Poetry here.

[Green]

Shoulder decayed from your explaining
The angelic filthy ones
Their tired and broken views portraying
What you have or haven't done

Satellites whisper of you on waves
From low restricted suns
Beneath is a chance for understanding
The reason you can not come

To pull apart an empty capsule
An expanding rift in space begun
All that's left is the acceptance speech
A coward forever on the run

[Walker]

When attunement synchs frequency

Of idea and action

Any motion in form

Obsoletes the gym

When Brahmacharya breaks the barrier

That contains the wing'ed heaviness

Being a vibrating suspension of lightness

Walks quick and light

- Walker

[Walker]

Yes interesting. What would be the 5th line then as you see it?

Shoveling Snow With Buddha
by Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

[Green]

When attunement synchs frequency

Of idea and action

Any motion in form

Obsoletes the gym

When Brahmacharya breaks the barrier

That contains the wing'ed heaviness

Being a vibrating suspension of lightness

Walks quick and light

- Walker

Makes me think of either female virginity masturbation to trance music, or a tightrope walker staring at the sun with a smile as he/she falls to their death. I mean no disrespect by that.

[Walker]

When attunement synchs frequency

Of idea and action

Any motion in form

Obsoletes the gym

When Brahmacharya breaks the barrier

That contains the wing'ed heaviness

Being a vibrating suspension of lightness

Walks quick and light

- Walker

Makes me think of either female virginity masturbation to trance music, or a tightrope walker staring at the sun with a smile as he/she falls to their death. I mean no disrespect by that.

Interesting. Good to know and thanks for the feedback. Your interpretation belies the facts and reflects the limitations of your knowledge and experience, such is the way of poetry. The actual consequence of undistraction is perpetual sobriety, no matter the consumption: music, drugs, alcohol, fatigue, food, the company of others, sensory stimulation, etc. There is a leveling. Equanimity. This would likely seem like a loss to a limited perspective, however this is not so. It's not so much that one should follow the middle way, though this is the prescription of emulation, just as certain behaviors are advised within religions of Christianity and Islam. The middle way is the living consequence intended with the prescriptions of Buddha, though the actual being of the intention is a natural evolution leading to no effort.

[Green]

[Interesting. Good to know and thanks for the feedback. Your interpretation belies the facts and reflects the limitations of your knowledge and experience, such is the way of poetry. The actual consequence of undistraction is perpetual sobriety, no matter the consumption: music, drugs, alcohol, fatigue, food, the company of others, sensory stimulation, etc. There is a leveling. Equanimity. This would likely seem like a loss to a limited perspective, however this is not so. It's not so much that one should follow the middle way. The middle way is the consequence, the description of the natural evolution.

Could be why poetry is a dead forum, or maybe sobriety isn't very interesting.

[Walker]

[Interesting. Good to know and thanks for the feedback. Your interpretation belies the facts and reflects the limitations of your knowledge and experience, such is the way of poetry. The actual consequence of undistraction is perpetual sobriety, no matter the consumption: music, drugs, alcohol, fatigue, food, the company of others, sensory stimulation, etc. There is a leveling. Equanimity. This would likely seem like a loss to a limited perspective, however this is not so. It's not so much that one should follow the middle way. The middle way is the consequence, the description of the natural evolution.

... sobriety isn't very interesting.

Again, your limitations. Your world, which I can assure you, is narrower.

[Pluto]

Leaking sink under the cupboard
I took out and cleaned out all the plastic piping
Check that the rubber washer is still good
Rinsing out the dirt
Water must find a way
Put back together and tightened the pipes
Running water
No drip
But wait a drip has formed where before was dry
Can you take that pipe out tomorrow and clean it if you have time
Yes

[Pluto]

Now is tomorrow
Out came the pipe
Running water on tiled floor did run
Towels
Cleaning out the u-bend
A plastic washer is broke
Down to the shops on the bike
A strong wind blows me back
I arrive and buy two bags of different sized and materialed washers
Faster on the way home
Washer fits, tighten bracket
Run the water as fast as it can
No drip no leak
Fixed, for 2 euros 50
Feeling good.

[Walker]

Now is tomorrow
Out came the pipe
Running water on tiled floor did run
Towels
Cleaning out the u-bend
A plastic washer is broke
Down to the shops on the bike
A strong wind blows me back
I arrive and buy two bags of different sized and materialed washers
Faster on the way home
Washer fits, tighten bracket
Run the water as fast as it can
No drip no leak
Fixed, for 2 euros 50
Feeling good.

Your words are ripe for a poetic history lesson. No disrespect intended, and I sure wouldn't give it away if you could sell it, like Billy did.

Nostalgia
by Billy Collins

Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

[Pluto]

Your words are ripe for a poetic history lesson. No disrespect intended, and I sure wouldn't give it away if you could sell it, like Billy did.

The history of poetry
Am I not thinking about
When I put words down on the page
That which has gone before
Is both a good and a bad
In that the bad is helmet of iron
The power of art and of poetry
Is that the past present and future
Are but the same time all time
You speak as though
You know what good poetry is and can only be
How is this so?

[Pluto]

Helmet of iron
Upon your young head
You see it not for it is invisible
You have worn it since birth
The world before you doth require
A stance

[Walker]

History of plumbing.

I’m not a plumber but I learned the bread trick sweating my own pipes.

Keep up the good work.

[Pluto]

Plumb as you will and as you see fit
The question asked was good though
Those who define the world for us
A shame it is that those who run the world
Are free in the power to define it for us
A monopoly of the meaning of the world
You and you are such and must think such and such

[Walker]

Plumb as you will and as you see fit
The question asked was good though
Those who define the world for us
A shame it is that those who run the world
Are free in the power to define it for us
A monopoly of the meaning of the world
You and you are such and must think such and such

Pluto, I was just offering a suggestion to commercialize that poem, should you wish to try that. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I think your concept of a poem around plumbing is brilliant. My suggestion of bread and sweating was just a possible angle for you to consider, had you not. Truly, no offense intended. I understand the feelings that arise when someone meddles in a creative project, and so my apologies if I stepped over the line.