“antiquity’s game” [shi]

Fresh seaweed salad   & organic green tea
        while sweet old rock’n’roll   is playing
plug in the laptop   & return to the glee
        of antiquity’s game   just saying
chess is a pastime   bringing comfort to me
        in nocturnal cool hours   the fraying
webs of ambition   having worn out   thus free
        is the movement of pawns   like praying?

"prayer flags" [gatha]

A man in a car in half-lotus   mid-morning
                                        in a parking lot
a window descends to half-mast   as the season
                                        is becoming hot
the din of a saw in near-distance   the cawing
                                        of a crow above
the yelp of a dog   colored prayer flags bestirred by
                                        a fluttering thought

silence [gnomic verse]

Sunday sans George sans park
Jesus sans Luke sans Mark
sentences auger chains?
silence dispels the dark

Enigma & variations [gnomic verses]

Is nothing yet a mystery?
is everything now known?
who hides amid our history?
what might we call our own?
where every disappointment
obscures a nascent peace
perchance life's strange anointment
anticipates release

Neruda's Poser [couplet]

Neruda's poser brews this guess:
the rose is dressed in nakedness



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Responsive to:
Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress?
—Pablo Neruda, The Book of Questions (per translation of William O'Daly)

Worlds & Words [riff]

Within a word are worlds
within a world are words
when reading through the words within the worlds within the words
while living in the worlds within the words within the worlds
I who know the worlds within the words am never worldless
I who know the words within the worlds am rendered wordless
as I reel and I whirl
I am real in my world
I am whirled by the words in the worlds
rendered wordless by the whirldness

Fugitive Sleep [ditty]

And still Sleep only waveth from afar
despite my week-long wakefullness alas
perchance Sleep takes a nap on yonder star?
wake up O Sleep! that I might sleep at last



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First line borrowed from Kavita Keswani (FB status)

On Silence Day [ditty + rubai]

1
Had SMS existed   back in Meher Baba's day
    would he have textèd messages en masse?
Life Circulars & Family Letters slowly made their way
    on Silence Day   who sees time's river pass?

2
We were nurtured on shi in bygone births   today
we continue to search for poetry this way
on the radio Bach describes the realm we've sought
where does poetry hide?   alas no tongue can say!

3
A girl with red hair hurries by in a parking lot
another leaves in a red car   while you idly jot
black words on a red mobile phone   in your pocket rests
a pen of red hue   a blue bus passes lost in thought

4
They're showing a film but instead   you go to the dome
to sit for a spell with your lord   the notion of home
is human   the notion of love is human the same
the ocean is hidden! where hides   the ocean of om?

In Oak Park [limerick]

In Oak Park   Julie Bass’s front yard
so hospitable   to tomatoes and chard
    holds a singular illustration how
    eco-suitable dedication now
can be beautiful   even when the road’s hard



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Riffing on a post, "Does Michelle Obama Know About This?"
See also: "Julie Bass may face jail time for planting vegetables" (Washington Post blog)

Once upon a time [ditty]

Had to Google CalenGoo
only own a less-smart mobile!
in LA or Timbuktu?
CalenGoo is clearly global
for such apps if friends go gaga
pray discreetly tweet a saga
who’s your hero?   tell me who!
some shrewd chap named CalenGoo?

A secondary subject [limerick]

There once was a bright dissertator
whose thesis on hamburgers made her
        acutely aware of
        the alternate dare of
expounding the worth of the tater

21st Century Doctorate [rubai]

To tweet one's dissertation?
'twere sweet an inspiration!
with orals via Skype
win Ph.Digitation

Sunyata [rubai]

Red & blue on green
lyrical the scene
camera clicked by camera
space is in between

Ek Doppelgänger Nouveau [ditty]

When an also-ran poet
meets a has-been starlet:
"Been there done that?"   "You know it!"
"Sambar secret?"   "Garlic!"



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For Akira Yamashita & Gopalakrishna Damodar