Zen Poetry At Its Best Poem by Jonathan Marks

Note: One of the web sites I contributed to in the past was Webook.com. One day I saw a poem by a contributor called Leland Janson. This was his poem:
.

Yes, just a plain period - or, full stop, as they say in the Olde Countrye. This provoked the following poem from me:


Here is a poem
Serious, too.
Part acrostic,
Semi slapstick
Part lipstick.
Half Haiku.

Onomatopoeic
With just a touch
Of slang.
Lyrical
Mystical
Practical
Acronymic
Anachronistic.

No spelling mistakes
No easy breaks.
Deep,
Refined,
Thoughtful
And kind.
This poem –
A gem
Thought up by a mind
Like a demi-God
Not humankind.

And yet
In simplicity,
Its vivacity
Is breathtakingly
Set.

A poem
Understandable
In English
French
And German -
Portuguese
And Spanish, too
You name it,
Any language will do.

How can such a poem be
So universally
Understood?
It belongs to a sonnet
A ballad,
A song.
A poem that is all
To everyone.
Sinners and saints
Cowpokes and ladies
The poem it speaks
Even to maybes.
Even to have beens
- Even to Queens!
Elizabeth Regina
Sitting on her throne
In London
Alone
Gasped when she read it.
‘Wonderful! ’ she said
‘Without any blight.’
Took out her sword
And made Leland a knight.

Leland’s the one
Who wrote it you see.
He gets the kudos
For all of us.

It could have been me.
But Leland was
Dreaming
Fancifully scheming
And through the mists
Of Creation
With a libation,
He saw the poem
Winking at him.
Quick as a flash
With dash of his pen
He wrote it down
For every poet in town.

Its wonders are many
But this ones for me.
It calls forth reaction,
Reaction you see!
Reaction to a poem
No matter the size
Makes poetry true,
Makes it alive.

This poem is the ultimate!
The ultimate Zen -
To understand it
Is to know,
What, where, which and when.
It doesn’t tell you why
Because ‘why’ as we know
Is just pie in the sky.

So here is the poem
Read it and see.
The best review
Gets 500 from me.
-

The Poem
.

by Leland-Janson of www.webook.com


© Copyright 2008 Raphaël/Jonathan S. (UN: jonmark222 at Writing.Com) . All rights reserved. Raphaël has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.