Book of Longing Page 9

  “We don’t really know how to cook.”

  “I see.”

  “We are really nothing but suggestions. Our bodies end where our clothes begin. There’s nothing underneath.”

  “I was wondering about that.”

  “Yes, we were told to practise modesty, to make you laugh and smile, and not to bewilder you with fluids and nakedness.”

  “Will this improve the evening?”

  “It will. It will delight you.”

  “I submit myself to your good intentions.”

  They each took one of his arms, and they folded themselves against him, and pressed their heads against his chest.

  “We love you.”

  His tears came and they wiped them away with their colourful bandanas.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “So are we! Let’s go to a restaurant in Montreal, a city, we have heard, which has more restaurants per block than even Rio. We’ll go out every night, except when you don’t feel like it. Then we’ll order in.”

  EVEN NOW

  I did not know

  how simple you are

  how generous

  I tried to capture you

  with rhymes

  and erotic

  suggestions

  Even now

  you yawn

  in my heart

  bored and alone

  rubbing ointments

  all over your body

  and touching yourself

  while I tarry

  ANOTHER POET

  Another poet will have to say

  how much I love you

  I’m too busy now with the Arabian Sea

  and its perverse repetitions

  of white and grey

  I’m tired of telling you

  and so are the trees

  and so are the deck chairs

  Yes, I have given up a lot of things

  in the last few minutes

  including the great honour

  of saying I love you

  I’ve become thin and beautiful again

  I shaved off my grandfather’s beard

  I’m loose in the belt

  and tight in the jowl

  Crazy young beauties

  still covered with the grime

  of ashrams and shrines

  examine their imagination

  in an old man’s room

  Boys change their lives

  in the wake of my gait

  anxious to study

  elusive realities

  under my hypnotic indifference

  The brain of the whale

  crowns the edge of the water

  like a lurid sunset

  but all I ever see

  is you or You

  or you in You

  or You in you

  Confusing to everyone else

  but to me

  total employment

  I introduce

  the young to the young

  They dance away in misery

  while I conspire

  with the Arabian Sea

  to create

  an ugly silence

  which gets the ocean

  off my back

  and more important

  lets another poet say

  how much I love you

  PARDON ME

  Pardon me, lords and ladies,

  if I do not think of myself

  as the disease.

  Pardon me if I receive the Holy Spirit

  without telling you about it.

  Pardon me,

  Commissars of the West,

  if you do not think

  I have suffered enough.

  HER FRIEND

  she doesn’t know

  her friend has come

  she won’t be able

  to write down

  anything he says

  he won’t have a place

  in her notebook

  along with Kabir

  and the Theravadins

  many years later

  she will remember

  sitting with an old man

  a curious nakedness

  of thought

  between them

  that nakedness

  that transparency

  will lead her home

  IT SEEMED THE BETTER WAY

  It seemed the better way

  When first I heard him speak

  But now it’s much too late

  To turn the other cheek

  It sounded like the truth

  It seemed the better way

  You’d have to be a fool

  To choose the meek today

  I wonder what it was

  I wonder what it meant

  He seemed to touch on love

  But then he touched on death

  Better hold my tongue

  Better learn my place

  Lift my glass of blood

  Try to say the Grace

  THE GREAT DIVIDE

  I never liked the way you loved

  So devious, so dated

  But still I fasted like a monk

  And prayed to see you naked

  I’d see you hurting everyone

  A government of suffering

  I’d tell myself ‘Thy Will Be Done

  My will it counts for nothing’

  I drank a lot I lost my job

  I lived like nothing mattered

  And you, you never came across

  You never even answered

  It was a blind and broken time

  And kindness was forbidden

  I guess I tried to hitch a ride

  From acid to religion

  But every guiding light was gone

  And every good direction

  The book of love I read was wrong

  It had a happy ending

  But when the system had been shocked

  Beyond all recognition

  The simple things that I’d forgot

  Resumed their sweet position

  I thought I saw you with a child

  I thought I heard you weeping

  And all the garden round you wild

  And safely in your keeping

  I don’t recall what happened next

  I kept you at a distance

  But tangled in the knot of sex

  My punishment was lifted

  Your remedies beneath my hand

  Your fingers in my hair

  The kisses on our lips began

  That ended everywhere

  And when I gathered up to leave

  You drew me to your side

  To be as Adam was to Eve

  Before the Great Divide

  And fastened here we cannot move

  Except to one another

  We spread and drown as lilies do

  From nowhere to the centre

  And here I cannot lift a hand

  To trace the lines of beauty

  But lines are traced and love is glad

  To come and go so freely

  And here no sin can be confessed

  No sinner be forgiven

  It’s written that the law must rest

  Before the law is written

  And here the silence is erased

  The background all dismantled

  Your beauty cannot be compared

  No mirror here, no shadow

  But now it comes, a grazing wind

  Aimless and serene

  It wounds me as I part your lips

  It wounds us in between

  And now the wars can start anew

  The torture and the laughter

  We cry aloud, as humans do

  Before the truth, and after

  I don’t know how it’s going to end

  You always left that open

  But oh, you are the only friend

  I never thought of knowing

  I AM NOW ABLE

  I am now able

  to sleep twenty hours a day


  The remaining four

  are spent

  telephoning a list

  of important people

  in order

  to say goodnight

  Jikan

  who was born

  to make men laugh

  bows his head

  THE FLOW

  You have been told to

  “go with the flow”

  but as you know

  from your studies,

  there is no flow,

  nor is there actually

  any coming or going.

  These are merely

  helpful concepts

  for the novice monk.

  You can start smoking again,

  and what is called “your death”

  and what is called “your life”

  you can watch now

  through the eyes of wisdom.

  This is why

  the Sages of Japan

  named their cigarettes

  “Hope” and “Peace”

  and “Peace Light” and “Short Hope”

  and “Short Hope Light.”

  A NOTE TO THE CHINESE READER

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for coming to this book. It is an honour, and a surprise, to have the frenzied thoughts of my youth expressed in Chinese characters. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of the translator and the publishers in bringing this curious work to your attention. I hope you will find it useful or amusing.

  When I was young, my friends and I read and admired the old Chinese poets. Our ideas of love and friendship, of wine and distance, of poetry itself, were much affected by those ancient songs. Much later, during the years when I practised as a Zen monk under the guidance of my teacher Kyozan Joshu Roshi, the thrilling sermons of Lin Chi (Rinzai) were studied every day. So you can understand, Dear Reader, how privileged I feel to be able to graze, even for a moment, and with such meagre credentials, on the outskirts of your tradition.

  This is a difficult book, even in English, if it is taken too seriously. May I suggest that you skip over the parts you don’t like? Dip into it here and there. Perhaps there will be a passage, or even a page, that resonates with your curiosity. After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover. In any case, I thank you for your interest in this odd collection of jazz riffs, pop-art jokes, religious kitsch and muffled prayer, an interest which indicates, to my thinking, a rather reckless, though very touching, generosity on your part.

  Beautiful Losers was written outside, on a table set among the rocks, weeds and daisies, behind my house on Hydra, an island in the Aegean Sea. I lived there many years ago. It was a blazing hot summer. I never covered my head. What you have in your hands is more of a sunstroke than a book.

  Dear Reader, please forgive me if I have wasted your time.

  THE FAITH

  The sea so deep and blind

  The sun, the wild regret

  The club, the wheel, the mind,

  0 love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The blood, the soil, the faith

  These words you can’t forget

  Your vow, your holy place

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  A cross on every hill

  A star, a minaret

  So many graves to fill

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The sea so deep and blind

  Where still the sun must set

  And time itself unwind

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  HERE IT IS

  Here is your crown

  and your seal and rings

  and here is your love

  for all things

  Here is your cart

  your cardboard and piss

  and here is your love

  for all of this

  May everyone live

  and may everyone die

  Hello, my love

  and my love, Goodbye

  Here is your wine

  and your drunken fall

  and here is your love

  your love for it all

  Here is your sickness

  your bed and your pan

  and here is your love

  for the woman, the man

  And here is the night

  the night has begun

  and here is your death

  in the heart of your son

  and here is the dawn

  (until death do us part)

  and here is your death

  in your daughter’s heart

  And here you are hurried

  and here you are gone

  and here is the love

  that it’s all built upon

  Here is your cross

  your nails and your hill

  and here is your love

  that lists where it will

  May everyone live

  and may everyone die

  Hello, my love

  and my love, Goodbye

  THERE FOR YOU

  When it all went down

  And the pain came through

  I get it now

  I was there for you

  Don’t ask me how

  I know it’s true

  I get it now

  I was there for you

  I make my plans

  Like I always do

  But when I look back

  I was there for you

  I walk the streets

  Like I used to do

  And I freeze with fear

  But I’m there for you

  I see my life

  In full review

  It was never me

  It was always you

  You sent me here

  You sent me there

  Breaking things

  I can’t repair

  Making objects

  Out of thought

  Making more

  By thinking not

  Eating food

  And drinking wine

  A body that

  I thought was mine

  Dressed as arab

  Dressed as jew

  O mask of iron

  I was there for you

  Moods of glory

  Moods so foul

  The world comes through

  A bloody towel

  And death is old

  But it’s always new

  I freeze with fear

  And I’m there for you

  I see it clear

  I always knew

  It was never me

  I was there for you

  I was there for you

  My darling one

  And by your law

  It all was done

  Don’t ask me how

  I know it’s true

  I get it now

  I was there for you

  A PROMISE

  I will never

  return

  the Holy Grail

  to its

  “rightful owners.”

  REPORT TO R.S.B.

  Peace did not come into my life.

  My life escaped

  and peace was there.

  Often I bump into my life,

  trying to catch its breath,

  pay a bill,

  or tolerate the news,

  tripping as usual

  over the cables

  of someone’s beauty –

  My little life:

  so loyal,

  so devoted to its obscure purposes –

  And, I hasten to report,

  doing fine without me.

  IRVING AND ME AT THE HOSPITAL

  He stood up for Nietzsche

  I stood up for Christ

  He stood up for victory

  I stood up for less

  I loved to read his verses

  He loved to hear my song

  We never had much interest

  In who was right or wrong

  His boxer’s hands were shaking
/>
  He struggled with his pipe

  Imperial Tobacco

  Which I helped him light

  – after the photo by Laszlo

  BECAUSE OF A FEW SONGS

  Because of a few songs

  wherein I spoke of their mystery,

  women have been

  exceptionally kind

  to my old age.

  They make a secret place

  in their busy lives

  and they take me there.

  They become naked

  in their different ways

  and they say,

  “Look at me, Leonard

  look at me one last time.”

  Then they bend over the bed

  and cover me up

  like a baby that is shivering.

  THE LETTERS

  You never liked to get

  The letters that I sent.

  But now you’ve got the gist

  Of what my letters meant.

  You’re reading them again.

  The ones you didn’t burn.

  You press them to your lips,

  My pages of concern.

  I said there’d been a flood.

  I said there’s nothing left.

  I hoped that you would come.

  I gave you my address.

  Your story was so long,

  The plot was so intense,

  It took you years to cross

  The lines of self-defence.

  The wounded forms appear:

  the loss, the full extent;

  and simple kindness here,

  the solitude of strength.