Moment to Moment

How did you like Jurassic Park, I ask the old lama?
It's like the Bardo only the Bardo is worse

For J & AM ...........May We R.I.P.

This morning H. Smith, my diabetes counselor
captures my poetic sensibility when he tells me that Byetta,
the miracle drug for lowering blood glucose
comes from the saliva of the Gila monster
a sort of reptilian bodhisattva though
repugnant creature-- sluggish, ugly, and foul,
Like all losers I fantasize that my April first
Powerball is a winner
I see my seaside cottage overgrown with Rose of Sharon
rose hip clusters at the weathered picket fence, air scented
with salt, kelp and sweet grasses
distant laughter carried over the swoosh of ocean sounds

                          I’m happiest here, in my primal memory from growing up  on 

             the Pacific coast.

I’ve already gifted poet friends, given millions
                                                                      to a Cambodian girls

recovery fund from sexual bondage in brothels.

             I know my charities
I want to walk barefoot
           on pristine hardwood floors accented by plush
oriental carpets
                                     a high bed looking out to sea through gossamer curtains.

my own movie almost as good as the real thing,.

It’s all I have

     I’m already exhausted imagining it all.

     I’m not surprised you consider me “crazy” or “power hungry,” 

a “malicious liar”—I’ve been called worse.

            Remember “dear ones” every projection is a T-Rex
            Chasing you down in the bardo corridor

when you’re lost in Juarez without a name.
oooxxxx    Won’t MATTER HERE
on the back streets of Old Weird America.

    I cleaned my fridge down on haunches emptying out fetid fruits, 

veggies, and brown labia sprouting barnacles

          My disregard for the world’s hungry shameless

MY MIND A Garbage

Bag

I remember her once before things got complicated
she wore his fedora hat when we were in Mexico
still      humble       in    awe of the company and her lover

the poet, ugly as a toad,  who sang of my scrambled eggs
I hand picked from the market
                                   each night sipping tequila from thumbnails
                       before the fireplace

swapping tales of poet scandals.

But it’s the old man leaning on a wall
I conjure
basking in the first rays of the sun *
misery dissolved
as he lifts his brown face upward

free from the moment.


*The old man basking in the sun is a traditional metaphor for rigpa or primordial wisdom

Jacqueline Gens

Brattleboro, VT

7/4/09