Slap A Monk

It might enlighten you

Image by Teddy Tavan.

I met a monk today
and my Self slapped his across the face
then slapped itself when no reaction was received.
Better to make the feeling when there is none at all.
Better to create the pain to justify the feeling,
than release the feeling with no justification for its existence in the first place.

I spoke to the robed man
and said more words than him
and made less sense than him,
the senseless man,
I spoke to no reply
to no verbal gratification or agreement
but instead a holy silence
one only found atop a mountain away from the human noise
but nosey I am to understand
how his holy silence
would survive the london underground.

I sat with this man at peace
man in peace
man of peace
and with confusion
I sat in my confusion
for had he not seen
on this little screen
the horrors of this world?
I fantasised on surrounding his circular head with cello tape
leaving just enough room for my iPhone and the violence it played.
I need him to be
strapped to the screen
to understand suffering.

What pain has he overcome
if he has not overcome this one:

The Forever-Open Floodgate With the Folly of Mankind…

with every flaw and fallacy, every consequence to come and to be ignored, every mistake we’ve made, I’ve made, and will make and why I made them and why it’s my fault and not my fault and someone else’s, what I should do about it and what I can’t do about it and why that matters and why nothing matters.

I saw my reflection in his bald head
and slapped again.
I don’t know how, but nothing happened
I’ll have to keep slapping
until he feels like me.

© H. R. Sinclair

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