don’t hesitate get laid

Ikkyu offers Zen poet irreverent wisdom

May you throw something away.
May you give yourself a big long squeeze.
May you kiss and praise a pet.

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Valentine by Anonymous (1847–70)

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Excerpts from Crow With No Mouth
by Ikkyū Sōjun, translated by Stephen Berg

The stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind

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only one koan matters
you

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poetry’s ridiculous write it feel proud
strut look in the mirror believe you know
don’t hesitate get laid that’s wisdom

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sitting around chanting what crap
the edges of the sword are life and death
no one knows which is which

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I like my anger my grouch furious love
amazing how we say such nice things about the dead

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nobody knows shit nobody lives anywhere
hello dust!

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even before trees rocks I was nothing
when I’m dead nowhere I’ll be nothing

from Crow with No Mouth, Ikkyū Sōjun, trans. Stephen Berg, Copper Canyon Press, 1989.

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Creative Invitations

Give yourself only three lines to write an impression of the day’s emotion and make a statement on life itself. Compress a voice into three lines like Ikkyu does, a statement, an exclamation, a muttering. Looking at his lines written in the 1400s, I feel them buzz with aliveness. What can you say today, off the cuff, that might still vibrate in 700 years?

In honor of the blessing to kiss and praise a pet, a picture of my cat, Feather, in bed tonight, patiently waiting for me to finish this letter. Nearly twenty, and still she vibrates!