« The Gautama Reversal (by Sumeer Chadha) »

This is a "guest"-piece by a poet (or po:et?), Sumeer Chadha. I ran into Sumeer on The Poet Sanctuary site.  He writes mind-blowing verse (which does what po:etry/pattern interruption poetry does, i.e. it extinquishes the reader's mind, if only for a moment, which is enough to reset back to your awareness).  I have appreciated many poems & po:ems by Sumeer but I really liked this one, The Gautama Reversal, because a) this piece tells an unknown story, b) it blows your mind-fuses faster than a bubble-pop, and c) it is self-illustrating (Sumeer is kind of inventing a visual genre here - experimenting both with word, font and formatting).  So, here it is, and do pay him a visit.

I see the shadow.
Vast
Penumbra to the moon
Tracing the lines of a blood-cast eclipse
Reverberates the mirror-matched sunspots
of your high-resolution cornea

Do what with it?

Contra-Siddhārtha Gautama
viewed the world upside down
On lotus petals each folding over
a didactic universe of emptiness

I play with your soul like he did

Which way, where, with what, and when?

Any way one looks
the doppelganger redirects
to that obtuse exit
of blinding blinking neon red

It howls. It blows over
the dust bowl brain of conscious vacancy
--z@*$--> aum aum aum <--$*@z--
Mizra's mantra caking the torrid thermocline
of a musty mouthful of zen jewels

Volcanic ejections
Linear tracts at skewed angles
Ask, no.
Cry out for that answer:

Who really was Sammāsambuddha anyhow?

I know. I know.
but as the never-ending river flows
We step into a different moment every time
New questions must be asked

The all-encompassing book of erudite answers
is closed on this one
until the lotus-bud explodes again.

(a poem by Sumeer Chadha)