buddha

Rainer Maria Rilke

Posted on by lkthayer

“Buddha In Glory”

Center of all centers, core of cores,

almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–

all this universe, to the furthest stars all beyond them,

is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;

your vast shell reaches into endless space,

and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.

Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,

blazing high above your head.

But in you is the presence that will be,

when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke

“The Bodhi Tree” by Dekklun Cuinn

Posted on by lkthayer

AND the serpent rose

And hovered above his head

So that the rain

Not disrupt his peace

Nor the water

Dampen his spirit.

Buddha sat motionless

And let the world outside

Dissipate into a veil

Of timelessness and shadow.

And all cares of the world,

The struggles, the endless pursuits

Of material comfort,

The strain of labor,

The pain of human suffering

Came to be seen

As their true emanations.

The natural byproduct

Of the unexamined life.

And the Bodhi Tree remains

To remind us

What Buddha has left us.

And the Buddha is alive

In the branches and the leaves

And the roots that reach forever into the soil.

–Dekklun Cuinn

© 2011

“That’s My Throne” by Margie Louise Goodspeed

Posted on by lkthayer

Photo by Margie Louise Goodspeed

Divine spectacle of
dreams of
the fool is the
vast and expanding universe’s squalid offering to
the final line of transformations printed in
Union blue
without the gold adornments,
without the mud, without the obvious inanity of
the need to fight for what is self-
evident, among men anyway.
I’m good at stitching. I’ll keep it together.
All the pieces. Together. Bound. As if it were one.
Think I’ll stop. Keeping it together.
What a relief. To the sea anyway.
She picked me up and hung me up-
side down. In a dhoti. And a hand woven shawl.
My legs bare. Sinewy. Glistening with sweat.
But no blood. Not on the outside.
She tried to lead me into the forest yesterday.
A little ‘Red Riding Hood’ and I can hear her
choke at that one. Why say you want to play if
you don’t? Yeah I’ve been to Bisbee. It was in
the shop on the hill where I picked up
the Lapis Buddha. He was not even an inch tall.
There were rows of tables with
used books laid out. It was morning and I wasn’t in
a hurry. The shop had tall windows looking out
to the street. There were miniature copper…okay. I
have to stop here.
The phone rings and it’s bullshit. Then
a bug is on my foot. Fuck off. Piss on
your own spectacle lady, cause I ain’t in
those woods with you. Done. And
get thee gone. What’s with
the recurring look anyway? What’s
with cutting throats for threads of
Faustus’ coat tails? What’s with
the knife speared through the pages of
the book? Go flaccidly among
the wretched pinstripes of adopted boots.
Hold that chin just, up,
a bit, just
by the orange
float she tried to
be the girl in
the papier maché ham. I might
have been her too. I might have
been a lot of things. I’ll be the whisper in
the ear of the one not listening and then
I’ll pay 12 dollars to see it. But I won’t
get popcorn. So anyway, there is laughing.
Glad to entertain. Come see me again, every second
Thursday of every other month and twice on
Sundays.

Margie Louise Goodspeed
Los Angeles, 27 October

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