OMG it’s like so totally wild here
We are in JERUSALEM lol can u believe it?

Jerusalem is the holy city, so AMAZING. Nebuchadnezzar stole the most holy vessels, took them to Babylon and partied with his friends drinking from them. YAY thatz SO cool! There’s a super-lot of history around here… Antiochus IV Epiphanes declared himself a god and defiled the scrolls of the temple with pig’s blood. Can you believe that?
(I would totally have taken a selfie in the Holy of Holies.)

Titus and the Roman legions destroyed the entire city, burned the temple to the ground and enslaved the Jews in 70 A.D. Our tour guide said the gold melted off the walls and blood ran in the streets up to the bridles of the horses. History is so AWESOME. Tomorrow we go to the PRIDE rally in Tel Aviv. Israel is SO amazing. See you soon !

PROMPT #7:

write a poem titled Wish You Were Here
that takes its inspiration from the idea of a postcard.

Weird wisdom: attractive to some.
While to others, quite clearly, just dumb.
Mystic truth from the East?
Ask your guru. At least
He will sell you a mantra to hum . . .

Western Buddhists: they talk very Zen;
And they placate our Japanese yen
For satori. (and sake);
It’s fake sukiyaki—
The food they prepare, such wise men…

But the weirdest of all of these sages
Is the fake tantric monk who engages
His female pupils
In sin, with no scruples,
And little regard for their ages.

P R O M P T :
write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom”

OK. I discharged my lyrical duty.
I responded to the prompt. All of this a preamble to what I feel is one of my best:

Vajra Cast From Golden Heights

ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་

Bards of the bardo, hear my lay;
ye glacial Himalayas, sway.
Raise a warming toast in sake,
while my mystic muse gets cocky.

You who seek enlightenment
unto whom these lines are sent
open wide your spirit’s portal
(you—who are not yet immortal)

as we weigh a departed soul
and hurl a vajra. Let it roll
with tantric thunderclap appeal
while startled Bodhisattvas reel.

Turn from the heights with sober eyes
and under less celestial skies
let us scrutinize the preacher,
pop-star and Tibetan teacher:

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
(born in a manger, so they say)
grew up deep in Eastern mountains,
fed by esoteric fountains.

Soon he became a monkish abbot
painting thankas, chanting sutra
in a saffron-colored habit
high above the Brahmaputra.

Later, the teacher headed west
suckling Maya‘s milky breast
selling used mantras on the way
to devis who came out to play.

Eventually, in Colorado
he rocked the Rockies, thrilled the Beats
Bringing to his own weird bardo
bolder moves and tipsy feats.

Crazy wisdom’s drunken master
clothed in smartly elegant style,
steered disciples toward disaster—
partying gleefully all the while.

He tantalized the Tantric flirts
by seeking Buddhahood up their skirts;
preaching, as their morals sunk
from The Tibetan Book of the Drunk

Meditating, glass in hand
life of the party (of the damned)
the master mingled with dakinis
deep in the bardo of red bikinis.

Leaving behind a score of tulkus
empty bottles, broken parts
books of empty words that fools choose
after charlatans steal their hearts,

Trungpa Rinpoche went down
shaman of shame, hung-over clown
and tried to mend his Karmic puncture
where the left-hand paths make juncture:

Axis of the All, he spoke
a massive Himalayan joke.
Chogyam’s sacred shambala
brought last laughs to the last hurrah.

When his Dharma-dream was ended
Trungpa woke in hell, a snowball;
karmic punctures still unmended
prisoner of the Bardo Thodol

Should you doubt the truths I tell,
the facts are documented well.
Crazy, isnt it? What we’ll take
from vajra-vendors on the make.

handsome […] as the chance juxtaposition
of a sewing machine and an umbrella
on a dissecting table!

Lautréamont, The Songs of Maldoror,
Canto VI, Verse 3

UMBRELLA:  A glorious and bountiful life I lead,

reclining in blissful indolence upon

This regal deluxe dissection table.

SEWING MACHINE:  Ah friend, do you not miss the pelting rains

Against whose downpours humans unfold you ?

Were I not summoned to this dread platform

Shirts, skirts, blouses, jackets would I bring forth…

UMBRELLA:  My memories of rain, they fade. Regrets

for bygone inundations have I none.

Enough, for me, this placid, blessed vale.

DISSECTION TABLE:  Lovely, this chance encounter between you.

I embrace you with cold and shining steel, etc, etc. 

PROMPT # 5:

write your own poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive of a blessing

But seriously fellow poets, I cranked this surrealistic silliness out as pure formality,
so I am able to say with a clear conscience at least I attempted the prompt.