Author Archives: Patrick Cole

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About Patrick Cole

Husband, parent and writer. Sharing stories with a little humor and wisdom along the way.

Giving makes the mind beautiful

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Always enjoy Lynn J Kelly’s blog posts. Today’s post reminds me: Giving can be a remedy for any bad feelings we might have about ourselves.” and our giving can be as simple as “to give time, a smile, a kind word, or something else of value.”

lynnjkelly's avatarThe Buddha's Advice to Laypeople

It’s worth thinking about the place that giving has in our lives. How important is it? How do we feel when we give something with no strings attached? How regularly do we practice generosity, and in what context? This is a central question if we are on a spiritual path.

Generosity is the first virtue that the Buddha taught to laypeople. It is the access point for all of the other trainings because it requires us to let go of whatever it is we’re clinging to or relying on. Real generosity is a kind of giving that can only be done with an open heart, and an open heart holds nothing back. It could be called lesson number one in surrendering to things as they are.

There’s a longish sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya, book of sevens, about giving; about all the different motivations that we might have when we…

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Feb 16 – Poets as Lovers of Truth

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Lesley Day at Lesley Day Poetry on Facebook

A poet known for her raw emotion and passionate public readings; check out Lesley Day’s book, Authenticity on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Authenticity-Lesley-Day/dp/1958351008

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Lesley will be hosting an Open Mic Poetry Night this coming Sunday at Spine Bookstore & Cafe. See https://www.stlmag.com/events/poetry-open-mic-hosted-lesley-day-featuring-patrick-cole/ I’m looking forward to meeting her in-person.

Based on social media and YouTube videos, I’m dedicating one of my past poems to her:

A Walking Billboard

An anchor was my first one, next came “I Love Mom,”

….. followed by a battleship, then a long-legged blonde

a little skin, a lot of ink, and some time to put it on.

….. my body is my billboard – you know where I’m coming from.

Some people have a flower on their ankles or their butt,

….. others a teddy bear or a dolphin jumping up

a pretty little heart, a family shield, a religious cup,

….. In other words, a confession they truly lack the guts

to tell the world, “Go to Hell” with a sneering devil’s grin

….. a fire-breathing dragon popping off their skin,

a green-fucking monster human-eating alien,

….. or something wickedly evil, truly hair-raisin.

No wimps need apply, a poet must have balls

….. to say what others won’t while their hiding behind walls

of secret little “come-ons” hidden under overalls

….. but a poet’s loud and proud to shout it from their falls.

Roaring thunder puts you under your bed sheets at night

….. but a poet tells the world of the dangers and who to fight

there are no winners, no deadly wrong, no sacred right,

….. just our scars and our tattoos of the war that’s skin tight!

from I Am Furious (Yellow), Patrick J. Cole, (c) 2009

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Feb 15 – Three Dharma Poets: Bouse, Brehm and Metters

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Today’s senryu: Now and Zen

Ev’ry now and zen

we take pleasure from life’s puns,

with or without wine

Below are pictures and links for three dharma poets, three wise men, that inspire my spiritual and poetic path. Perhaps they will inspire you as well.

“Ari Bouse helps you breathe fresh air into your soul so you may then exhale the dead air of old ways that no longer serve you. … Something to Chew On serves as a walking meditation that will help you align with nature as it unfolds during the spirit of the season to enable you to rekindle a sense of magic, mystery, and adventure in your life.” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45290399-something-to-chew-on

Photo by Tracy Pitts https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-brehm

“The experience of reading a poem is a meditative experience in and of itself. As author John Brehm writes in The Dharma of Poetry, to enter a poem is to ‘shift out of everyday consciousness. . . to step out of the ongoing flow of experience and look at it.’ A poem inspires a moment of pause in which we can ‘engage in an imaginative activity that has no practical value.’” https://tricycle.org/article/meditative-poems/

Brehm adds “a poet may be defined as one who stops, one who is inclined by temperament and training to step out of the ongoing flow of experience and look at it, and to help us do the same.” https://tricycle.org/article/poetry-meditation/

Dr. Brian Metters http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-About-Wine-philosophy and https://thetwodoctors.uk/

“Read this slowly, take your time, just think about it. … Now that you’ve read it what are you going to do about it?” https://thetwodoctors.uk/2022/12/08/be-mindful-today-21-gradual-awakening/

Feb 14 – Happy Birthday “Little Valentine”

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“Frederick Douglass was born in February 1818. Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her “Little Valentine.” Douglass, Frederick (1882). The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: From 1817–1882. London: Christian Age Office. p. 2

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman.

In 1848, Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention, in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women’s suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea … Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women’s suffrage; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could also not claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere.

‘In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.‘

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

After Douglass’s powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution.

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Douglass died of a massive heart attack. He was 77.

Douglass’s coffin was transported to Rochester, NY, where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life. His body was received in state at City Hall, flags were flown at half mast, and schools adjourned. He was buried next to Anna (his first wife) in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester’s premier memorial park. Helen (his second wife) was also buried there, in 1903. His grave is, with that of Susan B. Anthony, the most visited in the cemetery. A marker, erected by the University of Rochester and other friends, describes him as “escaped slave, abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and statesman, founder of the Civil Rights Movement in America“. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.” https://www.writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-14-february-frederick-douglass/

Feb 13 – Happy Birthday Faiz Ahmed Faiz

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz

Indian/Pakastani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz born Feb 13, 1911, died Nov 20,1984

“Faiz’s early poems had been conventional, light-hearted treatises on love and beauty, but while in Lahore he began to expand into politics, community, and the thematic interconnectedness he felt was fundamental in both life and poetry.

Throughout his tumultuous life, Faiz continually wrote and published, becoming the best-selling modern Urdu poet in both India and Pakistan. 

Faiz is especially celebrated for his poems in traditional Urdu forms, such as the ghazal, and his remarkable ability to expand the conventional thematic expectations to include political and social issues.

He died in Lahore in 1984, shortly after receiving a nomination for the Nobel Prize.” https://poets.org/poet/faiz-ahmed-faiz

“Although living a simple and restless life, Faiz’s work, political ideology, and poetry became immortal, and he has often been called as one of the “greatest poets” of Pakistan.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz

Feb 12 – Happy Birthday Thomas Campion

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Campion

Poet/lyricist Thomas Campion was born February 12, 1567, and lived until March 1, 1620, dying at the age of 52, most likely of the plague. His poems/songs were known for their “brevity and simple, straightforward delivery.” Considered a “keen observer of human frailty, particularly that brought on by the conflicts of love and sexuality. He is also a moralist.” Campion never married and left a paltry legacy to “his longtime friend and collaborator, Philip Rosseter.”

Campion was also known as a metric poet more interested in syllable count than rhyme. He wrote that rhyme should be “sparingly used, lest it should offend the ear with tedious affectation.” He added that rhyming was a “childish titillation.” These comments did not endear him to his contemporaries, and he was “neglected for almost two hundred years, but in the late 1800s he was rediscovered by A.H. Bullen and was later admired by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. In The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) Eliot calls Campion, “except for Shakespeare … the most accomplished master of rhymed lyric of his time.” His lyrics and the songs in which he presented them strongly reflect his period’s style, and Davis finds Campion’s influence in the works of such poets as Pound, W.H. Auden, and Robert Creeley. Campion has been called a poet of the ear, and his careful respect for the nature of the language and its capacities for pleasing intonation was a significant development.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-campion

Today’s senryu: Happy Birthday Thomas Campion

Offending your peers

may lead to obscurity;

temporarily.

Feb 11 – My Chihuahua Rescue

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Chihuahua

I was a lucky man to be offered the chance to adopt a Chihuahua stray rescue. Here’s a brief poem that explains how it all began:

Some Things We May Never Know

Little white Chihuahua, not so young;

not looking your best, coat far from pure.

Animal Control said you were found

living outside, skirting danger.

With matted hair and covered in fleas;

were you abandoned; owner succumbed?

Scrounging for food -and clearly quite lost –

I wonder, where did you come from?

Public announcements brought no results;

two weeks later, “FREE for adoption.”

No resistance, we chose each other;

  optimistic reclamation.

Vet estimated you’re ten years old,

“a very good model”, she confirms.

Fleas now gone and shots have been given;

future routine: monthly heartworm.

Now we go forward,  the two of us;

me asking questions, you staying mum.

Coming from a past only half known;

no longer matters where you came from,

Just one man, one dog walking in tandem.

Feb 10 – Free Will Lemmings

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Lemmings and humans share the same scientific classifications of animal and mammal. Free Will is a debatable concept with many schools of thought. So, I’ve been thinking lately…..

Today’s senryu: Free Will Lemmings

lemmings on parade

intelligent design, huh,

over the edge now

For additional information on the creative leap above, check out the Wikipedia excerpts below.

“In popular culture, a longstanding myth holds that they exhibit herd mentality and jump off cliffs, committing mass suicide….

Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs. It is not a deliberate mass suicide, in which animals voluntarily choose to die, but rather a result of their migratory behavior.

Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many drown if the body of water is an ocean or is so wide as to exceed their physical capabilities. Thus, the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings, and perhaps a small amount of semantic confusion (suicide not being limited to voluntary deliberation, but also the result of foolishness), helped give rise to the popular stereotype of the suicidal lemmings.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming

“Free will as an illusion

Spinoza thought that there is no free will. “Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

David Hume discussed the possibility that the entire debate about free will is nothing more than a merely “verbal” issue. He suggested that it might be accounted for by “a false sensation or seeming experience” (a velleity), which is associated with many of our actions when we perform them. On reflection, we realize that they were necessary and determined all along….

Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. It preaches a middle doctrine, ‘dependent origination’, ‘dependent arising’ or ‘conditioned genesis’. It teaches that every volition is a conditioned action as a result of ignorance. In part, it states that free will is inherently conditioned and not “free” to begin with.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Assuming you, the reader, are human, do you think you have free will?

Feb 9 – Rose, Tyre, Tic Tac and Manifest

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Yesterday, in addition to walking The Supreme, I walked four new dogs downtown St. Louis, Missouri. Here’s how it went:

Firstly, Stray Rescue STL is 2 miles directly west of The Gateway Arch which is what I see every Wednesday morning when walking dogs. It’s a beautiful view although the road traffic can be quite busy and sometimes distracting for the dogs.

I met four new dogs this week and walked each a little over a mile for their morning exercise. I have an eight-to-12-mile block route that I vary based on the eagerness and pace of the dog. This distance takes 20 – 30 minutes and provides the staff time to refresh their apartments before we return.

The first dog was Rose Apothecary, a 3-year-old, Pit Bull Terrier. She weighs in at 60 pounds and could afford to lose a couple of pounds with someone eager to take her for multiple walks a day. Rose has a very sweet nature, yet can be a little skittish, perhaps due to her limited vision.

Next comes Tyre (pronounced tie-ree). He’s a large mixed breed 1-year old also weighing in at 60 pounds. He too is a little nervous on the busy downtown streets and hugs my side as we walk. Fortunately, he moves at a comfortable pace due to his size even if he’s a little hesitant at times.

Third comes Tic Tac. She’s a 7-year-old Terrier weighing in at 55 pounds. She’s loves going for walks and snuggling with her human companions. She likes kids and some other dogs but is not keen on cats; strong prey drive, you know.

Last, but not least, is Manifest. She’s a 7-month-old, medium-sized, mixed breed female full of energy and a real sweetheart eager to play and be by your side. She’s relatively new to the facility so there’s not a lot to share except she would be a wonderful companion for someone able to give and receive her love.

Today’s dogryu: Rose, Tyre, Tic Tac and Manifest

Better than the street

but a kennel’s not a home.

Can we live with you?

All dog photos taken by Stray Rescue STL staff. See http://www.strayrescue.org

Feb 8 – The Supreme

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The Supreme – 4-year-old female Terrier Mix at Stray Rescue STL http://www.strayrescue.org

Today’s senryu: The Supreme

Praetorian guard

retriever extraordinaire

best friend forever

I love The Supreme and look forward to walking her every Wednesday morning. My goal is to help every rescue achieve and stay in prime condition for “furever home” adoption and The Supreme (aka “Soup”) is in prime condition…

with a few caveats… she’s dog reactive and door reactive which means she doesn’t like to share you with any other dog and she’s a touch nervous around doors. Oh, and she’s also very, very powerful.

The ideal human guardian companion would be someone with no other non-human companions in the homestead, no small humans who could be easily knocked over, and a guardian human able to hold on to her leash should she suddenly be eager to lunge forward to track down whatever catches her senses. Otherwise, she is a delight.

Here’s a poem shared on the Stray Rescue website from another admirer.

A note from her enrichment friend, Kathleen B.:

“S-trong: This can not be emphasized enough. She is one of the strongest dogs in terms of strength, willpower and heart.

U-niversally adored: Once you meet her, you have to love her, not because she’s super cuddly, but because she is uniquely Supreme and you can’t help but fall in love.

P-assionate: She goes for what she wants, be that a Jolly Ball, treat or trash on the street. She needs someone to continue working with her to know she will always have food and fun.

R-eady to go: You like adventure? This is your girl! You won’t wonder if she’s up for it, because she will be right by the door!

E-xercise: She is not a lazy couch kind of dog. She loves to take hikes and be on the go! If you lead an active lifestyle, Supreme is your gal!

M-emorable: Whether it’s her strength, love of toys or stunning looks you don’t forget your time with her.

E-nergetic: She can go for days, whether that’s a walk or playing with toys. She gives it her all and then some.

Other things to note:
-Prefers to be an only dog
-She doesn’t know her own strength so kids are probably not the best fit.
-If you are patient, willing to work with her and commit to her forever, she will be your best friend.”

Maybe, there’s a supreme dog in your nearby rescue shelter. If you’re a good personality match, you might find a BFF (best friend forever) for your life.