saint johns wort

john martone

samuddo / ocean

A commonplace book poems found out there, no less than any passage from anothers book, & no more belonging to you. All the pieces comprising yr organism, a form yes the opposite of a shell, and in that way as essential as carapace to tortoise (and why the tortoise is yr totem ). And having spiritual survival value, since without it this human life would certainly perish. So, for others, if only a few, that by which like recognizes like

all that rain washed up a knapped stone

for kim dorman

ROWING GARDEN LIGHT

And then the man collected grass, twigs, branches, and leaves and bound them together into a raft, and supported by the raft and making an effort with his hands and feet, he got safely across to the far shore
Alagaddupama sutta

ROWING

another spring you start another medicine

electric fan pivoting among nights galaxies

an electric fan flips thru the pages vietnamese

one eyedrop each eye tomorrow more rain

train tracks past a lumberyard toothless

concrete steps up to an I-beam & nothing

trailer park & a mattress in this rain

trailer parks cinder block laundro mat empty

no clotheslinethey spread washed things on a car top

concrete shade ants some thing

five years old

squatting at an anthill

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trash bags & half-naked boy their backyard

all their household goods one dumpster

peonies shatter behind a package store

cardboard over one missing pane & anothers broken

you pass a resale shop rain threatening

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dressing in rags for that stream

one deer kept to this footpath too

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[W]hatever way they conceive, the fact is ever other than that. So, putting non-identification first, he neither lauds himself nor disparages others
--Sappurisa sutta

moebius strip death the twist theres no other side

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breathing no youre not climbing handoverhand to the top of

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breath after breath its a row boat

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right length row boat

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all breath
no one needs a sail

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an ocean an ocean of breath one follows another breaking

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theres no far shore keep rowing

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letting go of each breath good practice

60 years breathing & diaphragms no idea

ocean

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geese & blue heron we all stand up straight

cliff swallows sweep close to me as if

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ideo graph tendril coil

lime stone lifes one

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chilly millimeter fossils

turning yr back on prairie prairie

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you climb up from virginia creeper & cross a road

stovepipes flash at dusk catalpas leaf out

flowershop back doors open this evening listen

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GARDEN

[T]hese states were defined by him one by one as they occurred; known to him those states arose, known they were present, known they disappeared. He understood thus: So indeed, these states, not having been, come into being; having been they vanish.
--Anupada sutta

4 basil plants rise from yr notebook ashes

a segmented grub my fingertips ridges

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in one day eggplant & basil set out & all our wash

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cirrus clouds garden rows thunder cloud

booming
white peony

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peonydaisyconeflower bindweed strangles all

bindweed pulls on a pine branch

bindweed faster than sweet peas

bindweed yr underground passageways

bindweed snaps before you reach the source

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the gloves come off weeding

right-handed left-handed weeding

both hands weeding rowing

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not yet not yet but trying to be bindweeds opposite

on & on mindless bindweed

The purpose of wisdom, friend, is abandoning

Mahavedalla sutta

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hailstones irises have blue tongues

hailstones fine-stemmed columbines escape

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animitta=signlessness Lust is a maker of signs, hate is a maker of signs, delusion is a maker of signs. In a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed, these are abandoned, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, done away with so that they are no longer subject to future arising. Of all the kinds of signless deliverance of mind, the unshakeable deliverance of mind is pronounced the best. Now that unshakeable deliverance of mind is void of lust, void of hate, void of delusion.
Mahavedalla sutta

one by one even for getting loved ones name

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brought you to garden not knowing yr name

blood root

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wrinkled knees & wild straw berries

all this shepherds purse just dares you

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close yr eyes after weeding every ones there

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LIGHT

a sketch book in back yard time

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peonies balled up waiting

peonies
nearly wrote

people

No soul, so no signs or symbols. Just the visible those resplendent phantoms trailer park despair; snow pea hope; bindweed trouble overcome! A world of inscrutable ideograms. Human words just shadows, so many rubbings on paper leaf rubbings, stone rubbings Ha! That second-grade handwriting finds its match!

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And the rapture and happiness never left him for a half-month or his parents for a week. Then that house remained three whole months with the sky for a roof, and yet no rain came in. Such is the potter Ghatikara.
Ghatikara sutta

the one w/ a raccoon looking outs my chimney

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its all clean dirt you wash to yr elbows

pressing a pepper plant home the rest of its life

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The Buddha said, Jeweled Accumulation, the various kinds of living beings are in themselves the Buddha lands
Vimalakirti sutra

dirty thumb garden snails foothold

wild birds egg in the grass almost there

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Must be something wrong developmentally, fixating like some 5-year-old on a dead sparrow, wrapping it up in yr handkerchief, bringing it home to bury. And you 59 years old, at the height of yr powers (Dostoyevskys phrase) generals & judges younger than you, youll never be a statesman. Look at that sparrows wings rigorously open in death, and lay the creature face up in its place, the ants already mad for it

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o
sparrow wings wide open under ground

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pea tendril rabbit whisker who knows?

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month-old rabbit turning this yard into a fable

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Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it. The Buddha then pressed his toe against the earth, and immediately the thousand-millionfold world was adorned with hundreds and thousands of rare jewels All the members of the great assembly saw that they themselves were seated on jeweled lotuses. If a persons mind is pure, then he will see the blessings that adorn this land.
Vimalakirti sutra

heavenly weeding blackberry thorns tear yr skin

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wild straw berries craving light the whole way up to buddhas shoulder

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little
book since theres no time

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go little book & get lost

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not very smart a whole life & still not ready

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a train blares by sunlight

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sun all

a round

a house

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eyes crazy w/ light yr very own st. johns wort plain day

may-june 2011

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