Buddha of Suburbia: Issa's Sunday Service #127

 

The Buddha from Suburbia, the eponymous song from one of David Bowie's most overlooked albums, is named after the 1990 novel by Hanif Kureishi, hence it's literary lineage.  This song is the only one from the soundtrack for the four-part BBC series that Bowie was commissioned to produce and, though classified as a soundtrack, really isn't at all.  There are two very interesting, Eno-like instrumentals on the album, plus a second take of the title track with Lenny Kravitz wailing away on guitar.


Kureishi's first big project (aside from his early stint as a pornography writer) was the screenplay for the great 1985 film, My Beautiful Launderette, a long-time personal favorite of mine.  If you haven't seen it (or perhaps even if you have) here's a 10 minute clip that gives a good feel for the film:







If its one you missed, check it out - among other things, it has a great early performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.

And, finally, here is the official video for the BBC series:








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In case you missed it this week, here is a fine poem by angie werren from tinywords, an exemplary online/print mag which has accepted a new poem of my own for publication in a forthcoming collection:

he thinks again of turning leaves her hands

-angie werren

from tinywords
http://tinyurl.com/7l2c886

Let's finish up with two songs that popped up on the ipod on my walk to work on Friday.  First George cutting through all the bullshit, Beatle and otherwise:








Next, the rock song with the hottest guitar riff ever (got a hotter one?  I'm listening ...):










And rounding it all off with two poems from the magnificent collection of the work of Buddhist Nun Rengetsu, Lotus Moon, to be added to the one I posted previously (you can buy it at an independent seller here:

When a Thief Came

If the mountain bandit
Came to my place
To steal away
Golden oak leaves
He struck it rich!

The Thief

Nor a trace
Of a thief
But he left behind
The peaceful stillness
of the Okazaki Hills.

Rengetsu

the mountain moon
gives the blossom thief
light

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

In case you noticed, yes this is lengthier than it should be for someone on partial hiatus, but I did warn you that staying away from music was never going to completely happen.

And yes, it also means that progress continues on the anthology.  Solid progress.

best,

Don

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3 Poems: Rengetsu, Merwin, and Charles Wright

What follows are three poems that somehow this week all gathered themselves around my feet, so many wind-blown leaves. They seem all to have the same tinge of color, or fragile tactility, or perhaps epistemology. Maybe, just maybe, the randomness of this gathering is the filter of the consciousness that attracted them or was attracted to them.

Maybe not.

Separation

   Your absence has gone through me 
   Like thread through a needle
   Everything I do is stitched with its color.

                                                               W. S. Merwin
 

Self-Portrait in 2035

   The root becomes him, the road ruts
   That are sift and grain in the powderlight
   Recast him, sink bone in him
   Blanket and creep up, fine, fine:

   Worm-waste and pillow tick; hair
   Prickly and dust-dangled, his arms and black shoes
   Unlinked and laceless, his face false
   In the wood-rot, and past pause . . .

   Darkness, erase these lines, forget these words.
   Spider recite his one sin

                                       Charles Wright

Mountain Falling Flowers

   We accept the graceful falling
   Of mountain cherry blossoms,
   But it is much harder for us
   To fall away from our own
   Attachment to this world.

                                                              Rengetsu
                                                              translated by John Stevens





The Merwin was sent along by a friend who knows how much I cherish Merwins's most recent book, The Shadows of Sirius.   It is the second time in recent weeks I've delved into China Trace, Charles Wright's early 1977 collection, prompted by his sensational recent volume, Sestets.   The Rengetsu, which comes from the book Lotus Moon (recently republished by White Pine Press) was a library gifting from still another friend, who brought it to my attention.  I, of course, snapped it up upon its return to said library.

I'm rich in friends as well as poetry.

Over the last month or so, I've been trying to find the time to write about a little collection of Kenneth Rexroth's entitled Sky Sea Birds Trees Earth House Beasts Flowers.  I'll get there one of these days, along with perhaps an overview of Sestets, which I was so completely taken with that I returned the library copy I'd taken out and bought one of my own.

So why these poems?

With the Merwin poem, the first two lines seem commonplace, almost pedestrian, than he wacks you over the head with the iron skillet of a third line ... no, let me try that again.  With the Merwin poem, the first two lines are commonplace, almost pedestrian, than he seduces you smoothly with a touch of warm breath behind the ear.

That's better. 

If the thread, pardon my borrowing, that binds these three works together is loss, it is Wright's poem that does the mixed-metaphoric slamming.   What comes to mind for me is, when we speak of loss, can death be far behind? No, I think not.  Death is the off stage character here, though in Wright's case maybe not so off stage as come and gone.  Rengetsu's poem is another kind of seduction, reminding us of the first two Noble Truths and how very difficult they are to surmount.

All of this and not a haiku in sight!  The Rengetsu is a waka, so that will do nicely as a distant cousin. 


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This week's poem from the Lilliput Review archive comes from #180.  The poem, Earth-Poet, is by the wonderful Joseph Hutchinson, whose blog, "Perpetual Bird," keeps many a reader on their toes, lyrical or otherwise.  Enjoy.

The Earth-Boat
  The ocean's susurrus....
  In its sun-soaked pod the brain
  ripens.  The Earth-boat:
  for a few breaths
  we can feel it drifting.

Joseph Hutchison

hey boatman
no pissing on the moon
in the waves!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 123 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review