elegy for an old friend

there was a Buddha's knowing gaze
in your serene reliability
your many uncomplaining years
of solitude cramped into your corner
accompanied only by a varying display
of clocks and photos and flowers
on your head

your stoic wait for the fingertip
press that would electrify
your dark and dusty face
gradually illuminating and alleviating
the blackness of sheer loneliness
warming the chilling reality of
our environment

but now my friend your time
is done your duty is over
time for me to gaze at
this neophyte that graces my living
room with its flat face
and svelte plasma
technology

dead again alive

i am cloud, letting go again of my potential
letting go of my desires letting go of
my sensitivities my attachments
raining, falling through space
precipitating past memories
dispersing to the
universal ocean
as nil once
again
then
Radiance
that nurtures my
eternal cycle brings
the heat that concocts
the vital conditions for me
to rise as vapour from the sea
of spirit, from formlessness emerging
once again filling with that potential essence
filling with those desires and with those sensitivities
i am cloud, suffused with my inherent irresistible force

sometimes i really need to remember this

"If you wish to free yourself from the sufferings of birth and death you have endured through eternity and attain supreme enlightenment in this lifetime, you must awaken to the mystic truth which has always been within your life" NICHIREN DAISHONIN

there's a jewel you didn't know you had
a true-happiness-granting jewel
that you can never use unless
you are told where to find it;
some who do know misuse or
use and then hide it away
for another day
but it's a jewel, once uncovered,
you have to keep polished
or else its dust will cover your eyes
closing them

NAM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO
NAM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO
NAM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO

This Be the Worst

I knew what they were all doing training
Me to replicate their image of what I should become
But I didn't like anything I saw and feared the
Ceremony of it all perceived the sham early and its obvious
Preclusion of those outside the chosen class and the threatening hot breath
Of hate of those outside the chosen class on
My neck and the horrible long journey down those corridors with the stink
Of polished classroom floors and the stink of sweat-soddened gyms
And the stink of lockless paperless outside shithouses
The fifties early sixties greyness life like a permanent monochrome
Movie laced with bad dentists bad barbers and most of all bad teachers
Let me scream I said let me scream till the blood vents the blood vents

Dean Martin and the Bats from Hell

phony smooth of fifties sixties cool
death-dealing smoke and cocktail
couched in silky tones and perceived
opulence collapsed now to hip hop
poem and voyeurs' glass eyes swelling
the masturbating masses buy-and-sell-nothing
profit from contrived fluctuations all
catering to silence the scream at pure
reality jesus fucking christ! stop
the vampire we create and recreate
that sucks us dry