Bodhidharma (Anso), Sonnet #587

 

The man sat for nine years.

After seven he cut

Off his eyelids to keep

Awake. He disappears

Into the mental rut

So like and unlike sleep.

He becomes, without skin,

Just the robe he’s clothed in,

Empty of good and sin,

Sans end or origin.

At last he left the cave,

Thinking, “Mind is a grave

And nothing I can save.”

He gave the wind a wave.

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Death on a Pale Horse (J.M.W. Turner), Sonnet #586

 

Once a year we make fun of death,

When “trick or treat” becomes an oath.

Not one of us knows what it means,

So we taunt it with childish screams.

We scare ourselves beyond reason

Once night has beheaded the sun.

A pale horse carries a blind wraith,

With rags of lung squeezed dry of breath,

Flopping across a flesh saddle,

Disgorging eternal riddles.

A maddened and riddled monster,

His own owner and unmasker,

The beast is not stallion or mare

And foals only in our nightmares.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase at Amazon. Click here:

My Human Disguise.