We're going to make a lay. Oh, look, flowers. Wow. Colors. I'm a little baby now. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. What's wrong with these three seats? Bring the youth of America forward. David Chadwick used to say corrupt the youth of America before they corrupt you.

[01:05]

So we have tonight and next week. Can you hear me? We have tonight and we have next week, which is a couple of hours left. And as I said last week, I hope you came prepared tonight with your favorite poet poem by your favorite poet. So we can have some readings tonight from you. And then what I thought, and then also I said, bring one poem or one sheet on which you have, you could have more than one verse or poem, but one flat sheet of paper and we'd make a book out of that. And I was thinking that next week for our final night, you bring, everybody in the class should have a poem in that book. And everyone should have a chance to read his, her own poem. So I would like to do that next week.

[02:10]

Each person stand up. Some of us forgot to do the poem for tonight. When would you like us to get, can we get it to you by a particular day? Yeah. You mean the poem for the book? We'll bring it next week and then read it. And then what I'll do is make the book up after that. And I'll make two copies and put it in the library. Is that clear, everybody? Yes, sir. I'm doing this thing for Reb's class and it would be really easy for this class. And the reason I didn't offer it before is because there's some anxiety about whether or not you want the poems to be anonymous. And if you don't mind me knowing that you wrote them, you can email them to me and I'll put them up on the web. It's really easy for me to do. I don't know how you feel about that. I can put a password on it so it's not like globally accessible. Put them on the web? Yeah. For the world? Getting known.

[03:12]

This may be the start of something big here. Thanks to Dan today. He turned me on to an article that was written, I guess, in one of the first issues of the… The very first. The very first issue of Tricycle. Gary Snyder, Just One Breath, the practice of poetry and meditation. And I copied this and I'm going to put it up in the library. Probably maybe in the magazine rack there for you to read. It's really worth reading. But I thought just to spark us off tonight a little bit, I would just read a couple of paragraphs before we start our reading. Now, when we do read, when you do read your poems, please read with full round tones and in a voice that carries, that people can hear and slow enough so that we can enjoy the words.

[04:13]

Poetry should be read aloud and not just read silently. I mean, what he does is compare poetry and meditation in here and shows how they conflate and come together. But a couple of little short paragraphs that would be interesting just to… Because it kind of summarizes what we were talking about, particularly in those first couple of classes. He says, He said, I came to understand poetry as a functioning or a furthering. I came to understand poetry as a furthering of language. Language is not something you learn in school. It is a world you're born into. It's part of the wildness of mind. You master your home tongue without conscious effort by age of five. Language with its sinuous syntax is not unlike the thermodynamics of weather systems or energy exchanges in the food chain.

[05:17]

Completely natural and vital, part of what and who you are. Poetry is a leap off or into that. I like that. He says, He said that he spent six years in Kyoto back in the fifties when he was studying Zen. He said, I asked my teacher, Oda Sensō Sessō Roshi. I said, sometimes I write poetry. Is that all right? He laughed and said, it's all right. It's all right as long as it comes out of your true self. He also said, you know, poets have to play a lot. Asobi. That seemed an odd thing to say because the word asobi in Japanese has the implication of wandering the bars and pleasure quarters.

[06:25]

The behavior of a decadent oistro. I know, I knew he didn't mean that. For many years after doing Zen practice around Kyoto, I finally quit writing poetry. It didn't bother me. My thought was Zen is serious. Poetry is not serious. In any case, you have to be completely serious when you do Zen practice. So I tried to be serious and I didn't write many poems. I studied with him for six years. In 1966, just before Oda Roshi died, I had a talk with him in the hospital. I said, Roshi, so it's Zen that's serious. Poetry is not serious. He said, no, no, no. Poetry is serious. Zen is not serious. I had it all wrong. I don't know if it was by accident or it was the gift he gave me, but I started writing more. And maybe I did a little less sitting too. I think I had come to understand something about play.

[07:26]

To be truly serious, you have to play. That's on the side of poetry and meditation too. In fact, play is essential to everything we do. Working on cars, cooking, raising kids, running corporations. And poetry is nothing special. Language is no big deal. Mind is no big deal. Meaning or no meaning is perfectly okay. We take what's given to us with gratitude. Poetry is democratic. Zen is elite. No. Zen is democratic. Poetry is elite. Which is it? Everybody can do Zazen, but only a few can do poetry. No. Everybody can do poetry, but only a few can really do Zazen. Poetry in the literary world has sometimes been perceived as dangerous to the spirit career. But also, poems have been called upon to express the most delicate and profound spiritual understanding.

[08:29]

Finally, he says, I wrote a poem about Ikkyu's poem, and I sent it to my old friend, Doc. Somebody who wrote from his fish camp. And this is the poem the guy writes back. And this will be my poem I like for my contribution this evening. Because I think it hits. He said in Ikkyu's poem here, let me just get back to that a second. Ikkyu writes, Humans are endowed with the stupidity of horses and cattle. Poetry was originally a work out of hell. Self-pride, false pride, suffering from the passions. We must sigh for those taking this path to intimacy with demons. And old Doc writes back, Ikkyu says humans are endowed with the stupidity of horses and cattle. I think Ikkyu is full of shit. Humans are endowed with the stupidity all their own. Horses and cattle know what to do. They do it well.

[09:32]

He is right about poetry as a work out of hell. We ought to know phenomena experience themselves as themselves. They don't need poetry. We are looking at a mystery here. How do these things have such an obstinacy and yet are dependent on my consciousness? How do these things have such an obstinacy and yet are dependent on my consciousness? He doesn't even know that he belongs to the mind only school. When I practice fishing with two teenagers, poetry never occurs to me. But later it does. I can go over the whole day. Hooray! That's what being human is all about. It's just as much a weakness as a strength. You say language is a wild system born with us. I agree. It's wilder than wild. If we were just wild, we wouldn't need language. Maybe we are beyond wild. That makes me feel better. Doc Datchler.

[10:34]

Conaca Creek, Oregon. Okay, so I'm going to put this upstairs. You can read it at your leisure. It makes a lot of very interesting parallels in that book, in that article. Who wants to be first? Stand up and read. Oh, yeah, yeah. Honolulu, baby. Where'd you get those eyes? Okay. Song of the Taste by Gary Snyder. Eating the living germs of grasses, Eating the large ova of birds, The fleshy sweetness packed around the sperm of swaying trees, The muscles of the flanks and thighs of soft-voiced cows,

[11:40]

The bounce in the lamb's leap, the swish in the ox's tail, Eating roots grown swole inside the soil, Drawing on life of living clustered points of light Spun out of space, hidden in the grape, Eating each other's seed, eating each other, Kissing the lover in the mouth of bread, lip to lip. Casanat, who's next? Barbara. Don't be shy now. I suspect we're going to have a Mary Oliver night. That's just my wager. Well, we could do worse, couldn't we? I was going to say, if anyone wants to ever get together and do a Mary Oliver night. Okay, yeah, let's do it.

[12:41]

Okay, this one is called Spring. This morning two birds fell down the side of the maple tree Like a tuft of fire, a wheel of fire, a love knot Out of control as they plunged through the air, pressed against each other And I thought how I meant to live a quiet life How I meant to live a life of mildness and meditation Tapping the careful words against each other And I thought as though I were suddenly spinning Like a bar of silver, as though I had shaken my arms And lo, they were wings of the Buddha When he rose from his green garden When he rose in his powerful ivory body When he turned to the long dusty road without end When he covered his hair with ribbons and the petals of flowers

[13:43]

When he opened his hands to the world Is that from this collected book? No, it's from West Wind. So I was going to read Song of the Grass Hut Hermitage by Chateau, but now that I've just put a plug in for it, I don't need to. Instead, my first Dharma event, first Dharma talk that I attended, my first week living at Green Gulch, I heard this poem. Robed in black, he smells his own winter in his nostrils Wraps himself up in detachment and solitude Perfect season for caution, inventory, and good manners Next, catches full sight of himself in the mirror Sees the old dog, sighs He's ready now, she murmurs Steps from a cool summer night to the edge of the pasture where he lingers, sleepless

[14:46]

He knows her at once, of course The slightly tilted eyes, the long sloping face, the full curve of her lips, and the fatal sting of her smile Had he come so far as to think that he was done with her? She points to the garden and beckons Will he go this time, knowing how she leaves him? He sees how poems and prayers will follow them But after she has swallowed all of him, and all of him is hers She will take him from the garden And who will he be then? Her hair floats on the smoky moon Her teeth shine in her smile He sees that he must make her a gift of his dying Then slowly removes the black robe Puts on the fool's mask and holds out his hand Dagon Okay, this is a poem by

[16:02]

It's interesting It's by Lama Je Tsongkhapa Who founded the Galupa School of Tibet Buddhism And generally he's known for Very scholarly work So I think this is a very interesting book That these are his devotional prayers And so this one is to It's called Prayer to Sarasvati And it says Sarasvati is a goddess strongly affiliated with wisdom and the arts Especially language and poetry Her skin is white and she is extraordinarily beautiful And often pictured playing It's like a sitar, a vina So let me read this Prayer to Sarasvati Captivating presence stealing my mind Like a lightning-adorned cloud beautifying the sky There amid a celestial gathering of youthful musicians Compassionate goddess, come here now Those alluring honeybee eyes in that lotus face

[17:02]

That long dark blue hair glowing with white light There before me in a pose of seductive dance Grant me, Sarasvati, your power of speech Those beautiful playful antelope eyes I gaze insatiably upon you Seducer of my mind Goddess of speech with a mother's compassion Make our speech as one More beautiful than the splendor of a full autumn moon A voice eclipsing the sweetest melody of Brahma A mind as hard to fathom as the deepest ocean I bow before the goddess Sarasvati Om Sarasvati Hring Hring Her mantra actually, Hring, is the sound of the vina Om Sarasvati Hring Hring Can you hear back there? Yes. I didn't prepare for tonight, but I'm staying up at Daniel's house, Daniel and Nancy's,

[18:09]

and just happened to pick this book up from their shelf, and it's called Two Drops on a Lotus Leaf, Zen Poems by Ryokan? Ryokan. Ryokan. And when I opened it, it just naturally opened to this page, and it sounded really nice. Her new favorite poem. My new favorite poem. My fortune. I watch people in the world throw away their lives lusting after things, never able to satisfy their desires, falling into deep despair and torturing themselves. Even if they get what they want, how long will they be able to enjoy it? For one heavenly pleasure, they suffer ten torments of hell, binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone. Such people are like monkeys frantically grasping for the moon in the water

[19:11]

and then falling into a whirlpool. How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer. Thank you. Thank you. This is called What Work Is by Philip Levine. Who? Philip Levine. Oh, yeah. We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park for work. You know what work is. If you're old enough to read this, you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting. Shifting from one foot to another,

[20:13]

feeling the light rain falling like mist into your hair, blurring your vision, until you think you see your own brother ahead of you, maybe ten places. You rub your glasses with your fingers, and of course it's someone else's brother, narrower across the shoulders than yours, but with the same sad slouch, the grin that does not hide the stubbornness, the sad refusal to give in to rain, to the hours wasted waiting, to the knowledge that somewhere ahead a man is waiting who will say, No, we're not hiring today, for any reason he wants. You love your brother. Now suddenly you can hardly stand the love flooding you for your brother, who's not beside you or behind or ahead because he's home, trying to sleep off a miserable night shift at Cadillac so he can get up before noon to study his German,

[21:15]

works eight hours a night so he can sing Wagner, the opera you hate most, the worst music ever invented. How long has it been since you told him you loved him, held his wide shoulders, opened your eyes wide and said those words and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never done something so simple, so obvious, not because you're too young or too dumb, not because you're jealous or even mean or incapable of crying in the presence of another man. No, just because you don't know what work is. He's a great poet. You know, people know his work, Philip Levine. He's a, huh? From Detroit? He's right here. What's his name?

[22:18]

Philip Levine or Levine, I'm not sure. I think it's Levine. Well, I brought a bunch and I couldn't decide because I don't have a favorite poet or a favorite poem. But since Mick read an opera poem, there was a little thing about the opera. There was a little thing about the opera in Mick's poem, so this is the one I was thinking of reading. It's called A Night at the Opera by William Matthews. The tenor's too fat, the beautiful young woman complains, and the soprano dowdy and old. But what if a cello's not black, if Rigoletto's hump lists, if Airy Gilda and her entourage of flesh outweigh the cello section? laughter That's a stanza break. In fairy tales, the prince has a good heart, and so as an outward and visible sign of an inward invisible grace, his face is not creased, nor are his limbs gnarled.

[23:20]

Our tenor holds in his liver-spotted hands the soprano's broad, burgeoning face. Their combined age is 97. There's spittle in both pinches of her mouth. A vein in his temple twitches like a worm. Their faces are a foot apart. His eyes widen with fear as he climbs to the high B-flat. He'll have to hit and hold for five dire seconds, and then they'll stay in their stalled hug for as long as we applaud. Franco Corelli once bit Birgit Nilsson's ear in just such a command embrace because he felt she'd upstaged him. Their costumes weigh 15 pounds apiece. They're poached in sweat and smell like fermenting pigs. Their voices rise and twine, not from beauty, nor from the lack of it,

[24:22]

but from the hope for accuracy and passion both. They have to hit the note and the emotion both with the one poor arrow of the voice. Beauties for amateurs. That must mean that I'm the poet of the opera, Opera's like a pitiful being to me. Thank you, that's great. This one's by Pablo Neruda, and it's called Parthenogenesis, and some of you might recognize it because Norman read it this summer when they were giving the Dharma lecture about Pablo Neruda. Parthenogenesis. Day by day, all those who gave me advice get crazier and crazier.

[25:24]

Luckily, I paid no attention, and they took off for some other city where they all lived together swapping hats with each other. They were praiseworthy types, politically astute, so that all my ineptitudes caused them great suffering. They got gray-haired and wrinkled, couldn't stomach their chestnuts, and finally an autumnal depression left them delirious. Now I don't know which way to be, absent-minded or respectful. Shall I yield to advice or tell them outright they're hysterical? Independence as such gets me nowhere. I get lost in the underbrush. I don't know if I'm coming or going. Shall I move on or stand pat? Buy tomcats or tomatoes? I'll figure out as best I can what I ought not to do, and then do it. That way I can make a good case for the times I got lost on the way. If I don't make mistakes, who'll have faith in my errors?

[26:29]

If I live like a savant, no one will be greatly impressed. Well, I'll try to change for the better, greet them all circumspectly, watch out for appearances, be dedicated, enthusiastic, till I'm just what they ordered, being and unbeing at will till I'm totally otherwise. Then, if they let me alone, I'll change my whole person, disagree with my skin, get a new mouth, change my shoes and my eyes. Then, when I'm different and nobody can recognize me, since anything else is unthinkable, I'll go on as I was in the beginning. We did also have a Mary Oliver and Pablo Neruda.

[27:31]

I'm actually going to read two poems, one that Dagon read last week to remind you. These are both by Czeslaw Milosz, who was born and raised in Poland, and actually lived in Poland during the Nazi occupation in Warsaw and left in 1951 and came to the University of California and taught there for many years and won the Nobel Prize in 1980. And the poem that Dagon read last week was called Gift. I don't know if you remember this, but... A day so happy, fog lifted early, I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I knew no one worth my envying him. Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot. To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me. In my body I felt no pain. When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

[28:40]

And that poem actually, I believe, was written here in the United States. This other poem was written in Warsaw in 1944. And it's called A Song on the End of the World, and he was living under Nazi occupation when this was written. On the day the world ends, a bee circles a clover. A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea. By the rain spout, young sparrows are playing, and the snake is gold-skinned, as it should always be. On the day the world ends, women walk through the fields under their umbrellas. A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn. Vegetable vendors shout in the street, and a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island. The voice of a violin lasts in the air and leads into a starry night. And those who expected lightning and thunder are disappointed.

[29:43]

And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, as long as the bumblebee visits a rose, as long as rosy infants are born, no one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet, yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy, repeats while he binds his tomatoes, There will be no other end of the world. There will be no other end of the world. There will be no other end of the world. Beautiful. So, I also have one by Ryokan, which is his version of a Jataka tale,

[30:46]

which is stories of the Buddha in his lives before he was the Buddha. It took place in a world long, long ago, they say. A monkey, a rabbit, and a fox struck up a friendship. Mornings, frolicking field and hill. Evenings, coming home to the forest. Living thus while the years went by. When Indra, sovereign of the skies, hearing of this, curious to know if it was true, turned himself into an old man, tottering along, made his way to where they were. You three, he said, are of separate species, yet I'm told play together with a single heart. If what I've heard is true, pray save an old man who's hungry. Then he set his staff aside, sat down to rest. Simple enough, they said, and presently the monkey appeared from the grove behind, bearing nuts he'd gathered there, and the fox returned from the rivulet in front, clamped in his jaws a fish he'd caught.

[31:48]

But the rabbit, though he hopped and hopped everywhere, couldn't find anything at all, while the others cursed him because his heart was not like theirs. Miserable me, he thought, and then he said, Monkey, go cut me firewood. Fox, build me a fire with it. And when they'd done what he asked, he flung himself into the midst of the flames, made himself an offering for an unknown old man. When the old man saw this, his heart withered. He looked up to the sky, cried aloud, then sank to the ground, and in a while, beating his breast, said to the others, Each of you three friends has done his best, but what the rabbit did touches me most. Then he made the rabbit whole again and gathered the dead body up in his arms, took it and laid it to rest in the palace of the moon. From that time till now, the story's been told, this tale of how the rabbit came to be in the moon, and even I, when I hear it, find the tears soaking the sleeve of my robe. You know, the Japanese say that they see the rabbit on the moon,

[32:51]

they call the rabbit on the moon. So I'm going to read a poem by Alicia Page Berry, who some of you have met. She was actually just here this afternoon, a friend of hers. And it's called Carpa Tunnel Diem. Approach the day cautiously. Be grateful for any little thing you are able to do. Even the smallest dent in your pile of bills or dishes or laundry. Expect nothing but to see your world falling apart indefinitely. Then, occasionally, seize the pen.

[33:55]

Write with passion the poem that's been searing inside of you. Or seize the steering wheel and take your own damn self to buy groceries with no one to add to your list of people to make it up to someday. You will hurt for it, perhaps for days after, but be grateful for those brief moments of feeling like your old self again. The self who knew what she needed and asked only when, not if, she would attend to the details. You are not her. Your days are not your own anymore to steer or wield as you see fit. Do not run from this. However, breathe deeply and remind yourself that she never felt that way either. This stronger self you long to be. She never felt like her days were her own and though it might be worth some pain to feel like her again, do not let yourself forget how she never seemed to be able to sit. Just to sit. Or breathe. Just to breathe.

[34:56]

And could not have imagined waking up with a deep sense of awe at the day or gratitude for little things like writing this poem that you are feeling right now even at this very moment. Okay. So this is again to me the Poet of Poets, Pablo Neruda. Kind of the Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, kind of the Walt Whitman of South America kind of the poet of poets. At least. And I feel like I could read any Neruda poem and they're all jewels but this one seems to me to summarize how the poet's vocation and the practitioner's or the bodhisattva's vocation are one and the same thing.

[35:59]

And it's called The Poet's Obligation or it's translated from Spanish, of course. To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up in house or office, factory or woman or street or mine or dry prison cell, to him I come and without speaking or looking I arrive and open the door of his prison and a vibration starts up vague and insistent. A long rumble of thunder adds itself to the weight of the planet and the foam. The groaning rivers of the ocean rise, the star vibrates quickly in its corona and the sea beats, dies and goes on beating. So drawn on by my destiny I ceaselessly must listen to and keep the seas lamenting in my consciousness. I must feel the crash of the hard water

[37:00]

and gather it up in a perpetual cup so that wherever those in prison may be, wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn, I may be present with an errant wave. I may move in and out of windows and hearing me eyes may lift themselves asking how can I reach the sea? And I will pass to them saying nothing, the starry echoes of the wave, a breaking up of foam and quicksand, a rustling of salt withdrawing itself, the grey cry of seabirds on the coast. So through me freedom in the sea will call in answer to the shrouded hearts. So this is from the collected works of William Blake and it's 1793 and it was written in London

[38:01]

and this is plate eight from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and these were all etched with drawings and these are called the Proverbs. So prisons are built with the stones of the law, brothels with the bricks of religion, the pride of the peacock is the glory of God, the lust of the goat is the bounty of God, the wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God, the nakedness of women is the work of God, excess of sorrows laughs, excess of joys weeps, the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man, the fox condemns the trap, not himself, joy impregnate, sorrows bring forth, let man wear the fell of a lion, women the fleece of a sheep, the bird is a nest, the spider a web, man friendship, the selfish smiling fool

[39:04]

and the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod, what is now proved was once only imagined, the rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit, watch the roots, the lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits, the cistern contains, the fountain overflows, one thought fills immensity, always be ready to speak your mind and the base man will avoid you, everything possible to be believed is an image of truth, the eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow. Excuse me. This poem is by E.E. Cummings

[40:08]

and I've had this book since I was in college, actually, a long time, and many times E.E. Cummings's best, it's just listen to the words, just like what I was thinking is listen to the words like you were listening to a stream or like a brook. Anyone lived in a pretty how-town with up-so floating many bells down, spring, summer, autumn, winter, he sang his didn't, he danced his did. Women and men, both little and small, cared for anyone, not at all. They sowed their isn't, they reaped their same, sun, moon, stars, rain. Children guessed, but only a few, and down they forgot as up they grew. Autumn, winter, spring, summer, that no one loved him more by more. Wind by now and tree by leaf,

[41:11]

she laughed his joy, she cried his grief. Bird by snow and stir by still, anyone's any was all to her. Someone's married their everyone's, laughed their cryings, did their dance. Sleep, wake, hope and then, they said their nevers, they slept their dream. Stars, rain, sun, moon, and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up-so floating many bells down. One day anyone died, I guess, and no one stooped to kiss his face. Busy folk buried them side by side, little by little, and was by was. All by all and deep by deep, more by more, they dreamed their sleep. No one and anyone earthed by April, wished by spirit, and if by yes. Women and men, both dong and ding,

[42:14]

summer, autumn, winter, spring, reaped their sowing and went their cane. Sun, moon, stars, rain. You don't hear it coming as much anymore. I guess the first one is a Kerouac poem, and it's sometimes you are the moon, and in any case, the moon. And then here's a Hirschfeld poem. The adamantine perfection of desire, nothing more strong than to be helpless before desire. No reason, the simplified heart whispers, the argument over, only this, no longer choosing anything but a scent.

[43:14]

It's a bowl scraped clean to the bottom, skullbone cup no longer horrifies, but remnant silver shines. A spotted dog follows a bitch in heat, gray geese fly past us crying, the living cannot help but love the world. The voice is up. Well, this is Hafiz, and Hafiz is a Sufi mystic from Persia, 14th century. And I could read any of these poems, but I don't really have a favorite. But I chose this one because it has a good opening line.

[44:16]

It's called In a Handful of God. Poetry reveals that there is no empty space. When your truth forsakes its shyness, when your fears surrender to your strengths, you will begin to experience that all existence is a teeming sea of infinite life. In a handful of ocean water, you could not count all the finely tuned musicians who are acting stoned for very intelligent and sane reasons, and of course are becoming extremely sweet and wild. In a handful of the sky and earth, in a handful of God, we cannot count all the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there behind the mysterious veil. True art reveals there is no void or darkness. There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic in this luminous, brimming, playful world. Ryo-kan

[45:24]

Ryo-kan [...] is a Japanese-style hotel. So how do you say it in Japanese? Ryo-kan Ryo-kan Ryo-kan is a Japanese-style hotel. Intermittent rain in my hermitage. A solitary light flickers as dreams return. Outside, the sound of falling raindrops. A crow sits in darkness on the wall. The fireplace is cold. No charcoal awaits my imagined visitors. I reach for a volume of poems. Tonight in solitude, deep emotion. How can I explain it the following day?

[46:30]

Rinkiki Rinkiki I wish my mind were another volume while I was doing this. Was that alright? Alright. Yeah. When Daigan was talking last week about something about like it's up, you know, what's coming from the next generation of Zen poetry or something. Anyway, this occurred to me. And this is something that I discovered sort of around the same time that I started getting into Zen or whatever. And this is from Saul Williams. He's a Zen poet. And so

[47:43]

the reason I'm having Kate hold it is because I realized that performance is actually half of this. And hopefully I can do it some kind of justice. If I could find a spot where truth echoes, I would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future. I will let their future dwell in my past so that I might live a brighter now. Now is the essence of my domain and it can contain all that was and will be. And I am as I was and will be because I am and always will be that nigga. I am that nigga. I am that nigga. I am that timeless nigga that swings on pendulums like vines through mines of

[48:43]

booby-trapped minds that are enslaved by time. I am the life that supersedes lifetimes. I am. It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules. They still exist as the walking dead as I do. The original sulfur head, symbol of life and matriarchy, severed head medusa, I am. I am that nigga. I am that nigga. I am that nigga. I am a negro. Yes, negro. Negro from necro, meaning death. I overcame it, so they named me after it. And I be spitting at death from behind and putting kick me signs on its back because I am not the son of sh-clack clack. I am before that. I am before before. I am before. Oops. I am before that. I am before. I am before before. Before death is eternity. After death is eternity. There is no death. There's only eternity. And I be riding on the wings of eternity like hyah hyah hyah sh-clack clack. But my flight doesn't go undisturbed because

[49:43]

time makes dreams defer. And all of my time fears are turning my days into daymares. And I live daymares reliving nightmares of what taunted my past. Sh-clack clack. Time has beaten my ass. And I be having dreams of chocolate-covered watermelons filled with fried chickens. Like pinatas. With little piccaninny sons and daughters standing up under them with big sticks of aluminum foil hitting them trying to catch pieces of fallen fried chicken wings. And Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children. Don't shoot the children, I shout. Don't shoot the children. But they say it's too late. They've already been infected by time. But that shit is before my time. I need more time. I need more time. But it's too late. They start shooting at the children and killing them. One by one. Two by two. Three by three. Four by four. Five by five. Six by six. But my spirit is growing

[50:44]

seven by seven. Faster than the speed of light. Cause light only penetrates the darkness that's already there. And I'm already there. I'm here at the end of the road which is the beginning of the road beyond time. But... Where are my niggas at? Oh shit. Don't tell me my niggas got lost in time. My niggas are dying before their time. My niggas are serving unjust time. My niggas are dying because of time. Step right up. What have you done?

[51:45]

I wrote it. Can I read it? Yeah. It's not really my favorite poem. It's not really my favorite poem. Wait. This way? Really? Actually, I'll tell you my favorite poem because it's short that I didn't write. It goes... Can you really hear me? Let's not amplify it. Ah, okay. It goes... It's a Dogan poem. In spring wind peach blossoms begin to fall apart. Doubts do not grow branches and leaves. So there. Now I've done so much. This is an old poem. It's sort of like I didn't write it because I don't write very much anymore. So it's sort of like it's somebody else's poem.

[52:47]

But I figured I'd follow on the time theme. Angels. Do you know about angels, Gabriel? Do you know about the angel Gabriel? Angel arcing earthward to deliver really more than anything explanations which could never be comprehended. About birth and death and the business of saviors and the endless difficulty of human conduit for this divine. Odds are it was not a look of elation she returned. And understandably so. Not an easy burden ever to carry the life of God inside you. In fact carrying already when he flew down with these words already carrying and not understanding and still listening. Intently to these explanations and instructions. Prepare yourself to change the actual diapers of God. But then truly when has it ever been otherwise? Still never otherwise and still not understanding so that

[53:50]

at some point in spite of angelic words and ears air must have lifted out of the room completely and conveyance bent not to words or explanations but to breathless intention of unspeakable patience listening intently she hears just carry no understanding just carry carry and then after whatever period of necessary and who could really say how long for divine gestation after having carried not as other but as your own life your own own body conveyed trust the time itself will teach the necessary dropping off and not of volition but of the true intersecting of bodies divine and human that own own body itself will emerge trusting if it feels like death when it feels like death no understanding and still let it go in this case let it go into this

[54:51]

humblest of circumstances straw and dirt and witnessed only by the patient dopey but truly all knowing eyes of cows and other stable dwelling creatures abiding creatures who know better than to mourn a moment of creation no better than to afflict life with time a helpful way to enter if you're a savior into the eyes of cows and then in this as all as in truly all cases life spreads itself out but in this case being not so afflicted with time spread itself out wide and long into centuries and centuries time enough for all sorts of stories and explanations to grow up around it but in the end for all of that nothing more than dope dopey stable dwelling creatures could discern that all that was born and all that grew was just a human intent on love intent on love and so what but for centuries were crying miraculous miraculous even cows know better do not afflict

[55:53]

with time or cause or purpose without words patiently witness the normal playing out of conception because all there ever is is intent on love when has it ever been otherwise so now this angel remember this angel the one who carries the words of god the very words we since the beginning are designed not to understand he's still around he's still endowed with the motion to explain and in spite of all of it still he's prepared to try we could ask him you know we could he would come if we asked and if we waited patiently waited until the air leaves the room completely devoid completely of conveyance something else floods in still and silent prepared in the pivotal patience of divine intervention a divine consumption all of it full on in its most human of forms no words and no understanding the only thing he ever thought to whisper just carry

[56:54]

just carry then let it go very comfortable stand that's good so since Sarah broke the ice I brought one of my own I don't tend to like to read poems I'm trying to learn how but I really like to hear them and to write them so I wrote this one on my birthday about my birthday last year where I turned 21 I toss a heart dark garden

[58:02]

dark garden blurs lines of existence mangles and softens blackness melts into me feeds on my color I uncurl my fingers that clung to your roots I let my body drop empty into the stars of Orion's belt tears groan from my eyes unable to close again hands sink into earth drink in cold damp suffering until I embody darkness open clear feeling numbness burned away by a piercing beam of joy this is flying crying in the garden is flying so just go through airport security

[59:08]

there'll be no problem and this a few lines from a much longer poem by the American Pablo Neruda Walt Whitman says I think I could turn and live with animals they are so placid and self contained I stand and look at them long and long they do not sweat and whine about their condition they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God not one is dissatisfied not one is

[60:08]

demented with the mania of owning things not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth this book, Leaves of Grass got some notoriety people might remember the lady in the blue dress gave it to the guy from Arkansas yes, this one well, not this step right up, no need

[61:30]

to rehearse before you know it, it's time for the hearse step right up I hope I said it right I liked it even more because I found it in an American daily newspaper and I was really impressed that you have poems in a daily newspaper it goes the little child goes forth every day and the first thing it sees it becomes Walt Whitman was it right? do you know it? this is by

[62:40]

Derek Walcott Love after Love the time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome and say sit here eat you will love again the stranger who was yourself give wine give bread give back your heart to itself to the stranger who has loved you all your life whom you ignored for another who knows you by heart take down the love letters from the bookshelf the photographs the desperate notes peel your own image from the mirror sit, feast on your life this is another

[63:46]

Gary Snyder poem I'm going to read two short ones actually the first one blah blah blah blah blah blah Virgin a virgin forest is ancient many breasted stable at climax take what you will from it no matter, never mind is the title the father is the void the wife waves the child is matter matter makes it with his mother and their child is life, a daughter the daughter is the great mother who with their father-brother matter

[64:47]

as her lover gives birth to the mind okay, so I don't have the poem I had in mind but there's no problem when Mary Oliver is available so this is titled Gratitude and I never saw it before paging through you know, I looked at about six of them and I liked this one really a lot while still listening to all the poems being read of course it was a challenge this is saving me from reciting by memory I was walking the field in the fatness of spring the field was flooded with water

[65:48]

water stained black black from the tissues of leaves oak mostly but also beech also blueberry bay then the big hawk rose in her eyes I could see how thoroughly she hated me and there was her nest like a round raft with three white eggs in it just above the black water she floats away climbs the invisible air on her masculine wings then glides back agitated responsible climbs again angry does not look at me halfway to my knees in the black water I look up I cannot stop looking up how much time has passed I can hardly see her now swinging in that blue blaze there are days when I rise from my desk desolate

[66:48]

there are days when the field water and the slender grasses and the wild hawks have it all over the rest of us whether or not they make clear sense ride the beautiful long spine of grammar whether or not they rhyme so keeping with the theme of food I was gonna read a poem from this recipe book that I think is quite good it's about an onion and it goes who knows what thus comes picking up an onion what is held in hand how many dusty miles and blazing asphalt

[67:49]

truck stops hidden in darkness locked in steel how many cups of coffee and tired eyed waitresses greeted the driver how many minutes of country music and rambling thoughts helped onion hear how many days at home in ground intimately connected embedded, nestled, unseen wrapped in absorption knowing just what to do with earth and water, sun and wind to make them onion that everything thus comes at once as onion what treasure is this dug up who knows what hand holds and then it's I think Ed Brown and then I have a little ballad that I wrote about me and it goes

[68:50]

it goes like this when the rains end in the covers mode I will shave my winter coat and scatter the hairs in the pacific winds bound for another slope if the sun sets and the sand spins I will raise up one finger tip my hat and raise my crack to the oneness of song and singer and if Judy's should cry that's mine not yours and come at me with a knife then I will bow, bend my head and offer up my life for you see my friends there is no greater death than to live the life of another so I ask you today whose life do you live yours or another's that was about me please uh I thought

[69:51]

I had brought a poem that I've been reading in the past week by this other guy but I thought maybe I'd just read one I wrote today if that's cool enough we're gonna do it next week ok do whatever you want you won't be here next week ok fair enough uh it's like a bandaid man, it's not gonna be slower sorry um ok in the key lime mornings and freckled days all the intricate rented world found talismanical promise within the interval called confession a private glory not cotermis with pride yet imploding surrender like the grace of cheating no, I never believed in insight only and endlessly outside we are unrolling widely, entering each other like supermarket carts and parking lots fully portable and solid because it is raining in the post-symbolic world and I feel that the change is the feeling so let this warm world reply and reply

[70:52]

in the advertismal wound of an unmeditated night and outside the sliding glass door lie unused beginnings a confession grafted with the illusion patience, like it's alright for someone uh, not always so, but you were right about the stars, each one a setting sun and don't people wear out from the insides and in this heartbreaking interval the questions of growing old are still young and I felt like a turtle tangled up in a dry cleaning sack towards the days beyond this one which are still perfect and life as essentially one long search for an ashtray and you, besides the unspeakable consonants do you pride yourself on being polite? do you pass away into the magnetic firmament, knowing that the meaning of the world lies outside the world oh California for being shamelessly a destination within a destination within a destination and she said think of me as a place and if love exists, and I know it must it does in a dark green and feathery three quarter time because the topography of graffiti and the punk rock aesthetic of bamboo and forever must be delayed

[71:54]

because time will break the world and no, I don't think a broken window is symbolic unless symbolic, unless broken unless symbolic means broken which I think it sort of does so collapse collapse into everything which trains to be inevitable even as it's being killed off forever applause applause applause this is Porter O is there anybody who must get up now and read a poem otherwise we'll, yes I just do it laughter it's simple laughter this poem's called Miles that's the name of my brother what if I had never called my brother stupid when I was five and he was three because he didn't know the name of a bumblebee and hit him on the forehead with my palm stupid and almost knocked him over

[72:56]

what if I hadn't have done that when his brain was mush and still forming what his world seemed to him more real and not a fearsome confrontation that he had to hide from how's that five year old me I love my brother and now I have a debt so big that I don't even know where to begin applause applause yeah there's a lot of energy that we generate with poetry and pass back and forth among ourselves and we can only benefit from that I think we need to stay behind and put the as the Eno says, put the place back together again so thank you very much and happy Poetics

[73:56]

what's next week next week I say we're going to read our own poems oh I have a stack here maybe it's too late I have all your poems that you've given me some of the poems that you gave me you want to use for next week and want them back you put them here I'll pour them out here snowing thank you I took the liberty of copying some of them and putting them on with the idea of maybe putting them in another book at some time that we'll put in the library but if you don't want them back I'd like to have them well I'll leave them here right now yeah but they make it they make it confusing

[74:58]

oh we have to also Mayo will be doing Juno tonight late at 9 o'clock so if you see her you know please bow and keep quiet as much as possible

[75:26]

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