Coffee Paradise
The coffee’s not making itself
Arriving on its own
No cook or chef
No waiter or waitress
No server or servess.
The discipline of
Water pot
Grounds and heat
Is good for you
Poor stir press pour
Mindful walk
To kitchen and back.
But where is the angel or
The winged cup
This is a morning
For that lazy heaven.
Arrangement
The body has its way
The mind has its way
Time has its way
Arrange them
As you would
Arrange the ocean
Radical Love
For K
Hannah, Mary
Radical lovers.
Wives, mothers
Asking not asking
For a birth
Offering surrendering
A life for good.
Hannah says
The bows of the mighty are broken
but the faltering are braced with strength.
Mary says
The princes are pulled down from their thrones
and the lowly raised high.
All is as it should be
All is upside down.
Elkanah, Joseph
Husbands, lovers
Stand dumb
Awed and grateful
To be sharing
The better world.
Ben Zoma Still Outside
Lost and found
Between the waters of creation
Ben Zoma
Is outside
Is still outside
And God said, “Let there be a space within the water, and let it separate between water and water.” And God made the space, and it separated between the water that was under the space and the water that was above the space. And it was so. (Gen 1:6-7)
Ben Zoma sat at the Temple Mount, lost in thought. His rebbe Yehoshua ben Chananya came by, but Ben Zoma did not notice or rise in respect. R. Yehoshua roused him from his reverie and asked what he was doing. Gazing at the space between the upper and lower waters, he replied. R. Yehoshua explained to his disciples:
Ben Zoma is still outside.
First be confused
Conflicted confounded.
Uncertainty an invitation
Not an obstacle.
Vivid and loud chaos
Is dangerous.
What if we surrender
And never return?
But how else can we be found
Without being supremely lost?
The zafu is the center
Of the universe.
I sit and I am not there.
Q: Is the cushion the center of the universe?
A: Yes.
Q: When you sit on the cushion are you the center of the universe?
A: No.
Q: Is the cushion the center of the universe?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: The center of the universe is everywhere.
Q: Are you everywhere?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: I’m here on the cushion.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is celebrated as a poet, as founder of City Lights Books in San Francisco, and as a pioneer publisher of cutting-edge poets of the 1950s and 1960s (sometimes identified as Beat poets), most famously Allen Ginsberg. Ever a cultural and social activist, Ferlinghetti published in 2007 a tiny book called Poetry as Insurgent Art:
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.
If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.
You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words….
Woody Guthrie, godfather of modern protest music, was another artist who believed in the insurgent power of poetry and song. In 1941, he wrote and peformed Talking Hitler’s Head Off Blues. He followed that by adorning his guitar with this now iconic message, beloved by musical radicals everywhere: THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.
So the question arises for every creator. Can a poem be an instrument of insurgency? Can a guitar and song actually talk Hitler’s head off and kill fascists?
The targets of reactionary politics and authoritarian rule are your body, your mind and your heart. When any of the three are damaged, thoughtful and sincere resistance and progress are more difficult. When all three are healthy and vital and hopeful, all is possible. Ferlinghetti’s poetry and Guthrie’s fascist killing guitar and thousands of other creations can inspire and embolden us to sing and believe and wisely strategize together, like a chorus, like an army. If we listen and act.
“I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.”
Grand
Grander than grand.
Splendid glory
Magic carpet
Of gold and glass
Whisks us away
To God’s neighborhood.
The grass hut reminds us
That houses and vehicles
Are just that.
Means not
Journey or destination.
“A shining window below the green pines—
jade palaces or vermilion towers can’t compare with it.”
Quotes from Song of the Grass Hut by Shitou Xiqian (700–790), translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Kazuaki Tanahashi.
Only Candles Only Stars
Let there be lights (מארת) in the vault of the heavens … and they shall be lights (מאורת) in the vault of the heavens (Genesis 1:14-16)
All of the lights
On the candles, trees, houses
Beneficial artifice
The best we can do.
Even the stars
Awakening guiding
Are incomplete.
The light that eludes
In the dark cold of winter
Hiding in plain sight.
Constellator (Starry Nights)
To the uninitiate
The stars are arrayed
Points of white
That delight
But mean nothing.
The constellator sees old pictures.
The artist connects them anew.
The astronomer investigates
Each by each.
On cold nights
Of black sky
I see connect investigate
Unsure which I am
While the stars
Patiently wait.
Bob Schwartz 