George T. Hole

 

 

George T. Hole says “I am a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Buffalo State College and a fitful practitioner of Zen. I have poems published in The Buffalo News, Cimarron Review, Rapport and Stone Drum.”

 

 

 

The Shoelace Sutra

 

 

All right Buddha, this is not one

Of your Sanskrit scriptures

Translated letter by letter for centuries

By nameless monks. No, it is my silent broadcast

As I compose myself with numberless breaths.

On a black cushion I sit in hope

Of grasping enlightenment, though I confess

I only know what books say it is.

The incense burns.

The moment is, well, just the moment.

 

My eyes fix on my running shoes

Like two relatives come home, lots older,

Ready to tell stories about a world where

Paths lie open for boundless running.

(Most compassionate Buddha, please

Add a sign in your Eightfold Path for old jocks.)

Those shoe laces, so graceful, gesture:

Here are no knots to suffer untying.

My knees crave unbending.

Body cries for release.

 

I vanish into those perfectly-sized empty foot-spaces.

Would trade enlightenment for one more run,

Glorious, of course. But the thought dissolved

In oblivion. I recover myself

Back on the cushion itching.

I complain about this gravity of always being in

Just-this present-moment. My devoted

Running shoes want to be immediately laced.

Incense burns, as do desires.

My mind runs crazy.

 

 

 

 

Three Incarnations of a Fly

 

 

1.  Not yet gone beyond

 

Two soggy housefly-wings fight against each other

Flail against the unknown stickiness

Tongue-grounding them. Yet, in a Buddha moment of realization,

The taste buds in her feet taste something strange, tasting like herself.

Not yet, before the lizard-swallow, a question sounds.

Wake up. Wake.

 

2.  Before dinner

 

The fly, unknown to itself—an instance

Of family Muscidae—feels the air in-rush

Flits and alights elsewhere, again and again, effortlessly.

A mind, unknown to itself as billions of blinking neurons,

Follows that fly, knowing evil in the kitchen.

The hand, swat-drunken and failing its pure mind, flails the swatter

And misses again and again, is fueled by curses,

Is desperate, hiding from emptiness, is human in the hope of killing.

After satisfaction a small mess will need strong water and a caring hand.

 

3. Compassion

 

Quick tongue-snap in-curl, the fly—

Who lives off sweet rotting fruit—

Takes the form of lizard mouth and begins

A selfless journey into an asylum of juices.