By Gendun Chophel (1903-1951) AKA Earnest Priest
Straight in the Vernacular
At Beijing, Calcutta, Nepal, or
B it Lhasa in Land of Snows
C the people of any old place &
Don't you know they're all just the same?
Enjoy they chatter? Don't care for blabber?
Fixate upon subdued styles & manners?
Gaze upon butter & tea, clothing & coin,
Having none other than the mind of a fisher?
I know they delight in haughty speech, holy forms
Jabber chit-chatter, guile & fraud, delight
Kind buds, cigarettes, booze by & large, delight
Little children falling for mischievous fads delight.
Mommy & daddy, to their sides a-clinging,
"No way" to other clans, traditions non-conforming.
O how this herd of cattle ~ We the sheeple ~ single
Pointedly behold this enduring lineage of mind.
Quacks expedite to holy sites for sake of fame
Recite holy writs for sake of token gifts
Stay fixed in climes both hot & cold just for sake of food—
Think & it's plain to see, it's all for sake of wealth!
U & I receive hats, robes, banners, canopies,
Vast offerings of food & drink, entourages;
Whatever we do, however we do it,
We don't see nothing but such astonishing things.
X'cluded from happiness like a goat locked in a pen:
Yonder mountains and valleys equally suck.
& despite this illusion of flesh & blood this body remains
Zapped of power until its own disintegration into the earth.
[Now I know] I've just told some extremely straight information,
[Next time] you won't be so aghast at me.
~~~/\~~~
Translated from the Tibetan by Steven R.A. Johnson
Translator’s note: The alphacrostic is a Tibetan poetical form in which the thirty consonants of the Tibetan alphabet each begin their own line: thus, a thirty-line poem. The following translation is the most "literal" known attempt at rendering the form of the Tibetan alphacrostic into an English "ABCs".