One minute you’re feeling enlightened 
meditating with brown-robed beatific bald Buddhist nuns. 

Next minute you’re feeling frightened 
by high-beams flashing horn-honking tailgating pickup. 

One minute you follow your breath 
inhale exhale release restless random distracting thoughts. 

Next minute you’re breathless 
screaming expletives at the tailgater who can’t expletive hear you. 

One minute you notice 
the modest monastery’s sweet air suffused with serenity. 

Next minute you imagine 
tailgater’s MAGA hat swear you hear truck growl like a T-rex. 

One minute you’re grateful 
for the monastery’s sparseness its safe spotless space sacred. 

Next minute you’re resentful 
of sadistic fun at your expense despite how fast or slow you go. 

One minute you hear 
nun speak wisely about how all is transient all attachment suffering. 

Next minute you see 
your spiritual effing afterglow in ashes on a two-lane blacktop. 

One minute you’re kneeling 
knowing there’s no past no future only the here-and-now present. 

Next minute you’re screaming 
You want to pass me!? Pass me! Fuck me if I’m pulling over! 

One minute you’re at peace 
all is right with the world all are forgiven including you. 

Next minute you’re at war 
slowed to a crawl, in interior glow you hold middle-finger pose. 

Whatever happens happens. Namaste. 

Robert Eugene Rubino

is the author of three forthcoming collections: Aficionado (Humming Word Press), Vanity Unfair and Other Poems (Cathexis Northwest Press), and Douglas KOs Tyson (UnCollected Press).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Seventeen of Rubino’s poems published across seven issues of The Write Launch (2019-2022)

⚡ Hollow Be Thy Name, a poem by Rubino in Issue 12 of KYSO Flash (Summer 2019)

⚡ An Interview With Robert Eugene Rubino at Haunted Waters Press

⚡ Owl House, a poem in Splash! (Haunted Waters Press)