A Person Can Break A Neck Trying To Write An Honest Poem*

*(With thanks to Charles Simic for this favorite line in one of his poems for the title.)

I have sat zazen my entire life

& committed every infant pink &

bruised purple morning to memory. I

have fasted & grown gaunt seeking visions,

having raised Presence to my soft red lips

as one lifts a chalice filled with Holy Blood

Of saviors, saints & the wisest madmen.

But it was not until the dim flicker

Of simple light, shadowless on the wall

of the cave that is my heart, scratched in an ancient

hand, that I was so stirred to finally

make out the blessing, once too blurry to read:

"let your writing be your practice,” it said,

let your practice be what you bleed."

Mike Biegner

Jan. 2012