Two of my Zen friends
who, at the time,
I thought were some kind
of Zen enemies,
seemed to condemn me
to a soap opera
of eternal cookies
and the sound of lawnmowers,
and it took me
forty-some years
to understand this koan,
and the suburban heaven
that I was condemned to,
where instead of a life
in the forest
with snakes and mosquitos,
or a life in the city
with rats and roaches,
I was given
a life in this quiet, rich suburb
with an air-conditioned summer
and a toasty warm winter,
so that surrealistic understanding
of cookie and lawnmower hell,
turned into everyday Nirvana.

Cellphones and swimming pools.
ne'er the twain should meet.
The result can only be bad,
same for lawnmowers and feet.

A drive-by piercing with a lemon going haywire
Some day-old sushi seen floating in a milk shake
Biplanes soaring on a river made of goldfish
Hamsters running like a maggot being stepped on
T-Birds flying on a highway made of spike strips
A sleeper hold keeping pleasure from the culprit
High-speed boats with Bond at the Olympics
A Cheshire cat that is famous for his slow wit
A hands-free call using carrots as a pitchfork
Motel 6 giving buckets full of sunshine
A loser shakes when he’s calling for a train wreck
Two horned-toad dogs seek pleasure from a princess
Pineapples dance on a table made of tall grass
Swimming pools run like the nostrils of a cokehead
Lawnmowers chase televisions made of chocolate
A headrest pops like a package full of mayonnaise
Full moon falling like a stock that’s made of pennies
Some ring-toss games using members as a target
Horse-drawn buggies have turtles for a driver
Captain Crunch cracks three teeth with his product
Unicorn strippers charge nothing for a snow cone
A fig tree shoots his rifle like a marksman
Time-lapse photos lend credence to a journey
A night jog leading to the starting of a win streak
Cotton ***** fighting like the heart of a palm tree
Rabbit holes filled with a rocket made of red glare
Alien red giants just as sure as I am breathing
A high-speed rail system travels without leaving
Lamborghinis resting on a bed of melting ice cream
Then there’s a cuckoo clock riding on a white mink
I saw a cowboy yesterday atop a pile of hay
Leaches lurking everywhere really like to play
Red newspaper taxis burn at the pole in June
Hearts of gold at harvest time, hear my drum in tune
Playing in the band was my only decent goal
Rake, a shovel, and a pick dig working with a ***        
Prince without a pauper will rise from down below
Hot tamales drop like hail the radar never showed
Squids sign a new record deal using their own ink
Octomom wants it all; such ***** I’ve never seen

My darling, I have begun to dream
Of tractors, crossing
The river Jordan
From my mind spun a chronicle of death, foretold
I began to think that in 100 years, solitude
Will be afforded, there will be
No more tractors, Or
Lawnmowers, Or
V8 engines, Just
Silence, Love, So
I shall not wake you in choleric times, I shall return
To the memories of another; of melancholic insomnia
That *****, that unwritten
Love letter to the colonel,
and think, You know,
Earplugs may not be so bad.

I come from the green winters,
the beady drops of sweat
running like lawnmowers
down the side of a face.

The bugs, bugs, bugs
and freakish hailstorms
of the way-down-south.

I come from the trash-can lid
that I made a sled and took flight on
soaring over the inch-thick ice.

I am from howdy-land and yeehaw-city,
but the thing is,
they really weren't.

I come from a fascination with rocks,
the round ones with the white stripes
and the white ones with the round stripes.

I am from bee-stings and wasp-nests,
and the kind ointments that were
whispered into my battle wounds.

Down the side of a cliff,
running like lawmowers,
the beady drops of sweat
come from green winters.

And thus we bid you
welcome to our home,
Finzi-Continis
of the new Century.
Oh, we play jeu de paume all day
behind our walled gardens
Deuce! Love! Set!
you can hear the birds,
the lawnmowers humming diligently
in the yards
the automobiles
Sense a world out there
so vulnerable
Those we think
we care not about
or would prefer
not to know about
ever, really.
Best leave us alone,
spending our sated evenings
arguing politics in candlelight
intense debates,
places unseen
"Not much else there
could have been done,
was there?"

Come back, carefree!
Happy-go-lucky
Deuce! Love!
For every once in a while,
I wake up,  for a moment
back in the Garden,
not alone
"A soap bubble!"
"There! ~ another!"
Amid childish laughter
we watch them float away,
their colors winking back.
And we play
merrily,
a blanket of sunshine ~
'...and there's another!'

It was just one of those days
when the haze of summer had just started to lull the suburbs
into a sticky heat
of grills and lawn mowers
of air conditioning
(everyone pretended not to use it; windows! barked the mothers, windows!)

and the sweat stuck to the brows
of the life guards
napping in the sun
above an empty pool
the Dawson pool.

No one ever swam there
and the lifeguards knew it
those teenagers, sunning themselves lazily on hot days like this
(and the mothers! They complained about the tans. Cancer! the said.
In a way they were right,
but really.)

The waters were clear but the fences were rusted
the diving boards were falling
throwing themselves off the deep end

Katydids
lawnmowers
those lazy days
and the mothers! the constant nagging of soccer moms
lulled around the pool
on the day
Cassandra
took her
last
swim

Her face was like shoe leather
tanned by no fewer than 98 summers spent on porch swings
plodded slowly,
like  her feet were considering
every
last
step
this woman presented her 5 dollars to the girl at the gate
(some surprised lifeguard, because, you see, no one ever swam in Dawson pool)
and pushed inside.

Cassandra never left her porch.
and the mothers! how they scolded their children for teasing her
(even though they had done the same thing at that age.
That's how old Cassandra was).
Decades of the suburbs
and push mowers
and world wars
stayed like photograph around her face.

The lifeguards stared.
Cassandra kicked off her flip flops and shrugged off her mumu.
In a pink bathing suit she sank into the water.

The age melted off of her as she danced through the water
graceful
strong
the strokes were slow and deliberate
and the lifeguards watched as she pulled herself from one end of the pool to another and back.
She made 16 rings
remembering her childhood
23 more
for her marriage
and then 60
60 rings!
before she stopped.
60 years old, the year her husband died.
The year she had stopped talking
aside from the hushed prayers in church
but she was talking to him; that didn't count.
60 rings.

And Cassandra just disappeared.

No one found the body
no one found anything
aside from flip flops and a mumu.
The lifeguards were nearly scandalized
for letting Cassandra drown
but soon she went from a news story to a ghost
and the mothers! sniped at their children
for whispering
"Did you here about old Ms. Cassandra?
They say she found God."

Here
I made a video right here to help you understand
Well i mean, you technically made the video...
I just uh...
Borrowed it?
I can see that you're...mad
But you know now right?
Please
Sit back down, you can wag your finger after
This is important

This is a video your child took of you mowing the lawn in 1994
Her big strong  parent, fumbling with this heavy-as-hell-is contraption
That sputters, and whirs, and kicks back
But like some superhero you...start to shove it along, and conquer the beast
And it sprays curiously alluring smog, that like a well behaved child, she knows not to breathe in,
Knows not to touch because she's not old enough
Or strong enough to pull that chord to trigger the bells and whistles
That she, nor i, nor probably you understands.

But i digress...

So here you are, with your child on the stoop, taking might i add some
Fine, stable footage you should really enroll her in some classes,
And you traveling around your suburban front yard, chasing away a squirrel with the lawnmower, harmlessly of course
And laughing with your daughter
Talking to your neighbors over the roaring engine,
Emptying the bag of fresh cut grass into the bin...

And that's where the battery died
No! Don't leave yet
I want you to watch again, listen again
Here...
Listen closely...








Did you hear the grass screaming of their judgement day, beneath the lovers kissing each other goodbye, wrapped around each other, as we hold hands, still entangled in  the mass graves you made for them

Beneath the ants cowering in their homes, begging their laborers to come back inside before they are noticed, before they are eviscerated and the foreman is forced to pay settlements

Beneath the subtle sound of your daughter breathing deeply of the sweet smelling gas that you told her to stay away from, that we learned to be repulsed by, that she has been told to be repulsed by

Beneath the...
Here, i'll rewind again
Here
You see the label on the lawnmower?
That manufacturer? That bar code? That order number? That factory? That steel purchase? That mine?
Did you hear the songs of the forced laborers there, the modern slaves that bear striking resemblance to the songs you learned in high school history class, except softer, pushed under the magazines

Beneath the squirrel complaining to the squirrel police about dangerous and disrespectful conduct it's neighbors have been performing when he comes to say hello and finally meet someone in the neighborhood, that he's lived so long in, just to be told it's not "Illegal,"

Beneath the slightly offensive joke you made towards your black neighbor, who missed the punchline over the roar of the engine, when you asked him why he was so light skinned, and whether that was a "slavery thing,"

Beneath your child hearing everything

You didn't yet...
You made that happen, didn't you?
This isn't me judging your character
I don't blame you "O' causer of destruction"

You were not given the tools i was given
And similarly i... was not given the tools you were given

You were given a lawnmower, and a camera
A beautiful daughter, a home, a job
Gas! The ability to live where you want!

I...well...
i was given the opportunity to talk to the grass...

And well...

In 1994, that same year, in Rwanda an atrocity was committed, a genocide.

And the characteristic machetes used to massacre the Tutsi people
Contained the same steel blend, from the same producer
As the blades in many lawnmowers at the time.

This isn't a conviction
I did this because i wanted you to know and be okay with being complicit because you exist a certain way
Innocent because you never knew, and couldn't have known

Because we love you
Because we need you
Because we need you to know now

Start now knowing joy,
that’s an order,
overcome a deepening solitude.

Like a bee at a bugle
or me at the deli
on Third Avenue.

I said to Joe when do you think this weather will break?
He jokes, April.
That’s no joke. Weak creatures die and the strong barely survive.

Half a year goes by
another cancer checkup.
Cheer up. Any weather’s

better than no weather at all.
There’s always governance
even when there is no government.

My candidate drops out
after Iowa. Why do I always lose
at politics and poker?

Peace at last!
No lawnmowers, no leafblowers.
Big comfy couch.

Meditate on this: Do what has to be done.
Find your lover gazing at the moon
and take your garbage to the dump.

Your web site evaporates
and your possessions are thrown in the dumpster
except your trumpet which finds its way to a future trumpeter.

Heart ****** to death
“Do you need the paramedics?”
Life and Death is three quick breaths
And 15 pumps
Or was it 11, or 22?
Where are they?
One deep rale
Where are they?
"Anung nung yari qui daddy?"
Eyes rolled up to GodDid you see a light?
Fatal heart won’t live through night,
Weekend, two weeks, re-evaluate
“Dey dun’t know daddy.  He’s a fighter.”
Alone in CCU committed act of faith
with laid hands on experience.
Comatose body wholly heaving with Holy contact
Then silence, stillness
Transfers, therapy, rehabilitation
Sent home by HMO
Came home first night to check on you:
Blotted brow and utterance
“Just try to go to sleep”
Came home one day to check on us
Then entered Jacob’s sleep
Headstone scarred by lawnmowers
Grass envelopes me
Gives me hug…you never did
Yet tears are all I see
Heart knows utterance by heart
“Fin, take care of mama.”
Heart de-virged through pain and loss
Salamat po Pops