America

This is one of my exercises I call COPYCAT poems - In this case, a rewrite of "America" inspired by Allen Ginsberg's original 1956 "America," but in my own syntax. 

Give me your tired, your poor, 

your huddled masses 

yearning to breathe free

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

America who are you? 

I thought I knew you. 

Fools gold 

America where are you going? 

America you were never all that great

the stain of slavery your karmic legacy

broken treaties your heartbreak

Who will pick your strawberries  

clean your toilets now

when you build that wall

America this is not a "reality" show

delusions of fat cats who lack empathy

America "You're Fired"

I fear there's no going back
America I deplore your greed
and need to own it all, the refuse of stuff
to make a  buck  

America can we fix this?

Written during the reign of Donald Trump 2017-2021

A Moment of Sahaja

Love Shamelessly

Sounding syllables

Of light, rays

Love Savagely

Break open the cage

Of self-clinging

 

Love Shamelessly

Your mind swelling

Like an ocean

Your Heart radiating

Lights of liberation

In the great bliss of awakening

 

Love Shamelessly

Your body vibrating

In union with the luminosity 

Of infinite joy

May all beings join

The cosmic dance of Love

  

This body that comes and goes

Like exchanging an old coat for a new one

Kye Ho! How wonderful

To be free of it -- Shinning naked 

3:00 AM

 

Year of the Metal Rat 2020-2022 Losar New Year Poems according to the Tibetan calendar COMING SOON

Behold the brazen strut 

From high-minded bigmouths

Amid sharp-shooters

And illusory masters of material gain

Smart know-it-alls before lesser peers

Beware that molten hook of unkindness

The sting of your indifference

Your bold lies

As visible as your ratty tail

Take a moment and mingle your mind

In the vast expanse of openness

Simply forget yourself and take

A leap into the greater good

Text by Jacqueline Gens

Illustration by Ingmar Pema Dechen

In Praise of Mediocrity

In Praise of Mediocrity
     for Reggie

Didn’t it used to be part of the Golden Mean —that balance
Between heaven and earth
The phi of perfect harmony
It’s distance measurable to acquiring pentagrams
A magic lintel betwixt and between lacking in status
All perfections linked to the median
Between becoming and completion
That naked cipher of valuation
Among worldly configurations
No worries for me walking down streets
To the hoots of male orangutans
Or jealous vixens wishing me dead
Clinging sycophants wanting my money
Stabs in the back
The queen of mediocrity is hardly noticed
Her paucity a mantle of invisibility
To the ultimate zero
A sublime nothingness
The simple fact is
Genius prefers a C minus like Einstein
With freedom to ruminate unwashed
And unwatched in heavenly exploration
Playing every angle
Then stand bewitched before elemental fractals
If beautiful, everyone wants to own you, have a piece
Or circle in for the kill for standing out sublime
But ordinary is profound too
When lit from within
A brief glimmer
It’s luminescence  spreading

They will always love you for your mind
My mother said........




2011 with some revisions 01/5/2020

Vipassana Scribbles

Forbidden Scribbles**

on a Ten Day Vipassana Retreat

Lying in Buddha posture

Outside I hear geese

Like me flying home

*

First Buds of Spring

Bird rustles in the underbrush

Can you ask a poet not to sing?

*

Old lady nods off

Drooping head signals torpor

Lion awakes without fail

*

Are clouds sky--sky clouds?

Where are you mind?

I looked everywhere and can’t find you 

*

Cars rush, Ocean of Dharma***

Squeaky door, cat’s meow

What’s real?

**Generally one is discouraged from writing or reading on a traditional Vipassana retreat. These mostly composed in my head outdoors during walking meditation, then jotted down on scraps of paper later
***Part of my Bodhisattva name