The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (56 page)

Lion’s Roar—

good for you,

let us proclaim Lion’s Roar;

But will we include lion’s jaw that bites us so hard, to the death?

Can’t, they’re in your ears, lion’s loudness, without getting near the toothsome cage.

The work in London is full of Vicarity

hard enough for rubber booted climbers to rejoice on
. . . soaked in blood,

eaten by a Rocky Mountain coyote.

Loud wails in the moonlight as the predators get their dangling fix!

My manuscript is disorder,

my mind perfectly clear,

My work is no work,

but a worklessness;

my play makes the iron cow sweat.

Shall we push the red button?

It was pushed, sire, aeons ago.

How about pushing this snow mountain and this red button?

How about pushing the roof?

Glories be to it,

Glorious to be its.

The anger can’t be defined,

Nor need to be pronounced, nor worried about, anymore—

Thank you.

August 1, 1974

Supplication to the Emperor

You are a rock

You are our foundation

You can cause a landslide

You can shake the earth

You are all the elements

You burn

You quench thirst

You sustain

You are the creator of turbulent fresh air

You sit like a mountain

The world is your throne

The world is helpless

You and your Kagyü lineage

Are the only living monarchs on earth.

Inter-cosmopolitan politics

International Ballistic Missile

Internal Revenue Service for rich hippie spiritual shoppers—

In the Age of Darkness

Your multiple all-pervasive macro-precision dharmainsight is so penetrating:

Amidst a flock of black sheep

A flock of black pigeons

A depressed herd of buffaloes

Shaggy polar bears munching vegetables

Black cloud hovering above polluted cities

Aluminum-rim black leather executive chairs

Nouveau-riche articulation getting into the silk and satin world

Ex-Catholics reentering because of the promise of the Mother Church

Sleepy Jews learning to play the Kabbalah puzzle

Hocus-pocus Hindus trying their best in the Armenian evangelical jinglebell

Tea parties’ old den of Theosophy filled with chatter of the new Messiah

Oakwood-paneled meeting halls with deadly pamphlets advertising “That” or “This” trip in their elegant language:

This dungeon of dark tunnels where millions are trapped

Comparing their entrapments as better than others’.

O Dawn of Karmapa

Are you Avalokiteshvara?

If

Are

Are you

You are

So you

You must be

Come forth

The Dawn of Karmapa

The only living monarch on earth

Be kind to us

We wait for your lion’s roar

Tiger’s claw

Gentle smile

Ostentatious display of your presence.

You did

You will do

You are doing it

So do it

O Dawn of Karmapa.

September 9, 1974

Tail of the Tiger

Barnet, Vt.

Literal Mathematics

Zero is nothing

One is bold

Two is loneliness

Three is the other

Four is the peacemaker

Five is a group

Six is the parliament

Seven is a happy conclusion

Eight is security

Nine is trooping

Ten is convenient

Eleven is agitation

Twelve is helpless

Thirteen is a threat

Fourteen is a land speculator

Fifteen is a market researcher

Sixteen is the desperate

Seventeen is a troubleshooter for the ecologist

Eighteen is a silk merchant

Nineteen is a junior executive

Twenty is sportsmanship

Twenty-one is a Jewish banker—

But zero is one in the realm of oneness

Oneness is one in the realm of zeroness

Two is sixteen in the realm of eighteen

Twenty-one is glorious after the teething of the three

Sixteen is five nobody knows who they are

Seven is ten in the realm of coins

Nine is nineteen because of sharp corners

Three is eight you have chosen a bad tailor

Four is fourteen the grammar school is inadequate

Twenty is eighteen need for equitation lesson

Eleven is fifteen bad Christmas gift

Twelve is seventeen a carrot is not a radish

Thirteen is thirteen odd man out

Glory be to the six, good table manners.

Jam jar

Honey pot

Lemon sherbet

Who’s kidding whom?

Kids are kite

Kites fly

Kids stumble

In the glorious desert mole-hole.

Life as it was.

Could life be?

I mean that way?

Do you really?

But zero is what?

Well . . . well, zero is.

Glory be to those who have missed airplane connections—

Fly United.

September 9, 1974

Shasta Road

Rationalists have found that there is a bird in the sky.

Experimentalists say maybe this bird is a kite.

Donkeys have their way to be stubborn.

People from a Cossack town have their particular food.

Butterflies and bats have differences in their language.

Practitioners are fascinated by their practice,

Practitioners painfully experiencing their practice debating the reality of Timbuktu.

Million stones and trillions space are one in the area of mutual pain.

Gooseberry and chicken feet are one in the realm of totality.

Jungle kid and ocean crocodile are rebellious in the realm of mutual interest.

Highfaluted holiness depressed politician burning hot pliers

Are in the same realm as barking Pekingese at Madame Chang’s apartment.

Max King and Patricia King and Martha Washington who knows,

Thistles poison oak grasshoppers made into juice,

Bushmen’s Ph.D. Siamese cat eating frog eyes.

Prostrations are premature to give to the adolescent student.

Pinetree Doves Coralrock Porcupine Pippi Porky Poodle Pissmen are in the realm of polarities.

Glory be to tonight’s poet.

Who’s who? What’s what? Nobody knows.

But everybody knows,

Including our kind neighbor who would never harm a flea,

But is willing to cut your throat.

February 1, 1975

Palm Is

Palm is.

It may be small, but includes the universe:

Fortune-tellers make a living out of it;

Flamingos sleep on it;

Mothers slap their children;

It’s for begging, giving;

When thinkers don’t have thoughts, they rest their foreheads;

Trees that have palms invite holiday-makers.

Can a jackal read a palm?

Maybe S.C. can read—

But is S.C. a jackal?

S.C. is tricky,

But jackals are perky, with long throbbing howls;

Maybe they read their palms in the cold wintry night

In the aspen grove.

The Lord of Death supposedly reads palms,

To see through your life’s work:

The good man

The wicked

Banker

Priest—

How many infants got slapped with a palm,

How much dough we molded with our palms,

How many directors clapped their palms on the table

Shouting, “Let’s do it!”

I wonder whether Miss Bishop has used her palms in her life?

The palms of the night,

To write poem of palm.

Flamingos

Flamingos’ mothers

S.C.

Fortune-tellers.

The earth is a big palm,

So is the sky;

Jointly they make the four seasons.

By mistake, cities grow up between their palms,

A vein of highways begins to grow,

There’s no room to breathe—

People call it pollution.

I wonder what it’s like to be the palm of the universe.

The stars and moons,

Saturn and Jupiter,

Mars and Venus,

Twinkle between two palms.

By fault of the palms being too tight,

Sometimes various comets escape

Creating cosmic fart:

The world of fart and palms.

Good night, jackal!

February 25, 1975

Burdensome

The best minds of my generation are idiots,

They have such idiot compassion.

The world of charity is turned into chicken-foot,

The castles of diamond bought and sold for tourism—

Only, if only they . . .

Oh, forget it.

What is the use of synchronizing?

Raccoons are pure animals, they wash their food.

Beavers are clever animals, they build their dams.

Hot cross bun is for Easter.

Men who care for themselves turn into heroes

Walking on cloud—but are not dreamers—

But performing a miracle.

Distant flute makes you happy and sad—

Only for the shepherds.

Long lines of generations are hard workers.

Glory be to the blade of grass

That carries heavy frost

Turning into dewdrop.

February 25, 1975

Tsöndrü Namkha

In the land of promises

One flea bite occurred.

In the midst of continental hoo-ha

One bubble occurred in a tall lager-and-lime glass.

Midst a spacious sand dune

Sand swarmed.

Lover with sweat.

Primordial egg dropped from the sky

And hit Genghis Khan’s head

In the middle of the Gobi Desert.

Horny camels huffed and puffed to the nearest water.

Desert seagulls pushing their trips to gain another food.

Suzanne with her jellyfish

Volleyed back and forth by badminton rackets—

Oh this desert is so dusty

One never gains an inch

Not a drip of water

So sunny

Almost thirsty

Very thirsty

Fabulously thirsty

Terribly—

Oh it’s killing me

This desert this sand

Preventing me from making love

Preventing me from eating delicious supper

With all-pervasive crunch of sand.

I wish I could go to the mountains

Eat snowflakes

Feel the cool breeze—

I wouldn’t mind chewing icicles

Making the delicious cracking sound

As I step on the prematurely frozen pond,

Making the satisfying sound of deep hollowness

As I step on the well-matured frozen pond,

The undoubtedly solid and secure sound

On a fully matured frozen pond.

Suzanne would love that,

Because she is the punisher in the desert

And she is the companion

When we skate across this large fully frozen pond.

Let’s fly across the ice

Let’s beat the drum of our hearts

Let’s blow the bagpipe of our lungs

Let’s jingle the bells of icicles

Let’s be cool and crispy—

Suzanne, join us!

What is gained in the hot deserty wretched sweaty claustrophobic sandy skull-crunching dusty world of Gobi?

Who cares?

Come to the mountains, Suzanne,

O Suzanne!

March 1975

Pema Semma

How small can you be?

So tiny that you can’t even talk or think.

How big can you be?

So big that you can’t think or talk.

Desert hounds are said to be tough

But, looking at their own ancestral skulls,

They could become painfully wretched.

Come, Come, said the young woman,

Come with me to the mountains

Where the heathers, rhododendrons, tamarisks, and snowflakes grow.

Her hair fluttered by the cool mountain air

Which is so fresh,

Her lips and eyelids quivering at the freshness she experiences,

Sunbeam reflecting on the side of her face

Portrays a lady of life.

As she turns her head

From the little irritation of long flowing hair

She says, Mmmm.