Pictures from Miami Beach

(On this one I offer no preamble or explanation)

Pictures from Miami Beach

It’s that time again, with the mid Winter sun
  high before the start of March,
When a friend of mine posts pictures from Miami Beach,
  on Facebook, for the friends that it may reach

 Blue water and well warmed sand right,
  aqua and coral art deco hotels left,
And bracketing the vanishing point
  he and his friend of the week, seated cheek to cheek,
Who, though charming, ought not be described as a girl

My view of this scene is modernity made bucolic by the internet,
So successful it brings to my senses that old olfactory memory,
  a reminiscent scent, which, despite the added hint of coconut sunscreen,
  takes me back to that one weenie, that one last late one, still on the grill,
Which overheated by old coals (rather than the Florida sun)
  is the last remnant memory of Summer’s July weekend cookout,

You know the one, while forbidden, the temptation rushes the blood,
  for if not overdone you know they are the tastiest,
Um-hum!
  and I’ve been there, had them, and not always between the buns,
Over the years I’ve gagged and choked down my fair share, and with relish,
  of burnt dogs, so alike the both of you in the Orange Juice sun,

Hello Miami Beach friends,
For from here in the isolation of my snow surrounded Waltham home
  I feel for you only envy,
Because, despite my straight Yankee views,
  I find, that like that last textured hot dog,
    I enjoy being well seasoned,
      and a little dark skinned too

4 Tankas 020316

Wrote these 2 days ago.
I've been appreciating medieval Japanese Tankas lately, in books given to me last Xmas. I'm still in the "Spring" section" (ancient Japanese always organized their collections by season, starting with the lunar New Year), which is when they went mental for Cherry blossoms. Hence the influence.
I could talk Tankas all day.

4 Tankas 020316

To see boughs blossom

Reminds me of your bosom

And lips I left home,

To know you are not here makes

The Spring Sun so cold and bare

　

Under the Moonlit Sky

White blossoms mock your wedding

Dress, hung on a rack

Without you in it, the Moon

Sees us both, and laughs, and cries

　

Here Spring blossoms bloom

So bold, their aroma floats

As a mist blown East,

I lay my kiss upon
It's cloud, so you may catch it　

 

 

 

White fruit tree petals

On Main street, the wind throws you

Careless in the road,
Makes you hustle back and forth
Like Rat Race Men who are numb

 

 

 

 

The Smoke of Seasoned Wood

You know that special friend you had in High School, who then after High School you thought you could have been a better friend for, and then like 35 years later you meet up with her again?
What would you want to say?

The Smoke of Seasoned Wood

Then I courted as if in among Fall’s fruiting apple trees,
  Where white and Spring pink blossoms, having bloomed,
  Once so twiggy and spare,
Then burgeoned as if to pop their bras,
  (Bras being arms, of course, in French),
And many bowed, ready at the word
  To unbutton their maiden yield

First, it was you, so round and red cheeked,
  Who fell first upon my virgin basket,
Had I mistaken hard cider for the sweet, 
  I could not have become more drunk,
For delirious were your lips, delicious your first kiss,

But I, mid the fruiting groves of these buxom debs,
  A lustful boy with care unchained,
Could not as should a faithful swain refrain,
  And I reached out for another’s bough,
And I careless tossed your love in vain

Since then the years have passed,
My orchards have all been felled for firewood,
  And as time has hung me in the smokehouse of regret
At long last by their seasoned smoke, am I cured,
Though I have known the cider of many sweet lips,
  Some fresh and cool, some hard, some craft,
The sweetest was your loving draught

The Rapture Rests in Waltham

The Rapture Rests in Waltham

When come the end times, the Good Book says,
  all our remains will be but clothes,
  on streets, indoors, and where God knows,
  just shirts and pants lain in vacant repose,
For by a rain of Heavenly bolts the faithful will be called in glory,
To an apotheosis all but scripted in Hollywood by Spielberg,
  starring Tom Cruise running from the Martians
  while people left and right are blasted away - 
Flam-Boosh!
  just their pants and shirts fluttering in a pink mist,
Thus Heaven becomes queerly overcrowded
  with shamelessly naked Bible-Zealots, hanging it out and sunning themselves
  all as naked as newly God made, gaily rhapsodic at play
  in a Kissammee style nudist Heaven

Thou, righteously presumptive,
  must you insist that you love the Lord so much,
As to claim to bar us by your festal grace,
  excoriate us in lots, and, once tried,
  see us condemned by execration with the Lord of Flies?
Might religion be a virtue? And so say she and I,
For we bear witness - in our home, our basement,
  we too testify of the verity of Man’s superlunary remains,
Hung on aluminum racks, covered in zippered plastic,
  are hangers of such disembodied garments, coats, and boxes
  of de-spirited shoes and books, stacked in every nook,
  and a post-war map of Berlin, just one trophy of their span,
They’re her Mother’s dresses and skirts,
They’re her Father’s jackets and shirts,
And his red devil union suite, with the horned hood and forked tail
  he wore costumed to the church ham dinner square dance,
For they too were charged with their own intimate calls to Heaven,
  and she loves to dream of her Father toasting Manhattans with Ted Kennedy,
  in a Heaven where I don’t imagine at all they’re naked,
But of course,
  they rest in Peace on Mt Feake hill,
   someday she’ll let me call Good Will 

Purk

Earlier today I was feeling bummed out, then someone posted a cat vid on YouTube.
I must say, of all the poems I've posted here, as a category (no pun intended) it's the character cats that get the most positive comments.

Purk

You may well be concerned
  About what’s all the hub-bub
It’s only our Purk
  Demands tonight’s tummy rub,
He knows when all day long
  It’s time he gets attention,
Like his breakfast at eight,
  Tossed cat treats at four,
And when he scoots on the floor
  I’ve done things I won’t mention,
But when bedtime arrives
  That’s the time when he thrives
To jump up next to me,
  With big eyes, and roll over

Though he’s a cat I admire
  Sometimes I’m just too tired,
Knowing full well if he gets not what he wants
  All night long he will haunt, and taunt, 
  Until I relent,
First not at all meek’
  He’ll paw claws at my cheek,
Then with feline blithe grace
  He'll sit down, on my face,

"Ok,
  Yes I love you, Mister Cat,
  It’s not all bad as that,
So roll over and show me
  That soft tummy fur
There you go, fuzzy Purk,
  there you go,"… and he purrs,
"Yes kitty…," and in a minute he snores,
  "Wheeemp, wheeemp,"
And we both know tomorrow, 
  We’ll do all this once more

Samahdi and the New York Times

In 1983 I was a Zen Student. Here's a memory;


Samahdi and the New York Times

Qustion: 'What’s black and white and red all over?'

And hey, who’s the new guy sitting next to Sensei on the ryoban?
Oh yeah, the Catholic Priest, Father Rich, joining for the month long ecumenical ango

I watch a spot on the carpet,
  as the 6am purple rises to the glow of dawn,
So to rise the sounds of the city, trains, plains, the Henry Hudson highway,
  ship horns hoot like owls on the river,
I can hear them singly, yet soon they come together and harmonize in a great mum,
  the city is learning to chant her precepts from the hara;  
Dharma, Dharma, never ending, never starting, the word,
Dharma, always beginning, always ending,
  every letter of the word it speaks at once,
  in a low round lung murmur without pause,

I’ve little credence for karma, yet in the mornings this car overcomes the moment,
It’s an old Vw microbus, that doesn’t so much putt or chug as burp,
  it burps down the neighbors driveway up the street,
  plop of the New York Times on the doorstep,
  it burps back along the neighbors driveway, ebbing faint, then
it burps again along our seminary drive, loud out the window now,
  with it’s blasting AM morning radio shedding earworms,
and plop of the Times on our doorstep, then,
  after gassing us through the window with the asphyxiating old gray lady smoke choke of a needed tune up,
  it burps back up our driveway,
  same again with the next neighbors’, down the street, plop goes the Times,
Note to self; must suspend the NY Times before next sesshin 

Later, breakfast, where Father Richard sits at the far end of the dining table,
  he’s reading that same NYT, and protesting to the no one listening,
  it’s August 1983 and he’s just read about Benigno Aquino,
"They just shot him, shot him, on the tarmac…"

Answer: 'A Faddah wid’ a sunburn'

In My Fleeting Short Youth

In My Fleeting Short Youth

I want to go back to my childhood home
Visit with my friends, read a book all alone
Crash on my bike, put band aids my face
I want to do it all again

There’s the feeling you get when you lose a loose tooth,
When the root dissolves dropping it out without blood,
And you feel that fresh feeling on your gums’ empty place,
I want to return to back then

There was fighting with brothers, I did not have a sis,
Contemplating which girl in my class I’d first kiss,
Being asked by my Mom at dinner to say grace,
In the fleeting short youth of back when

I’m not five, I’m not four, now I’m old, fifty-four,
I worry ‘bout money, buying things at the store
Yet I look in the mirror, see still there is a trace
Of the kid who’s still in me,
  named Ken