings;
save all sentient beings –
it all sounds nice …
in an abstract sort of way.

But then two people,
even two lovers
have no idea
how to touch one another
how to meet one another
how to reassure one another.

I take refuge
in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha;
having given up
on all the rest.
How sad to see my cushion
with resignation.
















Angel said

She could not write

not knowing



From Her hand

bliss would be

anypoem



















The journey seems

so infinite!

Then you pass the milestones

one by one.
















It was only Wednesday.
The wind, the rain was gone.
White clouds blue sky. In Spring.
She spoke in a thousand voices:
fat-breasted robins, mourning doves,
green finches perched in the Buckeye tree.
Migrators. Like a tropical forest canopy
Her diamonds touched them all.
He knew Her love song
like the swaying wind chime, like white
red and blue prayer flags gently fluttering.
Just another Wednesday. In Spring.











She calls me.
A thousand miles I go to meet Her.
I leave my lover's bed to meet Her.
Have I ever heard Her voice?
In dreams, in dreams.

She is my own heart singing.
She is two Lovers weeping.
They yearn for one another -
and when She shows Herself They say
“No, not that … not that.”

My Lover is impossible, I'm sure of it.
No words no arms no form
can hold Her. My eyes
look inward: there She resides
my spirit, my baby, my love

the silence of my heart in song.





At the last
Sva ha!
She's off. But
I have nowhere to go.
Take me to love.
Take me to love.

The puja's gone.
The flame is done.
She left for town
and I have nowhere to go -
but to love,
take me to love.

This afternoon sun
dreams to revel
among stainless sheets
scented where She lay.
Take me to love.
Take me to love.

Indicate with a hand
and I'll lie down.
Marry me, and we flying
return to Paradise.
My Darling
let me take You to Love.

Please Sweet One
Dear One I pray
one day, Messenger,
then take me too -
take me to Love…
take me to Love.









This is the same hillside
where I've always stopped -
in a different time
in a different place.
It's the very same race
I've declined to run.

It's the same Pacific Ocean;
the same green hills,
the same sun, same seasons
again, rolling around again
this California Eden.

Would I could lure you
from your desks, your accountings -
your gasoline and plastic ways:
be not afraid of love.

Be unafraid of love and sun
and blue sky of afternoon.
You arose from nothing:
there's nothing You have to do.










Bank account near empty
no work lined up
late for an appointment
leaving town tomorrow -
all this is happening
to someone else.

I'm the One who
flies along a mountain ridge
propelled by internal flame.
My mind meanders
onto green paths through woods.
This sphere of Earth

is my eyeball; this moment
my eternity.
In the Valley
mankind swarms careening
and copulating into oblivion.
But She wanders off the road

and stops to drink the ocean.







On tsechu She appeared at the Rest Home
one hundred and three, blind, to tell us
Her great-grandparent's friends
poured together their rationed water
to wash Her baby skin cracked open
from sun and salt -
they had to sleep on deck.
Without this She would have died.

And She appeared as rose bushes,
the crab grass run wild,
butts and plastic blown into the bushes
the roses dead and we ran them over
with a gasoline lawn mower
thinking: before long each of us
will lie in intensive care
and strangers will level our prize roses
we carefully edged with white stones.

And She said: "Go into the market place
and watch the walking skeletons.
Listen to your Lamas:
practice with abandon."
And She appeared as all of Them reveling
and dancing throughout the night
then flying in one anothers' dreams
and flowing with one anothers' hearts
into the infinite emptiness of Our embrace.











Not-this-hunk-of-meat drinks tea
sits in the diamond posture on the floor.

Not-these-ears hears diesels
rumbling across steel rails
under Arizona sun.

No one saw these cotton clouds
blue sky jagged horizon
naked pistachio tree
dangling its black bundles.

Being You
how could He wish for You?
How could He wish to join -
this yearning
to dissolve this yearning
into You -

to vanish
into the infinite bliss
of no thing, as he imagines
His fusion with You?




















That white cloud I saw

while traveling has reappeared:

spirit - take me to bliss!

A Month of Keith 2001

5/20/01 – 6/30/01




A Month of Keith







Keith Emmons

















Though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,
and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.




- Rumi











Is it possible I can serve others
and have fun too?
Of course.
If we don’t enjoy,
how can we possibly serve others?

“Here, I’ve been working hard
developing this misery
I’d like to share with you.”
Ha!

“I want you to write,” said Irene.
So she gave me this notebook.
“I want to see your poetry published,”
said wandering goodbuddy Shunyam.

I better get writing –
who am I
to deny friends and family?





















Days full of wanting.
Let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.


- Rumi












“Don’t worry about it,” I told my brother.
And he told me, “Get lost.”
“Just be happy!” I told my sister.
She threw me out of her apartment.

“Don’t worry, be happy,” said Meher Baba,
and that sounds good to me.
Who cares if my day goes left
or goes to the right? It’s still my day.

When something wonderful happens
it’s easy to be happy.
But if something terrible happens
do I make it better by being sad?

I think life is good: I got this life
for free! So I use each day
to go hunting goodies.
“Open for business: now accepting gifts.”
















If you want what visible reality
can give, you’re an employee.

If you want the unseen world,
you’re not living your truth.

Both wishes are foolish,
but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting
what you really want is
love’s confusing joy.


- Rumi





















Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.


- Rumi












“Write every day!” exclaimed Shunyam.
But what if I’ve nothing to say?

Or worse: what if I write
and it comes out wrong?

And what if someone reading
thinks I’m a fool?


(I could have told you before,
only a fool could write these words.

I used to study hard and hard and now
so much I need to forget.)


If I’m lucky, I may, one day
become this fool.



















Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.


- Rumi




















When she lost her husband
she cried and cried
until she discovered
herself inside!
















“Just because it’s Wednesday,”
is no reason to be glad;
what’s wrong with all the other days?

It’s important to be happy
for no reason at all.
If you’re happy “because of,”
what if it’s taken away?

In just the same way
it’s important we do nothing.
And we should do it now.















I don’t remember Ali asking, “Dad,
can I grow up?” Or Andrew,
“Is it OK to be more tall?”

We think we’re in charge here.
But we’re not.

The sun rises up and falls.
Teenagers push and shove on the village green.
The original composition Andrew played at school
will be soon forgotten.

I was there. I heard it.
And soon
they’ll forget
me too.



















Whoever acts with respect will get respect.
Whoever brings sweetness
will be served almond cake.


- Rumi














I heard the Dalai Lama and decided:
I won’t worry
any more.

I’ve been around half a century
and it’s been good fun.
I must be smarter now. I have no doubt
the next fifty will be even better.

Now I think for the first time
I’m learning how to love:
all I need do is
get out of the way

let my love
show through.



















I can’t explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.


- Rumi










California summer morning 10:30
sweat collecting already
under my sleeveless tee.

Sometimes I swing a hammer
and sometimes I swing
my big cock and balls and all of this
has something to do with enlightenment.

The summer crickets click out the heat.
And it’s not even noon. So . . .
I’m only half-baked myself, sleepy
from last night’s sensual delights.

Perhaps when the sun’s at its zenith
I’ll be fully cooked:
complete and perfect enlightenment.
And then I’ll go out and

swing my hammer singing
and swing my big . . .
O …
you know the rest.


















I wrote, “work diligently today”
in my vow book.


Drop the pen;
pick up the hammer again.


















I wonder how many people
really understand my jokes.

O well, at least
I get a good laugh.

Considering my life
it’s a good thing
I can take a joke!








Writing about enlightenment –
and at the same time –
writing about sex –
isn’t this a sacrilege?

Working carpentry
thinking about the Enlightened State –
and at the same time –
thinking about my Dad:
how we raked Fall leaves together;
how we tore out a window
or replaced a door.
This is what Enlightenment’s
all about anyway, isn’t it?
Union with the One,
losing oneself completely
in Union with Father,
Son, and the Holy Mackerel.

It’s all very profound sitting here
alone at a construction site.
There’s a moral here and I think it is:

after a woman pushes a man
out of her womb
he spends the rest of his life
trying to get back in;
after a man pushes his son
into the world
the son spends the rest of his life
trying to get out!













Don’t worry.
Be happy.

- Meher Baba




The less said
the better.


- Major Blah Blah












I think this is something new.
I think I’ll call it, “poetry lite.”

I used to think poetry
had to be soo profound!
How about this new idea:
how about a poetry
people actually want to read?

Being profound doesn’t mean
so complex it’s impossible to understand.

I wake up on Saturday morning
and I’m still sleepy – just like
everyone else on the planet.
How profound is that?

I brew coffee and plod onto the porch.
I plop my butt on one deck chair
and rest my feet on another.
Deep. Very deep.



















Preening before breakfast

Juice bends double and thoroughly

licks her asshole.










Actually, when offered a hotdog
the Sage did not say,
“Make me one with everything.”


Actually, his words were,
“Make me not two.”












I want to sit
but I want to join the children
in the living room too.
Today’s Memorial Day and it would be fun
to be with Irene but she’s working
the Boulder Creek Art and Wine Fair.

I needed to sleep in –
my hips and knees told me that!
But now I feel
the day’s half gone!
Why is there so much to do?
Is this great abundance?
or torture?

Just think of all the men killing each other
to protect my right to have
too many choices.
I’m a little ashamed
to complain like this.
Sorry.
I’ll try to behave now.











Writing another poem
suddenly feels so selfish!

I’ve not written many poems,
or, better said,

many poems I’ve not written
while serving others.

I did
drive a few nails
haul a few boards.
Now I sit on my client’s deck
pretending I need rest
from all that work!

It’s my karma, I suppose
to suffer all this beauty:
redwood trunks jetting up to blue sky,
a hummingbird buzzing to blossoms.

Yesterday I read Rumi and today
I’m afraid to put my pen to paper.
How was I so deluded
to think I was a poet?
Perhaps I’ll never write again.

“Nonsense!” cries Rumi. “Every tongue
sings its own song!
Let me hear yours,
and yours, and yours.”

“Stop talking to yourself,”
Don Juan admonished Carlos.
Carlos asked sincerely,
“Do you want me to stop taking notes?”
But Don Juan didn’t answer.

Luckily I have no guru.
I still think
I can do what I want.
But a Man of Power must be
impeccable.

So, I wrote in my vow book
to write in my poetry book
and now I’ve done it.
My hammer waits.
The boards are lonely.

And lunch is become Keith
and through some mystery
this page.










Rumi tells us of the Friend.
So that’s who’s inhabited
my poetry all these years!

These words have a heartbeat.
When I hear it
out they come.
When I don’t hear it
I am not alive.

Coffee cream and sugar
flow into my skinbag
this hot June morning.
Irene sits still as a Buddha
and the Friend sits with her.
Photos of Lama Yeshe wink at her.
He grins mischievously.
He’s met the Friend
face to face.
The Friend
rides in his pocket.

I cast my word net.
I try and try
to catch the Friend.
I pretend this hide and seek
makes me unique.
Actually it proves:
I’m just like you.








wind of a bee’s wing










You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

- Rumi




wind of a bee’s wing.
dust of the anther
warmed by the sun.

we each remember
days as a boy;
a summer morning;
a young girl’s afternoon.

white blossoms trembling.
the hummingbird
chirps.

bed sheets abandoned in disarray;
the lovers nuzzled their nubs
and hairy places

the hummingbird plunges
into the blossoms the leaves
flutter in the wind
of a bee’s wing

the dusty yellow anther
warmed by the sun
tickles the bee’s belly.

the boy’s love swelling
to be the man visiting
his lover’s nectar.

they lay naked
sprawled in tangled sheets
their moistness tickled
by the breezes of a bee’s wing.

the boy the man
the girl the woman
the bird, the blossom
the bed, wrinkled and abandoned.

















Every object, every being
is a jar full of delight.

- Rumi




Ecstatic poetry,
experiencing God
in a mote of dust – ha!
Read Rumi and believe his life
nothing but joy joy joy.

Where’s the poetry
he didn’t write Monday morning?
Before coffee.
Don’t fib to me.
Don’t tell me he always
leapt from bed excited to explore the day.

All that wine. And no headaches?
When did Rumi
pay the bills?
His clutch never blew out? His camel
never went lame?

The point of Buddhism,
says Geshe Michael Roach, is not
to tolerate crap with a smile.
It’s to live, he says, “in a crap-free life.”

I wake up on Monday
and my hips hurt. Some days
I could swim in coffee
and still be a grouch.

Let’s get real. Let’s hear
Poetry of the Depressed.
Crap Poetry. Lives
of the Dumb and Bummed-out!

Am I the only man
living ups and downs?
Let’s see Rumi’s vision
with camel spit in his eye.

To rewrite slightly:
every object, every being
is a jar full of delight.
and sometimes, it’ll piss you right off.









Rumi says:

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest
and let spirit fly in and out.

- Rumi













Can’t stop now . . .

still filling this notebook

with emptiness.










I think
I’m done making excuses.
I think
I’m done hiding.
I think
if you ask me what I think –
I’ll tell you.

Don’t tell me
I can’t drink wine
before noon.
I’ll do what I want
Ms. Conscience:
I do less harm than most.

I’ll complete my obligations
one by one.
And there’s no hurry.
What I must do
will still be there tomorrow;
if it’s not, clearly,
I didn’t have to do it.

Never put off until tomorrow
what you can eliminate altogether.
Do nothing.
And do it now.










Rumi says: Unfold your own myth.











Mission Statement

Imagine a world
in which you leap from bed
excited to explore the day.
Nature’s beauty surrounds you
and everyone you meet inspires you
with their generosity and love.

My goal
is to live in such a world.
And where I do not find it
to help create it.






I am here
you are there
between us is a mountain.
I sit sipping coffee on my deck.
You meditate in your gompa then sit
sipping coffee on your deck.
between us is a mountain.

Egg salad sandwiches, Capri Sun fruit juice,
I fill paper lunch bags and
drive Ali and Andrew to school.
Alpo and Cat Gourmet Delight, then
Thomas and Lily and Bo purr and wag
while you fast-walk to the dirt road gate.

What if a man proposed to you?
what if a man said
he would care for you unceasingly
and promised to be at your bedside
even the day you die
if between you is a mountain?

I swing a hammer and write poems.
You design business logos and greeting cards
and care for the comfort of lamas.
I am afraid we will wear away,
our dust scattered away by time,
before this mountain moves.

My children need me.
Your employees need you.
This poetry calls;
lamas need cushions and beds.
My coffee cools, is almost gone.
between us is a mountain.














What is love?
Gratitude.


What is hidden
in our chests?
Laughter.


What else?
Compassion.




- Rumi














I’ll hire a workman
but only if he’s a total flake.
Hooray when he doesn’t show up!
I get a little peace and quiet.

Yesterday my therapist and I decided
life sucks.
So that’s agreed. Now,
what can we do with our time?

There’s a teacher in California,
says Shunyam, who claims
you have it all now –
there’s nothing to fix.

But Shunyam, I protested,
if we’re enlightened already
what do we do with our time?
Celebrate! he exclaimed. Celebrate!











Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi




Five-thirty on Friday: other people are working.
I feel sorry for them.
I know, at this moment in California
tens of thousands of commuters
bake in rows upon rows of metal boxes
rolling on the remains of dinosaurs
and plants that died millions of years
before this chaotic rush to freedom
at five o-clock on Friday.

It’s true I have little money.
But is it sensible to make money
to live my life if I have to use my life
to make money?
If a man offered to imprison you
for a year, and feed you,
then let you go free
two weeks a year –
you’d laugh at such a preposterous joke.

I noticed in the market place
a man’s back bending by stacks
of cases of six packs of
bottles of soft drinks and beer.
Why did we ever turn away
from the clear creek’s water?
Man devolved to a machine,
organized into colonies, like ants;
like bees serving the corporate queen.

I left work early, unashamed of indolence.
Four miles down a dirt road I drove,
shoes off, shirt off, windows wide open.
At my lover’s hilltop house
the evening breeze whiffles the prayer flags
and clicks the hanging bamboo casually.
I will rest now, and soon
she will be home.













Up until ten minutes ago
I was as springy as a young sapling.
Now my knees ache just
hobbling from kitchen to living room.

Give me another glass of wine!
I don’t believe in time.
This pain is just emptiness
I tell myself. And don’t believe it.

O a bit wistful, I told Irene.
“Can’t see it changing,” she said.
“And I had made such progress
to free up my time from work.”

Some time
we’ll just have to say no –
no more work, I’m sorry.
Bring me another glass of wine!
















Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief

disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises.


- Rumi















My client’s not here. I can stop now
and check my 2:30 vow.
What’s more important –
to build a dog fence
or check your Bodhisattva vows?

Geshe Michael says having money
comes completely from your karma.
I don’t know. I must be a sinner.
It still seems to me work
has something to do with it.

After all
who’s going to pay me
just to keep my vows?
Hey! Cut that out. Quit pushing!
Line forms at the rear.












Don Juan told Carlos, men
have two centers of creation:
there’s reason,
and there’s the will.

Today my new workman
arrived at the jobsite, puked
and went home.
I think my will is winning.

My will, that is, to not work.
Maybe it’s my won’t.
I’m just a spoiled brat, I suppose
to think the world’s a pleasure place.

Free as the breezes
rustling in the tops of trees;
a butterfly lifted by air. Why
should a man’s life

be anything less?









Last week I drank too much wine.
The fact is: every day’s routine
drives me nuts!
Some people love their work –
I’m just not like that.
Some people love their money –
there’s nothing I want to buy.

I met a girl in love with life itself.
Personally, I have a goal
to “leap from bed excited to explore the day –“
but she’s the one who does it.
My kids used to criticize me
for waking up too happy.
Now I know how they feel.

I don’t know why I struggle so
just to be happy.
Aimlessly I just wander
from one drug to another: today it’s
coffee, or wine, or love –
where am I in all of this?
Sometimes my drug is intellection,

or solitude, or poetry, or Buddhist dharma.
In poetry, sometimes it’s all me.
In Dharma there is no me.
I look for the complexity in life
and I’m so excited … for a while.
Then I just see yesterday. today. tomorrow.
And wallow again in my sorrow.













Another day
Another pity party.






“Love?” said Lynne –
“It’s just chemicals.”






A great silence overcomes me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.

- Rumi
















I’ll go sit. Maybe something
will come of it.
















I’ll go sit. Maybe nothing
will come of it.










I wonder what motivates men?
I sit on a redwood deck in the woods.
An owl says: “It’s whoo? It’s whoo? It’s whoo?”
I see the afternoon
bursting bright green in the underbrush
and I think I’m busy enough.

All day long I drive my big tin can.
Look at a rusty gutter.
Peer through a hole in a board.
A gentle hillside breeze
lightly touches pine boughs and leaves.
I don’t see a single thing to fix -

not a spider’s web, not a beetle’s wing.
It’s only the things man made
that fall apart and break.
“Why do we do this?” I called to Chris
while nailing up boards
to keep a dog from running free.
“Cause the women dig it,” he replied.

Men sweat and slay dragons and then
go home and get paid, get laid.
That’s a part of nature too, I guess.
But we forgot who made the dragons!
Now all “normal” men
run from the dragon too!












“Thus doth too much thought
make cowards of us all,” said Willie.

“Don’t waste time
thinking about how to do it,”
the Zen Master admonished.
“Just do it with all your might!”

The Tonal is very shy, is sensitive
says Don Juan. Only the Nagual is creative.

The will creates. The hara grows strong.
Lead guided by your hsing.
So I pass my body from drug to drug.

I had that beer, that wine, hard liquor.
Day after day I grew duller and dumb.

When you’re dumb enough
you’re just depressed.
Even in the light you’re blind.

After I’m done with coffee
I’ll drink just tea.

Maybe I’ll fast.
Drink only water.
Then only breathe.

Live beyond thought.

















Rumi says:

We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and a new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.



With morning birds twittering outside the open screen
and summer breezes scented pungently of pine,
barefoot memories scamper in my mind:
hot sunshine, grassy lawns, cool paths through
the swampy woodland behind my boyhood home.

Mom and Dad are gone. The house is sold.
“Not an original wall remains inside the house,
they’ve changed it all,” my friends say.
My boy bedroom – gone.

I helped build a school for Ali and Andrew.
I visited classrooms, swung a hammer and –
from an old stump – chain-sawed a playground throne.
The Headmaster and I were friends.

When the new Headmistress arrived
she glared scathingly and said:
“What are you doing here?”
In a week the throne - cut down.

When Irene was Vajrapani-ma
cooking for all and caring for children,
the men ran redwoods through the mill
the Gompa rose in the forest and
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, came to teach.

Last night in Irene’s dream
old woman Irene hobbled toward the Gompa.
Nobody knew who she was!

So …
get used to it.
Don’t be sad. What’s the point?
You’ll fall apart yourself and
be forgotten before long.
The old walls won’t stay standing.
You’re the only one who knows your memories.
And they’ll go too.

Rumi says:
“Everything has to do with loving and not loving.
This night will pass.
Then we have work to do.”



















Sunday morning.

It’d be nice to phone Mom.

She’s dead.


















Pale sunlight,
pale the wall.

Love moves away.
The light changes.

I need more grace
than I thought.


- Rumi


















Today’s poem, I think,
is best.

Tomorrow I read it and think:
what garbage!

Today’s poem, I think,
is best.

















O dear,
meditated
studied Bodhisattva vows
wrote a poem
typed six poems
wrote two poems
printed a poem for Irene
printed a poem for Chris
O dear –
2:30 in the afternoon.
I better start
my day’s work!

















Look at me –
I’m just like you:
just another someone with a job.
And inside too
you’re just like me –
a wizard
or an angel
struggling to be free.



















Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands,
or your own genuine solitude?
Freedom, or power over an entire nation.

A little while alone in your room
will prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given you.


- Rumi







Coming to the end of things
“This is ending . . . “
not much more to say than that.

We climbing this mountain,
invite you to join.
Sometimes halfway up sometimes
half way down –
pass us if you can!
Surrounded by peaks
at least they’re visible.

Camping with relatives I see my hands
are my brother’s hands;
my brother’s: my father’s.
Each of us turns the same soil.
The water still flows in the creek endlessly
from peak to mountain lake to valley . . .
to the sea.

Even without invitation
we climb and romp together.
We scatter our lives along the trail
like so many bits of paper
scribbled all over with poems.

Scoop up a cup of clear water
as it passes.
Bring home
a breath of mountain air to share.
One gift deserves another.
Each gift is an act of bravery –
the beginning and the end itself.