my glass is empty
i open a new bottle
my glass is now full
(June 1, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiteration: I Talk Too Much to Fill the Emptiness
As we spend the summer debating
death’s vague dichotomy (as if
the dead stay up late worrying
about personal liberty), Evil walks
casually along the rows with a scythe
leveling the field with each slow swath.
In early Autumn, night’s splinteredwith lightning storms, first dark,
then light, then dark again like a child
flickering a light switch indecisively:
the world about us is exposed briefly
before vanishing into memory’s shimmer.
I have forgotten so many thingsI thought I once knew; I remember
I shut the gate to something, but
forgot where it was, where it led to,
or if there were cows there to escape
into the empty Winter pastures.
(June 1, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: I Write a Poem Again
A poor response to terror— again,
to children slaughtered in their classroom—
And again, will we learn anything this time?
The politicians and news punditsgossip and chitter like crickets;
and nothing, again, nothing is done.
Here, a few hours distance to Uvalde,Black-eyed Susans and Horse Mint dance
to the wind, as if nothing changes.
Each time (so strangely common) I thinkof my students and the possible horror—
and pray (in my way) for redemption.
Tomorrow, my students will graduate,and head off to college— with the hope,
again, that they will change this world.
(May 30, 2022)
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Portraiture
by
I’m in this snapshotlaughing at a party.
I look old, like a skull
embedded in a wall.
I do not know myself,
at least not enough
to admit what I’ve done.
I deflect, disengage;
yet, I am still there,
disembodied: a voice,
thin and transitional.
My splotched skin’s
stretched thin
across my skull.
The bones show through
like field’s slow erosion.
I wear myself
against the day,
until I am erased.
(May 28, 2022)
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Possibility’s Collapse Into Singularity
A slow cascade into old age,
until the only choice is no choice:
where there is no memory
outside myself; where
the story is only mine
to revise, where I step forward
without hesitation
and unlatch the last door.
(May 24, 2022)
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Blood of the Innocent
by
I have said this before: There needs to be photographs published of the aftermath of these shootings. Not the bodies of the torn up 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders (6-9 yo), but the destruction of the room. Blood spattered across the walls where their work had been displayed by the teacher. The work the children had been so proud to see hanging on the wall. Walls that are now blood stained. These common classroom artifacts desecrated in blood need to be seen…these murders are not neat and tidy, easily forgotten (obviously). Do not show the dead children, show the bullet holes in the walls, show the blood. The blood of the innocent. Maybe that would help in bringing enough rage to the surface to bring about meaningful change. Maybe.
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Ikkyu Reiteration: The Elite Have Problems, So We Do
Among the wealthy and secure,
wealth and security breeds fear;
then fear becomes the watchword
no one will admit to knowing.
We are all entangled in their lies;
our hearts strangled with our sighs.
(May 23, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: To Suffer and Sorrow
We are a two-headed bird lost on cold mountain.
Night unfolds into day, as day slips into night.
Guilt and regret caw constantly over the dead;
We forget the fruit left on the counter at home.
(May 16, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: Samsara
by
As if she has been here for millennia
calmly chewing grass, the buffalo stands
in an open field below the mountain.
Aware of the biting fly and herself,
but little else, she still provides so much
into the life of the poorest village.
What difference can the monk’s laughter make
to her as it echoes through the valley?
(May 14, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: Fool’s Gold
by
Caught in ecstatic wonder
the young girls make love
with tempestuous abandon.
While he follows the rules
of the old games, he’s mocked
for his sad delusions:
In dream’s river, the two
drowned consorts come to him
with promises of consummation.
Thus he becomes a cuckold
to himself, looking for coins
beneath a withered willow.
(May 12, 2022)
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Here Now (iterations #1 and #2)
by
The ascendent moon
negotiates the chase tree’s
dark-twisted branches.
_________________
There are momentswithin moments
within moments,
a slow descent
into the repeating
heart of the lotus.
Sunlight takes on
a clarity which radiates
from all it touches,
as shadows sharpen
themselves against
the light’s keen edges.
From the river bank,
the water glistens
like distant laughter,
while we stand still,
watching, between heart beats,
the river rush past us.
(May 10, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: Out of Tune
by
In the slums, obscene songs
are heard from the Heights.
As children we mocked themwith songs they now sing.
There is no recompensebetween the rich and poor.
Unlike a baptismal font,blood does not absolve blood.
The dead cannot heartheir mournful lovers’ tears.
(May 10, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: Bodhisattva
by
He slips through the dusty streets
delaying his departure from sorrow.
What wisdom isthis wisdom?
The Sorceress’s warm breath at his earsoftly offers her seductive charms.
What wisdom isthis wisdom?
The priest offers redemptive prayersin patterns to protect him.
What wisdom isthis wisdom?
At both the chancery and brothel doorshe laughs like a nascent breeze.
Which wisdom ishis wisdom?
(May 9, 2022) -
Ikkyu Reiterations: Difference
by
I tell you my truth;
so does he, but his is a lie.
Each morning we both shit,
take a shower, drive to work.
The mundane slaps my face,
as if waking to a wet bed.
In the tea house’s simplicity
the same tales are told nightly.
(May 7, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: On Shaman Mountain
by
We delude ourselves with thought,
with the sound of rain, like tears,
outside, as a new song begins
across the mountain. Change begins
with Heaven and Earth. War separates
us. Yet, for how long? War and duty
separate us. We may never lean
again against the other through the night.
The moon sets on me here tonight,
as it does with you where we parted.
(May 6, 2022)
