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"If you want me to save your life, you have to start believing in brassiere straps and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers," the roshi said, sitting in that stupid yoga position that looks like a straight-backed chair with amputated legs. "As it is, your life is all right angles, and you suffer from envy of the person you're not able to be. You need to touch river stones more often, listen to the waves and fishing boats inside your breathing, go further out on tree limbs, preferably lonely elms." The roshi was smoking a Lucky Strike. Ash dribbled down his chin onto his blue and gold robes. "You suffer because your mind desires tuna fish sandwiches when all you have are peanut butter and jelly ones. And God to you is a harpsichord." I was tempted, right then, to tickle the soles of the roshi's little naked feet or place Fleer's bubble gum wrappers in his open palms, but I just bowed, inclining slightly on my guest yoga mat while he smiled and smiled and nearly burned himself to death until an assistant plucked the cigarette from his lips: "Ah, smoke, deep in the lungs of Time." Various temple bells, a deep gong--my interview almost completed. What is, is, is, is, is, the bells seemed to say. Was that strawberry incense wafting from the altar where the hundred Buddhas sat all in neat rows with discount price stickers under their buttocks? Or was it peach-lemon? "One reason people write," the roshi said, coming in from almost nowhere, "is to express the nuances of their wristwatches, the secrets of elbow positions, the moods of personal bookcases that otherwise would die when we die. How else would that day you stepped into deep shit and found music all around you but you couldn't reach it, survive in its mystery? " I stammered, I tried to speak. "But my life, Roshi, my life. How can I save my life?" "Ah," said the roshi. "Aha!" It's how you lose your life and keep on living, content with your lot, idiot!" and he smote me with his bamboo cane but I wasn't enlightened. All that happened was I grabbed his cane and smote him back... Tears in my eyes, I would think of nothing but my bruise for days, tuna fish, harpsichords, jealousy, revenge, dragging my life behind me, which made tiny bumping sounds as it caught in the wheel ruts and jostled over the curbs. Dick Allen This work is the author's work; it appears here with the permission of the author. We would like to remind our readers that it is a violation of copyright law to distribute this or any other poem appearing on the website without the express permission of the author. |
