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When the days turned to weeks to months and close to years
My feet hurt from the pull of gravity
and my heavy weight bearing down on the soles of my feet.
And there was hunger, but not for food.
But for... Companionship, loyalty,
and a friendly back to scratch.

But that is now just a dream.

As the sky turned grey and the night matured,
I, in my daily death bed, could not help but
wonder what happened to all the built up
Jumping up and down, fidgeting left and right
Shrieks of odd laughter.

That turned into irritation.

I spoke with just  my mouth and wide open heart,
where everything is what I find and feel to be true.
But I did so without the filter of the brain to carve out the
Grime, dust, dirt, and muck that accompanies words.

I regret that truth-- it hurts, it stings, it's my feelings.

Thoughts dance around my head
Counting the sunsets and sunrise
Predicting how many more.

All there is, is kept to myself and my thoughts.

I look forward to when it will finally be mutual
whatever this is, at least.

And to finally be able to open up my mouth, heart, and brain, *where time not a factor.
Zywa Sep 2019
Beyond the Gateless Gate
I gave my stuff away –
homeless I roamed under Pisces
in the sky, their time is a long
time on the clock of the earth

The cities were founded quickly
in Aries' short hour –
but Aquarius, your centuries
are still far in the future
after the strong men

You and I don't wait anymore
we are ahead, in our meantime –
which cannot be otherwise, changes
take place gradually, even
what dominates is only partially there

Now we have some stuff again
and we no longer roam, we are –
stronger than the strong men
water carriers for each other, at home
beyond the Gateless Gate
Collection “Different times”
Donall Dempsey May 2018
MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.
Donall Dempsey May 2019
MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places!  All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed.  All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.
                   Yet onward!
                               Cat birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural.  Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer.  Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road
A gateless garden, and an open path:
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.
Philip Connett Apr 2021
Running Blind Madness
Eyes Wide Heart Pounding
Spirit Lifts Senses Live
Theres Thunder IN THE Atmosphere

This IS A Free Arena
A Gateless Auditorium
Open Fields
Open Wide
Forking Lightning ON THE Horizon

This Natural Inebriation
IN Dynamic Resonation
Anticipation OF THE
Consternataion

Hells Beasts Abound
Snarling Snouts Sounding
Heavy Hoofs Pounding
Crazed Dashing Hounding
IN THE Chaos That'S Surrounding

Hells Beasts Abound
Torso'S Writhing Flailing
Grit Bucking Flailing
Crimson Flow Tailing
THE Gore OF THE Impailing

I'M Knee Deep
IN A River OF Blood
Fleshen Heap
IN THE Reddening Flood

Sodden WET Flesh
Whip AND Turn
Trace THE SKY
With THE Carnal Rain
WET THE Earth
With A Reddened
Stain

Sodden WET Flesh
Whip AND Turn
Trace THE SKY
With THE Carnal Rain
WET THE Earth
With A Reddened
Stain

Sodden WET Earth
Besot With Death Mirth
Drown THE Earth
IN THE Afterbirth
Every Beast THE ****** Herse
DON'T RID ME OF THE ******* Curse

IN AN Ever Rising River OF Blood
Causing Chaos With NO Remorse
I AM Power IN Full Course
Wreaking Havoc

Sump
WET
Dripppin'
Torn
This Bloods LET BY MY Horn
I'M Sopping WET
MY ****** Horn
I Feel Like I'M NEW Born

Drumming Quakes Pounding
Shaking THE Foundation
Lifting Spirits IN THE AIR
I AM GOD Everywhere

Helter Skelter IN THE Chaos
This IS Pandemonium
Freedom Forms
IN THE Void
Electric Flux Obliteration

Pure Intoxication
AS Evil Incarnation
This Revelation
IS Anihilation
As if lyrics of an unfinished song that I wrote when I was about 15 years old...  I dig the atmosphere!
Daniel August Aug 2014
If I had had a pocket for every time
you came in the form of a misty leaf,
(sticking to the underside of my

misbelief, drawing attention to
every old logical fallacy that
was, blissfully, missed)

I still wouldn’t have enough to hold
the amount of change we’ve set in motion,
the density of our meaning, nor the

emotions you inflict on me,
from your place on that mountain.
(as if through sorcery);

And I can’t help but imagine you
as some metaphoric fountain,
forever spouting pockets—

The seeds of your actions sprouting
in neat rows of goodwill, and decisive
Indecision, your face half hidden

in some fey magic of mythologized memory
your hair ridden with peaceful fire
and emptiness, your lips set in a

quiet compassion, ashen from
the song of my phoenix lyre,
content in uncontentedness,

knowing that bliss is also not-bliss,
and that every moment spent apart
is a melody of separation: this—

the crafting of some divergent art,
spooky action at a distance, these shadow
figments mere resistance to our own

true nature: the heart’s desire, sown
in every field, every stable, this very
word, and all the fables that persistently

insist that perhaps there’s one more thing
I’ve missed. So I’ll look once more (through
that gateless gate, perceptions door) at your

sleeping face, the oceans floor, clouds weeping,
that distant shore of sandy grace:
outside time, inside space.
Barbara-Paraprem Jul 2014
Dreamers, sleepwalkers,
in a land of shadows and chimeras,
Buddhas, who seek the Buddha,
yearners, strugglers, dying persons.
Still with the last breath
hovered around from mists,
through the woods the morning star shines,
the red blood flows out of the heart,
that there beats and will beating eternally.
Dreamers, sleepwalkers,
sparks of light from nowhere,
like lightnings flashing through the universe,
again go out in the nowhere,
which lays its blackness comforting and motherly
yet at the last sigh around us.
Life, which, forgetting itself,
sees itself in the empty mirror
and doesn’t know, that the mirror
is in every fiber of its being
- not here or there
and beyond the great gate of the here,
through which it becomes itself
on the middle of the threshold a gateless gate.
Dreamers, sleepwalkers,
- A thunderclap!
A fall from heaven to earth!
A cry from earth to heaven!
An inconceivable moment of glory!
And only peace – unpronounceable holy…


© Barbara-Paraprem, 2014
thymos Apr 2016
by that time every body ventured
had been a surrogate. a gateless gate
left completely unopened wide
so too was i. pretending pretending.
they emerged out of nothingness like
heart valves. metaphysics could not hold them
shut or otherwise. the step-ins force me
down and out like the street hands ignored.
i am just a shadow in the dream of a ghost
of these flows of light that are lost on you
like so many endless turning maelstroms
at a molecular level, i too
not noticing through all the commotion
i am in the orbit of a black sun.
Donall Dempsey May 2023
MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.
William Crowe II Sep 2014
There is a vast, cool intelligence out there
watching & searching in the blackness of space
& reaching out into the vertices of time
to pluck our minutes from under our chins
& to steal our seconds from under our upturned
noses. They take our time & give us nothing
in return, unsympathetic to our four-dimensional
existence & our tiny ideas & our meaningless
ideals. They strike at the moment of ******
when we stare into the gateless gate &
all of life is white & drips like yolk from a
fallen egg, drips like snow onto the branches of
enormous trees, drips like ***** out of the
**** of a blushing *****, drips like milk
into a cylindrical glass, all the way to the brim,
& then filleth over to cover the wood of
a well-polished table.
All night my finery stirred to life;
And the satire I formerly loathed
I hath not hated again, but in haste
I hath been torn, I hath been faulted.

All night I adored the mystic words;
My love, that I had come to behold,
What is with the pain of this loving thee;
Perhaps no poet is as unsure as I am.

All night the arts were about me;
I saw pearls and jewels in the backyard
And bequeath the stones on the roads
To my startled darling, my dear;

All night the excitement was all here;
As a euphoria I could hear alone,
As a misery that was also delight,
For they could not see my ****** night.

All night my virginity was bare;
And my whole poems were laid here,
All of them sounded too weird,
All being constant madness, and tears.

All night I saw flawless snow grow;
And sadistic winter lasting longer,
I did not hear what the rest said,
My long poetry was all I had.

All night I spoke to my chaotic discourse,
All sounds being an unheard chorus,
And the earth a distorted choir
That I wanted not to peruse, nor hear.

All night I was in my deep delirium;
I heard not the nest, and walls of my room
But I should indeed not have cared,
They were not there, not too fair.

Who art thou, young bud, young star;
T’is melody but sees stars in thy hair,
Being a magnificent heir of the moon,
‘Tis a dream, to fade away too soon.

Who art thou, a malevolent voice;
To invite me into the air and its kiss,
When all in the room is frozen fits,
To be in a lovingly sung winter,

Who art thou, a translucent shadow;
Why am I here, but not in the know,
And t’is insanity is just not part of me,
My vivid fate, the last of thine to see,

Who art thou, a transformed beauty;
That I wish could not barely grow,
T’is insanity, that feeds off of me,
Waiting for thine, craving for thee,

Who art thou, a soundless presence;
I hath not batted away the very moment,
And who is here, to signal my audience,
I hath writ not a stern movement.

Who art thou, a voiceless ghost;
What is with the scout and pouting lips,
But handsome still, like an angel’s
Too handsome that thou amazed me.

Who art thou, a dizzy thought;
But a melancholy dream of my night,
I cannot see though thy abundance of lights,
Thou hath me wince, thou hath me taught.

Who art thou, a mad apparition;
Shalt thou sing to my new destination,
That the folded flutes hath to perch away,
Leaving us free, distant from today.

Who art thou, a disgraced grass;
For the whole of lone words is in line,
That blood of thine, and heart of mine,
That I cannot hear, nor wander at rest.

For a soliloquy tune is disgrace,
And a haloed shame to the sun;
Who cannot understand my tales,
And the speed within their calls.

For silence is gateless to all,
And them, the souls I care for;
For none like me was theirs before,
They can hear not when I call.

For the one I hath come for;
And to whom the draught is too much,
To whom who cannot see in March,
To whom who cannot see the light.

For the one I hath longed for;
And to whom I cannot belong,
I am too much weirdness for his song,
I am too much worry, too many chords.

For a breeze of morning moves was here;
With the moon gone on another errand,
And my clouded love was not at hand,
I could neither sing to square tunes, nor hear.

For a ray of morningness, that was yet to faint;
And to reminisce about thee, fiend,
Like to behold without my heart,
To drench me, and my weird love in haste.

I said to the sun, “There is but a pen
Whom my heart hath come to cheer,”
But then it left me alone to no friend,
The last echo of winter had dried away.

I said to the rose, “The brief cold goes
As the bloated dawn has caressed me,
But who shall see, and be in the know
I have not seen cold from my window.”

I said to the water, “The river seems cold
But not like the one I hath beheld,
Perhaps what looks cold, is not cold at all
Perhaps ‘tis not a darkling like me.”

I said to the tree, “The trees being shunned
Because I hath had them speak to me,
None is to be startled by my beauty,
Nor be excited by such wan poetry.”

From the black meadow hath risen a fate,
And a tale like me is perhaps too late,
They, at night, are wanting to go to bed
To be enhanced whilst they sleep, not live;

From the black shadow hath risen a twig;
Red in its vanity like streaming blood,
And perhaps I am drawn to such curse,
For in darkness I see, and be my own delight.

From the black moors hath risen a ghost;
Running against me whilst all is quiet,
And the sun is raging, at fierce speed,
My love for literature is not seen, unlit.

From the black grass hath risen snow;
The fantasy only I could know,
And I, startled by the menacing heat,
Untouched by the cold, and its field.

I hath had too much of the sun, and yet;
No promise hath been formed in my head,
I hath longed to leave, but yet
I hath to swim still towards the sunset.

I hath had too much of holes;
That none is too spacious, no more,
I hath had scars and tears to count,
I hath sinned against the foster moon.

For every morningness, hath I had
A doze of morning breeze, hath not met
With such loving eyes of thine;
Those bitter memories I hath in mind,

For every bitterness, hath I heard
A sliver of darklings towards my face,
I am not so sour nor icy as my words,
Still, they shalt see not my haste.

For every sullenness, hath I feared
My books shall adorn just displeased tears,
They are in idyll, yet shalt still not know
They left me then, and live not now.

For every cursed fate, hath I laughed
Misery is just not more a tear enough;
I hath dwelled in sorrows yet to come,
I hath not lived, nor called theirs home.

For every cursed life, hath I felt
With sane words drunk and misplaced,
I hath not been loved, just hated
For my poor insanities, of late.

For every cursed sigh, hath I feared
All such teasing hath hurt so weird
What is there in the cult of a pain;
Is there a consolation, a friend?

For every cursed sight, hath I told
The riddles and threads thou shan’t behold,
I am neither fierce nor too strong,
But who shall listen, or hear my song?

For every cursed light, hath I seen
A fate so awkward and truly mean;
Behind the burns and oaks and trickles,
At my miseries hath they giggled.

For every cursed poem, hath I writ
And left my untold discourse unfit;
And who are they, with insolent merits,
Yet too souls with insolent demerits,

For every cursed word, hath I seemed
Too disobeying and lustful for one,
But what am I without my frantic dreams;
And a page of failed lunatic desires?

For every cursed soul, hath I screamed
‘Tis a world so cloudless and limb,
They hath all words spoken too loud,
And sweetness feels like a nightmare.

For every cursed ink, hath I dreamed
Of wandering my sweet solitary nights
Beyond the crescent shape of my room;
I hath enough insanities to writ my poems.

For every cursed call, hath I writ
That to be in love again is not to meet,
For who am I, a maddened bard;
I hath no charm, I hath no heart,

For every cursed tale, hath I met
Stories of all dryness and wet,
That clutch to my hearts and hands;
Wanting to be my sands again.

For every cursed love, hath I slept
And in a hurled little dream wept,
Who shall want to break me free;
Who shall trace the beauty of me.

For every cursed heart, hath I hoped
And in a quiet little tune I sung,
Who shall see that I am proud;
Who shall read my words out loud.

For every cursed rhyme, hath I said
With written words that are too late,
Who shall be the one in sight;
Who shall retreat to my troubled nights.

For every cursed pen, hath I waited
For a love painstakingly late,
And who shall be my comfort;
Who shall be mine, my lord;

For every cursed page, hath I kissed
Silence by ‘tis own western feast,
And who shall say my remnants of bliss;
Who shall recite my words in threes?

For every cursed line, hath I missed
And since I may never be his
Who shall see me and fallen worlds,
Who shall be kind to my words?

For every cursed touch, hath I been
Hath I been there, and in love
Who shall see me in my thousand skies;
Who shall be mine, and as wise,

For every cursed past, hath I gone
And returned back with my ale alone;
Who shall be here to here me pray,
Who shall be here for what I say,

For every cursed soul, hath I loved
And in a murmuring smile I prayed,
Who shall see me as I am today;
Who shall love me still, every day.
For all my fellow poets and artists; you are way more special than society thinks you are. <3
Arpita Banerjee Jan 2017
The horizon lies asleep in a grey blanket
In a sea of myriad figures,
And an unimaginable silhouette.
The engineering of black feathers,
Sets ablaze hazy azure weathers.
The Art Decorates Towers,
Like giants with arms outstretched,
Look down commanding superiority
Over the volatile beauty of the wretched.

Who branded this Pandora’s Box to be garbage?
Stop turning your faces away
Like this is some butchery,
Or an abhorable carnage.
The dogs have repeatedly protested against the injustice
The heavy wind suppresses their voices and entices
A seduction of inarticulate silence.
Brothers who embrace us,
Have known nothing of such malices’.

Only the birds are left unenchanted;
Because they fly too high to be pervaded.
I hear children’s voices
And mothers’ too,
And taste the flies and insects,
And all the devils they shoo;
Because they understand not the complexities of a civilization,
They have never rendered their thoughts,
Never undergone no filtration.
The unconquerable spirit of this world,
Has made them savage,
Their claws curled.
In the heat, in the light,
In the plight
Which brings the cold night.

The sunlight here is too dense to penetrate,
Therefore it unabashedly spills over,
No opening,
Just a gateless emptiness on which to concentrate,
Lives and lives here,
Forever proliferate.
With none to remember their faces,
And no mortal soul to commemorate.

Dust settles upon the fingertips which talk.
This place is deemed unfit,
Unsuitable for a walk.
Yet birds, animals and humans alike,
Have stated their preference of what they like.
This land is perpetually theirs to ****.
Passion resides here,
In this unintended landfill.
This poem is based on the encroachment of spaces by informal settlements. This is also a testament to how the organisms which by virtue of their illegitimate occupation transmute themselves into rightful owners of space.
Desperation breeds uncouth
The silhouette of which feigns repose
You'd be remissed to unveil the pain

A moment Dire
Wrought in Desire
Never Lies
and will never Die

Oh i never want to lose you
ambivalent to unrest
this perfect Truth

The philosopher and his quivering lips
Darest thou speaketh a truth?
Dadelus knew, the persisent illusion so useless
where gateless gate lie
wouldst thou tempt fate?

Whether or not you do is Mu
Oh not to be me
but to see
Mike Adam Dec 2016
Away in the world,
So hard those years.

Back through gateless
Gate

Where waters meet

And fifty monks
All fallen in
The river

Laugh.

And some fool said
10,000 words a day

And this one
Reply
Is all-

What?

And take the
Plunging love
Of language

And turn it
Into job.

Nothing to say

Say it

Ok
Go dig coal

I await the
Diamond
Kenshō Oct 2019
Crossroad of the Mirror's Bend-
Twilight Chasms to the Hedge Tend.

A riddle of vines, answering to where trees extend;
And whispering trails of resonant Hornblende.

Sense a sign where the (M.) Glories ascend,
'Till the trail merges with the meadows end.

Beyond where lands are laid,
Cold Mountain is where I strayed.

I forgot all concept and form
And by the void was ordained.

I lost my name
When I came to the Gateless Gate..

I learned that all humans are the same
beneath the feign.

And the only reason government exists
Is that there's something to gain.

Pursuit and Pain,
Name and Fame,

here that doesn't matter;
here that's just matter.

The city I'm from is the city I shatter.
The seeds I bear are the seeds I scatter.

There's no need for a cheute
When you aren't climbing the ladder.

Most people are formal not formers;
So, in that case I'll have the latter.

You are living in a state of matter;
To me, its a matter of state.

Break the Frameless Gate
And wipe clean Locke's Slate.

Wait, that's tabula rasa, this ain't a debate!
See, you don't even know what the schools were built on you fools!

A world of jewels formed in the perfection of the bend~
A world of molecules spinning, hovering, in the end~

Whatever you believe
It's simply an intellectual tease..

Of what really claims to be,
Like the sound of the bird or a rustle of a tree.

So before you leave
I just wanted to see-

That if I told you this
You might walk the woods with me.

Because, lately I have been oft lonely
And they say I have been soft, only..

I feel a callus around my heart..
God seems to be performing some sort of complex art..

I have seen something in the end;
Yet, I cannot see where to start.

I see all of motion, like time, suspend.
I seem to see you all clearly again, then.

God speaks to me through language, transcend
And I know it was fully my part.

To move through space like my heart
And to the truth I will ever defend~

So, when I'm calling and the meaning ascends,
I pray for the lock to be broken again.

So my slate can be clean from what has been
and to the garden tend-

Because, the reflection in my eye
has made me cry.

When I look from now to then;
But, just know now that was all pretend.

Now I break a spell to start again, listen.
My tear is for you, and, from it, all glistens.

Yet we lose sight of what all the lord mights.
~Toss a yin and yang~

Like, day is just the absence of night;
Or, light is darkness' gift to sight.

See, what is real?
And what really matters?

When I cast my mind like a reel,
Meaning seems to scatter.

An unconscious wind takes my breath away
And I come conscious to what is on my platter

I can clearly see a pathway
And all of life becomes a screenplay.

The sky is my sensei
And no human do I obey.

Because, if this was the Beatles' Way
then I would be the f^#%k!ng Blue Jay~

And I'm coming to see you
In the garden when I pass through.

Tip your hat to a Psychedelic Cat
For when all this is through,
It will have been a picture you drew.

So, I'm tired of the fake and hate;
Just give Love and Compassion.

To all your brothers and sisters
And that doesn't have to rhyme.
मैं तुमसे बहुत प्यार करता हु

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQYYfDYn8ts

listen and recite
Donall Dempsey May 2020
MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.
Chelsea Chavez Dec 2015
Your love is illiterate.

My needs are too far within.
I am primitive
and will never be satisfied.

But how I will cry and pine on the strings of this instrument.

Place your palms on the soft animal of my body.
Find me.

I am unaccounted for.

I become frantic in my silence.
My gravity becomes  pinions.
A volute **** in the ether.

Such will you, I.

There is no means to entering the gateless gate, though you will try.

My body is numb, and I am senseless with the roaring waters behind me.

It will not desist.
This endless sea, forgets.
So the blur of organs, the blundering cold of a concept.
I am non-matter. Absence of all things, in me.

Here is a story of ignorance: something.

How I become sick on my self.
My mouth is wooden. Knowing, what can be said?

We lose sense of sense.
Soft, and vulnerable fawn, intractable in the tall grass.

Do not love the uncast word. Forgive.
thymos Mar 2016
by that time every body ventured
had been a surrogate. a gateless gate
left completely unopened wide
so too was i. pretending pretending.
they emerged out of nothingness like
heart valves. metaphysics could not hold them
shut or otherwise. these step-ins wear me
down and out like the street hands ignored
the talk of the place of the door replaced
on its hinge other not left unswung yet
yet, another could not find their way in
for lack of my trying, for lack of want
wanted, of a whole ark’s tender madness
where like palestine every olive branch
burns to cinders of grief
on no tv.

here no messages to be drawn, or else: struggle.
'my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts'
—Samuel Beckett
JP Jun 2017
a new appointment
she was gorgeous
in the introduction meeting
obviously
she showed her ring
an understanding
Is it her Gateless Gate??
Mike Adam Mar 2018
One foot
Before
One foot after
Before

Turn left
Or right
Beyond the
Gateless
Gate
And walk
And trust
The feet to
Go
Just where
You ought
To.........
M Srisaravana Dec 2019
Let me sit down for a while,
For the night is still too young,
I can hear the storm's thunder,
Raging past behind my eyes,

My heart's bleeding, no strength left,
Could there be a place,
I could rest till the storm's end,
Forgive me for the fall,
For, I could not catch you,

Bless me for the faith,
I have upon your spirit,
I am crumbled like a sandcastle,
In the rain, in the storm's rage,

What could I do with,
Such reckless hate in my heart
No more flowers are blooming,
In my gateless gardens, none,
My heart's bleeding, no strength left,

Let me sit down for a while,
For the night is still too young,
I can hear the storm's thunder,
Raging past behind my eyes

— The End —