A new poem from daishin
contemplation
The Sacred
is when you knowthat shoveling the drivewayis a Catholic mass and eating at Red Lobster is the same as receiving communion, that’s prayer and meditationa Yoga when taking a shower is baptism and going to the movies is Mecca when reading the Torah is reading the New York Times and going for a walk in the woods and having sex is celibacysmoking joints and tobacco and incense and salmon on the grill in the backyard on Columbus Day or Veterans […]
As Benedictines
We see a single incandescent light beneath the pond,a flash at the bottom of four stemmed glasses, as if we were still in the Orleanais,where sins are garnished with clams and stewed in the finest vichyssoise.
Where the Gods Dwell
The gods dwell where counting failsand answers are not held together by one, two, or three. The gods dwell where the thunder roarslike a father sent to identify the remains. Where that Seneca village was burned to the ground.Soon the trail goes back to that bridge as the soundof the falls get louder. The gods dwell […]
The Mud Softer Than Ivory
There is a forest that I return to when I can’t get away from the pulsationsof thinking. A forest of tombs as still as dead tree trunks and melodious as raindropson red pine needles. The paths of my ancestors. In this forest, I am not alive like I usually am. Stepping in mink tracks, I know this place […]
There is a Hush
There is a hushfrom the beginningof time, where youcan hear yourselfblink. It’s calledimmortality. The rumbling timbers. Those extinct tracks. There is a hush, it is the sound of the desert parsleywithering and thewhimpers of hawksand eagles careeningtowards the earthrise. There is a hush, sunk into the chasms,bringing a curse thatcan never be lifted. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from […]
Grace Peak
Down where fingershold a windscourged turbulence,lurid and buriedin the fractures, your mountain graceblisters like iron smelted, and the mosaic of youreyes light all over.Wrapped in cold teardrops,below the grit of exiled scents, at your peak I feel astronomical, like Asimov’s balloons risingthrough a diaphanous fog. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in […]
Close to Timberline
Ascorbic acid tabletswon’t quench my thirst. I want the secret sourcesof the Hudson, log bridges,and vanished paths. Hydrating oil-in-lipstickwon’t cover my hunger. I want countless warm pondswrapped in cold weather. A thin mist. The deep woods. I want freedom. No paper flowers.No fairy tale weddings.No cloned puppies. Just early snow ontumbled rocks, and the fountainheadof majestic streams. […]
A Sound Reminding Me
Photograph by Jens Kolk When I was 9, I knewthat I was ugly. I did notknow how, but I knew. I looked at my reflectionlike a bonobo studies his teeth – both boorish and fervid. Today I know that I am beautiful.Falling asleep to a cold rising dew, I awake just to listen to the soundof […]