Buddhist Barbie

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1. The Buddhist There never was a face as fair as yours, A heart as true, a love as pure and keen. These things endure, if anything endures. But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures Us in its silence, the supreme serene Crowning the dagoba, what destined die Rings on the table, what resistless dart Strike me […]...
2. Barbie Doll This girlchild was born as usual And presented dolls that did pee-pee And miniature GE stoves and irons And wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent, Possessed strong arms and back, Abundant […]...
3. Counting Sheep A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He Wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture For them. They are like grains of rice. He wonders if it is possible to shrink something Out of existence. He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess, If they have any sense of […]...
4. The Aboriginal Cricketer Mid-9th century Good-looking young man In your Crimean shirt With your willow shield Up, as if to face spears, You’re inside their men’s Law, One church they do obey; They’ll remember you were here. Keep fending off their casts. Don’t come out of character. Like you they suspect Idiosyncrasy of witchcraft. Above all, don’t get […]...
5. The Playground of Life XIX One hour devoted to the pursuit of Beauty And Love is worth a full century of glory Given by the frightened weak to the strong. From that hour comes man’s Truth; and During that century Truth sleeps between The restless arms of disturbing dreams. In that hour the soul sees for herself The Natural Law, […]...
6. Clothes Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, No sweat, no sperm. You want me clean, God, So I’ll try to comply. The hat I was married in, Will it do? White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array. It’s old-fashioned, as stylish […]...
7. The Red Shirt “…his poems that no one reads anymore become dust, wind, nothing, Like the insolent colored shirt he bought to die in.” -Vargas Llosa If I gave 5 birds Each 4 eyes I would be blind Unto the 3rd Generation, if I Gave no one a word For a day And let the day Grow into […]...
8. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
9. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
10. Brother Jim My brother Jim’s a millionaire, While I have scarce a penny; His face is creased with lines of care, While my mug hasn’t any. With inwardness his eyes are dim, While mine laugh out in glee, And though I ought to envy him, I think he envies me. He has a chateau, I a shack, […]...
11. 24. Song-No Churchman am I NO churchman am I for to rail and to write, No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, No sly man of business contriving a snare, For a big-belly’d bottle’s the whole of my care. The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow; I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low; […]...
12. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
13. The Olympic Girl The sort of girl I like to see Smiles down from her great height at me. She stands in strong, athletic pose And wrinkles her retroussй nose. Is it distaste that makes her frown, So furious and freckled, down On an unhealthy worm like me? Or am I what she likes to see? I do […]...
14. Psalm 136 Abridged God’s wonders of creation, providence, redemption, and salvation. Give to our God immortal praise; Mercy and truth are all his ways: Wonders of grace to God belong, Repeat his mercies in your song. Give to the Lord of lords renown, The King of kings with glory crown: His mercies ever shall endure, When lords and […]...
15. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
16. Hate ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love. Why is the sun a […]...
17. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
18. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
19. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
20. A dull sound, varying now and again And then we began eating corn starch, Chalk chewed wet into sirup. We pilfered Argo boxes stored away to stiffen My white dress shirt, and my cousin And I played or watched TV, no longer annoyed By the din of never cooling afternoons. On the way home from church one fifth Sunday, Shirt outside my […]...
21. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
22. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
23. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
24. Shirt I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind. Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of […]...
25. Light Shining out of Darkness God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs, And works His sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with […]...
26. To My Brother George Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn;-the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;- The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, Its voice mysterious, which […]...
27. Telephoning In Mexican Sunlight Talking with my beloved in New York I stood at the outdoor public telephone In Mexican sunlight, in my purple shirt. Someone had called it a man/woman Shirt. The phrase irked me. But then I remembered that Rainer Maria Rilke, who until he was seven wore Dresses and had long yellow hair, Wrote that the […]...
28. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
29. In rags mysterious as these In rags mysterious as these The shining Courtiers go Veiling the purple, and the plumes Veiling the ermine so. Smiling, as they request an alms At some imposing door! Smiling when we walk barefoot Upon their golden floor!...
30. Filthy Savior Look at this storm, the idiot, Pouring its heart out here, of all places, An industrial suburb on a Sunday, Soaking nothing but cinder-block And parking lots, wasting its breath on smokeless Smoke-stacks, not even a trash can To send rumbling through the streets. And that lightning bolt, forking itself To death, to hit nothing […]...
31. Sit Smiling I boasted among men that I had known you. They see your pictures in all works of mine. They come and ask me, ‘Who is he?’ I know not how to answer them. I say, ‘Indeed, I cannot tell.’ They blame me and they go away in scorn. And you sit there smiling. I put […]...
32. The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the traitor. None record What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, […]...
33. A Historical Breakfast A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, Tilting it to his mouth. It’s historical, he thinks. He scratches his head: another historical event. He really ought to rest, he’s making an awful lot of History this morning. Oh my, now he’s buttering toast, another piece of History is being made. He […]...
34. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
35. Amanda's Painting In the painting, I’m seated in a shield, Coming home in it up a shadowy river. It is a small metal boat lined in eggshell And my hands grip the gunwale rims. I’m A composite bow, tensioning the whole boat, Steering it with my gaze. No oars, no engine, No sails. I’m propelling the little […]...
36. Louse Hunting Nudes stark and glistening, Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire. For a shirt verminously busy Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle he’d lit while we lay. Then […]...
37. Immortality In Sleeping Beauty’s castle The clock strikes one hundred years And the girl in the tower returns to the world. So do the servants in the kitchen, Who don’t even rub their eyes. The cook’s right hand, lifted An exact century ago, Completes its downward arc To the kitchen boy’s left ear; The boy’s tensed […]...
38. Dancing Tango Oh, Orlando! Remember the night we danced Quietly on the sands where music Was played? Your words were Wonderers, said quietly In the pockets of my ears. Oh, Esphahan! With your turquoise blue mosques And lovers hiding under the sands By the Zayandehrood and its haunting Blue skies. Still the words did Wonders when they […]...
39. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
40. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...