After an afternoon nap
I awoke without any thoughts
an empty brain
and in Zen they say that's great
and everyone seems to think so
but it disturbed me
so I just sat in a chair
without a thought
for a few hours
doing nothing
then later I did some Zen practice
and the mind began talking again
so I felt much better.

The mind
picked up an idea
from reading
to just relax
and vibrate with it
so the mind
since it likes to add
thought just relax
and harmonize with it
and then
just relax
and resonate with it
and I am in favor
of all these techniques
but it strikes me
that this additive nature
of the mind
creates too much
so what I have been doing
is simplifying.
I just harmonize
with everything.

Drinking morning coffee
at night
something makes my brain
split open
and the thoughts
spit out venom
from the reptile mind
about an experience
of peculiar pain
which happened
about forty years ago
and after awhile
it closed up again
leaving its traces
in the form
of sadness
so here I am now
with my broken head
scratching its back.

When I get
in this mood
where I think
"I don't want
to do anything"
all I can seem to do
is stand up
and sit down
while smoking.

Tired body
from too little sleep
with a dream
of freakish animals
and odd men
so I sit uncomfortably
thinking.

Sitting in an old wicker chair
that has an orange pillow
on its seat
I nod
and remember
that this ordinary life
which so many of us
don't really like
is actually nirvana
whatever that is.

Waking up
at ten o'clock at night
I start my fourteen hour morning
depressed and not wanting
to do anything
so I remember
the Zen master's New Year's message
in which he says
"When you're tired and disappointed,
Write a poem."
so here I am.

The right foot
has a wrecked toe
that feels as though
it is broken all through
and as I walk upstairs
the pain says
"How do you do?".

I get so ******
on my religious practices
that I have realized
that religion
really is
the ****** of the people
but it strikes me
that that's just
what I want
is some kind of natural ******
to make me enlightened.

I have an incurable disease
which I call yoyoitis
and the symptoms of it
are that I am happy as a rabbit
for a few days
and then the yoyo goes down
and I'm miserable and low
for a few days
and then up goes the yoyo again
and I'm happy as a rabbit.
It's a big pain in the ****.

This art life
which I am living
has no success
and nothing happening
so I get depressed
when I think
I have no life
therefore I will turn it around
and remember
that there is no pressure on me
no need to hustle
no stress
I have absolute artistic freedom
so I'm grateful
to be a nobody artist
so there.

I was eating peanuts
when I noticed blood
and found that my lip
was cut
so thinking about Babylon
and how the poet was freed
I tried ways
to heal it
and when I tried sleeping
it bled worse
so I decided
to wake up
all night long
although I probably won't.

The dancing man
moves in slow motion
ridding his body and mind
of unwanted ****
that he blows out of his nose
with a well-controlled breath
that took him forty years
to learn.

He says that if I'm sad
to write a poem
and if I can't do that
to climb a mountain.

"Hello"
"Come in"
"What's been going on?"
"It's the new year"
"What have you been doing?"
"Art...and spiritual practice"
"What kind of art do you do?"
"Poetry, painting and music"
"Oh...can you sell it?"
"No...not really...I put it on the internet"
"Is the medicine OK?"
"Yeah, fine, I've been taking it for a long time"
"OK, see you in a month"
"Bye"

There are dark places
in my mind
where my thoughts
if left to themselves
will be drawn
because these places
have a wound inside of them
that requires healing
but when my thoughts
fly into the dark places
the wounds bleed
and they become painful
so the obvious answer
is to be careful
of where the thoughts
are flying
and guide them
to the better places
like the areas
of humor
and poetry.

I forgive
the woman
that I married
before my parents
were born
who stabbed me
many times
as I lay in bed
killing me
and I forgive
the soldier
who pounded
my underarms
with the ****
of his rifle
and I forgive
the US government
for forcing me
into suicide
by blowing
my brains out
with a gun
pointed between
my eyes
and I forgive
myself
for doing it
and I forgive
myself
for stealing
from my parents,
stores and a school,
and I forgive
myself
for that strange
*** act
with a dog
and I forgive
my friend
for saying
that I had
a small *****
and I forgive
my family
for going crazy.
I forgive myself
for killing holy men.

There's a ghost
in this house
who is a woman
that is ugly
with claws for fingernails.
I think I brought her here
by accident
after thinking about
a past life.
She killed me
a long time ago
so she went
to hell
and now must
reside on Earth
before she can
find peace.
I don't mind ghosts
I think they're OK
but she freaks out
everybody else.
So I'll just wish her
Happy New Year
on this rainy night
and hope for the best.

I drank a cup of green tea
and immediately got sick
with the depression
from my new-found allergy
to green tea
which is supposed to be good
but to me possibly
is poison
so I had some cigarettes
and felt much better.

A pleasant conversation
with my woman friend
with occasional angry outbursts
from the Buddha who says no
with music always playing
and an old feeling
in the forehead
which I have grown to love
are all aspects
of the conscious mind
with an enormous silence
in the rest of it
that guides me
by not saying anything.

The toy piano
is played twice
once on the right
and once on the left.
The toy harp
is played twice
once on the left
and once on the right.
This music
ends badly
but brings me
joy.
It is silent now
except for the beautiful humming.

So, lighting up a cigarette
I expound on a blinking eye
that goes on and off
like this computer
and everything.

So, the last happy smoker
takes another puff
from his incense
that is considered weaponry
by many
and delights in the defiling
and healing power of smoke.

The in-breath is creation
and the out-breath is destruction
and so it goes like a blinking eye
in a circle
like a kid building something
and then wrecking it
and it's not vicious
it's just a circle
like the seasons
so don't get upset
with nature.

I'm being watched.
It's not paranoia.
I'm being watched.
You are looking at me.
I'm a poem.

I believe
that life
as it is
is the one true refuge
the one true vehicle
and that impermanence
is not about death
but about transformation
change and metamorphosis
so
no death
no birth
life-only!

Sometimes
you feel like a nut
sometimes
you don't.

What's inside
this head
is a bunch
of words
and music
that lead
to experiences
and that's why
I love it.

Looking at history
I see the power
traveling west
around the world
and it seems
like the United States
is losing it
and China
is gaining it
so I think
that power
is not so great
and the happy states
are the ones
without much.

When I officially became a Zen Buddhist
I took the precepts
and promised to practice
being an energetic Buddhist
to which I replied, "Sort of..."
and everybody laughed
but now
about seven years later
I have become energetic
and I really can't believe it myself.

Art is not necessarily a fame thing.
Art is not necessarily a money thing.
Art is not necessarily a work thing.
Art is not necessarily a perfected thing.
Art is not necessarily a difficult thing.
Art is not necessarily a masterpiece thing.

I go down
to the basement
and paint.

I go down
to the basement
and make music.

I come up
to the computer
and write.

The crazy man seems to hate his mind.
The Zen man loves his mind.
The crazy man doesn't know, and is confused about it.
The Zen man doesn't know.
The crazy man laughs and says, "It's an imperfectly perfect world!".
The Zen man laughs and says the same thing.
The crazy man is unhappy with his life.
The Zen man is happy with his life, most of the time.
The crazy man hears voices.
The Zen man is a voice-hearer.
I know about this
because I have been
both.

I recently acquired
a small digital recorder
for making music
and after I recorded
my toy instruments
and figured the machine out
I finally put the music
on the computer
to hear that I had unintentionally
made the music soft
and since I delight
in mistakes and accidents
which don't hurt
I left my music that way,
a quiet, soft, little music.

We were told
that the Zen mind
is none other than
the ordinary mind
so we went out looking
for the ordinary mind
and we were told
that the here and now
was none other than
nirvana
so we went out looking
for the here and now
and after much painstaking searching
we arrive where we were
when we got started,
which is right here
at this moment
with our ordinary mind!

I put my right index finger
on the point of my upper lip
and hold it there
then soon I explode
in a delightful ******
of kundalini rapture
so I suggest
you give it a try
and see what it does
to you.

I went to an appointment
with the Chinese doctor
and he diagnosed my problem
as head wind flu
so he prescribed
that I wear a hat
and use a blow dryer
then after I left
I felt much better.

I will be
with you
always...
forever.

"Unh...This is not like...unh...life as we know it, is it?" - Maxine

I know what you mean, Maxine,
this is not like life as we know it,
but that's only because
life as we know it
is not like
life as it is.

It's very freeing
to do a morning dance
for the Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas
while wearing
a little black dress.

The word
from the media
is to live big
but I think
I like living small
without the worry
about success
and fame
and without
the trouble
that money brings.

I will be doing
two new paintings
so in order
to prepare
I put my green bags
(which are red and blue)
into the car
and drove to the store
which sells a lot
most of which
is from China
and I know
that is not good
for our carbon footprint
but I like China
so I bought
two Chinese frames
and on the way home
I picked up two more
green bags
(which this time are green)
so I have been helping
the troubled economy
with my little
shopping deal.

A giant red cat
is stuffed inside
someone's garage,
and the great beast's tail
is wagging outside.
The little girl
says that she forgot
how large the cat was.
This was the television reality
awhile ago.

There is only one enormous entrance
to this life of eternity and infinity
and this one door is always open
so I enter it with my eyes and mind
and I see that it is just good old ordinary everything
that I have been looking at
all life long.

Jumping into the gorge
with a weird bird overhead
the word pop is written in the sky
as the black fairy princess bows.

Like us
the doctors
don't know
what they're doing
as they see us
for five minutes
and determine
how our health is
according to a norm
which is thought
to be good
for everybody.

Punching in
early in the night
or any old time
for a job
that pays
no money
I gain insight
into the profession
of the unsuccessful artist
who has to do his work
with nothing to gain
except the accomplishment
since that's the way
it is.

My childhood bicycle
was like a Cadillac
with fins and gizmos
but my brother suggested
we strip it down.
My brother tried
to fix a red corvette
in our family's garage.
The computer has replaced
my childhood bicycle
with its journeys
to cyberspace.
The 5 year old car
of my mother's
which I drive
is orange and waits
in our family's garage.

The first thought
was by the right guy
and the second thought
was by the right guy
and even though
they sound different
they are both
as empty
as outer space.

I used to be
the kind of guy
who drank
a twelve pack
of Bud Light
and watched
football.
Now I am
the kind of guy
who does a dance
to the morning
and sings
Doe A Deer
four times
shortly after
I wake up.
It's hard to get used to it.

For years
I have been
playing with my brain
trying to find
my old mind
and now it has dawned on me
that my ordinary,
everyday mind
is none other than this
ordinary, everyday mind
that I have right here.
The joke's on me.

My father was mowing the lawn.
He called me over and asked,
"Where's your brother?",
I replied, "I don know",
He said back, sharply,
"Use your mind!",
so I thought in my head
about it, and he went,
"Ack, go find him!".
As I was walking away,
I thought, "Use your mind?
I wonder what that means?"