or whatever it is
they’ve wanted all these years
BETTER
better than darkness
is fake darkness
which swindles you
into necking with
someone’s antique
cousin
better than banks
are false banks
where you change
all your rough money
into legal tender
better than coffee
is blue coffee
which you drink
in your last bath
or sometimes waiting
for your shoes
to be dismantled
better than poetry
is my poetry
which refers
to everything
that is beautiful and
dignified, but is
neither of these itself
better than wild
is secretly wild
as when I am in
the darkness of
a parking space
with a new snake
better than art
is repulsive art
which demonstrates
better than scripture
the tiny measure
of your improvement
better than darkness
is darkless
which is inkier, vaster
more profound
and eerily refrigerated
filled with caves
and blinding tunnels
in which appear
beckoning dead relatives
and other religious
paraphernalia
better than love
is wuve
which is more refined
superbly erotic
tiny serene people
with huge genitalia
but lighter than thought
comfortably installed
on an eyelash of mist
and living grimly
ever after
cooking, gardening
and raising kids
better than my mother
is your mother
who is still alive
while mine
is not alive
but what am I saying!
forgive me mother
better than me
are you
kinder than me
are you
sweeter smarter faster
you you you
prettier than me
stronger than me
lonelier than me
I want to get
to know you
better and better
– Mt. Baldy, 1996
THE LOVESICK MONK
I shaved my head
I put on robes
I sleep in the corner of a cabin
sixty-five hundred feet up a mountain
It’s dismal here
The only thing I don’t need
is a comb
– Mt. Baldy, 1997
TO A YOUNG NUN
This undemanding love
that our staggered births
have purchased for us –
You in your generation,
I in mine.
I am not the one
you are looking for.
You are not the one
I’ve stopped looking for.
How sweetly time
disposes of us
as we go arm in arm
over the Bridge of Details:
Your turn to chop.
My turn to cook.
Your turn to die for love.
My turn to resurrect.
OTHER WRITERS
Steve Sanfield is a great haiku master.
He lives in the country with Sarah,
his beautiful wife,
and he writes about the small things
which stand for all things.
Kyozan Joshu Roshi,
who has brought hundreds of monks
to a full awakening,
addresses the simultaneous
expansion and contraction
of the cosmos.
I go on and on
about a noble young woman
who unfastened her jeans
in the front seat of my jeep
and let me touch
the source of life
because I was so far from it.
I’ve got to tell you, friends,
I prefer my stuff to theirs.
ROSHI
I never really understood
what he said
but every now and then
I find myself
barking with the dog
or bending with the irises
or helping out
in other little ways
MEDICINE
My medicine
Has many contrasting flavours.
Engrossed in, or perplexed by
The differences between them,
The patient forgets to suffer.
TRUE SELF
True Self, True Self
has no will –
It’s free from “Kill”
or “Do not kill”
but while I am
a novice still
I do embrace
with all my will
the First Commitment
“Do not kill”
THE COLLAPSE OF ZEN
When I can wedge my face
into the place
and struggle with my breathing
as she brings her eager fingers down
to separate herself,
to help me use my whole mouth
against her hungriness,
her most private of hungers –
why should I want to be enlightened?
Is there something that I missed?
Have I forgotten yesterday’s mosquito
or tomorrow’s hungry ghost?
When I can roam this hill with a knife in my back
caused by too much drinking of Chateau Latour
and spill my heart into the valley
of the lights of Caguas
and freeze in fear as the watchdog
comes drooling out of the bushes
and refuses to recognize me
and there we are, yes, bewildered
as to who should kill the other first –
and I move and it moves,
and it moves and I move,
why should I want to be enlightened?
Did I leave something out?
Was there some world I failed to embrace?
Some bone I didn’t steal?
When Jesus loves me so much that blood
comes out of his heart
and I climb a metal ladder
into the hole in his bosom
which is caused by sorrow as big as China
and I enter the innermost room wearing white clothes
and I entreat and I plead:
“Not this one, Sir. Not that one, Sir. I beg you, Sir.”
and I look through His eyes
as the helpless are shit on again
and the tender blooming nipple of mankind
is caught in the pincers
of power and muscle and money –
why should I seek enlightenment?
Did I fail to recognize some cockroach?
Some vermin in the ooze of my majesty?
When ‘men are stupid and women are crazy’
and everyone is asleep in San Juan and Caguas
and everyone is in love but me
and everyone has a religion and a boyfriend
and a great genius for loneliness –
When I can dribble over all the universes
and undress a woman without touching her
and run errands for my urine
and offer my huge silver shoulders
to the pinhead moon –
When my heart is broken as usual
over someone’s evanescent beauty
and design after design
they fade like kingdoms with no writing
and, look, I wheeze my way
up to the station of Sahara’s
incomparable privacy
and churn the air into a dark cocoon
of effortless forgetting –
why should I shiver on the altar of enlightenment?
why should I want to smile forever?
EARLY MORNING AT MT. BALDY
Alarm awakened me at 2:30 a.m.:
got into my robes
kimono and hakama
modelled after the 12th-century
archer’s costume:
on top of this the koroma
a heavy outer garment
with impossibly large sleeves:
on top of this the ruksu
a kind of patchwork bib
which incorporates an ivory disc:
and finally the four-foot
serpentine belt
that twists into a huge handsome knot
resembling a braided challah
and covers the bottom of the ruksu:
all in all
about 20 pounds of clothing
which I put on quickly
at 2:30 a.m.
over my enormous hard-on
LEAVING MT. BALDY
I came down from the mountain
after many years of study
and rigorous practice.
I left my robes hanging on a peg
in the old cabin
where I had sat so long
and slept so little.
I finally understood
(some of them practitioners)
I had no gift
for Spiritual Matters.
‘Thank You, Beloved’
I heard a heart cry out
as I entered the stream of cars
on the Santa Monica Freeway,
westbound for L.A.
A number of people
have begun to ask me angry questions
about The Ultimate Reality.
I suppose it’s because
they don’t like to see
old Jikan smoking.
– 1999
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD
Then a lot of things happened. I was struck on the head by an atheist. I never recovered my sense of confidence. Even today I am frightened by the smallest things. Old Mother Hubbard moved into the
