Coins and Koans

by Kent lewis

Starbuck’s Lament - Drink Wine - The Binding of Abraham - The Loneliness of the Kaiten Sushi 

⛩

Starbuck’s Lament

Brothers under the whip, I hear your howls.
They make the salt Atlantic shiver
And surge with cold rage, heaving
In sullen swells without crest.
I have felt every laceration
And lash that fell on flesh,
Cropping a wealth of welts
On the fair fields of your backs.
I have witnessed and winced at every blow
Meted out by this mad captain
On his hateful hunt
To vanquish nature’s monster.
Your pain has been slow-hammered
On the forge of daily abuse.
You have bent but not broke,
The raw ore of your anger
Smithied and tempered
Into something bright and edged.
I gaze into the flat
Of the many gleaming swords
And see my face mirrored,
A snarl hungry for retribution
For the blood of despots,
For the peeled skull
Of Ahab.

None here wants this quixotic dolt
Dead as much as I.
I! I! Starbuck, anchor of the Pequod!
I who steer the ship through
 All the Captain’s impossible weathers.
Often on your behalf
I have reasoned with the tempest,
Placing myself between switch and sailor.
“How serves a crippled crew?”
“What profit in vengeance?”
“He is but a child!”
There is a quiet that comes
Only when the mind is spent
From too much rage.
In that silence appear
Ideas strange and luring.

Let me share a secret, my shame:
In my pocket, a musket ball I used to keep
Which I christened “Grudge.”
When crew failed to keep some trivial command
And Ahab blustered severity beyond reason,
Then I felt my soul frayed to ragged threads,
And I rubbed my Grudge to a shine.
With each fresh outrage
I polished my talisman
Until it black-sparkled like a comet in the void.
I don’t remember the banal brutality
Which catalyzed me into action.
Forgive me, there were so many!
I only remember my spine was a rod of anguish,
My nerves a livid, flaming tree
Of Indignation.
My hands took from the rack the rifle
And into its gaping maw
Dropped the ball, my luminous Grudge.

Understand, I made no choice in this;
I was a mere watcher
As my over-pricked animal body
Sought its prey, easily found, Ahab asleep,
In sheets worth half of Egypt.
It was not I who raised the barrel,
Nor I who drew a bead on the sleeper’s skull
Nor I who tapped and tested the trigger.
This was the rhythm of the universe
Balancing the scales.

One squeeze of my finger —
That’s how close I was to falling
Into the abyss.
Ahab — you are my White Whale,
My Möbius that twists outside in,
Inside out, and
Victim into villain.
The injuries you inflicted
Festered within my spirit, grew rank,
Until I became feral creature,
A serpent who sees the world
through red, resentful eyes,
And bides its days on sea beds waiting
To swallow ships whole.

Christ wore a woven ring of thorns
But never did he curse the pricks
 who crowned him.
His side was poked and piked,
But never did he raise his voice,
Or spear.
Iron nails pierced his wrists,
But never did hands make fists,
Or war.
Christ was a carpenter 
Betrayed by carpenters, 
who hewed his cross
For profit,
But He let all human anger bleed out.
A horse that’s hard-rode and spurred-sore,
Will anon bite, buck and turn
Its hooves on the rider,
But not our Christ of the many wounds.
He chose to break the loop.
And so did I.
My Grudge I dropped to the ocean floor.

You, my mates, my brethren in injustice
Your hands — meant for work — now hold swords
That have not yet carved wrack and ruin
In the ledger of your souls.
You stand on the same precipice
As once did I.
You can surrender to malice
Let the swords wield you, 
And watch from afar as you
Become little Ahabs
Whose tombstone reads
“He Gave Tit for Tat.”

You have suffered nameless indignities;
You chafe and groan and sweat,
So your lord can swig sweet
Chianti with his meat;
You are the clever slave
Who builds his master
A better set of manacles.
Your minds can envision cathedrals
And your hands can build them,
But you are forbade entry.
Something beyond the ken of Man
is off-kilter on Earth.
On a crooked axis, this globe spins
But each revolution 
Brings more violence to the wobble;
And those who try to uncrook it
Make topple the world.

This life is brief, but
Eternity beckons.
Leave earthly vendetta here
And reckon on heaven.

Thankfully, thankless Christ 
Has blazed a shining path.
Bury your blades in the brine
And trust the judgment of His sword;
Wear the stripes of suffering,
That brand you brothers to the divine.
Let the miser hoard gold and bread,
While you make lean bank in heaven.
Keep a steady hand on the rudder,
As we skim towards God’s audit,
The great and final tally
Of our sins.
Forfeit your wages and serve
The one true Sovereign
Who will hold poor Ahab to account.
Your rage is dross
That weighs you down.
Leave it here; let it drown!
Those unruly few, the fools
Who tilt and tip this ship,
Forever doom us all
To the devils down-below.
A paradise above is yours to seek 
If you have courage to stay meek.
Those who crave war, 
But sue for peace,
Are the trim and true vessels of God.
My fellows — my heart burns as yours —
We must journey in silence a bit farther
Labour a little longer
Before we reach the last destination.
Hold vigil for the status quo;
Stay good sailors on his good ship
Until the pilot of the golden city
Guides our sloop to port.

Starbuck here ended his lament. 
The sailors grumbled but grabbed 
Their heavy tackle,
Jibbed into the wind,
Licked salt and sang sullen ditties,
Steering the Pequod straight
Towards the white whale
And their pointless deaths.

⛩

Drink Wine

⛩

The Binding of Abraham

All that flows from God is a gift:
The first orchard overburdened with fruit;
Boughs dew-dappled and bent,
Fig heavy and nut-plumbed;
Clover-drunk lambs nestled in rooks,
Half-watched by drowsy shepherds;
The musk of ripe melon 
fresh cracked; a child
Lips sweet-stained with cherry
Nectar; spice and honey;
Resin of sun-baked cedar groves;
The broken bone 
Knit anew and strong;
The dissolving alchemy of fire;
Mutton that spits and drips;
Strings that snug
Meat to skewer;
The rope coiled around
Ankle and wrist
Binding you trim and prone;
The sheen of a well-oiled dagger
A gift!
Its edge of bronze
Pressing into neck.
A gift!
A chance to be
A willing pawn,
The Lord’s tool.

So whispers Abraham into Isaac’s ear.

Duty-bound to God’s dreadful word,
Abraham lingers before his task.
Father strokes son’s brow
As if comforting a fevered child,
Eyes locked on eyes, 
Four circles wide and wet 
with faith and fear.
Abraham notches the blade
Into the sweet spot
Just below the ear
Where blood will sluice
As from hooked and hanging sow.
Poised but perplexed,
Abraham pauses and thinks.

The son who obeys the Father
Is a father who slays his son.
To quench my Lord’s blood-thirst,
I must become all murder,
An abomination
In the eyes of God.

In the marrow of my bones 
A fury of ancestors shriek 
“Kill not kin!”
Yet this is God’s command
And must thus be good,
A gift.

My Lord, I am unworthy 
Of such beneficence;
Please give it to another
More willing to sacrifice
And kill in your name.
Give it to the shameless
braggarts who boast
“I never err.”

In my privy self, I yearn 
For insurrection
Against such a vile order.
In truth, I crave to pit
Servant against master,
Child against parent,
Creature against Creator.
In the tent of my mind,
I silent speak: 
“My beloved Isaac, I beseech thee,
Defy God’s ungodly will
That holds me in thrall.
Rise up against your maker,
My cherished prince;
Be of sovereign mind,
Author of your own authority,
And render verdict
On the vassal Abraham
Too weak to dissent.
Buckle my brains with rock
And run into a fateless future;
Raise family not flags;
Do not let your blessed brood
Serve the whims of mad precedents.
Breed no more good soldiers,
Unfree and afraid,
Instruments awaiting orders,
Who find suckle in duty
To some rank and crude boss
Puking forth edicts
Capricious and cruel.”

Instead, my Isaac, you nodding smiled,
And gathered the kindling
For your own funeral pyre.
You calmed my trembling hands
And showed me how to loop rope
Into an inescapable knot.
You did what Daddy said,
All trust, no guile, 
Like a good boy.

I would rather wear
a mess of weeping boils
That ooze and drip
Down a blighted face,
As Job was tasked,
Unasked and unaware,
With outward fester.
A man endures mere pain, but
My lot is to choose
Between two betrayals.
And each cankers me within,
A trial that none may win:
To see if I will finally choose
The Good
or the God;
To see if my soul will reject
A senseless call for slaughter,
And refuse orders 
from a nameless figure
In a white robe
Far away from the front,
In a hall of rich alabaster.

Eden was the cradle
of our first rebellion, and its fruit
Is for us to forever savour
The taste of good and evil;
So juiced with knowing,
We have since left the comfort
Of our green and youthful bliss, 
And instead have navigated
The wild spaces of the globe,
With the compass of our wits.
We’ve crossed deserts by ancient starlight,
Coursed the boundless sea,
Mapped the dark places
That never housed a single djinn,
And extended scopes to the heavens.
This is the legacy 
From our first mother,
She who took serpent’s counsel,
The bequeathment of Eve
Who cursed mankind
To always know
Right from wrong
Alone.

Perhaps God is like unto us,
A parent in our image,
Who silently thrills when His children
Show a spark of disobedience
That can be fanned to fullness
Of adult liberty.
Was His furtive hope
For us to taste that taboo fruit?
What guardian keeps His ward
Basking in sticky ignorance,
In a paradise of sugary pleasures,
Forever weak and mewling,
Incapable and clingy,
Glutted on unearned rewards,
an unweaned babe
In a playpen prison?
Does God smite and blight us,
Each terrible test worse than past,
So we learn to reject tyranny,
And through the miracle of “No!”
Discover how to become ourselves?
Surely God seeks our best,
And envisions humankind
Sitting at His table as peers,
Becoming as unto gods, 
And like a good rabbi,
Hoping for pupil to surpass teacher,
Thus rendering God obsolete.

Helter-skelter these thoughts skitter
Through Abraham’s agonized mind
Before a fearsome discipline
Makes him seize the hot metal
Of his blasphemy, 
And plunge it into the chill
Waters of unsparing resolve:
To be the rod of God’s will.

You know the rest.
An angel, an intervention, 
A swap of sacrifices
(“Here use this sweetly docile sheep”) 
An awkward reunion 
between weary father 
and wary son, 
Two in the playpen still stuck.
But this mystery remains unclear, I confess,
Did Abraham pass — or fail — the test?

⛩

The Loneliness of the Kaiten Sushi 

One plate of sushi
has past me seven times on
the conveyor belt

In a restaurant
Filled with fellow businessmen
I eat lunch alone

Hands snatch other plates
A heartbeat between impulse
and satisfaction

The ravenous mouths
leave huge sticky plate towers,
tombstones of hunger

On my stool I sit
and watch men glut on fish flesh
seaweed between teeth 

None reach for that one,
That aging plate of sushi
undesired, unloved

Every cycle 
that adds to its rotations
lessens its chances

It passes once more
silent, knowing of its fate
it fails, tries, fails, tries . . . 

You have been around!
Even I start to wonder
What is wrong with you

Why do none claim you?
I notice some new defect 
Each time you circle

The crumbling rice
The dance of dissolution
That no one escapes

I sit by myself
Also unloved and unclaimed.
Two good companions

Goodbye my dear friend
I must return to my office
and make my own rounds

And circle the earth
and loop about the sun as
the galaxy spins

Waiting for what, hmmmm?
Some eye to see us? A hand to
Make us feel chosen?

⛩

Back to Top