by Anthony Immergluck
*
My guru says it’s cheating
to meditate drunk.
*
I let my thoughts pass
like clouds in the breeze
and when I open my eyes,
I can’t remember any Spanish.
*
Sometimes toads explode.
Look it up.
*
All things are cyclical.
I will live to see the day
when socks and sandals
come into fashion.
*
I had planned to tattoo
a watch on my wrist,
but I couldn’t commit to a time.
*
I am workshopping my mantra.
Be honest—I can take it.
*
I would never kill a dragonfly,
but I guess I’d kill a horsefly.
I am still undecided
about all the types of flies
I’ve yet to meet in person.
*
I don’t believe in past lives,
but in a past life, perhaps I did.
*
Rock stars can’t be Buddhas.
Good lord—I’ll have to choose.
*
I would never have thought
twice about impermanence
if I hadn’t started losing my hair
from thinking about impermanence.
*
My least favorite sound
is everyone else sleeping.
*
One could spend a thousand lifetimes
meditating on the nature of the cigarette.
This is the central paradox of the sutras
as I understand them.
*
I am calibrating my karma
to be reborn a labrador.
*
“I’m a realist,”
is just something
pessimists say.
*
Oh, fuck me—
I forgot the windchimes.
*
I am an amateur birdwatcher,
staring up with my mouth wide open
anytime the canopy shakes.
Anthony Immergluck is a poet, critic, musician, and publishing professional from Chicago. He received his MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at NYU-Paris. Anthony works as a Publishing Sales Representative for W. W. Norton and reads manuscripts for Tupelo Press. His recent work appears or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Blue Mountain Review, Sequestrum, and Sonora Review among others.
Nicholas C Casciano has been drawing for over fifty years and during his professional career served as the founder of a first-of-its-kind multimedia production center within a Fortune 500 company. Born without depth perception, he has refused to accept his visual limits and lives by the mantra “talent survives.”
Gulf Stream Magazine 