Simple Solutions for Daily Living
- © 2024 Al Gales 0
Poetry Day – One Day Late
Homested Poems
A. ARVIDS GALES
FEB 27, 2025
poem one
he carved a space out of the prairies
shaped it with his will and tortured back
into something resembling the prairie grasses —
whispering sounds driven by unfriendly winds
his legacy a broken rocking chair inside a rotting shed
he once called his home
© alfred gales 2025
his home
he stood with the dumb
wild eyed, frightened look
of an animal facing its death
at the slaughterhouse
the open front door threw a long shadow
inside the house an emptiness, she left
for the graveyard before him
dressed in her best black dress
grey hair tucked into a black bonnet
he cried
and cried
and cried for him, for her
for his heart, a single slender stalk of grain
trapped beneath a stone
© alfred Gales 2025
prairie dreamtime
a touch, a brush past cheek
to wrist, a feather’s caress
an insect wings’ soft ripple
standing on a rooftop’s edge, almost falling
wonders how he arrived, looks skyward
her solemn face
a gliding eagle
a screaming moth
silent as the silk smooth rains
hot against his waking cheeks
his burning eyes find ceiling
his mouth wide open grasping air
his heaving chest
gripped beneath granite stone
© alfred gales 2025
spring broke early this year
spring broke early this year
calves growin’, colt born, quarter plowed
looks fine to seed
sonofabitch
we got nothin’ to complain about
© alfred gales 2025
(Thanks again to ChatGPT, with a little help from a friend of Mac products & iMac desktop & ultimately that who creates but remains forever unknowable – unless – you start creating poems of your own. To paraphrase Ezra Pound, Poets are the antenna of a race.
Have no Care, send poems to Bear, my Latvian, Animal Spirit Guide, same as First Nations,
to galesalfred157@gmail.com
Self espouses decent pedigree: University of Alberta Creative Writing classes with names such as Atwood, W.O. Mitchell, Dorthy Livesay, Rudy Wiebe. et al. Add 20 years of teaching and finally being smart enough to leave while still your enough to fail miserably/laughingly; yet succeed royally/joyfully at Meta-Stuff & finding enough time to take 1 or 2 or 3 poems of yours and do a brief constructive analysis.
To quote Gollum, “Truuust me! Send poems to galesalfred157@gmail.com.
If you want a personal evaluation on Zoom contact me at same email and we’ll set something up but it will cost you.
Go to website https://www.consequences.life/ to see what we're all about.
Alternate link to send your poetry for analysis: https://www.consequences.life/page-2/
To Leave a Comment, go here. To Become a Member with Benefits, go Here.
Who Can You Trust?
20. A Mother’s Advice JIUN, A SHINGON MASTER, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students. His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter: “Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.”
Reps,Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings (p. 52). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Picture this ChatGPT rendition? Neither do I.
How about this “modern day” rendition?
Again, you buy in? Doesn’t turn my crank either!
Given the many peoples professing a positive pitch, (gotta like alliteration in writing), of their products in the great internet meverse, how d’ya distinguish that which offers a pathway to directly seeing/experiencing the unborn, sometimes referred to as the Buddha, mind and those, who churn out visions, pictures, words of bliss?
Easy for me, or anyone, to quote the Buddha and offer his advice:
"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas (people). Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.”
Yes, the Buddha spoke dharma and although his words are used by me, they’re not definitive.
When I first spoke to Suco, an enlightened 75-year-old Vietnamese Buddhist nun, (beside immediately recognizing each other’s worth) I said to her, “Do you know, that when after crossing the Great Water, it’s useless to carry the raft on your back?” She nodded and smiled in agreement.
See https://www.consequences.life/blog/ for an account after a meeting a couple of weeks afterward. “Open Suco Letter”
Enlightenment/Self Realization is not and end. It’s the beginning of finding your birthright as a human being and growing older, yes, but also discovering a True, continuously expanding depth/breadth, in Wisdom.
To use a Cowboy, red-neck colloquialism, “You’ll no longer be an old fart/fartress wasting space.”
Oh, crossing the Great Water represents the search for the unborn, all illuminating mind and the raft signifies Dharma. When gifted, when circumstance come together, and illumination happens, Dharma, being a vessel once used, is no longer needed when exploring new vistas but it is still useful as kindling to fire the aspirations of others.
If you can’t trust a Cowboy with his Hound: Who can you trust?
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