Post-Modern Zen and the Revised 8-fold path 7:02 p.m.
Post-Modern Zen and the Revised 8-fold path 7:02
by quasimofo
For Ikkyu
read page 29 every Tuesday and hope
the bowel movements occur on time.
 Go ahead and over-generalize, god has to be somewhere.
 excerpt from an expired love letter:
 …kiss it with a blind eye and you
are its slave. kiss it awakened and
you suffer eternally. I’m just some-
one who sees life being blown away-
people dying and losing their souls
as impaled children lured by some
magical noise that means death.
 –sincerely, Quasimofo–
P.S. I’d eat dog food for you.
 end.
sum it up in 4 words and allow me
to perform my own elaborations.
Consumers defer to Greek drama
by wearing masks and acting out
5-part tragedies.
the video stores equip us.
fast-food feeds us. Autos transport us.
…”to evolve you must digress, and to digress
you must..chue….chie..bzz.”
–damn! I forgot to pay the cable bill!-
 Mr./Mrs. {           } (insert name), you belong
to the land of a billion egoless egos-
the blackest awareness available,
the farthest thing from nothing,
bespeckled with hints, phrases, and partials.
 *the solution is simple.
know that you appreciate beyond the heavens
your size 8 and a half Wal-mart slippers,
and slurp your frozen chocolate moose yogurt
with immortal savoring.
god is the existence of wondering if you’re very special.
yay quasimofo! you’re a quick thinker, sir. i do my best to make sure if anything happens, it’s because it fits with my routine. last stanza reminds me of all the lost souls i see meandering around my neighbourhood. (that i wonder if i resemble). walmart freaks me out, and chocolate really isn’t my thing…but that last bit makes it seem far more watercolour-painted and for split second intervals, i think i will respect walmart and chocolate moose.
I wrote a poem to respond to this. Is it kosher to put it here? Or is that more SPAM?
hi, was that for me?
To you and Quasimofo-
Do you mind if I post a response poem here? Not sure of the etiquette on posting full blown poems in the comment area. Check with the suits in legal on the official policy, would ya? Maybe do an impact survey…
Go for it! Ettiquete be damned! I’d be honored, sir.
Thanks for comments, you gotta check out old movie called ‘Career Opportunities’ where main character is night clean-up guy for Target and goes roller skating thru store in women’s undergarments…a must see for those aware of our ‘commercial-existential’ dilemma.
poem response to a poem? sure. let’s see it. that’s new. i’m always down for something different.
Buying Bread at Wal-Mart; Preparing a Sandwich for Sacrifice
Walk the aisle,
Passed the heady bitumen blends
And preserves,
Therein interred the loaves.
Wrapped in dunning shrouds
Dated, tied, and stacked.
The hundreds lay bagged
With fenestral transparencies.
Under all thru-lashed and
Bound by colored twine
To announce the ferial.
Dead behind slid millstone,
Patient flies are serried in a web.
Drying to made-stale bread
The husks, drip wanting, bereft of wonder.
Behind those feretory panes
Mumbled ripples thunder and drum
Of an onerous dun.
For one heart arrears in exaction.
Averred tapping of misted droplets
Pool unseen in seeping carmine ravines
Flushing toward empty impatient crags.
Railed sky flashing before the sound
In a dark and swirling neon of forgetting.
Flash now like a fiery extispicy.
Out of time, infrasound rumbles.
Crack the timbrel and horns in contest
To announce an epiphany like Saul.
As three days past, the bread renewed.
Then retold, recounted, revived
On crystal shores and by Bethsaida’s (also Magdala’s) bank
Stepping out onto all tympanums.
Wholly washed hands bear the scar.
Sanitary wipes make them clean.
Held up thenal clerestory in testimony,
To a triumphant innocence.
The Confluence of History walks on.
Passing through the shortest line
Toward clearing the gates unmolested.
“We’re sorry. You have activated Wal-Mart’s inventory control system. Please step back, and an associate will help you”
Peter in awkward deference stumbles,
The surface not low enough to bow,
Call it faltered faith, on water all rocks sink.
Herein, He lends to stoop Himself
And fishes out new bound baptized hands
A crest apart and praying.
On Temple Mounts, Aboucais, Ararat,
Nebo, at Moriah and Quarantania
Yahweh-yireh in a raging tangent hammer
Forges implements of aqedah
And quenches the enrapt tempering.
Dead on a monger’s slab
Basketed, tied as fillet in paper
To be served en masse with wine sop
All the flesh, a dripping gift of life.
As three days pass, as birthed Sun then Moon
Again retold, recounted, revived
Across the blade’s asymptote and between.
The neck and stayed hand
Averted into bramble binding another.
This relict stone owed wethering
Calms a ravenously due delectation.
So Shepard’s mavericks fulfill the need
For blood and loaves and seed.
Quasimofo- I liked your poem. I’m a putz. I didn’t need to added the cartoon gravy train to it to make it my own brand of mercantile salvation. I should have stopped at I liked your poem.
Naw, hell, i liked it! “bitumen blends”..hehehe! i’ll never think of bread and religion the same way after this. Your magic with words, sir, i am always astounded by. You’re vocabulary base is way higher than it should be coming from the small town of Stratford-on-Mary Kay. i forsee you will become a great Warrior-Poet, and a much wiser soul than i.
Homemade bread has something to be said for it…maybe we can find a Newman’s Own blend (God bless him)…no man, no man, can eat 50 wonder breads!
‘Fiery extispicy’ indeed. i have more than once imitated that recorded Wal-mart anti-theft preamble: “We’re sorry. you have activated Wal-Mart’s …” which is usually preceded by an ominous ‘BLEEP’ causing one to shit their pants. HaHa.
…the sacred and profane mix for a humorous blend. Thx. I’m gonna keep re-reading this and save it for poetry reading at Literary Lion in S’ville.
nice economy of words, Quasi. the Whooshay would be proud of your vim. And, you set the H & H comment record.
Misener, ah, thanks. The last record i broke was ‘Air Supply: Greatest Hits’, cause i was ‘all outta love’. But yeah, it’s good to see comments spike on site…Whooshay would be beside himself in cloned ecstasy, i think. i dropped the ball on your Peyote package, sorry, i switched from nightshift to dayshift and has been hectic last couple weeks. I’m getting it in mail today, hell or high water (which i might see both of), and am throwing in some extra surprises (not a blow-up doll), but other stuff…
“god is the existence of wondering if you’re very special.” nice one Cerebella…