There once was a psychiatrist named Freud who thought all were obsessed with filling a void... a void in the pants! Though some looked askance, and those whose cigars weren't cigars were annoyed.
Freud Limerick
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Tag Archives: poetry
Estonia Limerick
There was a soft-spoken jeweler from Estonia who often worked in cubic zirconia. He'd never tell a lie, but came across quite shy, Some thought they'd got the best deal in Estonia.
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Living Backwards [Tanka]
young red leaf, on a sapling in Spring, slowly grows green. doesn't it know it should start green, and turn red in the Fall?
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Swimming Turtle [Haiku]
on a fine spring day, a turtle swims leisurely in sun-warmed waters.
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Ikkyū’s Poetry: The John Steven’s Wild Ways Selection / Translation
Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu by IkkyuMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the John Stevens selection and translation of poetry from Ikkyū’s Crazy Cloud Anthology. Ikkyū was what might be called a mad sage of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. He once showed up at a temple in his vagabond rags and was turned away, when he came back the next day in the ceremonial robes that revealed him as a preeminent monk and was subsequently treated like royalty, he took the robes off and told the abbot that it was apparently the robes that were honored and deserving of a meal. Ikkyū was known not only for his rejection of dogmatic and highfalutin approaches to Buddhism, but also for his love of sex, brothels, meat eating, and poetry. Much of the poetry touches on those two subjects (disdain for dogma and pretension and love of pleasure,) though there are also poems that explore nature and the kind of imagery one might be more likely to expect in Japanese poetry.
Ikkyū mostly wrote in quatrains, using a Chinese style of verse. Though Ikkyū was no more dogmatic about following poetic protocols than he was following monastic precepts, and often went with the flow.
I read the Stephen Berg translation, Crow with No Mouth several years ago. I would put this one on par with that one. There are actually several translated selections from the Crazy Cloud Anthology poems that are available. If you are interested in Ikkyū’s poetry, this is as good a place to start as any. It should be noted that while some of the poetry is around sexuality, it’s not particularly graphic but more suggestive.
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Grass Waves [Haiku]
when calmness hushes the Spring winds, the grass still waves off the departed.
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Scarecrow [Free Verse]
Scarecrow, n. - that which exists
solely to evoke fear.
There are so many scarecrows:
global - the end of the world
as we know it.
societal - the end of the tribe
as we know it.
individual - scarecrows of the soul.
Scarecrows lead us into the worst
versions of ourselves:
The one who's stressed, and mean
because of it.
The one who imagines conspiracy
around every corner.
The one who sees threat in every
change & in every difference.
The one who wants an orderly world
of people just like themselves -
familiar, cozy, and lacking surprises.
Scarecrows even march us off to war,
and war should be the scariest state
imaginable --
death doled out on a random basis.
War should be the scariest, but terrible certainties
spur less fear than any old uncertainty.
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Colorful [Haiku]
Ripples [Haiku]
with back to tree, i watch feeding fish ripple the mirrored pond.
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Missing Kittens [Tanka]
a momma cat mews many times to its missing kittens. with each unanswered call, momma grows more insistent.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 