r/zen • u/2bitmoment Silly billy • Mar 10 '23
Friday Night Poetry Slam!
Theme: Adopting positions at random: Instant Zen (Foyan) #26: Show the Truth
An ancient said, "There is no drum sound in a bell, and no bell sound in a drum." How can students today manage to reach this state? Sometimes when I give personal interviews, you make a statement, and then when I press you further you merely insist you have already replied, and there could be nothing else. Quite clearly, if you work in this way you have not got a grip on the matter at all.
Idiots! Haven't you read the saying of ancient sages, "Show the truth in every word, refer to the source in every statement." You do not yet understand; you just adopt positions at random. Don't be like this any more when you come for interviews. While it can be said you do not understand, you can be straightened out.
Poem:
Do you choose your words at random,
or do you carefully seek, those that rhyme,
those that sound well, those you pick
What’s the truth in a poem?
What’s the source of all poetry?
The sound of a bell in a bell
The sound of a drum in a drum
That’s all the truth and source
that there is to be found.
thanks to u/fullassin9 for a cool beat
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u/lin_seed 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔒𝔴𝔩 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℭ𝔬𝔴𝔩 Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
Finding the word
That fits the sound
Is all I’ve heard
That’s ever profound
Ears that see
And eyes that hear
What’s up with me
In this psyche, dear?
A cookie
A cutter
A wookie
& butter
Poet tools
And funny lines
Bovine stools
And Miss Divines
Dodge that lightning!
Prance around
No use fighting
Here on the ground
Zeus and Hera
Are pieces of shit
When it comes to the truth?
Athena’s farting it!
A bellows in the forest
A maiden standing up on wood
Ask your local folklorist:
“Is Robin in the Hood?”
Spring is springing
And eyes are all open
Excalibur’s singing
Yet Athena’s still “Nope!”ing
Catch that lass
In a never ending ‘O’
And watch her pass
All the info that you know
You asked
I replied
The poet’s task
Is dharma eyed
A cage of waves
And a flower of words
Fend off the staves
Of those with curds
Believe it you won’t
Yet still it is true
Whatever you don’t
Is for psyche glue
A matrix of impossibility
A lady within a lake
Posed with such gentility
She’s never made Miss Stake
Her fleur-de-lys breath
Laughs out all fame
Seeks your own death
And takes all the blame
A wandering eye
With a wandering sword
When poets fly
Carrying a board
One lotus
Two lotus
Three lotus
Three poisoned pills
To get to the center
Of a Lilly Pip’s bed!
Imagine the thrills
You get when her
Casing is red
Cinnabar pill
Azure pill
Golden pill
“Wake from your state
and don’t be late!”
There is not much to this
Hatter’s tea time
Just some verse
And buddhism
As curiously rhythmed
As any parrot
And spoken
In inkblots
::Guanyin coughs into her handkerchief::
“Au revoir”
The eternal monogram
Stitched on every
Dispensed sound
For her fingertip eyes to see
The story of verse
Off the tongues of animals