One Flower
One flower on the cliffside Nodding at the canyon
From Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac, published by Penguin Poets. Copyright © 2003 by the Estate of Stella Kerouac, John Sampas, Literary Representative. All rights reserved.
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Got up and dressed up
and went out & got laid
Then died and got buried
in a coffin in the grave,
Man—
Yet everything is perfect,
Because it is empty,
Because it is perfect
with emptiness,
Because it's not even happening.
Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesn't like to be reminded of fits—
You start with the Teaching
Inscrutable of the Diamond
And end with it, your goal
is your startingplace,
No race was run, no walk
of prophetic toenails
Across Arabies of hot
meaning—you just
numbly don't get there
1959
The Essence of Existence
is Buddhahood—
As a Buddha
you know
that all the sounds
that wave from a tree
and the sights
from a sea of fairies
in Isles of Blest
and all the tastes
in Nectar Soup
and all the odors
in rose arbour
—ah rose, July rose—
bee-dead rose—
and all the feelings
in the titwillow's
chuckling throat
and all the thoughts
in the raggedy mop
of the brain—
one dinner
1959
The stars in the sky
In vain
The tragedy of Hamlet
In vain
The key in the lock
In vain
The sleeping mother
In vain
The lamp in the corner
In vain
The lamp in the corner unlit
In vain
Abraham Lincoln
2006