Poems for August

sin like a madman until you can’t do anything else

no room for any more

born born everything is always born

thinking about it try not to

only a kind deadly sincere man

can show you the way here in the other world

long life

the wild pines want it too

sick of it whatever it’s called sick of the names

I dedicate every pore to what’s here

this cow has come to teach you: what you do is where you are

where you are is what you do: nobody knows which monk I

      was

my name Ikkyu’s disgusting not dust yet

it should be swept away and will be

Crow With No Mouth: Ikkyū: 15^th Century Zen Master, Versions by Stephen Berg (Copper Canyon Press, 1989)

From back cover: ‘A zen monk-poet-calligrapher-musician, Ikkyū dared to hymn the joys of erotic love along with more traditional Zen themes, and scandalized the Buddhist community when he fell in love with a blind singer forty years younger and celebrated their love in verse.’