We dont care how crazy that man is, we want exact transmission of that crazed Mind. We are crazed ourselves. It would help to know we are not alone. We are delighted by the calmness of this other one. We are sent to the woods to see, really see, what wed so often looked at and never noticed at all, by that other Mind. We need to know exactly what it must be like to be an ambassador, a killer, a hulking fool. – Lew Welch
Crazy Days, crazy nights. Lots of insomnia, and tossing about. I have lots to say, but I will hold off on the conversation at this bit and toss this entry to the wind. I have been on a tear of late, and Lew has been the perfect companion. Most of the poetry in this and other entries are from the Poetry Post out front of Caer Llwydd. It seems it is getting quite a following. It is nice to know….
Bright Love,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Linkage…
THE BASIC CON
Komuso Zen Priest Playing Shakuhachi
Lew Welch Quotes
From The Poetry Post: Excerpts From The Dao Te Ching (what’s been posted lately)
The Poems Of Lew Welch
Tsuru no Sugomori – Antonio Olías
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The Linkage:
On Lew Welch: The Song The Poet Sang
The Attack Of The Killer Rabbits!
Starchild: Alien-Human Hybrid?
Bob Arnold’s Poetry Blog… Thanks Laura~!
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THE BASIC CON
Those who can’t find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it, too. – Lew Welch
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Komuso Zen Priest Playing Shakuhachi
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Lew Welch Quotes:
“Step out onto the Planet. Draw a circle a hundred feet round. Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands, and , maybe, nobodys ever really seen. How many can you find?”
“Looking for enlightenment is like looking for a flashlight when all you need the flashlight for is to find the flashlight.”
“You can’t fix it. You can’t make it go away. I don’t know what you’re going to do about it, but I know what I’m going to do about it. I’m just going to walk away from it. Maybe a small part of it will die if I’m not around feeding it anymore.”
“trails go nowhere. they end exactly where you stop.”
“The True Rebel never advertises it. He prefers his joy to Missionary Work”.
“Since the business of living has so many barbs in it, and since so many of our friends are liars or fools or inarticulate or emotionally blunt or are sucking on us for what they imagine we can give though we cant, it is pure joy to read the poems of the truth-sayers, the simple singers, the masters of prayer and devotion, and the crazed, wise, babblers of Ecstasy, the High-Mind Singers to no end.”
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Excerpts From The Dao Te Ching…
6. Experience
Experience is a riverbed,
Its source hidden, forever flowing:
Its entrance, the root of the world,
The Way moves within it:
Draw upon it; it will not run dry.
8. Water
The best of man is like water,
Which benefits all things, and does not contend with them,
Which flows in places that others disdain,
Where it is in harmony with the Way.
So the sage:
Lives within nature,
Thinks within the deep,
Gives within impartiality,
Speaks within trust,
Governs within order,
Crafts within ability,
Acts within opportunity.
He does not contend, and none contend against him.
10. Harmony
Embracing the Way, you become embraced;
Breathing gently, you become newborn;
Clearing your mind, you become clear;
Nurturing your children, you become impartial;
Opening your heart, you become accepted;
Accepting the world, you embrace the Way.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
This is harmony.
– Lao Tse –
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The Poems Of Lew Welch
THE SONG MT. TAMALPAIS SINGS
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
Human movements,
but for a few,
are Westerly.
Man follows the sun.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
Or follows what he thinks to be the
movement of the Sun.
It is hard to feel it, as a rider,
on a spinning ball.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
Centuries and hordes of us,
from every quarter of the earth,
now piling up,
and each wave going back
to get some more.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
“My face is the map of the Steppes,”
she said, on this mountain, looking West.
My blood set singing by it,
to the old tunes,
Irish, still,
among these Oaks.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
This is why
once again we celebrate
the great Spring Tides
Beaches are strewn again with Jaspar,
Agate, and Jade.
The Mussel-rock stands clear.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
This is why
once again we celebrate the
Headland’s huge, cairn-studded, fall
into the Sea.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else to go.
For we have walked the jeweled beaches
at the feet of thr final cliffs
of all Man’s wanderings.
This is the last place.
There is nowhere else we need to go.
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He Thanks His Woodpile
The wood of the madrone burns with a flame at once
lavender and mossy green, a color you sometimes see in a sari.
Oak burns with a peppery smell.
For a really hot fire, use bark.
You can crack your stove with bark.
All winter long I make wood stews:
Poem to stove to woodpile to stove to
typewriter. woodpile. stove.
and can’t stop peeking at it!
can’t stop opening up the door!
can’t stop giggling at it
“Shack Simple”
crazy as Han Shan as
Wittgenstein in his German hut, as
all the others ever were and are
Ancient Order of the Fire Gigglers
who walked away from it, finally,
kicked the habit, finally, of Self, of
man-hooked Man
(which is not, at last, estrangement)
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Not yet 40, my beard is already white. by Lew Welch
Not yet 40, my beard is already white.
Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red,
like a child who has cried too much.
What is more disagreeable
than last night’s wine?
I’ll shave.
I’ll stick my head in the cold spring and
look around at the pebbles.
Maybe I can eat a can of peaches.
Then I can finish the rest of the wine,
write poems ’til I’m drunk again,
and when the afternoon breeze comes up
I’ll sleep until I see the moon
and the dark trees
and the nibbling deer
and hear
the quarreling coons
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The image, as in a Hexagram:
The image, as in a Hexagram:
The hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
He keeps the cabin warm.
All winter long he sorts out all he has.
What was well started shall be finished.
What was not, should be thrown away.
In spring he emerges with one garment
and a single book.
The cabin is very clean.
Except for that, you’d never guess
anyone lived there.
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I Saw Myself
I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it
and vowed
always to be open to it
that all of it
might flow through
and then heard
“ring of bone” where
ring is what a
bell does
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Tsuru no Sugomori – Antonio Olías