Poetrymind

Who made you Replicant Human

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 May 2022 15:35:00 +0000

Who made you replicant human

Devoid of empathy or just plain

Sensibility that the world

Of your projections is an ephemeral

Event made of someone else's mind

Perhaps you are not even human

But a bundle of digital apparatus

With a programmed script of responses

Without critical reflections---

See how your inner torture of neediness

Wanting more, rejecting “different”

Just plain stupidity

So destroys the fabric of relationships

But we are of the human realm

Not yet the manufactured robotics

Of --AI, secretly coded in conspiracy

We are the realm of hope and fear

Where dreaming creates myriad worlds

Of Heaven and Hell, our stories alive

With pleasure or pain, animating wild

Momentary projections imagined

Actors on a screen reflecting back to us

Whether welcome or rejected

An endless round of confusion

Empty of substantiation

We can never trust

For their coming and going

Yet, we are seers of the divine

Called numerous names

Within and Without

Outside time –A La Ho

I Can Not Help But Weep

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 May 2022 15:03:00 +0000

I cannot help but weep

For those shattered

By the grief of their own

Destiny or karma

I embrace our terror

The stark hardship

Of aliveness

Which is all of us

Bountiful at times

Always sorrowful

With the forecast

Of coming and going

One day it’s starving manatees

Ancient Gentle creatures

Rooting in the sea grasses

Gorged with plastic

People of Yemen, Afganistan, Syria, Iran, iraq

Once the cradle of civilization

Now subdued by Tribal hatreds

I can not help but weep for the piles

Of violins and braids at Auschwich

Nameless remains of those incinerated --the

Horror of a final solution

Nor for dark War loads

Of America unleashing

Firebombs laced

With agent orange

Insidious masters

Of regime change

It’s always been so

Somewhere

Like yesterday’s numbing

Murders of children

I embrace you not for Grace

But the love of other

That melts the hatred

Of difference

Indifference

Come my dear ones

Let’s embrace the abject forlornness

Of our humanity, never letting go

Never giving up instead

Rest in what endures

Beyond the loneliness

Of all those places we fear to travel.

Language leaves me now

But cells remember locked

Festering at our humanity

Until we release our lack love

May 22-25 2022

Writ heart heavy at twilight

as storn clouds gather

Into the coming night on my porch

Amid pansies and chimes

A Fresh Look at the Spiritual Life of the Late Poet, Allen Ginsgerg, on the 25th Anniversay of his Death on April 5th, 1997

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 21:03:00 +0000

A Work in Progress by Jacqueline Gens/Draft ONLY

The late bard, beloved friend and mentor Allen Ginsberg (1926-97) remains present even decades later for many of us whose lives he touched either directly or in his works. Those of us who also studied with Tibetan master, Chogyam Trungpa, are bound together even further. Trungpa’s initial entre introducing Vajrayana Buddhism to the West in the mid 1970’s was to summon “the” poets to his new endeavor, the Naropa Institute and they came. The poets (and writers of the Beat generation), on the other hand, were already prescient investigators of consciousness thru drugs, meditation and mantra who heard his call.

As history tells it, Trungpa met these open minded and wild denizens of the times head on their own terms-- smoking cigarettes, sexual promiscuity, drinking and drugging, and yet both magnetized a generation of literal and symbolical seekers of naked mind, the essence of Mahamudra free from delusion. Such was the willingness to regard new avenues of exploration. Today, Naropa University is a leading accredited institution in Buddhist inspired and Contemplative education. Many things can be said about Chogyam Trungpa but one need only read his vast scholarly and teaching transcripts to experience his greatness as a teacher, if unconventional to Westerners. For a man born in a Yak tent in a remote part of Tibet and dead by the age of 47, he accomplished much.

Early April when they both died (a decade apart) is a time, I often contemplate their profound impact on my life. In recent years I’ve taken a more objective look at the intersection of their lives historically and their mutual influence on the development of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. I’m no apologist but often find myself in the middle of a Rubik cube of misinformation trying to match up the details of my own first-hand knowledge with the shifting sands of time. But as we know, what was then no longer exists except in our wily memories. None the less, flashes of recollection spark my memory of the long working relationship I experienced with Allen within the mandala of Trungpa Rinpoche, especially Naropa Institute (now University), then later in his NYC office.

In my personal assessment of Allen as a literary figure, he synthesized for me the Blakean visionary potential (Albion) of a new era married to the humanitarian expansiveness of poet Walt Whitman who foresaw his successors as concerned with the “Main Things” which Allen fulfilled. Combine this with the clarity of his meditation practice and one can taste the fruits of his greatness as a person. While his personality may not have been perfect, his lifelong dedication for a deep empathy with others marked his early vow to benefit humanity. Recognizing himself as some kind of genius in early childhood, he fulfilled his destiny becoming an agent of change spontaneously at key historical moments transforming whole cultures and generations of writers who in turn would play significant roles in their own cultures.

I found him a superb teacher especially his evolving Dharma Poetics and Mind Writing Slogans at the jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, a bold container for nurturing aspiring poets and writers. His archive attests to the thousands of global youth who wrote him, including myself. During every world crisis, I imagine his cognizant commentary. He was an avid reader of the New York time daily engaging with world events and often appearing on television or in interviews. Delivering his mail to him in the early years I worked for him in NYC, it was not unusual to meet him in his pajamas with laundry hanging inside his entrance hallway. I often got a summation of the day’s news along with a late breakfast while sorting through mail. Those moments remain treasured memories of ordinary intimacy without artifice or tension.

As a gay man, Allen was an advocate of tender-hearted sacred fellowship iconized in his lengthy photographic record of friendships with lovers and kindred spirits. We know there were serious casualties in his charismatic love life with many a broken-hearted man and woman—especially in his earlier years and some later too. He could be irascible, shrewd, needy of love (RD Laing once said of Allen to me when living in Boulder), enthusiastic, dismissive of those seeking approval, bluntly curious, generous, and loyal to a fault. Candor was his motto and he rarely suffered fools who thought highly of themselves. His ability to connect with people was characterized by the classic Vajrayana term Padma, the symbolic engaged and charismatic lover borne of the lotus arising from mud combined with the Vajra of mirror like wisdom—the roiling waters of anger stilled in reflective clarity. He adored young and brilliant mostly straight men but disdained to be caught in binary categories as he was wont to say, because he had his “male dignity.”

I honestly do not know why he took to me in our early encounters at Naropa Institute where I was a graduate student in Buddhist Studies. He often engaged me in chit-chat some evenings in the empty hallways after hours as I cleaned offices for work study while he picked up his mail. In the Summer of 1984, when I worked as a cook at Kappa Sigma for the annual summer writing program, he often brought his dishes into the kitchen along with more chit-chat and eventually questions about my background. By the following year I lived with him and company during the summer writing program along with Philip Whalen as a kind of house mother in a mansion owned by his old classmate at Columbia University, David Padawa. By the time I met him, he was avuncular, professorial, and deeply kind. Likewise, I appreciated him dearly for his unexpected regard.

Some characterized him as misogynist often forgetting women’s names or mixing them up which was true. I never experienced that nor did some others. His generation was backwards. He called me doll in moments of affection--but in the end I was happy he had a female psychiatrist who helped him navigate unresolved issues about his mother and women. He had many professional women who admired him which he recorded in portraits rarely seen together as a collection—many of them iconic figures. This is yet to happen! Two of his first meditation instructors were women—Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown, an Acharya and Tsultrim Allione, an authorized Lama—both lifelong friendships. And, of course, he founded the Jack Kerouac School with Anne Waldman. One day arriving at his office late afternoon, generally the case, he reported that he had a remarkable experience as he crossed a street on the way to his Union Square office realizing that the anger he continually projected onto someone was really about his mother. In his journals, he recorded in minute details his hopes and fears and dreams over his complicated relationship with Peter Orlovsky with barely a mention of a female.

From my perspective, we were fellow travelers on the path to self-discovery. Unbeknownst to many of his literary colleagues and friends who were often suspect of his devotion to his various Gurus, he was a dedicated practitioner who spent years studying the basics of Buddhism with a preference for formless Vipassana meditation and Lam Rim specializing in Madhyamika or the analytical investigation of the nature of mind. He wasn’t a great fan of ritual and all the bells and whistles of tantra except for mantra. Towards the end of his life he fully entered into the path of Vajrayana world of the classic Gelugpa triad of Yamantaka, Vajrayogini and Cakrasamvara sadhanas with his second significant Tibetan teacher, Gelek Rinpoche.

To this day not one biographer has integrated his life and work with the various phases of his progressive practice life other than the outward details of when and where he attended some retreat but never the view, practice, and integration of each practice. Simply saying he attended a Hinayana retreat means nothing to the uninitiated. For someone younger person adept in similar practices there is a Ph.d awaiting to cross reference with his copious practice notes and journals and tapes which are considerable in number. This is an important addition to his biography as some Academics not proficient in the depth of his training are now being quoted as authorities in a tangle of mistaken facts for lack of knowledge or drawing on a few essays about meditation for his classes or magazine articles early on. As a practitioner and authorized teacher of mind training, it was his goal to speak in an American idiom of common language rather than cultural overlays from other countries.

So, in April I salute Allen for bestowing his gifts of clarity and kindness in the service of language. And when I hear the early morning songs of the crows outside my window they remind me of the fragility of this life---that comes and goes but every moment, every breath an opportunity to realize the tendrils of our interconnection in the larger web of wisdom mind outside time. EMAHO…(WONDORUS…)

Jacqueline Gens studied Tibetan Buddhism when she moved to Boulder, CO tin 1983 to attend Trungpa’s Naropa Institute. She was employed in a variety of administrative positions there until she moved to NYC From 1988/89-1994 to work in the NY office of Ginsberg and Associates. She co-founded and co-directed the New England College MFA Program in Poetry from 2001- 2012 until she retired. She is currently creating course platforms for the study of poetry in relationship to diverse Wisdom traditions at Language in the Sky. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing and an MAT in Teaching in her 50’s following studying Classics and Anthropology at Smith College. Her main practice is poetry.

America

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:18:00 +0000

This is one of my exercises I call COPYCAT poems - In this case, a rewrite of "America" inspired by Allen Ginsberg's original 1956 "America," but in my own syntax.

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

America who are you?

I thought I knew you.

Fools gold

America where are you going?

America you were never all that great

the stain of slavery your karmic legacy

broken treaties your heartbreak

Who will pick your strawberries

clean your toilets now

when you build that wall

America this is not a "reality" show

delusions of fat cats who lack empathy

America "You're Fired"

I fear there's no going back
America I deplore your greed
and need to own it all, the refuse of stuff
to make a buck

America can we fix this?

Written during the reign of Donald Trump 2017-2021

A Moment of Sahaja

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 05:24:00 +0000

Love Shamelessly

Sounding syllables

Of light, rays

Love Savagely

Break open the cage

Of self-clinging

Love Shamelessly

Your mind swelling

Like an ocean

Your Heart radiating

Lights of liberation

In the great bliss of awakening

Love Shamelessly

Your body vibrating

In union with the luminosity

Of infinite joy

May all beings join

The cosmic dance of Love

This body that comes and goes

Like exchanging an old coat for a new one

Kye Ho! How wonderful

To be free of it -- Shinning naked

3:00 AM

Year of the Metal Rat 2020-2022 Losar New Year Poems according to the Tibetan calendar COMING SOON

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 16:41:00 +0000

Behold the brazen strut

From high-minded bigmouths

Amid sharp-shooters

And illusory masters of material gain

Smart know-it-alls before lesser peers

Beware that molten hook of unkindness

The sting of your indifference

Your bold lies

As visible as your ratty tail

Take a moment and mingle your mind

In the vast expanse of openness

Simply forget yourself and take

A leap into the greater good

Text by Jacqueline Gens

Illustration by Ingmar Pema Dechen

In Praise of Mediocrity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 03:00:00 +0000

In Praise of Mediocrity
for Reggie

Didn’t it used to be part of the Golden Mean —that balance
Between heaven and earth
The phi of perfect harmony
It’s distance measurable to acquiring pentagrams
A magic lintel betwixt and between lacking in status
All perfections linked to the median
Between becoming and completion
That naked cipher of valuation
Among worldly configurations
No worries for me walking down streets
To the hoots of male orangutans
Or jealous vixens wishing me dead
Clinging sycophants wanting my money
Stabs in the back
The queen of mediocrity is hardly noticed
Her paucity a mantle of invisibility
To the ultimate zero
A sublime nothingness
The simple fact is
Genius prefers a C minus like Einstein
With freedom to ruminate unwashed
And unwatched in heavenly exploration
Playing every angle
Then stand bewitched before elemental fractals
If beautiful, everyone wants to own you, have a piece
Or circle in for the kill for standing out sublime
But ordinary is profound too
When lit from within
A brief glimmer
It’s luminescence spreading

They will always love you for your mind
My mother said........

2011 with some revisions 01/5/2020

Vipassana Scribbles

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 01:08:00 +0000

Forbidden Scribbles**

on a Ten Day Vipassana Retreat

Lying in Buddha posture

Outside I hear geese

Like me flying home

First Buds of Spring

Bird rustles in the underbrush

Can you ask a poet not to sing?

Old lady nods off

Drooping head signals torpor

Lion awakes without fail

Are clouds sky--sky clouds?

Where are you mind?

I looked everywhere and can’t find you

Cars rush, Ocean of Dharma***

Squeaky door, cat’s meow

What’s real?

**Generally one is discouraged from writing or reading on a traditional Vipassana retreat. These mostly composed in my head outdoors during walking meditation, then jotted down on scraps of paper later
***Part of my Bodhisattva name

Great Clips

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 08:44:00 +0000

The following poem draft was written for my poetry group based on Gary Snyder's "Bubb 's Creek Haircut," one of my favorite poems

Great Clips Mohawk Trail Plaza

hair salon in Greenfield, MA next door to Big Y

a uni-sex cut arises out of shorn chemo curls

carpeted in arcs on linoleum floor

I may not spit like a man but I got me

a man's haircut still burning with shame

silent chants of Tare Tare Tare to calm

my already bad day worse

deemed an ugly visage staring scornfully back at me
earlier check up at Valley Medical

blood glucose higher than usual

blood pressure ok

looking forward to Mississippi trip

practice with Ingmar and Sergio

moderate meals eaten same time everyday

thinking of snakes awakening seeking reprieve

from winter cold

can they really come into the house

through plumbing to curl up

under toasty bed covers

sneaking about a common feature
of Mississippi life

I read on the internet

now, I'm decades back

at Tara Mandala siting on the banks of San

Juan river naked with the Methodist mom

Rocketeller wife as we watch our friends

across the river squealing in joy playing with Ute mud

said to be healing

then a snake swimming upstream towards
the embankment with ladies its flat torpedic head

hideous sensing targets

crackling twigs behind us as two men
with heavy boots stand above us

while we cover ourselves best we can

then evaporate into the bushes

were they real or another snake vision

Pondering all this jumble

snakes real or not

as I tip Jesse at Great Clips Hair Cuts.

February 2, 2019
Revised May 21, 2019
Highland Village
in Shelburne Falls, MA

Vajra Poem for These Times

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 01:14:00 +0000

We are the flame that melts conceptual mind

We are the flame that protects the indestructible mandala

We are the flame that dances in the fire

We are the flame that kindles endless compassion

one candle at a time

OM
AH
HUM

Written by Jacqueline Gens following a fire puja on Khandroling

Photo courtesy of Rosemary Rawcliffe

The Thin Line

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 01:08:00 +0000

For David Hernandez
A grandfather whose kindness I can never repay

The fires are lit to stave
Off first hoarfrost
The harvest in
With its scent of rot mingled
Amid sweetness
Overhead winged
Cry out in joyful unison
On their way home
Below crickets trill
Las Abuelas begin the story
Stitching us to the tapestry
Weaving our fate
Into the fragile web
Gossamer threads between
Being and non-being
Betwixt between
The thin line of here
And over there
Outside time
The fires are lit
For love and
Heart’s desire
Before extinquished
In final glory
And all is well

Day of the Dead installation, KPC October 31, 2016

Photo by Jacqueline Gens

October 19, 2016

Tsegyalgar East

Recent Reviews Published in the Mirror, International Newspaper of the Dzogchen Community

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 10:05:00 +0000

I've been writing regularly for the Mirror since 1994. The following reviews are currently online at www.melong.com

A Review of Jennifer Fox's film, The Tale
http://melong.com/the-tale-a-film-by-jennifer-fox/

A Review of Lama Tsultrim Allione's Wisdom Rising Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
http://melong.com/book-review-wisdom-rising-lama-tsultrim-allione/

A Review of Malcolm Smith's, Buddhahood in This Life
http://melong.com/book-review-buddhahood-in-this-life/

A Review of Joseph Goldstein's, Mindfulness a Practical Guide to Awakening
http://melong.com/mindfulness-a-practical-guide-to-awakening/

Other older reviews can be found here reprinted at Poetrymind
https://tsetso.blogspot.com/p/my-book-reviews.html

The Lilac Thief

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 19 May 2018 01:13:00 +0000

OK, it's that time of year and I'm a sucker for lilacs. I steal them by the armfuls past midnight or in the hours just before dawn when there's no one else around. T Here's a poem I wrote about in 2003 at the height of my prowling for lilacs on other peoples' property or in abandoned places. The particular location that most inspired me was at the edge of Memorial Park in Brattleboro, VT. Eventually the bushes died off but for some years they were a bountiful sources of heirloom deep purple bushes.

The Lilac Thief

This year I looked for lilacs
off the beaten track
in places no longer tended –

A different kind of boundary,
long rows where once houses stood,
lots now empty.

I love the deeper purple of old bushes,
their crushed bloomets falling into my hand
taken from gnarled bark bearing heavy plumage.

I am the local lilac thief,
that one who stops to follow
the scent of unseen blossoms.

Jacqueline Gens

2003

First Lilacs

photo by Jacqueline Gens

A Birthday Poem for Me by Verandah Porche

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:03:00 +0000

Jacqueline Gens on her way

to milk IO* in the barn at Packers Corner Farm

Jacqueline 1982

Rock walls hold the forest like a cash crop:
...some massive stand of late maturing corn.
A cellar hole, a hearthstone topped with
beaten brick, a spring box like a covered dish:
some raw ingredients of myth. Time is still
the laughing chef. Her favored trick: tectonics.

Six burner blaze on our modern stove.
You whip or simmer with no recipe;
know what to coddle,
when to bruise. Try glacier.
Use avalanche.

Verandah tweaked this older poem circa 1982 (age 32) for my 61st birthday on January 20, 2011, which she posted on Facebook. We lived together for a time at Total Loss Farm AKA Packer Corners Farm in Guilford, Vermont (1976-1982) which she founded in the late 1960s along with friends Raymond Mungo, Marty Jezer, Richard Wizansky among others. Verandah has continued to live on the farm for decades raising her two daughters and scribing her poems.

We met yesterday in Greenfield to discuss details of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Packers Corner Farm. Visit Monteverdi Artists Collaborate here.

Listen to a great VPR interview with Tom Fells originally of Montague Farm and Verandah Porche of Total Loss Farm

PHOTO by Virginia Paige: Jacqueline Gens milking IO, resident Jersey cow (see poem below). Packer Corners Farm, Guilford, VT

IO*

Twice, I imagined her name called, once
when my lover came to visit, and then again,
in the root cellar where I strained in the dark
to listen among potatoes and onions.

Twice daily, I called out to her-- I O
toward the back pasture from which she came running
to enter the barn and charge into her stanchen
awaiting hay, and that greater reward, grain.

I squatted on a three-legged stool
tipping forward, my face pressed into her Jersey flank,
right forearm barring her feisty kicks
while I massaged hard udders to let down her milk.

Each time I heard or said her name,
I thought of that other cow driven insane
by furies when thoughts assailed my mind of L.
making me crazy--

Until a tension released itself through her milk’s flow
as I grasped two tits and the warm stream
poured out into the stainless steel bucket
and we both came into Egypt-- I, out of despair.

IO on the run through Monteverdi props,

circa 1978

by Jacqueline Gens
2008 from Primo Pensiero, Shivistan Press

Coming Soon Year of the Earth Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 22:27:00 +0000

Some of you may have read what I call my annual Losar New Year poems over the past decade. To date I have completed about 15 of these based on real time you can link to below. I am currently working on completing all 60 animal/element combinations and revising what I've already done in collaboration with visionary artist, Ingmar Pema Dechen.

So far I have completed the following combinations:

2007 of the Fire Pig
2008 of the Earth Oxen
2009 Year of the Earth Rat
2010 Year of the Metal Tiger
2011 Year of the Metal Rabbit
2012 Year of the Water Dragon
2013 Year of the Water Snake
2014 Year of the Wood Horse
2015 Year of the Wood Sheep

2018 Year of the Earth Dog

Oh you Earth Dog come

Now happiness wagging

Your familial greeting

That cheers us up as I bend to you my lovely

In display of your canine Sagacity

Ever Loyal--

Ever Reliable

Follow your keen scent

For sniffing out what’s apparent

Bury the bone of your content

Within our breast

For Safe Keeping

Humanitarian sustenance of justice

With your nose to the grindstone

Bark at shadows wrecking havoc at our door

Growl baring teeth to terrify

Cowards who roust our peace

Lift a leg to leave your mark

While yet you enliven our joy lest we forget

The great companion you are

Forever by our side

Text by Jacqueline Gens

Illustration by Ingmar Pema Dechen

Here is Year of the Fire Bird for 2017

Original art by Ingmar Pema Dechen, 2017

Year of the Fire Rooster/Bird

Ever awake among the slumbering
Lively harbinger of whatever awaits
Each day no task too daunting
For just as the sun rises
You’re always ready for any occasion
Reliable, precise, and to the point
No poison too toxic nor lethal
For that bright display which cheers us on
O great Fire Bird who arises from ashes
To transport us beyond our limits
In shining iridescence to meet our purpose
We welcome your daily summons
Into the fray at day’s break

Jacqueline Gens
Tsegyalgar East
Dakini Day, 2.21.17

Please credit Jacqueline and Ingmar if you you forward their image and poem. They are currently collaborating on rendering all sixty animal/element combinations into illustrated/poems. To read more about this project called "The Mansion of Elements" visit here. There you will also find poems from 2007 to the present.

Here is The Year of the Fire Monkey for 2016

[Original art by Ingmar Pema Dechen, 2016]

Ho you Fire Monkey
Adorable Familiar of blessed places
Resourceful, enchanting
Cunning when need be
Your chatter flattens the dolts of ignorance
When you take

Charge in a carpe diem kind of way
Your ballast of confidence
Lifts our spirits

Seer of the future
Interlocutor to lost opportunities
Let’s take to heart
the ease of your swing from here to there
Always awake in the fire

Needless to say these are not “great" poems but they are interesting. Over the years many people have expressed appreciation. My process is not any official astrological training or reference. Nor do I intend any disrespect to the Tibetan tradition of astrology closely aligned with training in Tibetan Medicine.

Mainly, I meditate on the animal, then the element which I combine with a kind of intuitive sense of the year at hand. These particular poems seem to write themselves. The results are strangely in harmony with the “official” forecasts. They also reflect my own personal mind training at the time. I’d like to compile the complete version of all 60 animal/element combinations as an offering to future communities of practitioners in the Vajrayana and Dzogchen lineages.

They are meant to inspire and encourage people on the long and enduring path towards realization.

My main inspiration comes from my teachers and poetry mentors including Chogyam Trungpa, Choegyal Namkhai Norbu, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Anne Waldman and the late Allen Ginsberg. Many Thanks to dharma and poet buddies sharing the path. Thanks everyone for all your support over the years.

I am currently focusing on birth poems for friends and personalized poems for hire (by donation.

Here is my most recent addition: Year of the Wood Rooster for 1945, birth year for many poet friends. This one in honor of my friends Anne Waldman, Vernadah Porche and Richard Wizansky.

[original art by Ingmar Pema Dechen]

Such iridescent display

Cockadoodiling us awake

Each day without fail

As reliable as the sun

you rise to summon forth

Bright scrys of portend

Acuity for the larger meanings in the scheme

Of so-called phenomena

Beneficent scribe to the downcast

Outsiders, end stop

You set the bar high

A million hands in the fire

No task too daunting

Harbinger of new, always fresh

Our number one

Jacqueline Gens
Shelburne Falls, MA
Last updated February 5, 2016

The newest composition is a private commission for Year of the Water Tiger with original art by Ingmar Pema Dechen

Behold the Water Tiger
Worldly navigator
Among all things adventurous
At home in the unknown
Buoyed by the ease of water
Even the heaviest notions
Lightly flow by twists and turns
Where no one else dares to go
You are the harbinger of mystery
A playful glint of luminosity
Amid roiling turbulence
Flash of certainty in the deep swell
Of aquifer forever brave
Our Sleek innovator
All accomplishing to the end

Jacqueline Gens
5/8/2016

Original art by Ingmar Pema Dechen

Review of Enlightened Vagabond: The Life and Teachings of Patrul Rinpoche by Jacqueline Gens in Levekunst

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 00:49:00 +0000

To read the full review visit Levekunst

http://levekunst.com/enlightened-vagabond/

Enlightened Vagabond

The Life and Teachings of Patrul Rinpoche
Collected and Translated by Matthieu Ricard
Edited by Constance Wilkinson
Foreword by H.H. Dalai Lama
Shambhala Publications
Boulder, 2017, 282 pages

*****

His (Patrul's) self-deprecating humor and keen intellect combined with a vast heart pierce the human yearning for authenticity amid the sorrows of sentient life. His words go beyond poetic conceits and cultural baggage. In any case, I have remained wildly enthusiastic about the works of Patrul Rinpoche for decades now. The current publication is a much awaited event to carry his mindstream further into the 21st century. If you are unfamiliar with his work, you’re in for a special experience when coming into contact with him. Please read him. If he is an old heart friend, Enlightened Vagabond will not disappoint! -Jacqueline Gens

To purchase this book here is the Amazon link.

An interview with editor Constance Wilkinson is in the works....coming soon!

An Interview with Jacqueline Gens by Jillian Mukavetz in Womens' Quarterly Conversation - Profiles in Poetics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 02:13:00 +0000

Some years ago while I was still working as Co-director with Jim Harms in the New England College MFA Program in Poetry circa 2010/2011, Jillian Mukavetz - a graduate student in the program interviewed me. At that time we had a dynamic faculty including Ilya Kaminisky, Eleni Siklianos, Carol Frost, Malena Morley, Brian Henry, and Anne Waldman every winter who cultivated among students an experimental thesis presentation.

Jillian was one such example with her series of interviews. I recently came across it online and wow did she do a great job. To read it, visit the Womens' Quarterly Conversation/ Profiles n Poetics at :

https://womensquarterlyconversation.com/2011/05/12/profiles-in-poetics-jacqueline-gens/

Jillian Mukavetz (left) meeting with her mentor, Eleni Siklianos

MFA Program in Poetry at

New England College, circa 2011

"Jacqueline Gens comes from a strong lineage of Russian women storytellers who originally migrated to the United States, more specifically Southern California, shortly before she was born. Here, Gens describes her world existing on the “cusp”. In this space of the between, the gritty earth, clouds overhead, language, music, culture; the sacred became, as it still is today, a space of vibrancy and wholeness. Quite similar to Anne Waldman’s forward in Gens’ recently published chapbook Primo Pensiero, Waldman expresses, “this debut bouquet of poems is an elegant display of ordinary mind spiked with the magic and heart of ‘Big Mind’ sensibility.”

When asked about the influence of Buddhism in Gens’ life, she describes her practice as one wrapped around, amidst, below, and between, every moment. She says, “waking up to me is synonymous with touching earth, not escaping for something higher or more abstract.” As co-director and founder of the New England College, Jacqueline tells me “I have served the muse well in this lifetime by nurturing the work of other writers and especially hundreds of new writers finding their voice.” In this way, she nurtures the internal of the feminine in a way that is a gift to the self and importantly to the larger community as well.

1.) Where are you from? What were the first inspirations that made you desire to become a writer? Who, what, where, influenced you as a writer? In other words how did you arrive here as a writer?...............

- to read more...go here.

Photo by Jacqueline Gens

Thin Line--An October Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 02:16:00 +0000

Day of the Dead installation, KPC October 31, 2016

Photo by Jacqueline Gens

October 19, 2016

Tsegyalgar East

Another Found Poem--Gould's Sugar House

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 21:40:00 +0000

Gould’s Sugar House

I wait for Kate my therapist
Now long-time friend
To join me for brunch
At Gould’s Sugar House
On Route 2's historic Mohawk Trail
Early spring day when hardly any sap
Will flow -- for you see it takes freezing nights
And warm days to make the sap
This peculiar cusp of no-winter
There in the rustic barn above the sugar
House for a contemplative moment
I see all the people before me
Their music the din of restaurant
Noises, sips of coffee in anticipation of pancakes
waffles, corn fritters

Each in their own vision of reality
Not touching yet together seeking
That taste of sweetness

Jacqueline Gens
Revised October 5, 2017
Highland Village
Shelburne Falls, MA

More Haiku Offering by Jacqueline Gens

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 03 May 2016 18:05:00 +0000

While looking through old notebooks and teaching materials I came across some Haiku and American sentences jotted down that I did in 2012.

On Leaving my Dentist's Office on High Street, Brattleboro, VT

Taunted by impermanence three strangers stand
By the side of the road contemplating the sadness of animals
Cat run over

American Sentence Version

Taunted by impermanence three strangers huddle around cat road kill

Dream

Furry animals shiver together while Buddha comforts us

American Sentences

My Mother's sad face returns to me in the soft snow I didn't notice

BREATHE the monk Philip said to me when two phones rang at the same moment

Haiku

The old poet sat with me on the cement stoop
Early morning coffee in Boulder
Yelling caw caw back to the crows above

Snow plows scrape ground
Harsh words uttered grate tender
Phantom enemies

The red haired young man
Hates me like so many others
Forgive me, son

Spring is here and that means Garlands of Lilacs, Forsythia, and Daffodils

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 May 2016 07:30:00 +0000

May 5 Lecture/workshop in Pittsfield MA on the Poetics of Uncertainty
May 7 Next Meditation and Writing Group at the Shelburne Falls Shambhala Center
May 15 at Khandroling Paper Cooperative we will have a workshop with Dara Juels

The Morris Dancers are out in full force these days. Here's a classic May Day dance/song at dawn:

Then there is our own Packers Corner friends who have celebrated May Day for over forty years with poet Verandah Porche in a photo taken by Poetrymind writing group participant Terry Carter.

Forbidden Scribbles from a Vipassana Retreat

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 01 May 2016 13:17:00 +0000

Forbidden Scribbles**

on a Vipassana Retreat

Lying in Buddha posture

Outside I hear geese

Like me flying home

First Buds of Spring

Bird rustles in the underbrush

Can you ask a poet not to sing?

Old lady nods off

Drooping head signals torpor

Lion awakes without fail

Are clouds sky--sky clouds?

Where are you mind?

I looked everywhere and can’t find you

Cars rush, Ocean of Dharma***

Squeaky door, cat’s meow

What’s real?

**Generally one is discouraged from writing or reading on a traditional Vipassana retreat. These mosty composed in my head outdoors during retreat, then jotted down on scraps of paper
***Part of my Bodhisattva name

A Vajra Verse from Flight of the Garuda by Shabkar, Translated by Keith Dowman

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 19:52:00 +0000

On the parchment of diverse red and white phenomena
the bamboo quill of self-existent primal awareness
and Knowledge inscribes baseless
unattached ciphers liberated from the beginning
creating images to be read in the space
of co-emergent appearances and emptiness.

from Song 23
Flight of the Garuda

Some Poems by Participants in the Meditation and Writing Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 06:52:00 +0000

A Few Fibonacci Poems from Sarah Doyle

To read more about this fun poetic form visit the Poetry Foundation here.

What is it?

Fibonacci poem (or Fib) is a multiple-line verse based on the Fibonacci sequence so that the number of syllables in each line equals the total number of syllables in the preceding two lines.

Charlie in the Corn: Darwin at Mike’s Maze

were

surprised

to see the

cladistics on the

handout at Mike’s Maze, the grand head

of old Darwin amazed in corn: myxinformes, dipnoi,

petromyzontiformes, crocodilia, testudines: What kind of farmer is this?

We tramped slick mud paths among cornstalks, following trails of thought from form to form, synapse to synapse, traced the fragile wire of Darwin’s glasses

where they bridged his nose past abrupt, dead-end paths that marked his forehead’s thoughtful furrows.

From the wavy trails of his beard, exotic rivers

flowed to Galapagos finches.

His beseeching eyes

sought Down House:

his own

soft

nest.

Bliss

Small

black

dog is

snoring gently on

the bed. Her trust is absolute.

We tell her, “I love you, Poochlie-Boodles. We love you,

Dog-Pie.” We give her treats, rub her belly. We engage in dog worship, stroking her warm,

hairy little belly. Unmitigated bliss. Sighs.

We envy her. We want bliss, too.

This is as close as

we’re ever

going

get.

Charlie in the Corn: Darwin at Mike’s Maze

were

surprised

to see the

cladistics on the

handout at Mike’s Maze, the grand head

of old Darwin amazed in corn: myxinformes, dipnoi,

petromyzontiformes, crocodilia, testudines: What kind of farmer is this?

We tramped slick mud paths among cornstalks, following trails of thought from form to form, synapse to synapse, traced the fragile wire of Darwin’s glasses

where they bridged his nose past abrupt, dead-end paths that marked his forehead’s thoughtful furrows.

From the wavy trails of his beard, exotic rivers

flowed to Galapagos finches.

His beseeching eyes

sought Down House:

his own

soft

nest.

Sarah grew up in Cleveland and lived for many years in Boston/Cambridge, where she worked in college publishing and then freelanced as an editor, proofreader, and book promo writer. In the1990s, she developed an interest in the history of science pursuing it ever since, particularly through the phenomena of posture photographs and the dinosaur footprints of the CT River Valley, which end up having surprising crosscurrents. Presently, she works at Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield) creating events and a website dedicated to the discovery of dinosaur footprints, and at Independent Living Resources (ILR), a nonprofit working on accessibility for people with disabilities. Her poems are steeped in the local history of Deerfield and her historical interests.

In Memorium: April 5, 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 06:48:00 +0000

VISITATION

for Allen (1926-1997)

A few days later I saw you

seated at a dusty crossroad

looking toward a vista of waterways

reminiscent of a cranberry bog or salt water marsh,

maybe the River Styx.

A geography of immensity without habitation

where you sat on an old wooden stool

with books and papers focused intently.

One familiarity--your Calvin Klein

Goodwill navy blazer, my favorite;

your pens poking out from the pocket.

I stood quietly to your side waiting to assist you

yet not disturb your concentration.

Finished, you handed me a sheaf of papers

Here, these are for you --for translation.

Then, you got up and walked slowly down the left had road.

I followed but you turned to me and said,

This is as far as you are allowed to go, I don't have the water rights

for your passage--

A hitch of sadness in your voice,

your face mostly impassive, Bell's Palsy,

one eye bigger, your face a bit cock-eyed,

but looking straight on

as we finished our business once again

in clarity and respect, our natural elegance

hanging there a second

as we stared at one another.

I watched you walk off and knew you were finally gone.

--Jacqueline Gens

[Published in Primo Penseiro, Shivastan Publishing,Woodstock and Kathmandu, 2008.

Reprinted from Mercy of Tides, edited by Margot Wizansky, Salt Marsh Press, 2003]

[Photo by Myles Aronowitz]