The Dharma Poetry Thread

I've noticed a few people have been putting some of their own poetry up in their practice threads, so I thought I'd take the liberty of opening up a thread for anyone who wants to post some dharma-inspired DIY poetry or lyrics they've written. It doesn't need to be perfect, you don't need to know what iambic pentameter is, it doesn't even need to be that great. As long as you've written it, invested your time and energy into it, then it's a valid piece of art as far as I'm concerned and you're contributing to the living, breathing dharma as it is in this moment. It'd be nice to see how different people, just everyday yogis like ourselves, express this stuff in poetic terms as it's clear that, after a point, normal language ceases to effectively communicate the truth of the moment without becoming cumbersome or overly technical. I used to write a lot of lyrics but I've only recently started thinking about writing poetry, inspired by the dharma, so I'll take the plunge and stick my first effort up.

I think it'd be worthwhile using the "Subject" header to put in the title of your poem and your name, rather than leaving it as RE: The Dharma Poetry Thread, unless of course it's a direct comment about the thread itself. Just so that everyone's work is clearly theirs and everyone can comment specifically about whichever poem/lyrics in question, people who've put their lyrics to music (like Owen for example) could even link us up to their material and blag a bit of free marketing in the process! Ha!

If you think it's a good idea then get your stuff up, and if not then we can just let the thread pass away and be reincarnated as a shoe.

Much love.

Onward we move,
Never stopping to look,
In the seeing is only the seen.

When the hearing is heard,
There is only the sound,
And thinking goes on without me.

Fish in the sea,
In an ocean, unseen through their eyes,
Yet the water is clear.

Asleep to the moment,
Awakened, unfrozen,
Forever, eternally here.

I could probably work more on this one, but i wanted to show my support for this idea

In the arts of war, the arts of peace
In victory and defeat
One central thing there is to learn
the art of letting go

In the arts of the mind and spirit
Where the clever and one-pointed rule
There is one teaching above all
the art of letting go

In the art of seeing clearly
And facing the pain and truth
There is one trick, one knack, one skill
The art of letting go

In the art of living freely
Unstressed, unbound, unpained
There is only one thing which you must know
The art of letting go

The truth revealed in stillness
So beautiful to view
The answer to all questions
In each moment, ever new

A pool reflects an image
perfectly and clear
It does not move to claim it
It does not bend to hear

A mind that is at oneness
With the world just as it
Like a pond that geese can fly through
In the absence of the wind

Wow....i have never tried writing poetry.

But these are all brilliant!

I give up ... control
I surrender ... self
I gain ... peace.

Everyone of them should have its thread, on its own homepage, on its own computer, in its own room, in its own very special house, in its own landscape and with its own weather, in its own world, in its own universe.

and they probably have.

i dream of waffles all about
waffles left and waffles right
waffles with a bout of gout
waffles in the dead of night

waffles forming left of me
waffles - what more can one see?
eating waffles on a frond
waffles by the great big pond

waffles in the second jhana
waffles watching waffles be
waffles - greatest gift of dana
waffles in a PCE

but what i seek, more than the waffle
is the end of waffle-seeking

Breath goes in, and breath goes out
Thoughts arise, scamper about.
A thought appears, and is not me,
an apple falling from a tree.

On my thoughts the breath does stumble,
Noting slow, with memories I tumble.

An itch arises, burning bright,
Hold on to it, with all my might.

A sudden flash that has no why,
Amazement of it fills my eye.

Clarity leaves me on a whim,
a peaceful fog comes blowing in.

In the fog some barking sounds,
My fearful footsteps falling down

One step wrong, an ankle twisted
my eyes begin to get all misted

Anger at my fate unsettled,
Testing nearly all my mettle

Hounds close-by and ankle broken,
A stricken plea my lips have spoken

Then I start to shake and rattle,
Feeling about to lose the battle!

The fog clears up, without a sound,
These hounds are nowhere to be found.
The ankle healed itself it seems
The sun shines out through all its beams
Illuminating all around,
From clouds in sky to rocks on ground

My journey peaceful,the battle won,
I lie there napping, in the sun.

"i dream of waffles all about
waffles left and waffles right
waffles with a bout of gout
waffles in the dead of night

waffles forming left of me
waffles - what more can one see?
eating waffles on a frond
waffles by the great big pond

waffles in the second jhana
waffles watching waffles be
waffles - greatest gift of dana
waffles in a PCE

but what i seek, more than the waffle
is the end of waffle-seeking"

Please don't bring your banjo back
I know where it's been
I wasn't hardly gone a day
When it became the scene

Banjos! Banjos! All the time
I can't forget that tune
And if I ever see another banjo
I'm going out and buy a big balloon
and if I ever see another banjo
I'm going out to buy a big balloon
and if I ever see another banjo
I'm going out to buy a toy balloon
and if I ever see another banjo
I'm going out to buy a toy balloon

- the beatles

Could you have done better?

Could you have done better?
Ask yourself
The meaning of that "could"
The world is as it is
And you acted
as you did
according to your nature
In a different world
you might have acted differently

Could you have done better?
What would "you" mean?
having done better
If you do better
You act from outside the world
For then, the world is not merely
What is
but both what is
and what could be

Could you have done better
What is "doing"?
All action happens in the timeless now
Where done is what is done
No birth of doing can exist
Thus, also, no better or no worse
But merely this
and nothing aside from this

How could you do better?
When this moment is perfect
And these are merely words

Later, this was added:
And after reading this,
you might think of,
how this poem could be better,
and why it could be better
And, then, if I could have done better

Pointing vaguely in the direction of the mind's true nature, Or, Moonlight reflected on a stormy night (First Draft)

Homage to Kenneth Folk(1)
Homage to Mahamudra

Fall into awareness
until only awareness remains
aware of all things
and all things as empty
Existing only in awareness
Relax effortlessly
Effort, too, is empty

The wise see, how nothing was ever done
relax into letting happen
Letting all the world happen
Time slows down to timelessness
As the Sign arises.
Taste it, and know:
Perfection approaches!

The Sign of awareness is not
Awareness recognized
Ask, what is not experienced?
This, a practice of the disciple
Since the master knows
to stop experiencing
and let the Master arise within awareness

Disappearing into the moments between thoughts
let there be a speaking
emanating names for the Void:
Beauty, clarity, vastness, light.
Thus, the Sign, arising, is known.
and Perfection, called
comes forth

The ships in the harbor of Mahamudra
sway in a wind beyond stillness
expanding the mind to infinity
feel the waves beneath
all arising things
as waves through emptiness
the world a reflection in water

(1): Since i'm not sure Kenneth would wish to be recognized in this way, this line should probably be taken as a joke

edit: grammar

all this time
all this misery
all in a space between a smile and a flower

went to a talk on the Kagyu view and the third turning of the wheel of dharma.

always already
now, already, all
Just this, already
All
is already
perfect
all places
always already
no holding, no resistance, no sin
always already
nothing can hinder
nothing can hide
This always already
No place isn't
always already
These words
in the speaking
are always already
gone

so cool on the skin
here and now, but who can say
where the wind begins

Sketch Cartography

Ride the light rail to the edge of wilderness. Drink & smoke
Paper over the chasm between desires
And experience. The wind tunnel
Of the Columbia River and Cascade Mountains
From high desert to the ocean, crosses fault lines that connect
Alaska to Los Angeles. Dogen says, Mountains & Rivers to Earth
Are as time and space to mind. (Surface
Features. (Sleep sounds
Creatures of the deep.
Waking up is difficult
Cold mornings.

Salem Mass

I think therefore I am but
In the moment before thought light
Through the train's window
Projects web-like across the city
Unreeling impossible images.
I saw a fisherman without rod or reel
Only hook, line, sinker, and bouy. He swung the line
In a broad arc over his head
Behind the lighthouse at Derby Wharf
And cast it gravely into the water. Plop.
A science teacher in 7th grade flew into a rage
Because none of us could explain why the Earth
has a fixed amount of water. "Evaporation!"
She screamed, causing me to gasp slightly
With realization. A Zen master said
"We like bright clear things because that is our true nature"
But I've always felt affinity with rain
The sky's palpable relief at letting go
The weight of clouds a line
Of thought or fantasy
She can no longer sustain. And trains
Seem to me to mirror
The intersection of time
With space, in that slightly more than symbolic way
As in the disappearance of the self (blackout) one may experience
Staring down the reflection of one's own symbol, or substitute,
The face.

Felt like putting this up there. It's by Danish writer and poet Tom Kristensen, from 1927. Original title: Græs. Very rough translation by yours truly just now.

Grass
The grass looks strangely tall to me
Lying, my nose to the ground
When i bow down as far as i can
All my world grows so huge

Under these light green gentle gates
I stop. Here i will stand
I will lose my way in this bright murk
I dare not get lost in this verdant land

Beyond those waving verdant gates
A voice calls, the whisper of of the fates
A rising call: Are you coming now
coming?, coming?, coming now?
You now?

Calling back
a clear bright
child-light voice from me:
Not yet, my dear, not yet.
But when my madness has faded
When my dreams of fame have flown
Then i will come. Oh, then, only then
When i'm small enough, and happy