Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Queer Poetry: Damn The Culture Ministry, by the late James Kirkup

Damn the culture ministry

My lover from Asakusa, a blooming boy,
He who adorned his amber body
With a swirling tattoo
Of the goddess Kwannon surrounded
By ferns, wildflowers, flags
And had a capering carp
Illuminating each vigorous buttock —

He whose suit of ink,
Blue and black and dogrose pink,
Was the one garment
I could not divest him of —
When he pulled back
His periwinkled foreskin, he discovered,
Always with a broken smile,
A gay butterfly on the glans penis.

Now the Culture Ministry
Has proclaimed him
Not only a National Treasure, but
An Intangible National Treasure!

Now I no longer
Hold him in my arms like a warm
Sheaf of poppies and wheat, no more
Stroke that golden-amber shoulder
Stained with a lace of sugarbag blue,
No more bedew
With tears and kisses his
Empurpled butterfly...

I can't get my hands on him.
Our love is finished,
Broken by banal politicians.

Now he belongs to the Nation,
Which means he belongs to no one,
And especially not to me.
I always put him on a pedestal,
But not like this!
He might as well be behind glass,
Stuffed and docketed in the National Museum.

Damn the Culture Ministry!

This poem appeared in the seminal anthology of gay male poets edited by Ian Young in 1972: The Male Muse. The photo was taken by Robert Chang of a temporary tattoo and captures my sentiments perfectly.

Gay Poet, James Kirkup, dies at 91

I'd read James Kirkup's memoir of Japan, These Horned Isles, years back when I first moved to Japan. I was introduced to his poetry by the gay Canadian poet, bibliographer, archivist and activist, Ian Young, back in the 1970s.

His work stirred up a lot of trouble in Britain when one of his poems, about the love of a Roman Centurion for Christ on the cross, led to the last successful prosecution for blasphemy in that country. The Japanese of course, honored Kirkup, and he received prizes for his writing from the Heisei Emperor.

I will dig thru my books later to post something of his.

Twenty Days: Two weeks, Six days of the Omer. Yesod of Tiferet

Yesod, once again, is the sefira that corresponds to the second chakra — of sexual energy, generativity, and most importantly in Kabbalah, connectivity or bonding. This is an energy that is clearly physical in nature. And today the energy that we meditate on is that connection in beauty, as well as the bond forged in compassion. These may seem to be somewhat opposite at first. However, anyone who has been in a deep, long-term committed relationship knows the compassion partners have for each other — they see the true beauty in the fully vulnerable humanity in the lover, and have compassion for the ways the lover is broken.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "There is a crack in everything God has made." This is in alignment with the Kabbalistic view, and that it is our job to help repair the world. Part of the work of this repair is seeing the beauty in the brokenness and loving it. After all, the Divine love flows through all things. How can we love it any less? How can we feel anything less than compassion for all Creation, including ourselves? And how can we see it as anything less than beautiful?

One note about the image of the Nine of Pentacles, which captures some important information about the energy of Yesod. In this garden, the mistress holds a falcon that is hooded. It is a recognition of the animal nature of sexuality, and the fruits that come from understanding how to control this energy and channel it in ways that create connection and celebrate beauty and compassion. So may we all walk this path.

Today is 15 days, which is two weeks and one day of the Omer

Into the week of Tiferet. Where John Keats would feel right at home:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Of course, the Jews of the Kingdom of Israel during the time of the Maccabees would be horrified at the quote, given that it is inspired by a Grecian Urn. Well, I suppose given the nature of this blog that would be the least thing they'd be horrified by.

But Tiferet is the intersection of Truth and Beauty. It is also known as Compassion, which connects it to the Boddhisatva Kuan Yin, who is female in China and Japan, and known as the beautiful male youth Avalokiteshvara in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Kuan Yin is the expression of today's sefirotic energy, Chesed in Tiferet: Lovingkindnes in Compassion. So I found it rather amusing that at both Andrew Sullivan's blog, as well as on Joe.My.God there was a link to a video of Chinese dancers in an homage to Kuan Yin. And not one to run from the energy of the day, here it is for your pleasure — it's quite amazing:

Todays is the 10th day, which is one week and three days, counting the Omer: Tiferet of Gevurah

Yesterday, I wrote about ikebana and discipline in my discussion of Gevurah in Gevurah. Today is Tiferet in Gevurah, and one way of looking at this sefirotic relationship is the Beauty of Form. Or Beauty expressed through Discipline. So once again, the example of ikebana seems appropriate. Or indeed truly any art form, with the accent on form. After all, a sonnet is as highly formalized as a haiku. So today is a good day to meditate on the demands of a discipline and how it channels our creativity and enables us to bring beauty into the light.

Alternatively, the energy of this day can also be considered as a time for expressing the compassion of discipline. I think of the advice given in the 12-step world: Easy does it. This is a recognition that someone in recovery needs to be easy on him or herself. After all, there is much internalized shame and judgement when one is in recovery. And there is no perfection in recovery. Simply recognizing that we are all human, that we all fall, is to experience compassion for ourselves, and for all those who fall once, or again and again. (This is not excuse making or abrogating responsibility, it is the simple recognition of that there is no perfect form)

Visual Headlines: Plucking the Chrysanthemum and the Black Tulip

There are many headline writing techniques to get attention. The visual headline uses either a graphic or  visual element to be both words and visual. For example, in this ad for Ikea below:

We see a floor plan that spells out the word "play," which is hopefully the attitude customers will bring to shopping at Ikea to decorate their flat. The Black Tulip Hotel in Amsterdam, which advertises specifically to the gay community used a similar technique -- the visual headline -- and in fact, a floor plan, to suggest another kind of play available for guests at the hotel:

An odd tangent is my question about the name The Black Tulip. In classical Japanese literature, the phrase, "plucking the chrysanthemum" was used to denote the taking of a young man's anal virginity. Apart from a reference to the tulipmania of the Netherlands' economic history, I wonder if the phrase "black tulip," has a similar connotation as the Japanese phrase mentioned above. Any Dutch speakers out there have any info?

W.H.Auden, Cute Butts and Bicycle Seats

This TV Spot from the ever amazing team at Euro RSCG Paris brings to mind the couplet by W. H. Auden:

I've often thought that I should like
to be the saddle of a bike.

Exactly.

The Sexy Men of Venezuela: Are You My Angel?

If you aren't familiar with the annual Mr. Venezuela contest then you are truly missing one of the world's great expositions of male beauty. Here, for your pleasure, and for my hungry ghost, is Angel Casallas from last year's competition.

And as an angel, he brings to mind this beautifully wistful paean to male beauty, Allen Ginsberg's poem, A Supermarket in California:

   

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe.

I remember the first time I saw art work by Joe Brainard

I was standing in a store on Spring St. in Manhattan called Untitled that sold art post cards. Some time in the mid 70s I went there and bought several dozen — 10 of which I laid out on my bed with the intention of creating a narrative from the images and then writing a little chapter of the story on the back of each to mail to a boyfriend who was away at college in Bennington. One of the postcards I didn't use was the one above, which was a limited edition postcard created by Joe Brainard. I didn't even know who he was or that he was an artist and a poet.

Around the same time, I started reading poetry by the New York School after coming across some poems from the group in Mouth of The Dragon. And it led me to Brainard's memoir, I Remember.... This hypnotically beautiful mantra of memories moved me greatly. It didn't shy away from his queer life and loves, juxtaposing the most soul stirring moments with the absolutely everyday — all related in a way that spoke to all the senses. What is so amazing is that this poem has become the template for teachers in schools around the country for teaching children how to write poetry (minus the racier bits).

What a handsome man he was. I first saw a photo of him at a retrospective of his  work  that traveled the country — I happened to see it at a museum in Berkeley. Recently a book was published of his artwork that centered around a popular 20th Century comic character, Nancy. If you don't know his work, go take a look at his website. You'll be surprised to discover just how much of his work informed everything that came after him — and how much of his work inspired Warhol. I actually think Brainard was the wittier and more accomplished artist — Warhol was just more of a merchant and showman than Brainard was interested in being.  If you like what you see of JB's work, you should also check out the site of his friend and sometime companion, Kenward Elmslie.

The Tzohar, The Triple Gem and The Jewel Trader of Pegu

Both Judaism and Buddhism share an important metaphor — that of the jewel. In Jewish mysticism, the Tzohar is a jewel that seems to be lit from within. And indeed it glows with the primordial light of creation that it carries. Those who possessed the Tzohar possessed the light that is stored for the righteous, that particularly Jewish phrasing for enlightenment.

There are many folk tales about the Tzohar, some of which can be read in the collections edited by Howard Schwartz (one of my favorite stories, in the volume Gabriel's Palace, is called The Sunken Forest). The Tzohar, like the oral tradition it represents, is passed down from one person to another as is any esoteric teaching.

Some readers may wonder about the similarity to the word Zohar, which is the name of one of the most important books of kabbalah. I will simply note in this digression that zohar means brilliance or radiance. Tzohar means illumination. And kabbalah comes from the Hebrew verb root kbl, which means to receive.

In Buddhism the jewel is a central metaphor, much more than in Judaism, where it is merely a symbol in a particular mystical tradition.

In the Anguttara Nikaya the Buddha speaks of the diamond mind, the mind that is strong enough to cut through all delusion. And the of course there is the triple gem — the spoken formula by which all followers of the Buddha’s path take sanctuary. I have spoken the words of the triple gem every time I have started a ten-day meditation retreat. But unlike an esoteric tradition like that of the tzohar, the teaching of the triple gem is open and clearly explained to all. This is not the story of a hidden light, but one that is shared.

Why this long explication of jewels and Jews and Buddhists? Well, recently Jeffrey Hantover published a new novel, The Jewel Trader of Pegu, and one of its central images is a jewel that the main character finds.

The jewel trader is indeed a Jew, named Abraham, who wanders from his home in the Jewish Ghetto of Renaissance Venice to a small kingdom in Burma known for its fine gemstones. There he builds a small fortune as a trader of gems, and in his work he comes across a unique jewel that, like the tzohar, seems to glow with an inner light, that actually “pulsed with life.”

Indeed, Abraham does trade jewels when he settles in Burma. Having escaped from the confines of the ghetto, and of the calumny of Christians, Abraham begins to experience a freedom he never knew. And at the same time, he discovers a ghetto he never knew that he lived in — the ghetto walls that encircled his own heart.

In his talks with his Burmese business partner, he learns about the teachings of the Buddha. And he sees how these teachings are part of the lives of the people. This is a novel of culture shock. And one of the jewels Abraham trades is the tzohar for the triple gem. I do not mean to suggest at all that he becomes a Buddhist. But that his heart opens in a way that he experiences the Divine in ways that do not seem to him to connect with what his tradition has taught him.

Please don’t get the idea that this is a philosophical or religious novel. One could make the argument that it is historical romance, since the most important relationship in the book is between Abraham the trader and Mya, a young widow who is destitute. And the action is framed by the historical events of the time, an egomaniacal king who leads his country into ruin through his self-delusion. However, in the discussions between Abraham and his Burmese business partner Maung Win we see how each man discovers the beauty in each other’s tradition, the other facets of the jewel reflecting the one light.

As in any good novel, Abraham discovers that with freedom from the ghetto of the heart comes choice and responsibility. He realizes that “An ox yoked to the grinding wheel cannot claim to be virtuous for not trampling the crops in the field.” Freedom is no longer “just a prayer at Passover” for him, and he discovers its true meaning.

What is the true meaning of freedom? Reading The Jewel Trader of Pegu will give you a hint. It will also capture you in a story of people in love who are caught up in events beyond their control. Sound familiar? Of course, it is one of the few great stories in the world, and in this case it is told anew with masterful grace. Whether you are Jewish, Buddhist or another queer Jubu like me, you will find much beauty in this slim volume.