September rain fresh linen
a blanket lain last hours
of summer spilling out
off the roof gutters
autumn takes a breath
before winter ice and cold
take the hills rip colors
from the trees red g/old
apples barley corn
birds soar into the wind
remind me we all die
regardless how much we
lean into or oppose it — I am
alone not without fire
or love long before the snow.
Rayn Roberts
Enough meditation, three a.m. earbuds Dream # 9
reading Merton’s Seven Story Mountain in stillness,
the temple bell shakes the universe, calling monks
to save all beings in hell, a cock crows in darkness.
A half moon spins the stars in a black pool forming
on land in sea the spirit dance unfolding nonetheless.
Do not count the cost, no one, nothing is ever lost.
In fitful sleep I wake to the apple autumn morning
dressing herself in crimson, grey, brown and gold.
There’s a bus to nowhere, somewhere I think home.
I feel the half moon human mind moving to fullness
asking clearly, “Will you stay with the solemn monks
Or return to mad electric nights of paradise in Seoul?”
Sleep walking dreamer that I am, I hesitate, can’t wait
To go back to a circle of friends, lovers I know, my bed
a dream-pond of incarnadine leaves sinking to rest,
the bell is tolling, calling, shaking me awake, I think
but it’s just the glaring city moon tapping on a window.
Rayn Roberts 2019
Rayn Roberts 2019
Korean Buddhism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SXf_V18wQUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SXf_V18wQU
Buesok Temple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpX6Rf_JuY&spfreload=1
“Dream #9” is the song by John Lennon
There’s a method in the music, the buzz
Filling the trees, a sizzle, a scream
The clicking and the ringing of cicadas.
Where some leave off, others pick up
The cantos of love, a hum like a dream
That is all of summer and seventeen years:
“Here, here, I’m the one, I’m the best,
Here, here, I’m the one, forget the rest!”
It’s an old serenade, it does not let up,
It defends, drives off birds that come
To make an easy meal of them, it assails
Fox, wasp, raccoon, boy with butterfly net–
In the end, all the songs whirl into oblivion.
Their bodies wash into rain-gutter and trail
Dried up, cried-out shells of what they were.
Other singers rise in a coffee shop in town
Worn thin by years of blinding night labor
Soul-broken, lost, jubilant, newly in love
Sick of love, but madly in love with sound
Looking to bend an ear, the poets file in.
Autumn and an open mic are about to begin.
Note: Depending on the species, cicadas live underground for 17 or 21 years. They emerge for one summer to mate. Males sing, females do not.
They listen & select the loudest singers.
This poem is a slight re-vision of the first in Jazz Cocktails & Soapbox Songs.
It would be a lie to say
I have no sorrow for the dead
I sing to them
To steady heart and head.
Sorrow, a boy forsaken
Sleeps no doubt
In the quiet of my bed
He cannot be mistaken.
Rising to the early light
To torpor I awaken,
I care for him
His Sadness never shaken.
Cold days in ink
I give him voice, the mild
And the meek,
Seldom have a choice.
Sometimes tears are words.
Understand me,
Ghosts follow in gloom
Throughout my home
Looking on lovingly
They crowd the rooms of memory
They do, until we join them too.
Friday 13. 2017
This poem has nothing to do
with Shawn Morrissey being dead.
He’s very much alive & well.
It’s for him because he’s into ghosts, horror, sci fi
and other spooky stuff.
