Poetry

Bugs in a Bowl  |  O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie  |  Spring

By David Budbill, Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse, Copper Canyon Press.

  Han Shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:

  We're just like bugs in a bowl. All day going around never leaving their bowl.

  I say, That's right! Every day climbing up 
  the steep sides, sliding back.

  Over and over again. Around and around.
  Up and back down.

  Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands, 
  cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself.

  Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
  Walk around.

  Say, Hey, how you doin'?
  Say, Nice Bowl!

By Philip Appleman

  O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
  gimme a break before I die: 
  grant me wisdom, will, & wit,
  purity, probity, pluck, & grit.
  Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
  gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,
  and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice --
  these little blessings would suffice 
  to beget an earthly paradise:
  make the bad people good--
  and the good people nice;
  and before our world goes over the brink,
  teach the believers how to think.

By Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Collected Poems, Harper Collins

  To what purpose, April, do you return again?
  Beauty is not enough.
  You can no longer quiet me with the redness
  Of little leaves opening stickily.
  I know what I know.
  The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
  The spikes of the crocus.
  The smell of the earth is good.
  It is apparent that there is no death.
  But what does that signify?
  Not only under ground are the brains of men
  Eaten by maggots.
  Life itself
  Is nothing,
  An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
  It is not enough that yearly, down the hill,
  April,
  Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

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