Re: First Thought Best Thought, 108 Poems, by Chogyam Trungp
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 4:50 am
PALM IS
Palm is.
It may be small, but includes the universe:
Fortune-tellers make a living out of it;
Flamingos sleep on it;
Mothers slap their children;
It's for begging, giving;
When thinkers don't have thoughts, they rest their foreheads;
Trees that have palms invite holiday-makers.
Can a jackal read a palm?
Maybe S.C. can read--
But is S.C. a jackal?
S.C. is tricky,
But jackals are perky, with long throbbing howls;
Maybe they read their palms in the cold wintry night
In the aspen grove.
The Lord of Death supposedly reads palms,
To see through your life's work:
The good man
The wicked
Banker
Priest--
How many infants got slapped with a palm,
How much dough we molded with our palms,
How many directors clapped their palms on the table
Shouting, "Let's do it!"
I wonder whether Miss Bishop has used her palms in her life?
The palms of the night,
To write poem of palm.
Flamingos
Flamingos' mothers
S.C.
Fortune-tellers.
The earth is a big palm,
So is the sky;
Jointly they make the four seasons.
By mistake, cities grow up between their palms,
A vein of highways begins to grow,
There's no room to breathe--
People call it pollution.
I wonder what it's like to be the palm of the universe.
The stars and moons,
Saturn and Jupiter,
Mars and Venus,
Twinkle between two palms.
By fault of the palms being too tight,
Sometimes various comets escape
Creating cosmic fart:
The world of fart and palms.
Goodnight, jackal!
25 February 1975
Palm is.
It may be small, but includes the universe:
Fortune-tellers make a living out of it;
Flamingos sleep on it;
Mothers slap their children;
It's for begging, giving;
When thinkers don't have thoughts, they rest their foreheads;
Trees that have palms invite holiday-makers.
Can a jackal read a palm?
Maybe S.C. can read--
But is S.C. a jackal?
S.C. is tricky,
But jackals are perky, with long throbbing howls;
Maybe they read their palms in the cold wintry night
In the aspen grove.
The Lord of Death supposedly reads palms,
To see through your life's work:
The good man
The wicked
Banker
Priest--
How many infants got slapped with a palm,
How much dough we molded with our palms,
How many directors clapped their palms on the table
Shouting, "Let's do it!"
I wonder whether Miss Bishop has used her palms in her life?
The palms of the night,
To write poem of palm.
Flamingos
Flamingos' mothers
S.C.
Fortune-tellers.
The earth is a big palm,
So is the sky;
Jointly they make the four seasons.
By mistake, cities grow up between their palms,
A vein of highways begins to grow,
There's no room to breathe--
People call it pollution.
I wonder what it's like to be the palm of the universe.
The stars and moons,
Saturn and Jupiter,
Mars and Venus,
Twinkle between two palms.
By fault of the palms being too tight,
Sometimes various comets escape
Creating cosmic fart:
The world of fart and palms.
Goodnight, jackal!
25 February 1975