Author’s Note: I write a lot about relationships, love, and other mysterious events, so perplexing events and issues interest me. Zen is perfect for that, of course, since the koan is, by definition, a paradox that illustrates how inadequate logic is. Its contemplation is seen as a vehicle toward enlightenment. The jumbled state of emotion, the complications of being and the bodily state—its flesh and consciousness—to me, these are related and ultimately unfathomable, but as a poet, I must try.
Zen and the Art of Transfiguration: 4 Koans
1.
Would suicides
feel the irony,
if they return
in the bodies
of tortoises,
doomed
to longevity?
2.
If you put
your whole
life
into a painting,
are you the art,
or are you
the artist?
3.
Are bunyip,
crying nocturnes
from riverbeds
in their hunger for
women’s flesh,
merely restless
barking owls?
4.
When you don’t
like the dream
you awake from,
do you get
another chance
as you drift into
asleep again?
⧫
Susana H. Case has authored five chapbooks and eight books of poetry, most recently The Damage Done (Broadstone Books, 2022), which won her third Pinnacle Book Achievement Award. Her books have previously won an IPPY and a New York City Big Book Distinguished Favorite award. She was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and the International Book Awards. She co-edited, with Margo Taft Stever, the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk and Cake Press, 2022). Dr. Case worked several decades as a professor and program coordinator at New York Institute of Technology. Website: www.susanahcase.com.
Delmarva Review publishes evocative new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction selected from thousands of original submissions annually. Designed to encourage outstanding writing, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. Support comes from tax-deductible contributions, sales, and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org.
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