THE COLLAPSE OF ZEN

When I can wedge my face

into the place

and struggle with my breathing

as she brings her eager fingers down

to separate herself,

to help me use my whole mouth

against her hungriness,

her most private of hungers -

why should I want to be enlightened?

Is there something that I missed?

Have I forgotten yesterday's mosquito

or tomorrow's hungry ghost?

 

When I can roam this hill with a knife in my back

caused by too much drinking of Chateau Latour

and spill my heart into the valley

of the lights of Caguas

and freeze in fear as the watchdog

comes drooling out of the bushes

and refuses to recognize me

and there we are, yes, bewildered

as to who should kill the other first -

and I move and it moves,

and it moves and I move,

why should I want to be enlightened?

Did I leave something out?

Was there some world I failed to embrace?

Some bone I didn't steal?

 

When Jesus loves me so much that blood

comes out of his heart

and I climb a metal ladder

into the hole in his bosom

which is caused by sorrow as big as China

and I enter the innermost room wearing white clothes

and I entreat and I plead:

“Not this one, Sir. Not that one, Sir. I beg you, Sir.”

and I look through His eyes

as the helpless are shit on again

and the tender blooming nipple of mankind

is caught in the pincers

of power and muscle and money -

why should I seek enlightenment?

Did I fail to recognize some cockroach?

Some vermin in the ooze of my majesty?

 

When ‘men are stupid and women are crazy'

and everyone is asleep in San Juan and Caguas

and everyone is in love but me

and everyone has a religion and a boyfriend

and a great genius for loneliness -

 

When I can dribble over all the universes

and undress a woman without touching her

and run errands for my urine

and offer my huge silver shoulders

to the pinhead moon -

When my heart is broken as usual

over someone's evanescent beauty

and design after design

they fade like kingdoms with no writing

and, look, I wheeze my way

up to the station of Sahara's

incomparable privacy

and churn the air into a dark cocoon

of effortless forgetting -

why should I shiver on the altar of enlightenment?

why should I want to smile forever?