WHAT? ~

KO UN

BABY



Before you were born

before your dad

before your mom



your burbling

                           was there.






WALKING DOWN A MOUNTAIN



Looking back

      Hey!

There's no trace of the mountain I've just come down

Where am I?

The autumn breeze tosses and turns lifeless

       like a cast-off snakeskin.






BROAD DAYLIGHT



A dry turd

with no flies around.



Is this paradise?  No.







A FRIEND



Hey! With the clay you dug out

I fashioned a buddha.

It rained.

The buddha turned back into clay.



Pointless as the clear skies after rain.







THE WASH



The wash flaps, a bodhisattva not

knowing it's a bodhisattva.







ONE DAY



Lightning over the hill in front

thunder over the hill behind

between the two

       one dumb pebble.







IN DAYLIGHT



After the rain, the waters rose everywhere.

Twelve no thirfourfifsixteen swallows

are soaring high.







WIND



A wind stirs.

Ah, this world, that world.







HOUSE



Grow high. The devil can't find you.

Grow deep. Buddha can't find you

Build a house and live there.

Gourd creepers will climb over it,

their flowers dazzling at midnight.







LATE ONE NIGHT



Late one night a fox changes its shape

and slips into your room as a pretty girl:

       what will you do?



Don't be stupid. I'll grab her.



Ha, ha, you fox's husband, you.

A fox is more fun than Buddha, of course.



         You bet.







THE POLE STAR



If you vanished

the north would vanish

the south would vanish

east and west would vanish.

        No.







PARTING



Farewell.

Fare well.









________________________

Ko Un
108 Zen Poms
What

PETE TALKS WOODY ~

HEAVEN LAKE ( 31 ) ~

photo ~ Graham Leese

When

When the cat

doesn’t get

its way

it does

what none of

us have yet

learned

to

do

it

goes back

to the

couch

curls up

shuts up

I’ll Never Be Poor

How she does it

I don’t know

don’t want

to know

will never

know as

she turns to me and

it’s new all over again

Question

How alone are you?

In your sweet

Baby’s arms

Not Least

A night after

the meteor shower

of the century

wrapped in blankets

we counted shooting stars until

we lost count

though it was a lone star

the next night spearing

the woods darkness

as if a late comer —

that seemed to

count the most

___________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

TANGERINE DREAM ~

LAURIE ANDERSON ~

THE AMAZING JAN MORRIS ~

Morris is 92 and walks carefully, with the help of a cane. She has lived in this corner of North Wales — a 3-plus hour train ride from London, and then another 45 minutes by car — for most of her life.

As a journalist, Morris was embedded with Edmund Hillary's Everest team in 1953. "It altered my life so much. Now I'm the only surviving member of the expedition, and I miss them all," said Morris, pictured congratulating Hillary after the ascent.CreditGeorge Lowe/Royal Geographical Society, via Getty Images

J A N     M O R R I S

HONDO ~

J O H N      H A V L I C E K

MOONSHAKE (CAN) ~

EDGAR VARESE ~

WILLIAM CORBETT ~

Mirror, Mirror





As I wipe dust

from the old mirror

my face looks out

red from the sun,

unshaven, tiny river

systems of burst

blood vessels, skin tag

under one eye,

same old friendly moles,

nose hairs—how they

grow!—flesh crease

where chins divide.

I'm a round faced,

heavy faced, middle

age man with a hand's

span of forehead topping

a big head. Size 7 1/2

for hats. "Master dome,"

says Arden who has one

of her own. The little Billy

I was, unmarked, cute

enough to eat with a spoon,

gone with so much else

to the mirror's other side.

God bless him.



______________________

William Corbett
Boston Vermont
Zoland Books, 1999

William Corbett, 1975

photograph by Jonathan Williams

STEPHEN JONAS ~

R E A D      M E

City Lights Books

HEAVEN LAKE (30) ~

Stone Sonnet

A young dump truck driver

with a new truck and a handsome

stainless steel dump body that he

is very proud of and listen how the

load of small stones seem to laugh

as they rush in the thousands down

to the ground

he asks —

“why did you ask for the pile

of stone to be dropped

right in front of the door?”

I said, “if you want something

moved

put it in your way”

Fair Warning

I went to find an old friend today

I had no idea it was a friend until I arrived

over the slope of early spring forest

the snow all vanished

the many spaces without foliage

a clean look for any eye

and coming over the rise

there was my old friend

long gone sugar maple tree

it was my companion decades

ago when cutting winter firewood

in this woodlot, now mostly broken

down and in massive sections rotting

into the earth, and the twenty feet still

standing is beyond recognition, you see

this was a tree I once talked to, knew it

was slowly dying then but I thought it

would take forever and now we are beyond

forever and I’m coming to grips what time

has passed, 200 feet away in my house, so easy

to see from where my friend passed on with-

out a word, in the wind, the winter, summer

play, fall passage and discovery spring —

I’m too late

don’t you be

Framing The Barn

How trusting, relaxed!

Daddy-Longlegs moves

Inches from my hammer blows

The Winter Of Big Snow

I shoveled more

snow bank today

cut it like

a wedding cake

moved the blocks 

of snow as if

I was indeed

building an

igloo —

I did once

with my

son

he adored it

we both crawled inside

________________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

DONNA SUMMER ~

RAYMOND SCOTT ~

REMBETIKA ~ SONGS OF THE GREEK UNDERGROUND ~

AIME CESAIRE ~

Spring Backroad Chalkie

A I M E       C E S A  I  R E

SUN RA (MEDIA DREAMS) ~