Here are some more
empty words
that don't help
because we don't
actually need
any help.

I was sitting
on the patio
when I intended
to meditate
in a certain way
that I do,
when the mind
spoke up
and suggested
that it might be dangerous
and that I should do something else
and I remembered
what John Cage
told me
about doing what he didn't intend
so after a bit of indecision
I decided to do
what mind told me to do
and that's why I'm here.

I'm not complaining
right now
about life
but I really do
have a bellyache

so sometimes
like this morning
I get to *******
about the way
things are going

but then
I fix up
the *******-up thoughts
and it gets better
or so I think.

I have discovered
sitting outside
by the garden
on summer mornings
as I take photographs
and drink tea,
stand up
and meditate
with various
hand positions
as the neighbor
says good morning
by saying
"Hi, baby duck".

Buddha taught
that life is an illusion
as did
the Beatles
so after a nap
I woke up
facing the gate
in my mind
of this teaching
and instead
of not getting hung up
I got nervous
thinking that this reality
as I know it
is not real
so here I am now
on this paradigm of illusion
called the computer
and sometimes
the only way
to pass through
these Dharma gates
is to forget about them.

The computer hums
while the mind hisses
with the words
being only the top
of the vastness
of the full unseen mind
which whirs
with activity
of an awake dream
which states
quite frankly
what is already known
and unknown.

So on the fourth of July
I decided to flush Zen
down the toilet,
to give it up
because it has become
such a heavy weight
and when I did
everything
seemed like nothing
more substantial
than water draining
through my fingers
so that was how
I found Zen again.

I believe
in attachments
like sitting in a chair
smoking and drinking
while thinking about stuff
and I believe
in sleep and laziness
and I don't particularly
like purity or wholesomeness
and I don't even
exactly practice
moderation
so I guess that makes me
an anti-zen buddhist zen buddhist
and I am a good Buddhist
even if maybe I'm not.

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's easy
Sometimes it's easy

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's easy
Either way
I love it

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it!

(I'm washing my brain)

Gone, gone,
gone beyond,
gone far beyond
the rational mind
is the thought
that heals
anything
even a toothache.

A squirrel was seen.
Sprawled out on the sidewalk.
Still living.
Muscular, to be able to run up trees.
I was surprised.
Squirrels impress me.
Most think they are funny.
I have not gotten beyond the death of a squirrel.
Watch them run on the wires.
Filled with vital energy.
I wonder if long ago, I was one.
Teeth.

I had a fear of my inside world years ago.
I thought it was my back.
I thought it was dark.
There was trouble in my head.
I thought the scene outside was where it was.
It took much study to once again love my inner world.
I loved it as a kid.
I am a kid again.

I understand
the art
in a blank canvas.

It began with National
     Geographic
and those pictures
     of nearly naked
African women
as I lay on the floor
     of the hall
and from there
     it became
being ****** by a dog
     in the bathroom
to twenty second ***
     with a girl
who said I was impotent
     to becoming
aware that my *****
     was too small
to a statutory case
     where I didn't
     get caught
to a time in bed
     with a girl
who said
     "How much longer
     is this going to go"
to a grandmother
     who put me to work
and the love-making
     was just like that
     some of the time
to a one-night stand
     with an overweight girl
which was the best time
to me thinking
     "I haven't done too well
     with the ladies,
     maybe I should try
     the men"
and then doing so
     and deciding I didn't
     like it
to a few unforgettable
     moments which were
     forgettable
to an illicit affair
     with a married woman
     in motel rooms
to a woman who picked me up
     and said, "Let's be friends"
     and as she was going
     up the stairs
     she said, "OK, let's get
     this over with"
     and I ran outside
     to get out of there
then to twenty-one years
     of celibacy
when I realized
     that my best ***
     was with myself
and so I married him.

     THE END

A friend once said that he never heard a sound that he didn't like.
Some people disagree.
I hear things.
Voices, dogs barking, and the sirens of emergency.
My friend was right about sound.
The pain bothers me.
Oh well, no pain, no gain!

I smell like cigarette smoke.
I sometimes smell like a ****.
Sometimes, I have that, you know, man smell.
I have noticed a musty kind of odor.
Once in a while, I smell like incense.
Breath is disturbing to some, when it comes out of the mouth.
Right now, I don't smell anything particularly.
That's how it usually is.
I don't know what you think.
What do you think?

I know
I am a loser
but in Zen
the loser wins
so you don't have to
**** me.

I told a young woman that life was a party, as a young man.
We were at a party.
That was obviously why I said it!

There is a cyclic nature to my life.
A wave pattern.
At the bottom of the wave is a psychic prison.
In the prison, I experience a trial.
A metal moment.
This last one was a day and a half long.
I woke up free this morning.

I'm tired and sick.
There's no cause of it.
There's no cure for it.
I'm just tired and sick.

You are reading this.
You are invisible to me.
I am invisible to you.
I was at an art show.
A large group of people were there.
I saw their bodies, but there were no names attached.
No stories of their lives.
No anecdotes about them.
Even though I could see them, they were invisible.
But, there is something visible about all of us.
We know each other well.

Let's see
if I've got
anything in
here.
One place
for all of us.
This time
is none other
than space.
The turning moon
has spoken.

I woke up as someone else.
I don't know who it was.
So, I went back to sleep.

I was flying high.
Filled with love.
I got hungry.
I ate a dill pickle, some olives and some cheese.
I decided to take my nutrient pills.
I swallowed them.
Now, I am lower than a sleeping dog.
Oh well, Buddha said that nutrients cause suffering.

I danced the seven animals.
Then I danced them backwards.
We are all deluded about the nature of life.
It may be written, it may be being written.
I saw the Great Mountain.
The dead have never left us.
Johnny Carson was on television tonight.

Living in my indigo house
sitting on a straight chair
I find the essential word
which turns me into
a suburban Hawaiian
here in snowy Michigan
and the word that appears
in my indigo mind
means love, compassion and mercy
as well as hello
and as well as goodbye.
Aloha!

The music of the Great Dharani plays in the ether.
As I breathe like a sine wave, the song becomes an essence.
The celestial singers sing a perfect fifth.
Over and over it sings.
Then it changes, to go down through the circle of fifths.
Vocalizing every conceivable note.
Then I come out of my meditation.
The music still plays in the air.

Woke up in some kind of darkness.
Like Dracula was in the house.
Heavy and gothic feeling, drowning me.
So I ate a dill pickle.
That helped, but not enough.
Decided to write a dumb poem about it.
There, there...that's better.

A Tibetan Lama taught me a form of meditation.
I just did it.
When he did it, it just looked like he was sitting.
Just that.
He didn't blink much, but I do.
Later, we had dinner together.
He told me that my spiritual life was not half bad...and not half good.
I agree.
I'll try to improve.

I say
loose/tense/tense/loose
inside
with a high note
and a low note
on my breath
and why
do I do this?
The Great Equality.

As a car drove by, I have nothing to say.
When the hum of the computer is listened to, I have nothing to say.
As the fingers make the clicking sound of keys dancing, I have nothing to say.
When the mind is stuffed with a cloud.
Well, you know.

I lit incense
and a candle
and chanted a prayer
for my dead father.

I watched a documentary on Buddhism.
The show talked about a little girl.
She was upset that Buddha didn't tell her about where she would be reborn.
Buddha told her that she should be concerned with how to eliminate her suffering in the present moment.
I thought that my problem was that I was overly complicating my religion.
It occured to me that my religion should be about making me feel better.
I feel better now.

I've been sick.
I cured myself this morning.
The cure only lasted about an hour.
Then, I fell asleep while sitting in a chair.
The Mind Snatchers took over my head while I was dreaming.
It was a pleasant dream about a friend playing his flute.
When I woke up the mind was ablaze.
A roaring, burning flood of thoughts drowned me.
I put out the fire.
I calmed the flood.
I've been sick.

Some days are like this.
Some mornings I wake up with a head telling me what a loser I am.
It makes me feel lower than whale *****.
I try to love each day, but these kind of days are hard to love.
However, as we know from the song, the blues is allright.
So, I drag myself upstairs and write a poem.
That's better than suicide.

Everything seems to have a way of being not so good sometimes.
I think maybe it's because of atomic makeup or something.
Alcohol is a thing that is not so good most of the time.
I don't know why this is.
They call it spirits so that means it has a spirit.
It can be very tricky.
It can give me foot in mouth disease.
So today because I am a fool, I drank a little bit of whisky.
I said stupid things.
Now, I'm sitting here on a sort of guilt trip.
Oh well, such is life here in the College Of Lifelong Learning that we call earth.

All of my life I have been afraid of The One Truly Bad Thing.
Death.
With the help of my religion, however, I seem to have come to terms with it.
There is, though, the thing that most of us are even more afraid of.
The One Truly Bad Thing Which Leads Up To The One Truly Bad Thing.
That is the thing like cancer or heart attack or stroke or car accident or getting shot by a ******.
This is the thing that really hurts.
I can't seem to come to complete terms with this even with the help of my religion.
Then there is that other Bad Thing.
This is the thing that is so bad that it freaks everybody out.
The End Of The World!
I don't know about this.
But, you know, the dinosaurs died.
One thing that I do know is that if you watch the media, you might think that it's coming, but if you don't, if you just watch the everyday world, you probably won't think it's coming.
I suppose we could explode because some star goes supernova or something, or the north pole becomes the south pole or something, but I don't know.
Actually, not knowing has saved me thus far.
Sure does seem like there are more Bad Things than Good Things on this planet, but if you think like I do, that every moment of life is a Good Thing, then it's not so bad.
I don't know, most people don't think so.

I have been severely deluded for my whole life.
I have been hoping for The One Truly Good Thing to happen.
I have been desiring a Good Thing all the time.
I have realized that there is no Good Thing.
It is a delusion.
The television sells the Good Thing as, for example, a fast food fish sandwich.
"You can search the whole world, and never find anything as good as this fish sandwich."
**.
I had a desire today for a Good Thing.
Something like The Best *** or something.
When The Good Thing does come, it's not really that Good.
And it passes as soon as it's over with.
If it's something like Winning The Lottery, sometimes that can even go bad.
If it's something like Getting The Big Break or Making Your Dreams Come True, sometimes that can even go bad.
Waiting For Your Ship To Come In is a mistake.
Today, I have decided for myself that the Good Thing is already here.
This moment and each moment is the Good Thing.
I just don't usually realize it because I have a headache.

I woke up with a different self and other inside.
They were a bit depressed.
I think I have billions or so others and selves inside.
So, in order to cheer us up, I did some meditation practices.
It helped a little.
We're still a trifle bummed out, but so be it.
We are a delusion of electro-magnetic bio-chemistry, or so I think.
I'm here somewhere, but I don't say anything in my old familiar voice.
It's OK though, we're happy often.

A big storm is coming.
I don't mean that metaphorically.
I'm a believer in the signless.
It's just that a storm is coming in February.
Storms probably should come in February.
They always have seemed to come in February.
I hope the electricity doesn't go off.
I will try the philosophy of radical acceptance.
That way if the electricity goes off, I'm OK and if it doesn't, I'm OK.
A big storm is coming.
OK!

The politics
seem like nothing
but fighting
about who gets what
when it seems
like everyone
should have enough.

I have a peculiar and eccentric style.
I am a peculiar and eccentric person.
My life is peculiar and eccentric.
I have always admired peculiar and eccentric artists.
I haven't seen a movie in a theater for twenty-one years.

I give to charity.
Some people out there need food.
The charities send me messages begging for money.
The messages seem to be getting more extravagantly made.
It seems to me that the charities are getter richer.
They are begging more and more.
I give to charity.
Sometimes I don't.

Here in this rich suburb
of a city which is perceived
as dangerous,
the squirrels run
right in front
of the speeding cars,
and some of the squirrels
stop in time, turn around,
and go back to the safe side,
but some keep running
and get squashed by the speeding cars.
So one day
I was driving
and a squirrel
ran under my car
and as I drove on
I looked back
to see him writhing in agony,
so the next car
put him out of his misery
by running over his dying body.
I have not gotten past
being a squirrel myself
facing such an end.

This green desk
is something beyond
my mind
because
it goes back
to the twilight
of my frat brother
and my fat father
who are long gone
my dad is dead
and my brother
divorced the family
so the green desk
remains
with me sitting here.

The telephone
on my right
has a cord
hanging limply down
and it reminds me
of the fact
that no one calls
or writes
but I then remember
that less is sometimes better
and know
that I have many friends
out there
who seem invisible
but feel present.

They didn't tell me about the artists who are on the bottom.
I thought all artists were famous.
I thought the art life was something to write home about.
I didn't know about the artists who lived with Mom
and hung out in the basement.
I didn't know about the artists who lived in the street.
There seem to be two or so people who are artists who are on the top.
They are the only ones that people know about.
There are millions of artists in between.
They have shows and readings and performances and stuff.
We don't seem to know about the ones who are on the bottom.
It's slow down here.

Mom and I
both live here
and I fixed her
bacon and eggs.

The mood lighting
of early morning
in the poetry office
shines its light
on the ***** ashtray
where two bent cigarette butts
are resting
waiting to be thrown away.

"If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck, I'd swim to the bottom and drink my way back up" - unknown blues author

We shouldn't think too badly of *****
just because it is poison
and gives us a headache
and terrible nausea
Jack is not so bad
Mr. Whiskey talks in a fine way
to those who love him
but don't mistreat whiskey man
or he'll have you running around
naked
and the men in their uniforms
will come to get you.