Meditating on the War
POETRY FORMAT, 28 Oct 2013
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service
On January 16,
whoever is running this ashram
turned up the heat—
I’ve been sweating ever since.
Then, some weird roshi
disguised as George Bush
appeared on my TV
and gave me an impossible koan
about a moral war.
When I fall asleep watching the news
a pretty newscaster wakes me up
by telling me about bombs,
and I remember the roshi’s stick
bopping my shoulder.
General Schwarzkopf instructs me about
the paradoxes of desire and suffering,
and, as usual, I mostly think
about the pain in my knees
from sitting cross-legged,
while the pain of others
remains a televised abstraction.
I’m really tired of this war meditation—
when this retreat is over
I’m moving to another planet
where I won’t have to do
all this Buddhist stuff.
_______________________
Tom Greening: “I engage in five professional activities:
Faculty Member at Saybrook University
Private Practice of Psychotherapy
Clinical Professor of Psychology, UCLA
International Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Writing (Poetry).”
www.tomgreening.com
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Oct 2013.
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