BPM 37093, Western & The Buddha and the stone
by Kalman Farago
[ poetry - may 06 ]
BPM 37093
The largest diamond known
to man was found
in the dying heart
of a star.
The perfect courtship gift,
the stubborn numerization of its mass -
ten billion trillion
trillion carats -
can, without breaking sweat,
accomplish anything any
poet ever failed to.
No rhyme or metaphor
can keep up with the repetition
of thirty-four chanting zeroes,
and no synonym of 'ardour'
is understood to imply
anything even remotely close
to twelve thousand Kelvin.
If I'll ever love a woman enough,
I'll bring it down for her
and crash the stock market -
love is in the action, not the trinket.
Western
A black horse
ambles
through the desert.
His rider
is a cowboy
with a hat
and Colts.
Little does he know
that the horse
is not
carrying him
on its back,
but the desert
on its hooves.
The Buddha and the stone
The Buddha met a stone
sitting on top
of a larger stone.
'Name a thing' - said the stone.
'And I will tell you
the truth
about it.'
- it said
to the Buddha.
'Beauty'
- the Buddha replied
'Beauty is naive'
- the stone said.
'Why do you say that?' - asked the Buddha
'Because every beautiful thing
is a naive thing as well.' - answered the stone.
'For example, the mountains.
They are
beautiful.
And they are
naive.'
'I don't think
the mountains
are naive.' - said the Buddha.
'Of course they are.' - replied the stone.
'Everybody
knows that.'
'I have never heard anyone
say that before.' - said the Buddha.
'It's a fundamental law
of nature
that beauty equals
naivety.' - said the stone.
'I am a stone.
I should know.
You are just a Buddha.
How would you know
about fundamental laws
of nature?' - the stone asked rhetorically.
'You don't make much sense to me.'
- said the Buddha.
'There is no point in arguing
such an obvious
and fundamental
truth.' - said the stone.
'You are
obviously
wrong.' - said the stone.
The Buddha
could only think of one thing
to reply to that.
But he was too
enlightened
to say it.
