More Haiku Offering by Jacqueline Gens

While looking through old notebooks and teaching materials I came across some Haiku and American sentences jotted down that I did in 2012.

On Leaving my Dentist's Office on High Street, Brattleboro, VT

Taunted by impermanence three strangers stand
By the side of the road contemplating the sadness of animals
Cat run over

American Sentence Version

Taunted by impermanence three strangers huddle around cat road kill

Dream

Furry animals shiver together while Buddha comforts us

American Sentences


My Mother's sad face returns to me in the soft snow I didn't notice

BREATHE the monk Philip said to me when two phones rang at the same moment

Haiku

The old poet sat with me on the cement stoop
Early morning coffee in Boulder
Yelling caw caw back to the crows above

Snow plows scrape  ground
Harsh words uttered grate tender
Phantom enemies

The red haired young man
Hates me like so many others
Forgive me, son





   

Spring is here and that means Garlands of Lilacs, Forsythia, and Daffodils

The Lilac Thief

This year I looked for lilacs
off the beaten track
in places no longer tended –

A different kind of boundary,
long rows where once houses stood,
lots now empty.

I love the deeper purple of old bushes,
their crushed bloomets falling into my hand
taken from gnarled bark bearing heavy plumage.

I am the local lilac thief,
that one who stops to follow
the scent of unseen blossoms.

Jacqueline Gens (many years ago)


Here is a fine essay by poet/dakini Annie Finch on Spring's arrival from the Poetry Foundation site.

Updates from Poetrymind for May 2016

• May 5 Lecture/workshop in Pittsfield MA  on the Poetics of Uncertainty 
• May 7 Next Meditation and Writing Group at the Shelburne Falls Shambhala Center
• May 15 at Khandroling Paper Cooperative we will have a workshop with Dara Juels 

The Morris Dancers are out in full force these days. Here's a classic May Day dance/song at dawn:

Then there is our own Packers Corner friends who have celebrated May Day for over forty years with poet Verandah Porche in a photo taken by Poetrymind writing group participant Terry Carter.

Forbidden Scribbles from a Vipassana Retreat

Forbidden Scribbles**

on a 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 mosty composed in my head outdoors during retreat, then jotted down on scraps of paper
***Part of my Bodhisattva name

A Vajra Verse from Flight of the Garuda by Shabkar, Translated by Keith Dowman

On the parchment of diverse red and white phenomena
the bamboo quill of self-existent primal awareness 
and Knowledge inscribes baseless
unattached ciphers liberated from the beginning
creating images to be read in the space 
of co-emergent appearances and emptiness.

from Song 23
Flight of the Garuda

Some Poems by Participants in the Meditation and Writing Workshop

A Few Fibonacci Poems from Sarah Doyle

To read more about this fun poetic form visit the Poetry Foundation here. 

What is it?

Fibonacci poem (or Fib) is a multiple-line verse based on the Fibonacci sequence so that the number of syllables in each line equals the total number of syllables in the preceding two lines.

Charlie in the Corn: Darwin at Mike’s Maze

We

were

surprised

to see the

cladistics on the

handout at Mike’s Maze, the grand head

of old Darwin amazed in corn: myxinformes, dipnoi,

petromyzontiformes, crocodilia, testudines: What kind of farmer is this?

We tramped slick mud paths among cornstalks, following trails of thought from form to form, synapse to synapse, traced the fragile wire of Darwin’s glasses

where they bridged his nose past abrupt, dead-end paths that marked his forehead’s thoughtful furrows.

From the wavy trails of his beard, exotic rivers

flowed to Galapagos finches.

His beseeching eyes

sought Down House:

his own

soft

nest.

Bliss

Small

black

dog is

snoring gently on

the bed. Her trust is absolute.

We tell her, “I love you, Poochlie-Boodles. We love you,

Dog-Pie.” We give her treats, rub her belly. We engage in dog worship, stroking her warm,

hairy little belly. Unmitigated bliss. Sighs.

We envy her. We want bliss, too.

This is as close as

we’re ever

going

to

get.

Charlie in the Corn: Darwin at Mike’s Maze

We

were

surprised

to see the

cladistics on the

handout at Mike’s Maze, the grand head

of old Darwin amazed in corn: myxinformes, dipnoi,

petromyzontiformes, crocodilia, testudines: What kind of farmer is this?

We tramped slick mud paths among cornstalks, following trails of thought from form to form, synapse to synapse, traced the fragile wire of Darwin’s glasses

where they bridged his nose past abrupt, dead-end paths that marked his forehead’s thoughtful furrows.

From the wavy trails of his beard, exotic rivers

flowed to Galapagos finches.

His beseeching eyes

sought Down House:

his own

soft

nest.


Sarah grew up in Cleveland and lived for many years in Boston/Cambridge, where she worked in college publishing and then freelanced as an editor, proofreader, and book promo writer. In the1990s, she developed an interest in the history of science pursuing it ever since, particularly through the phenomena of posture photographs and the dinosaur footprints of the CT River Valley, which end up having surprising crosscurrents. Presently, she works at Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield) creating events and a website dedicated to the discovery of dinosaur footprints, and at Independent Living Resources (ILR), a nonprofit working on accessibility for people with disabilities. Her poems are steeped in the local history of Deerfield and her historical interests.