Poems

No mute word
After a long silence.

A step forward,
Attaining nothing.

The field of happiness in all lands,
And in that field no land in sight.

The true home is far-reaching,
And therein rests the middle of the world.

 

 

 

 

Sebastian Nicolle wrote this poem after the summercamp 2009 in Neu Schönau, northern Germany.

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Uli Dietze

 

Laura, my bicycle+me

when the wind
blows over your young head
and over my old one
on my bicycle

everything will become
one
the wind and
you and me

Uli Dietze, 44, is a Zen monk living in Tübingen, Germany. He works as a locksmith, is married and has a 14-year-old daughter.

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Peter Campbell

 

Sesshin

6.10 am
Still dark
Some idiot’s been snoring all night
Up 4 times —

The rolls of his snores
Crashing and breaking
Against the rocks
Of small mind

A rush of energy
And some birds,
Unknown birds,
Sing their things...

And he won’t be an idiot much longer

Smell of shit and toothpaste
And the gamey male body
And vegetation, fresh after rain
And the night and hot showers —

And the sounds of bracing, sighing
Reluctant bodies —
And the genmai is watery

Damn.

Peter Campbell is currently serving out the results of past karmic ineptitude in Paris’ up-and-coming 20th arrondissement where he is to be seen lying, boasting and living beyond his means in a variety of clip-joints and bars à vin.

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Guy Faure

 

The Shadow of Emptiness

The shadow of emptiness seeks its path
Groping along the city.
Slipping. Slowly. Amidst the sparkling.
All around. Endlessly.
To the sound of the heart.
To the sounds of the night of the soul...

Jazzy jazz, viva la paz, peace within you,
buddha, looking you straight in the eye,
absent but in front of you,
just passing shadows, wind on the windows,
full of lone emptiness, stars inside...

Buddha of the red halos,
white buddha of quivering neon
in the damp dark of autumn nights,
yellow buddha of moving glimmers
in the streets of shining puddles...

Guy Faure, 34, is a monk living and practicing in Nantes, where he paints, draws, writes and sometimes looks for work. He has several collections of poems in print (in French): Barefoot in the Snow, Wild Grass and Armed Concrete, and, hot off the press, Children Must Save Themselves...

 

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