Bushido Poems | Examples


List of Member Poems

Ink Ronin

Dishonorable Tao pen,
your fealty strokes 
are guided by 
shogun lust for the yen

Quill treachery 
blot your avarice ambition
Devious calligraphy
be the torn loyalty decision

Vain kimono pride
is bushido vow laid aside
Naked truth disrobed — 
Coin motive 
ain’t unsheathe noble

Ink ronin,
got no master to gallantly serve or valor save
Unworthy pen,
every vile thrust
spilt more scarlet sin upon your Shinto grave

Inscribe your pulse amorality
with a crimson postscript
Follow your vagabond reality
into that inkwell miry pit

Kiai Fire

Samurai writer
Bushido inspired
Katana withdrawn
Edge hardened by fire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2017)

I Ronin

True patience means bearing the unbearable 


Once I 
Lived 
bushido
At Heart.
Served my lord, 
Wielding carbon
And steel
In fidelity.

Cast aside,
I have
No master now.
I will not taste 
My blade
Outcast,
I wander the
Rising sun
to know
The Way anew,
And to learn
I again 
for the first time.

I

Ronin


Hara Kiri: a Letter

This summer breeze
upon my menacing blade,
no kaishakunin, only emptiness,
empty mindedness,
unafraid

The Hokkaido seas
restless like a school child,
stir within my cup of tea
empty mindedness,
beguiled

Mountains of Sakura
fill me, nor here nor there,
a million of my memories
empty mindedness,
despair

Bushido, my creed
is like the lotus in bloom,
Nihon hear my cries!
empty mindedness,
doom

My beloved wife
wear your gossamer gown
like the moon wears the night
empty mindedness,
facedown

My prodigious son
sheath your political sword,
this is an age of declaration 
empty mindedness,
soared

Sincerely, truly yours,
the masks I leave behind
are desires now outlived,
empty mindedness,
blind

The final scene
my rising sun, peaceful sky,
and with the absolutely true
empty mindedness,
I die.

Ipsofacto of { Fear

Ipsofacto of { Fear

Call yourself Christian
Call yourself Human
Call yourself Mohammedans

Say you are Sufi
Say you are Wicca 
Say you are Krishna Marti

Be nailed to suffering
The message of Buddhism
Find eternity in the Dao

Live for the moment
Escape in doctrine
Define yourself by dogma

Have faith in a word
Faith in “I AM ”
Faith in the Vibration “AUM ”

Look to heaven
Look to hell 
Look to the bottom of a wishing well

Believe in Nothing
Believe in Everything
Believe in Now

Be channelled by writing
And crystal healing
Find power by lay line divining

Pray to God
Pray to Christ
Pray to Lucifer

Read the Tarot
Read the I Ching
Read the “Seven rings of Bushido”

Draw on the eclectic
Draw on the Mystic
Draw on Theology

Think of death
Think of life
Think of death

See this Planet
See the Stars
See billions of Galaxies

Tiny Earth
Tiny mind
Tiny worlds

Explain a smile
Explain a tear
Explain all this with some originality

Why of life
Why of death
Why are we here

Or 
Ipsofacto of fear

Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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