Ryonen White

instructions for un-dressing a lover

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:29:19 -0500

my manchild; with your trenchant eyes
peel off my traveling clothes, with your teeth
and tongue tease off my skin, and carve
artfully away my muscles, lift gently apart
my ligaments, gather my bones
on the pyre.
sleep as they burn.

i’ll meet you in the morning
in my freshly laundered clothes.

green grass in, in deep-deeper my dear e -nemy (i know.)

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:13:56 -0400

green grass
in, in
deep-deeper

my dear

-nemy
(i know.)

"…people resist freedom because they’re afraid of the unknown. But it’s ironic..."

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:30:23 -0400

“

…people resist freedom because they’re afraid of the unknown. But it’s ironic … that unknown was once very well known. It’s where our souls belong … The only solution is to… expose yourself to yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power…

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your senses for an act… Some people surrender their freedom willingly—but others are are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents; they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you are born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see… teachers,religious leaders-even friends, or so-called friends — take over where the parents leave off. They demand that we feel the only feelings they want and expect from us. They demand all the time that we preform feelings for them… When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It’s a subtle kind of murder … the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel. Or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to — letting a person be what he really is … Most people love you for who you pretend to be … people get so used to their image — they grow attached to their masks…

A person has to be willing to give up everything — not just wealth. All the bullshit he’s been taught — all society brainwashing. You have to let go of all that to get to the other side.

”

- -Jim Morrison

Who among us has died the Great Death?

love is- i don’t murder u | u don’t murder me

Wedlock is a Padlock - Laura Lee A good husband is healthy...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:23:57 -0400

Wedlock is a Padlock - Laura Lee

A good husband is healthy and absent.
(Japanese proverb)

Diane

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:32:04 -0400

(of course there were supporting factors: our simple, mainstream obsessions. our androgynous wardrobes. our contempt of blandbrained female contemporaries. but the main thing was) you ambushed me at a time when that was still possible. or i ambushed you. anyway, there was an ambush, an auspicious one.

some school nights we talked on the phone. i don’t know about what, but it felt good. in the summer my index finger danced your number into the keypad and then your voice like magic, need being met through no visible mechanism – you walked to my house and I walked to yours and we missed each other then found each other and laughed.

one day i said Let’s go get water ice
you said Okay.
we walked for blocks hot under a bright sky and then turned back to my house where we drank cold tap water and were satisfied.
that was fun, you said, haha i don’t know why. anything with you is fun.
you didn’t say much but were always laughing.

i went into the wilderness and made you come with me. you were scared and then you loved it. on the scramble i placed myself below you then led you down the creek until no leader was needed. we wandered and sang and talked and dreamt aloud. that, to me, was a forever.

you went on vacation and when you came back i was no longer there. not because i willed the leaving; i just didn’t know anything about staying.
you tried to talk to me through the phone and i didn’t know why.
was it then you died? | did i?
i wondered for the longest time, and then i realized it didn’t matter:
people die, even when they stay.

i hope you are well
and that when your(and all

shell breaks; shiver yourself out
bare; rant yourself up some
sturdy friendships
ones of plywood,
brass,
stainless steel,
titanium;
love
and accept

love through all deaths.

“You gonna be here for this?” yeah… – i nod at Sky – yeah. yeah. YES.

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:42:22 -0400

“You gonna be here for this?”
yeah… – i nod at Sky –
yeah. yeah.
YES.

the secret to the wilderness is that once you become immersed in it, when you come back to the...

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:49:04 -0400

the secret to the wilderness is that once you become immersed in it, when you come back to the citysized campsites the wilderness is still all you see – in the concrete, in the eyes of people. it doesn’t go away. it’s all right here.

“if you put me in html,” my poem said to me, “i will strangle myself.” it put its hands around its...

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 17:15:26 -0400

“if you put me in html,”
my poem said to me,
“i will strangle myself.”
it put its hands around its throat
as if to show resolve.
i leaned back, still breathless from giving birth,
amazed. [what small hands!]

waiting for orgasm is a kind of faith

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:49:37 -0400

waiting for orgasm
is a kind of faith

you can’t force yourself, nor anyone else. love is something organic and spontaenous. the...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:50:22 -0400

you can’t force yourself, nor anyone else. love is something organic and spontaenous. the universe runs on it, and the universe doesn’t care about the preferences you’ve formed or the promises you’ve made - it will blow them all away. (and if you’re smart, you’ll let it.)

4 July 2012

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 20:29:00 -0400

You’ve become too ugly to love, America.

There was a time when I sighed
after your nubile cheeks and strong jawline, and listened
for your hearty bearded inventor laugh and
sinewy whisperings of actualization. But

now you are
blue jeans on fire
children aborting children
cats dying of poverty
dogs suicidal from depression
drones over a tone-deaf sea.

What of your
slovenliest inhabitants -
desire-designers,
crop-annihilators,
mind-pruners,
governor-wolves and their
obese sentinels shoveling skeletons daily at your borders?

The floors and walls of your shopping malls shine
with human blood. You take with one hand,
and you take with the other,
and what you take you offer up
to the lavatory
of profane desire.

I have had enough
of your glamorous mediocrity -
prostitutes in pinstripe suits
hero-lumps on your sidewalks
every one of your members
paralyzed. incarcerated
fingers, re-purposed hearts.
You have forgotten, America,
liberty is not a question but the sole order of the day. But

perhaps you are not well enough to listen, America,
with your gap-toothed meth smile
and petroleum breath.
Sores on your eyelids and
a plague of thought disorders
ravage
you, who have suffered enough, America.
You have borne war fevers,
the desperate hunger of childlessness, remaining
anorgasmic for centuries.

I will come for you, America. I will
collect you the way a toddler collects its governess.
I will come for you gloved.

Don’t worry, America.
There is no need to cover your laws in plastic
before fumigation. The hardy ones will live.
There is still time - not a lot,
just enough time
for grace. Open
your mouth for my sun-glinted|night-stroked colors to enter.
Teach your daughters to tear out
the jugulars of all who stand in their way.
Teach your sons cunnilingus, not war.

Quickly,
hide under your skirts and in your mouth
those who can save on you, America:
your tired artists, your poor prophets, your asphyxiated scientists,

and your masses
your masses of sheep
bleating FREEDOM before the slaughter.

"In the zendo, all of this disappears. You don’t notice if this woman’s beautiful or ugly. If that..."

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:04:20 -0400

“In the zendo, all of this disappears. You don’t notice if this woman’s beautiful or ugly. If that man smells or doesn’t smell. Whoever you’re sitting next to, you just see their pain.”

- Leonard Cohen

When you’re in pain, just be in pain. When the pain moves, seeking permission to pass, it’s time to create something.

"The Buddhist nun known as Ryonen was born in 1797. She was a granddaughter of the famous Japanese..."

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:02:00 -0400

“

The Buddhist nun known as Ryonen was born in 1797. She was a granddaughter of the famous Japanese warrior Shingen. Her poetical genius and alluring beauty were such that at seventeen she was serving the empress as one of the ladies of the court. Even at such a youthful age fame awaited her.

The beloved empress died suddenly and Ryonen’s hopeful dreams vanished. She became acutely aware of the impermanency of life in this world. It was then that she desired to study Zen.

Her relatives disagreed, however, and practically forced her into marriage. With a promise that she might become a nun after she had borne three children, Ryonen assented. Before she was twenty-five she had accomplished this condition. Then her husband and relatives could no longer dissuade her from her desire. She shaved her head, took the name of Ryonen, which means to realize clearly, and started on her pilgrimage.

She came to the city of Edo and asked Tetsugyu to accept her as a disciple. At one glance the master rejected her because she was too beautiful.

Ryonen then went to another master, Hakuo. Hakuo refused her for the same reason, saying that her beauty would only make trouble.

Ryonen obtained a hot iron and placed it against her face. In a few moments her beauty had vanished forever.

Hakuo then accepted her as a disciple.

”

- from Zen Flesh Zen Bones

i wonder how many other women have desired, as i have, to destroy one’s own face and body in order to be seen

Jesus has amnesia. He spends his time watching cartoons and sports, laid up on a futon, rubbing the...

Wed, 23 May 2012 20:05:00 -0400

Jesus has amnesia.
He spends his time watching cartoons
and sports, laid up on a futon,
rubbing the bellies of cats,
and mocking the ways of the world: “…these cocky motherfuckers.”

I sat with him once. I asked,
“How should we be?”
“Observant…” he nodded. “Observant and humble.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”

That way, he explained, he wouldn’t have to use his finger
to make anyone’s head explode.

Unrecognize

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:24:24 -0400

I saw you on the empty street. You saw me.
I lied- but just a little, remembering
how you believed in me.

You made some mouthsounds and curved your lips.
All I heard was this: “He dead.”

(It echoed all along the bright gray concrete.)

white moon in the black sky red light brake

Sat, 12 May 2012 13:26:00 -0400

white moon in the black sky
red light
brake

I sit on the edge of our bed with you, all of you amalgamated into one body. A warm white light...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:44:16 -0400

I sit on the edge of our bed with you, all of you amalgamated into one body. A warm white light is everywhere, rendering all it touches pure and unblemished. You nuzzle my ribs.

“Do you love me?” you ask.

“Baby, you know I don’t.” I stand and walk, my bare breasts turned away from you in our bedroom that spans to infinity. “I’m getting old. I can’t spend all my time trying things.”

There must be a word for the feeling you get when you realize you have more dead friends than live...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:43:19 -0400

There must be a word for the feeling you get when you realize you have more dead friends than live ones. If not in English, then at least in Japanese. It seems to me that the Japanese have a word for almost any feeling specific to any situation. Such as: the quiet sense of joy when one retrieves exactly what one expects from the mail; or the small sense of loss when one discovers an odd number of socks after doing the laundry.