Ernesto Trejo

AT DAWN

.

The spirit surges among branches.

The nervous laughter of blackbirds

traces a dagger over the day's flesh.

.

To an assembly of birds on a wire,

plums below fill with their dark milk

and the shadow of a small cloud sizzles.

.

Two stars still burn:

eyes about to go out:

another blind day.

Thich Nhat Hahn

DRINK YOUR TEA

.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis

on which the world earth revolves

-slowly, evenly, without

rushing toward the future;

Live the actual moment.

Only this moment is life.

Alley on the Quiet

Laser tongued failing spirit flying out my rib cage

the trinket "bring up mindfulness with large icons"

you're floating the blood sea brain "L'Acadie hidden

in the desk, don't part the sea!!" alcohol made a promise

to cut you down. To drop in the end; the prickly oil

"bounce like no tomorrow, a contorting blast; Rub the Belly!!!"

Alvaro Marin

A SONG FOR JUAN RULFO

.

The silence of the future ruins

gently move to and fro in helplessness

in this place called earth

because it yet doesn't have a name

its inhabitants

have one eye on the moon of death

and the other on a burning sun

The voice

does not spring from the lips

it is the deep trance of silence

Silence is the name of this place

so-and-so is everybody's name

and stone or ash

the names we shall have in the void

.

there's geography with the foot prints of the absent

the cut-down trees lose their leaves

in some turn of eternity

and cover the streets of the century with dead leaves

Wind passes deaf and saying nothing

it is a murmur as imposing as midnight

but not everything begins or ends here

in this geography.

Pedro Garcia Cabrera

THE OPEN ENGAGEMENT

.

To the right of the voice of the statues dream

a river of birds flows by.

The river is a little girl and the bird a key.

And the key a field of wheat.

That opens a small snail of a hundred days.

This means the hills of broken men

Are made of cardboard, wood and green walnuts.

But don't touch that anguish; it's all from the Sunday

When they created the nests in which tomorrow the

[adulterous stones will brood.

It's from that fish looking through the sea's eye

At how war is the tenderness guarding the empty beds

And peace that blood with which feet spatter their chains.

Let's go now. Don't pierce the shadow I had four years ago,

For my fingers ache with hunger and my heart with rains.

Better for you to sleep, to go on walking.

I'll wait for you till the tigers, on the lake shore after the

[wine harvest,

Lying farmhands to the fields

And shoulders of someone on the deserted promises

[without water.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Between our faces, to cast light on each?-

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold my spirit so far off

From myself--me--that I bring thee proof

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Commend my woman-love to thy belief, -

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

Hakuin

You no sooner attain the great void

Then body and mind are lost together.

Heaven and Hell -- a straw.

The Buddha relm- Pandemonian-- shambles.

Listen: a nightingale strains her voice serenading the snow.

Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.

Should you desire the great traquility,

Prepare to sweat white beads.