ZEN
ANGELS
In the Third Heaven
they laugh,
naked, innocent--
as Master Suzuki
holds up a spoon.
To intellectuals
they remain enigmas,
maybe heretics--
unconscious in the Godhead,
their desert cemetery.
You who are only
partially dead
cannot enjoy the
Resurrection:
Slain in Christ,
they have attained to
Nothing.
For all you know,
they could be your
next door neighbors!
Why not invite them over
for a cup of tea?
NEW BOSS AGAIN
So you’re the New Boss!
Well, I do declare:
I guess I should cross
myself, and say prayers.
You’re just what I need:
A Seer to define
Reality for me--
It’s all in your Mind!
You’ve come out on top,
at least for your turn:
The cream of the crop,
with Visions to burn.
But what you don’t know
can hurt you: I’ve seen
each Boss come and go,
like slides on a screen.
But you’re the New Boss!
Without any doubt,
no time should be lost
in finding you out.
REAR VIEW MIRROR
The bulldozers are coming.
I see them in my rear view mirror.
Once
they went before me,
To make my passage safe and clear.
Now
they’re coming after me,
For I am in the way, I fear.
The bulldozers are coming.
They
are the driving force
Behind our civilization--
The
great democratizers
That level the situation:
Insuring
that once Nature is
Subdued beneath their blades,
The
world of man’s artifice
Will triumph and be brave.
The bulldozers are coming.
I
push the pedal to the floor.
They tailgate without mercy;
Split
forests into lumber boards;
Plow mountains into highways.
And
though their work for them is hard,
They will erase all History.
The bulldozers are coming.
They
are a great amnesia
That stupefies the human race:
Make
way for the fantasia
For which their furrows have been
traced!
Once
they went before me,
To make my passage safe and clear;
Now
they’re coming after me,
For I am in the way, I fear.
The bulldozers are coming.
PORK BUTCHER'S EPIPHANY
Cunda the Pork Butcher
grew old at his trade,
slitting the throats of
squealing pigs,
sloshing his feet around in
pigs blood,
dismembering their carcasses
to draw flies and shoppers
to the marketplace.
He should have been dismembering
his own carcass instead--
hanging his body, feelings,
perceptions,
mental formations and
consciousness
on meat hooks in his butcher
shop
for his customers to
contemplate.
He sickened in his last days,
deranged with a delirium
that wrestled him to the
bedroom floor
and seized him like a
butcher.
He clutched at his throat
with agony,
and spit up blood
convulsively,
and died in his confusion--
squealing like a pig!
The final day of swimming
class
Was scheduled for a race,
To see which child would come
in first
And save his parents’ face.
Her little son the backstroke
swam
So far before the rest,
That surely he would win the
day
And prove himself the best.
But as he swam he glanced
above
His shoulder to the sky,
Then slowed down, floating on
his back,
A dream before his eyes.
And everybody else swam past,
Too much intent to pause
Before the finish line, to
see
Just what the matter was.
But when the race was over
with,
His mother asked him, “Dear,
What ever were you thinking
of
That made you dawdle there?”
“Oh, Mom,” he smiled
angelically,
“Up yonder in the sky
Was such a lovely golden
cloud,
I couldn’t pass it by.
“I lay there on my back and
seemed
Along with it to run,
Just soaring into seas of
blue,
Toward the rising sun!”
WORLD WAR II
The wall of the Memorial, where posed
Beneath each wreath old men
in veteran’s caps
Embroidered with the companies they served.
One struggled from a
wheelchair parked beside
The state of Maine and stood expectantly
Beneath that word, and
someone who passed by
Said blithely, “Well now, you must be from
Maine!”
But one who might have been
the soldier’s son
Replied, “Not really; he’s from Illinois.
He don’t know what it says,”
and guided him
With tenderness and patience to the state
Where he should pose. The
crowd flowed slowly by,
Like water from the bright Reflecting Pool.
