cal robertson
cal robertson is a writer, musician and photographer from
connecticut, who is acting at the moment to pay for his travels
for first book, crazy cloud, a story about a radical 14th century
japanese poet/painter, Ikkyu Osho. He's in a film that's in film
festivals all over the country in 2002-2003, called Zero Day.
Details about that can be found at www.professorbright.com.
He splits his time between his family's bookstore and being in
the mountains. Somehow, it all ties in together. moon@pandas.ws
ZEN and the AMERICAN GRAIN-----
There is a place
where heaven and earth collide
with the weight of a swinging pendulum
(and needs no further explanation)
if you find this place
hidden in a thousand years of bamboo
don't lose your nerve.
Simply close one eye
and let it tear
until the grains of sand are washed out
then walk to the nearest highway and stick out your thumb
and when they stop say:
i am ikkyu and
i am here.
And i'd like to go where-ever this road may ribbon across
i can see thirty minutes ahead
and i'd like to leave an eye here
and watch myself disappear into the horizon
and when they let you off
tell them you have no money
just words;
..............enlightenment is a deathtrap!
And buddha will steal your soul with his wandering through the
bamboo with a
samadhi sword to cut through the wood of the mind!
bamboo and enlightenment will only flower
every one hundred and twenty two years
and saturate the ground with its seeds overwhelming the odds
of life
enlightenment is a deathtrap!
When heaven and earth collide you will be crushed by the force
of gravity so
strong not even your soul can survive the pressure you can see
buddha's back
arching down-and-over-and-out and kwan yin's arm holding the
cup of compassion,
bending, waning, pouring down like an open flood gate-
into the black hole (every star will make one)
i don't want the ends of outer space
i want here and i want now and
.........i have it!
{i had a dream that NASA came knocking at my door and reluctantly
i answered
because you always know more than you should in dreams/They said
congratulations
you have won publishers clearing house and a chance to hop a
space ship into
space and see for the world on live tv the BEAUTY of THE LIMITLESS
BODY OF
MATTERLESS SPACE-
forcefully they took my hand and threw me aboard a rocketship
and catapulted me
out of our atmosphere quickly quickly quickly then slowly slowly
slowly we
slowed down until a blue door opened in the sky and we were let
into a small
chamber when men and black suits removed my from my space craft
and sat me down
in a seat and told me the facts;
SPACE DOES NOT EXIST-
it is a figment of our TELEVISION PROGRAMMING
and we the people of the government believe it only right to
exploit it to our
own needs as an instrument for PEACE HAIR PEACE BED PEACE we
can make ourselves
look better than the RUSSIANS and can those third world countries
put their
citizens out of this world too?
and i felt relieved.
(Agoraphobia, maybe.)
We sit inside a grain of sand in buddha's eye and he can't
seem to muster the
tears to clear us of his vision he just rubs and rubs.
South Saguaro----
i. we cannot ride on plastic horses
They crown in together/
and hide from the sun
keep their window-shades pulled down
off east theres open desert,
where the city people send the mentally ill and
where they dump their city-trash and
where coyotes nose through scrap metal
in piles in the open dustbowl
noticing that every few tin cans
got a native american
or two shoved in them
(these tin cans what the
government call a RESERVE)
where theyre left with nothing but dust, peyote, and empty
pockets
selling blankets at road stands
you see three customers
drive buy a day, see em
thirty minutes before they arrive,
riding in their lincolns
and their social security cards
driving by spitting
a puddle of dust in
their native american faces,
while they scream at
the car driving by-
WE ARE HORSES-
WE ARE THE HORSES
YOU GAVE US
YOU GAVE US HORSES
& YOU TOOK THEM AWAY
YOU LEAVE US AS
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS &
AS DECORATIVE MOTIFS-
YOUR AIR CONDITIONED HOMES
IN AZTEC PRINT AND
PLASTIC HORSES
WE CANNOT RIDE
ON PLASTIC HORSES
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