There was a bureaucrat from old Beijing who claimed that COVID was in a downswing, "It must be, you see, for it cannot be the rules changed cause of shouts of "Can Xi Jinping!"
Beijing Limerick
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Category Archives: Poetry
Solace [Lyric Poem]
My war days are long past. I'm not quick to beat drums. I've neither king nor caste. I've seen the winter come. Fearful norms have no hold. The law has lost its sway. I've broken from the mold, and turned a roving stray. Crazy sages / role models: those freed from conventions, who can't stand for twaddle, and shun all pretensions.
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Vienna Limerick
There was a famed therapist from Vienna who knew the source of all angst and each dilemma. "Sexy thoughts of your mom made you fear the A-bomb!" "Uh, it started last week when I fell from an antenna."
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Chicago Limerick
A window washer from Chicago would work in the snow and that fog - Oh! But he was chagrined when there were crosswinds, "A guy could splat like a soft avocado!"
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Morlock Memories [Free Verse]
I woke up rife with Morlock memories. What a damnable time it was! The days when I was not a boy, and not a man -- nothing for which anyone had a good word. Maybe I was a shadow: two-dimensional & wonky in shape. I was that which lived below: below ground, below the radar, below comprehension.
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Last Blossom [Blank Verse]
The final flower falls to the sidewalk. It's damp and deformed, -n- sugared with sand. It's gritty and pretty at the same time. The ants are crawling around and across. A faintly putrid scent must call to them. They crave that little bit of death in food. And tomorrow it'll be gone -- somehow -- gone. Who knows where: swept up, carried, or wind-blown. It will be gone, and branches will be bare.
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Forbidden City [Haiku]
the sprawling courtyard of the Forbidden City; army imagined
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Nashville Limerick
There was a great guitarist from Nashville who couldn't remember to pay his tax bill. They seized his Les Paul and even his stress ball. He became that stressed-out uke player of Asheville.
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Cambridge U. Limerick
When Lord Byron lived at Cambridge University, he greatly increased campus diversity. He lived with a bear. They were quite the pair. For the poet, the dog ban was a perversity.
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BOOK REVIEW: Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law by Busshō Lahn
Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law: A Commentary on Hakuin’s “Song of Zazen” by Bussho LahnMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Release Date: December 20, 2022 [In India, may be out in your area.]
This book consists of a collection of essays inspired by the poem, “Song of Zazen,” written by the 18th century Zen master, Hakuin. Hakuin’s poem is brief (about forty lines,) and the essays composed by a present-day Zen priest (Lahn) offer commentary on a stanza-by-stanza basis. The book is divided into fourteen chapters, though the final chapter isn’t a stanza commentary.
I enjoyed reading this book and learned a great deal from it. The book benefits from the fact that the author is not rigidly sectarian. Therefore, the book is not doctrinaire, which warms the reader to the teachings. It’s also useful because it allowed the author to freely draw examples and quotes from a variety of sources, some of which may be more familiar or relatable to neophyte readers.
The last chapter offers a discussion of the fundamentals of zazen (seated meditation) as well as some other ancillary information that may be useful to readers new to Zen Buddhism, its practices, and its sutras. If you’re interested in Zen Buddhist meditation and philosophy, you may want to give it a look.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 