Reading is re-minding. Bringing us back to our secret selves.
A word, an image, a story, an idea. And we are “there” again.

I’ve never preached the gospel according to Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, or anyone else, though I read into them all, still.

I am reminded this moment of an old Zen saying that has been with me since my first days before a class: “When the student is ready, the teacher arrives.”

That is a moment of transcendence. For writers and artists especially.

This is just another note on Basho’s way to haiku-mind.

Something I read last night reminded me.

The word glowing in the center of it all is “meditation.” Yes, we’ve all been there before. We’ve made mush of the concept, ‘marketing’ it to death. Yet—it comes to all of us without knowing, whether we beckon it or not.

If the poet, writer is to pay attention to the world, give the meaning it deserves, he must quietly pursue this pathway—or never meet the teacher waiting for him there. -norbert blei

And if you find that meditation does not come easily in your city room, be inventive and go out into nature. Nature is always an unfailing fountain of inspiration. To calm your mind, go for a walk at dawn in the park, or watch the dew on a rose in a garden. Lie on the ground and gaze up into the sky, and let your mind expand into its spaciousness. Let the sky outside awake a sky inside your mind. Stand by a stream and mingle your mind with its rushing; become one with its ceaseless sound. Sit by a waterfall and let its healing laughter purify your spirit. Walk on a beach and take the sea wind full and sweet against your face. Celebrate and use the beauty of moonlight to poise your mind. Sit by a lake or in a garden and, breathing quietly, let your mind fall silent as the moon comes up majestically and slowly in the cloudless night.

Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face in the subway, the sight of a small flower grow¬ing in the crack of a cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a window sill. Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments, to “the news that is always arriving out of silence.”

Slowly you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement. What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration. …
To embody the transcendent is why we are here.

from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, Harper Collins, 1994

~~norbert blei

He who binds to himself a Joy,
Does the winged life destroy;
He who kisses the Joy as it flies,
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

Tomasito’s World

Let me show you
In the universe of the Mason jar
The little galaxies
Of these lightning bugs!

[from letters to tomasito, Holy Cow Press, Minneapolis, 1977]

Sticks & Stones

Bare Bones

Poetry Beyond Politics

by

Norbert Blei

The beauty and brevity of a poem (a very small poem) to capture the moment, distill the essence of the thing/feeling observed, is certainly evident in these three lines (each a poem in itself) by Ed Markowski.

Putting aside the political/historical incident which precipitated this poetic response (which will not be mentioned or reviewed in this instance) we are only given, or merely left with three lines of poetry, which might also be read as a single poem of three lines—more genius, with only one word in the title ‘candidates’ suggesting a political reference.

Ten years from now, how will these three single-lined poems, or single poem, be read? Interpreted?

Or consider the poet, sometime in the future, deciding to include this in a book or a volume of his selected poems and, looking at everything again from that vantage point of time, decides to drop the title entirely.

election news a woman spits up sticks & stones

sharpening the darkness of her smile a poet

the color of a crow on the clothesline is perfect

-ed markowski

Concerning ‘politics and poetry’ one last time…I prodded the poet ‘just a little’ and received this response:

they’re separate poems, but they also form a “whole.” my intention was to create… a minimalist trilogy that read like a bare bones version of hunter thompson’s fear & loathing on the campaign trail. no name for the form. suppose it could be called minimalist linear free verse…-e.m.

Too often, reading and writing haiku is wading in shallow water. It feels good. It’s safe. You can see everything beneath the surface. No surprises. This is especially true in the beginning, testing the waters, getting one’s feet wet. Words float to the surface understandably and sometimes even reflect a little light.

Traditional, non-traditional: oh, it all comes together so simply. I can write these 5-7-5 lines with my eyes closed–or just say anything and make it a short poem.

But the true haiku (and/or the way to the small poem) lives and breathes in somewhat deeper waters. You may see it but you can’t quite catch it. And even when you may think you have it, something to show for your efforts, it keeps slipping away from you—as it should. That is its nature. That’s the true poem. At best, you catch the reflection. An then it’s gone. To live again in another moment of awareness.

Which brings to mind the work and words of Ed Markowski.

Unlike so many of the poets I admire, I have never read Ed’s poems on printed paper. Only the web. And primarily, one of my favorite sites Tinywords, which I have recommended to others in my writings before and I do so again. Part of my mission on Basho’s Road will include the periodic mention of exceptional poets writing ‘small’ and publications, websites, books devoted to this subject. So stay with me. And continue to spread the word up and down the road.

This may be the first poem by Ed Markowski I ever read—back in 2006:

dad’s grave…
all the flowers
he wouldn’t let mother plant

–Ed Markowski

And that’s it. Right there. He ‘nailed it’, so to speak. That’s what I’m after. That’s what we’re after. That’s what Basho’s Road is all about.

I continued to watch for Ed Markowski’s poems pop up on Tinywords. And I continued to admire everything he wrote. He’s got it, I said to myself. The scene. The eye to see inside. To simply lay the words on the line and let you see/feel for yourself.

In my humble estimation, my own small world of small poetry, he’s on his way to haiku master—if not already there.

After reading him for over two years, I thought I’d try to find him. Seek him out. Talk with him a little about his own journey inside the small poem. “Basho’s Road” in mind, he seemed a perfect stranger/poet to meet along the way and share with others.

I thought I’d begin with that old cliché “the haiku moment”—and so, here is Ed Markowski on this and that on other things to take to heart.Norbert Blei

• as for haiku moments…well… this is going to sound strange, but i’m in the process of dialing back my output.
• i judged a book contest for the haiku society of america last year and that just burned me out completely.
• i’m still convinced that the last thing the world needs is another collection of haiku.
• i don’t look for haiku moments. i think it’s more a matter of learning the craft, and placing things within that framework…
• one morning it was real foggy & i went out to rake the leaves. the leaves were ankle deep & covered everything. i thought, “well, i gotta begin somewhere.”
• that turned into…

fog…
i’ve got to begin
somewhere

• which was subsequently included in an anthology of the best haiku of 2006. three days ago i found a review of that anthology in modern haiku. the guy who wrote the review praised this poem up and down. he read a lot of things into it, & i was happy that it meant so much to him, but really the piece is about raking leaves & nothing else.

• i wrote my first minimalist poem in 1976. wrote my first haiku in 1989. it was a matter of tiring of writing screeds. i had to learn a different approach to the line for my fiction & figured haiku and senryu were a good place to start.

• good haiku for me feature a fresh approach in terms of craft & subject matter & they contain the thread that ties the fragment and phrase together.

• great haiku transcend genre & can stand with any poem regardless of length.

• west meets east? i don’t really think about it much. the whole thing for me is a matter of entertainment, it doesn’t have anything to do with philosophy or anything like that. but, you know it is true that in so many instances, less is more.

mother’s day
a groundskeeper rests against
her headstone

• i think the “haiku moment” is basically a mirage perpetrated by people who like to think they see the world in some special sort of way, or that they’re tuned into some higher frequency.

• well, here’s another of my “haiku moments… i was sitting in my garage reading the paper on a 95 degree day. there was an artist’s sketch of a rapist on the front page. so,

june heat
the artist’s sketch
of the rapist’s face

• came about. i thought the whole thing fit together somehow. it really is a matter of learning the form & then placing things within it.

• “june heat” was subsequently published. so, i think the haiku moment is all about smoke & mirrors. you know, it’s an illusion.

house of mirrors
i promise my wife
i’ll change

tunnel of love
our eyes adjust
to the darkness

• i noticed i failed to mention anything about the baseball haiku anthology

• i just wanted to say that cor van den heuvel found a way to introduce haiku to a much larger audience.

• i have 21 poems in the book.

teams chosen
the boy not chosen
lends me his glove

summer loneliness
dropping the pop-up
I toss to myself

• last may 22nd, cor, al pizzarelli, brenda gannam, billy collins & i did a reading at the national arts club in manhattan. packed house, beautiful venue, etc. it really was remarkable. billy collins was very humble, a genuine nice guy. & this poem…

poet laureate
he slursh hish worsh
the shame ash i

• has nothing to do with billy, it’s a self deprecating piece that harkens back to a life i led long ago.

Editor’s note: Ed Markowski’s

poetry & short fiction have appeared in electronic & print journals both nationally & internationally.

He will be reading at the Chautauqua Institution on June 26th with Cor Van Den Heuvel & Al Pizzarelli from Baseball Haiku, The Best Haiku Ever Written About The Game, as part of Chautauqua’s Sport In America Week. Ed lives with his wife Laurie in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

It was with awe
That I beheld
Fresh leaves, green leaves,
Bright in the sun.

from THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH and Other Travel Sketches, Penguin Classics, Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

.

speechless before
these budding green spring leaves
in blazing sunlight

from NARROW ROAD TO THE INTERIOR and Other Writings, Shambhala Publications, Translated by Sam Hamill

.