Some Buddhist poems
4th Floor
Searching for an infection
Raise head, cover feet
Lower feet, lower head
Flat roll down to
CATSCAN
“Terrible noise, worse than TV”
Hall calls and bells, phones
Groans
Does anyone understand
he would feel better if
he were not left alone?
Does anyone understand
that he has chosen a bachelor’s life
in a Land of Zenbos?
All relatives dead?
Except sister in San Diego
smoking cigarettes in front of TV
as frail as he is
*
Oxygen, blood pressure
Heart beat, rubber gloves
Spaghetti/meat sauce
A cornucopia of aches & pain
Blindness and plague
*
It’s all imagination
Feet on the brick step down to the room
where they
CATSCAN
Plunge & flush abdomen exploring
for the factory where bacteria are manufactured
Locate the enemy and blow it up
The body is 5’10”
225 pounds down from 235
Fiddling with air-hose as he retells the tale
of his own downfall to the Infectious Disease Team
It’s a sad story
but more interesting
than Perry Mason or the murderer who
is the father of the baby born
out of wedlock to the young girl
while nurses play doctor
in the supply cabinet
I brush his full upper dentures
and partial lowers
Become increasingly aware
There’s nothing here but a poet
The Junction of Power and Will
Puts things in motion
“You won’t have Dick Nixon to pick on anymore”
She wants to get rid of me but won’t let me go
“No she won’t”
“We ought to get that picture and hang it on the wall.
People will call it lewd”
Is it lewd?
“No, it’s religious”
Dharmakaya
&
(female energy)
embrace
*
March 1, 2001
Visit the Twice-Born
“Born dead, what they used to call a blue baby”
Poison Oak
Morbid Passions
Getting ready to go to New York
“Have you got everything packed, cufflinks, collar stays?”
Collar stays lost on floor in dark thinking god doesn’t like me
“He’s susceptible”
Holding me up by the heels & beating on me
“Twice born, twice too often”
Shaggy tree story about Buddha under tree
“How many times will I have to be reborn?
As many times as there are leaves on this tree”
One man says this is terrible
Another man says this is wonderful
Poison oak-- Prednisone or Calamine
“It could be leprosy”
Give me a hand
“Twice born, twice too many times”
Olives from Saudi Arabia
Peanut brittle from Ohio
What’s the cure for susceptibility?
“Cynicism”
March 13, 2001
Gagas
“A hitch in my get-along”
“Died the death of a rag baby”
*
Tight space waking head in closet
Bed impossible to fit but there in a disproportionate room
Out of proportion
Claustrophobic?
“Yes”
*
Daffodils from Joanne
Vietnamese applique from Anne
Olives from Nathaniel
Rachmaninoff by Lou
Medicine by Hannah
Conversation by Indigo
Organization by Michael
Bodywork by Kater
*
“Ought to have a concession
selling plastic bed girls, blow-em up & fuck em all night.”
Fill them with hot water.
“In the morning staff could empty out the refuse”
I’ll speak to Silvia about it
Then she can talk to Hannah.
Then Hannah can talk to Schrader.
“But this is administrative not medical.”
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference
*
Pound cake made w/ corn meal w/ vanilla ice cream
Philip sits up for 20 minutes
Tries to shake off the gagas
Legs hung over bed, tapping toes on carpet
Ruby, German shepherd w/ red bandana scarf kisses Philip’s fingers
*
It’s morning. It’s 4 pm. It might as well be 5 am
You never sleep right & wake up on wrong side of bed
never getting up, getting rubbed & the flowers are yellow
and gorgeous & so are the volunteers &
Ginger Ale, pretty & manicured
sober & emotionally obscure
because this is the place
where you check your gagas at the door
Doorbell!!!
Who’s there? Downstairs, coming up going down delivering
Vitamin E cream & distraught not so close friends
clinging to artifacts for the reliquary, fingernails, nose hair,
cave of flesh, pinch of despair, snuff
to keep them here dying a little bit
as long as they can
stare at the inaccuracy of manifestation
invented between the ears
Gaga!
March 7, 2000
Naturally
“I’d like to walk around your room
I’d like to touch your things
I’d like to smell your incense
And sleep inside your wings”
Diane Di Prima puts on her black sunglasses, says: “Hey, Man”
Philip says, “Shoo-bee-doo”
Diane takes off her shades
That’s the end of the beat movement
Hamlet’s Mill
Superannuated Monks
Sangha support of sick & seniors
Need to talk to Ottmar & Baker Roshi
Send reminder to Diane about Philip Tribute contribution
Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
says “The whole world is sick”
“NATURALLY”
Diane says, “It’s the same thing”
Urinal Sign: We Aim To Please
You Aim Too, Please!
Sammy Johnson
He up and died
Shouting for his mom
“Everything is connected to everything else
is what she told me”
Did you believe her?”
“I think I heard that before. So what if it is?”
*
“Suffering for sins living in science & not in god”
April 11, 20001
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