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Showing posts from March 15, 2020

Buddha's parable of the burning house - Brecht

This is a   good time to read Brecht. Here’s a translation of my own of Brecht’s Buddha’s parable of the burning house - Def plaguetime reading Gotama, the Buddha, taught the doctrine of the wheel of lust, on which we are broken and advised the undoing of desire and going wishless into Nothing, which he called Nirvana. One day a pupil asked him, What is this Nothing, Master? We all wish To throw off all desire, as  you advice, but tell us If this Nothing in which we will enter Is something like being one with all creation when one lies in water, floating, in the afternoon, Almost without thought, at ease in the water, or like Falling asleep, hardly knowing one has Tossed away the blanket, quickly sinking – Whether this nothing is joyful, a good nothing, Or whether this nothing of yours is only simply nothing, cold, empty and meaningless. The Buddha was silent  for a long while then he said There is no answer to your question. But towards ev

Pictures, trophies, America by Karen Chamisso

Description won’t save you Marianne Playing possum in a still life “in tolerably good light” drawing what I can every Popeye with an Olive Oyl wife is the dollhouse dream. I dream it too though my skin and bones were built on killing not on visits to the zoo or Audubon’s bird book whilst I’m chilling out in bed after seeing the doctor. Audubon hired a boy to search out nests and   “assist in skinning birds” – wh/ wouldn’t have shocked her haunter of antique shops and flea markets and amateur of all the freaks   – I recognize myself, a skinned thing as freak as any carved out of teak trailing a disease from my wings or: “a small spotted bird, standing a little pigeon-toed with a waiting expression…” Waking, I find the taxidermist has sewed my mouth shut, like the last passenger pigeon.