Thich Quang Duc, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk

it was simply time for HIM to begin:
the flames on his skin
were fire
and serenity shooting higher
into the guilty air aimed at Diem
before formal talks begin somewhere
in the late afternoon
hopefully conducted soon, very soon
his calm eyes were wide in dry morning pain
in focus and perfectly, lucidly sane
no cell phone ringing
no chorus line singing
no appointments to be made
no debt willingly unpaid
no thoughts of shopping for an automobile
no deal to seal
nothing apparently left behind
perhaps a glimmer of hope for mankind
i saw the orange robe on a Saigon street
i saw his charred feet
in 1963
when the monk looked directly at me
with burned hands and shaved head
i knew he was dead
but i had wrestling practice in an hour
and a banana to eat and a cut flower
to buy for a blond girl and a kiss
that i surely didn't want to miss
then a late bottle to share with smooth Jake
under the tiled roof of a pavilion by his uncle's lake
i couldn't be expected to miss these chances,
these fleeting moments like high school romances
but i knew he was dead,
as i already said, 

but his memory will never die.

save us from this killing beast!

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin,

Potsdam, Yalta, Tokyo and Berlin 

South Korea and Mao and for the other guys somehow 

this is important 

without the atomic bomb but with the Marshall Plan 

and the German wall

before the fall 

Seoul overrun by Kim with a quick plan for victory to Pusan 

foiled

& the Great March forward somehow spoiled 

by stiff US resistance and blood and guts and honor

and then Truman, McArthur and the Yalu 

long after Nagasaki but who really knew 

what Eisenhower was about to reveal?

yes, the military industrial complex was designed to steal 

what even the CIA didn't understand 

or the KGB as they used to say 

back in the Cold War day 

alongside Fidel Castro (but he's now dead, too) as is the Shah

and Ayatollah Khomeini,

who didn't understand containment so said let the revolution begin 

with Iran 

and Venezuela and Hezbollah 

the oil flows spelled mister moolah in a brave new world 

with Huxley golf courses in the sky and 

the fervent Taliban who hate women, 

who want control more than sex 

Man as the new T-Rex!

not the woman in flames or whatever else remains 

beyond Marines in central Baghdad or the Chinese in Senegal 

they're unlucky enough to want it all: 

prayer flags flutter in a Himalayan wind.

the soul of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, without a bed

in his native-born country said, 

Peace on Earth (at the very least) 

save us from this killing beast!

and now the orange monkey and Putin,

rip roaring with their guns out shooting

Greenland overtaken and Ukraine

Taiwan a chip in the poker game

robots working the factory floor

Orwell's vision of a constant war

has overcome the hopes for lasting Peace:

save us from this killing beast! 

a happy dog and her and i

it's been a long time since
walking in the distant primordial woods

morels and deer...leafy trees and an absence of fear:  peace!

looking for a place outdoors to take a leak

exploring with youthful curiosity the nearby creek

 i'm bemused, too, and puzzled by the latest news 

 remembering hours of watching middle school girls stroke their hair
me, polishing cheap leather shoes

 remembering how the day comes undone
watching the setting sun
dropping through the soft and steady rain

now, heavy clouds hanging low
i'm forgetting the mayonnaise
forgetting where to eventually go

a happy dog and i sitting on a fallen log

peering through the lifting fog
feeling restful with extra love to give
 together also with my lady and our fuller life to live
holding her hand
she holding mine
we're sipping wine
red in the nighttime and white during the day
remembering what else we might say
looking for adventure in whatever comes our way

 and dawning, there are shadows on the high stone wall
the wild ravens float and circle and caw

the great men of old once so thoughtful and bold

in peril of being forgotten and sold. 

musing,  i'm wondering about lost arts:
valentine candies eaten like tiny hearts
 my Halloween top hat and low-rent landlord cries
valued friends and great-grandmother's fresh-baked pies
an RCA transistor radio playing scratchy sounds of American trash
i've lost 

in the middle of the Eisenhower Tunnel
looking for Mega Millions of jackpot cash
reciting Shakespeare and his thoughtful English verse
stuck in both forward gear and reverse

 speeding on a northern boulevard
the world in my rear view mirror with traffic noise
remembering second grade recess and rowdy boys
a price tag hanging around our playground necks

saying NO CASH!  please include only checks

 Louis Armstrong and his band keeping the beat
shadows on an empty small town street
looking for my dreams in a black & white cab, which i eventually grab,

and notice once and for all time:

the world is too beautiful! 

i'm standing tall

by my ringing anvil, hammer in hand, working the hot piece of glowing mild steel into a magic spoon,

having started at nine and finished up by noon. 

 here, i offer this word song as my spiritual tune.

the white rose is on our nose

i am always in my arm chair
or perhaps a comfortable chaise lounge,
sometimes watering my flowers,
but only if i can reach them.

otherwise i read, and often feel seduced by a book,
embarking on a secret affair with each beautiful page
as i finger its' edge.

when the air is dry as in a drought,
my flowers pen a quiet note for water,
and i spill the contents of a moist cup,

aiming for all and especially the white rose

near my hand, looking to solve actual mysteries.

what i find most clearly in reading is that
i am inspired by central figures, those larger-than-life
cubist personalities always at ease in traffic,
steering toward facts rather than faith, coloring outside their lines.

if it's summer, a fragrant scent will be painted
on my nose and the only evidence it might be from a

healthy rose is the soft writing inside my mouth.

roses do that to me, signing their autographs with love,

like a cubist personality.

and when it's winter, the nearby beach is closed, with many of the swimmers
waiting anxiously at home after reading the sign that says "NO SWIMMING!"

if a life guard is still on duty, it's to ensure there is no nudity.

but i can be nude in my arm chair,

or my comfortable chaise lounge. 

i write while i'm thinking of you, watching your smile become an undressed white petal.

the whole white rose i imagine is freshly fallen snow or perhaps a distant star or the circling moon and sometimes,
it simply is a rose.

like a watercolor, i can make it become what i want,
splashing like liquid white color in winter or summer, running, sledding, sitting, writing,

designing my rose into a heart shape to win your love.

and before it is gone, i sign and date the basket of white fruit
and present it to you while we sit watching the circling moon.

this moon is writing inside our mouth as we kiss, and the white rose is on our nose.

Dresden, February 13-15, 1945

 he saw dead people
seated awkwardly in their streetcar,
unused destination tickets folded in laps,
forever lost in thought.

there were no secret military codes
littering the basement floor
where more burnt bodies were found
in early February, 1945.

an apartment bedroom became a tomb
when the old stone walls of a cultural center
without glass windows
collapsed under the defenseless German clouds.

it wasn't Slaughter House 5
where most human remains were seen
by those who went looking for answers,
but found only mountains of debris.

at an empty church near a smoking pile of books
where Vonnegut was told to load a small wagon
with a broken-down piano,
he heard a military plane flying low overhead.

nearby, a small group of hungry and frightened people wanted to shout,
but remained speechless, gazing skyward.

soon, they began to weep.

the safety of the child

my left hip has fallen towards my knee

much as a loose boulder slides to the distant stream

heedless of any obstacle or imagined pain

disregarding the bombs

the thorns, dirt roads

the seasons and the daily orbit of the Earth

around the burning sun

heedless of the madness spreading like a violent plague,

a pandemic,

a rat infection spreading from the agony of the gutters,

the sewers,

the oligarchs with their fine coconut cupcakes

heedless of my wishes,

unaware of my existence, my humanness,

my left hip reminding me of what i could do

tonight,

if i were able to wave the magic wand, 

but the wand would not be for me or my hip,

it would be for the safety of the child and to bury the guns,

a bomb defused:

the wand waving in the fine breeze,

seeking a cure,

to quiet the fanatic salutes,

to stop the rocks from falling to the stream.

someone please pray

oh yes
there are bones
skeletons of dogs
and sheep,

signs of neanderthals!

 and yet the one impression that i keep
inside my favorite foundry mold
is of a long tall tale of being old
in an age of superlatives:
deadliest mass shooting
most post-hurricane looting

fires and piles of burning tires

a cancelled trip to the ruined Gaza strip

and i have a lot of others, sisters and brothers
because i'm working on the history of Man.
i see him crawling away from his trash can
artificially built up by reputation,
dreaming of a prolonged retirement vacation
with a modern holiday look

found between the pages of an advertisement book
claiming to know how all the marked cards are dealt

 i watch his party ice melt
and his furrowed forehead become warm

the hungry locusts swarm
underneath fingerprints of a transient god
who had been modeled originally in clay
oh yes
someone please pray

for the tasteless party tray

where he's snacking and fracking and coughing and hacking

all the way to the poor house without a scheme

to achieve a globally inclusive dream 

before the history of Man is over once and for all,

and my work takes a final curtain call.

Paradise Valley

 Paradise Valley:
the turquoise waters
rising temperatures and soft light
hard granite rock glittering in white
precious gold
meadow flowers unfold
in the early summer sun
frolicking frisky and fresh
Yosemite Fall
roaring echoing teasing it all
with clouds of screaming blue spray
greening the eye
the eternal Ansel sky
a prolonged hush
whispering silence
quieting the rush
where lady bugs swarm
flying spinning sighing
red and yellow and wings
these are some of the many, many things
orange and purple colored in awe
it's not just what i saw
it's what i felt
as the Zen masters teach
while eyeing the peach.