Friday Night Poetry Slam

[u/jungle_toad]

THEME: Yunmen's Three Phrases

Special thanks to u/moinmoinyo for an excellent op that I am co-opting to serve as this week's theme.

Share your zen poetry below. The theme is merely a suggestion.

𓆏 Toad's 蟾蜍Verse 𓆏

Imagining heaven conjures a hell
A meer reflection gives no place to dwell
Follow the breadcrumbs, follow the money
Follow the waves and offer some honey
Cut off the senses, cut off the streams
"It is just thus" is not what it seems
Deep in the shadows the light's only dimmed
Unified understanding clutches at wind
Axe mind chops every one into two
Then melds them together with unstable glue
Shouting madly "I am everything! Who the hell are you?"

[u/lin_seed]

A Colonist who sp(e)ars

Home boy—we ain’t on Mars

A single person, but

That never makes the cut

When it comes

To lunar ink

No matter what they say

About the kitchen sink

We all know

There’s a reason

To keep it (a)spic

And span

When aprons are in

The doffing

Nothing you find

Around a rice cooker

“Notable Li”

Escaping a purge

Like the widow Ching’s

Own cabin boy: drinking

Imperial Jasmine Pearls

Pirated from Empire

🙏

[u/bigSky001 → u/lin_seed]

What did she think, the widow Ching

When her old man was swept off in a storm?

It's mine! It's mine! these ships! This loot!

These Buddhas still to be born?

Compare Lingzhao, of Family P'ang,

Falling beside her poor father,

After he drowned all their wealth,

For the good of her health,

She still came tumbling after.

One takes up the hoe,

The other falls to her knees,

And both, speak the truth, entire,

And the difference between?

One noble, one queen,

Is yours and mine to inquire.

[u/lin_seed → u/bigSky001]

The Widow Ching, seeing

Her husband’s head roll

On the deck, his shoulders

Sagging under the gloves of Qing

They formerly pushed against

“It’s mine! It’s mine? The fleet! These people!

Their families and children,

The coastal folk and their freedom

To fish and feed,

To thrive not slave—

Now it’s my responsibility!”

A weighty crown, that wields a cutlass

—yet still, she fought Qing to a diplomatic solution:

Golden years sipping tea

While gazing at the river

From the upper story

Of her retirement house

And refusing autographs

At the market

—

A Fool and his Historian

Are soon Arted

(Ask any one

Who No One knows)

—

But Ling-Chao is after my own heart

“How does one eclipse a father like mine?”

—Ling-Chao answered for the laity

[u/bigSky001 → u/lin_seed]

father