Before the next poem from Yoon Yong I should mention that Marie Marshall has asked me to be editor for the zen space spring edition. So what I need from people are little poems: haiku, tanka, sijo. Send these poems to my email address: danielpaulmarshall85@gmail.com if you want to get your tiny poems into zen space this spring.
More insight
…There is so little effort needed to be alive |
it’s mostly automated. I sound so old | or responsible.
Most people are still animals. Aren’t we beyond that?
“Man is not a beast” (thanks Kim Chi-ha).
Why does low intelligence equate to lower entropy?
“Ought implies can should be zapped
into people’s heads every morning.”
If I overthink do I miss my environment shrieking
when I should be overlooking | looking for patterns?
This is probably why I fail as a poet & translator
: I am a terrible onlooker & poets need good eyes
& translators need to wear another’s skin.
Why does meaning increase the less we think |
the more animal we behave?
I can’t just stop
“like a person who has been an atheist their whole life suddenly
becoming a Catholic | it simply doesn’t add up!”
I’d do anything to have an empty head.
“But then you’d be doing a disservice to
the personality of that which makes us unique
to nature | which makes us human beings.
It is the intelligence which sees the ship
safe to shore & puts a bowl of rice on the table.
In its extremity it can move mountains.”
That was a good one teacher. But a load of bollocks.
I sound stupid when I swear |
but British swear words are so satisfying.
She watches two people | intimate & vulnerable with
their distinct humanness | a married couple running a restaurant
in a quiet moment sharing a kiss
& a few kind words of encouragement
even though they’re tired & fed up
—it makes me sad | it’s so obvious & simple
yet | I’ve never seen it happen before
& nothing like it ever happened to me.
She cries while watching the news.
I want to translate it into anything but what it is
: the confirmation of man the fiction…
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Daniel Paul Marshall 
Thought-provoking, a lot of questions worth pondering, Daniel. The apparent contradiction between satisfying our basic instincts and aiming higher, which happens when we’re unable to integrate our being (a kind of integrity); overthinking and under-thinking, and the contradiction that not-thinking is unnatural to us but has value; humanity and whatever the media is turning us into …
Cheers Steve.
I think that is interesting: ‘integrating our being (a kind of integrity)’ & very nicely put. ‘Not thinking’ & especially the effort not to, the pride in not doing it is very odd considering how rare consciousness is.
Thanks, Daniel. I don’t quite know what the effort is the meditation, but it definitely takes energy. It’s a bit of A Zen conundrum itself. How do you do something that you can’t do by trying?