Gary Gach

Fisherman's Wharf
tourists, passing bythe shore, pose, trying to seem nonchalant the beggar stops to go & pet the dog the child stops toconsider a shell, before the next wave breaks congas tattoo a pulse as pelicans glide as a wedge

Thanks Giving
My buddy stoppedsat down alongsidethe houseless beggar& giving him somesmall change they talked– whereupon the battered guysaid Thank you for stopping,man ! I mean, the money'sgreat but I thought I was gonnalike lose my mind ! Nobody's evenlooked at me all week! I was likestarting to feel like I was onMars !! – whereupon my buddysmiled and thought Thank you, man –for giving me an opportunity to practicegenerosity

Gary Gach is author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism; editor of What Book!? – Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop; and co-translator of Flowers of a Moment, Songs for Tomorrow, and Ten Thousand Lives, by Ko Un SSN. Visit him at : http://word.to