Towards A More Footloose Practice - II

Here's a revised version of the poem about Richard Musto's daily practice on the streets of Manhattan.

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Towards A More Footloose Practice – II

When Buddhist friends

Speak of this or that

As being part

Of their daily practice

I’m never quite sure

What they mean

But I believe

Richard Musto’s

Daily practice

Consists precisely of this --

Keeping things footloose

And fancy free

To the ultimate degree

It’s the mantra

He lives by

While traipsing

Through the city streets

And the very words

He taped to his boots

When we met

The other day
In Midtown

           

For Richard

Working the streets is 

Both means and end in itself

Whether panhandling or selling

Flowers on the corner 

It’s change that he seeks

And the freedom
That comes with it
But never the fixative

Of money

In Pursuit of A More Footloose Practice

 

I am posting here a (mostly) prose version of the first draft of a new poem that I am writing about Richard Musto.  Richard is an 88 year-old man who sometimes lives on the streets of Manhattan and is the subject of my upcoming biography called The Life and Times of Richard Musto.  

As I complete the first draft of this new work I have been thinking more about the spiritual dimensions of Richard's life, and this is the focus of my new poem.

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A Footloose Practice

My Buddhist friends speak of this or that as being part of their daily practice, not that I’m entirely sure what they mean by this phrase.  But my guess is that Richard Musto’s daily practice could best be described this way – keeping things footloose and fancy free to the ultimate degree.

It’s the very mantra

That he lives by

As he traipses through

The city streets

It’s the message

Quite literally that

He taped to his boots

When we met the other day

In midtown Manhattan

What better evidence do you want to vouchsafe for Richard’s bona fides as a resident of the Floating World?  Long ago having consumed whatever seed corn that once may have come his way, Richard now abides by Providential means (that plus a small monthly stipend he receives from the VA for his 30% disability) as he takes to the city streets much as Han Shan and the rest of his gang took to the caves along the face of Cold Mountain, an eponymous hero, but in Richard's case almost every night in search of a new abode.

And Richard also engages in sporadic commercial activity by selling flowers, used books and assorted novelties out of a sidewalk storefront, whenever the weather and his health allows.  And while such activities would probably run afoul of a traditional Buddhist monk’s vows of poverty, they in no way impair Richard’s pursuit of his more footloose spiritual practice, since all of his inventory fits neatly into a canvas satchel as he bangs his way around town.

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Please take a moment to visit the home page for Richard Musto's Life Story and support our kickstarter campaign when it launches in the days to come.

Why I Write -- II

It’s like there's this dog

Leaning out the car window

Except it's me trying 

To write things down

As fast as I can while

Reality keeps rushing by

And that’s precisely why

It’s so important that

I make a proper record

Of what I see and think

Before another moment

Passes into oblivion

A Moment of Vast Richness

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Finding

The key 

To a treasure room

Is never easy

Because 

Invariably

You forget

What it is

You’re looking for

But suddenly

There it was today

Eureka 

And it just happened

To be one of those days

When I remembered

Which key might fit

Into which door

I was in a CVS

Drugstore in fact

By the cash register

Suffering from

A bad head cold

When I found

The very thing

I was looking for -

A package

Of Kleenex

For the long subway ride

I had to take
Out to Brownsville 

But the plastic wrapped

Package cost ten wipes

For a dollar or

Ten cents per tissue

And I felt poor indeed

As if I could barely afford

To blow my nose

And then

I remembered

What I’d intuited before

About fabulous

Wealth – that it would

Only arrive for me

Concomitant 

With the moment

When money itself

Had become 

All but worthless

And I realized

Well here I am

Well on my way

To attaining such
A vast Net Worth

Words shared with a Jazz Messenger

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I wrote this poem after chatting on the front stoop for a while with my downstairs neighbor, Mr. Victor Lewis, who it just so happens is a very fine jazz drummer and what's rarer yet, an ultra-fine specimen of a human being.

Words shared with a Jazz Messenger

Like the shape
Of a drum solo

The words of a poem  

Come and go

And sadly 

A good one

Sometimes slips away
No longer accessible

To RAM or to ROM

Still it might

Come back to

Get written down

One day because if 

An idea or riff
Is persistent enough 

It will manage

To be reheard eventually

And that’s how we know  

What it meant
In the first place

The Digitant

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What exactly
Is a digitant
I sometimes wonder

My best guess being
It's something of
A hybrid like
A Chimera
For modern times

A cross between
A savant and
A dilettante
But with a little
Digital flair

And just like
The Chimera
I recently encountered
It's meant to be protective
And not in the least bit
A threatening beast

A Chimera recently encountered

Short Ode to the Poet's Blog

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Let’s face it

This poetry blog

Entails a little

White lie

At it’s core

These poems

May sound as if

Lampoet is addressing

An audience of one

But why blog

If not intended

For someone else

No matter unseen

Or unfelt beyond

The usual entry

On the user log