Steve in London is an infinitely better poet than World Poet Laureate Daisaku Ikeda

Here Sensei writes wittily about trying to organize the succession as chief mentor within SGI

TO MY SON HIRO by World Poet Laureate Daisaku Ikeda [Steve in London]

Hiro son, is it not best

That one day you might leave the nest?

Instead you scrounge my shaving foam

And eat us out of house and home!

Why cling on to dad and mom?

And dwindle our retirement income?

Why must I write all this bunkum?

To get some damn retirement income!

We shop and stack up on our noodles

Which Kaneko knocks back in oodles

But you purloin them and thereby trouble

The autumn years of this old couple!

Is this the way you thank your Pa

By ransacking his cookie jar?

And starving out us poor old timers?

Is this your "Arigato gozaimas"?

We often wonder what is worse

All your girlfriends' stop-overs

Or the constant stealing, in the kitchen or

Sometimes too my hair conditioner

From the bathroom, so my locks

Look mangy for my dialogues

And so those geeks with whom I'm nattering

Think my hairstyle's most unflattering!

While I am quoting old John Milton

You just gawp at Paris Hilton

Living off the Gakkai's dole

And hogging the remote control

So I can't turn it on and see me

And then you clean up my sashimi

And then you scoff up all my pickles

I tell you son, it damn well niggles!

Why don't you try your hand at

Farming seaweed, like your grandad?

(Whose shade I never fail to laud

When getting some august award)

But while I love my doctorates

Its gameshows for my compatriots

So why not be a great compere

Instead of cadging off "ton pere"?

A few steps down the social ladder

Folks like you are much much badder!

Think of all those unwed mothers

Whose brood are each-to-each, half-brothers!

Where all you'll find on their CVs

Is picking locks and burgling TVs!

Watch it Hiro! Look and scream!

Its time to wake up from this dream!

For that you must learn discipline

And this I vow I will drum in!

(When I was young and crazy Toda'd

Treat me like the meanest goat-herd

And kick my butt till it was blue

Now I must do the same to you!)

So though I risk a heart attack I

Will make you leader of the Gakkai!

You'll be forced to find your mojo

In the footsteps of "Mr" Hojo!

Sort out food-fights like Izumi

And jolly up the sad and gloomy!

Maybe President Akiya

Won't be that pleased to have you near

But in the end he'll just make do

Cos I choose chiefs and I chose you!

(God knows how many times the Gakkai

Leaders got from me a black-eye

But even they might mutiny

And want some better scrutiny

And voice a twinge of disappointment

When they all hear of your appointment!

Even that lot never reckoned

With a Daisaku the Second!)

But usually they all come round!

However so pissed off they sound!

Sure you'll hear them carp and moaning

Comparing me to Nikken Shonin.

And truly it was well damn shabby

The rise to power of Nikken Abe

But is anything that that schmuck did

As bad as enthroning your kid?

Think of all those Gakkai daughters

Pouring out their teas and waters

To earnest study lecturers

Who never fail to hector us

Or young men standing on street corners

Trying to surpress a yawn as

They take the Hancocks and the Shorters

To hoe-downs in Gakkai Headquarters...

Did all these folks just slave their guts out?

To merely help old you, you klutz, out?

Put up posters damning Nikken

For giving a masseuse a dickin'?

Might they not go quite ballistic

At something so damn nepotistic

Might they think this shit's as gross

As old man Nikken, dickin' hos?

I tell you son, it won't go down

That well, you taking on my crown

But I'm assured that its the best

Way to put hairs on your chest!

I'll say though son, that when I go

I'll be a damn hard act to follow

But I feel that though, son, just a tad

You do down bad your dear old Dad...

It needs a special kind of guy

To make all those young men scream "HAI"

Or write my odes (they're hard enough)

But then find guys to print the stuff!

It might seem posh and glamourous

To randomly point cameras

And have their stills transmogrify

To grim books of photography!

(All those pics where I have cut off

A member's head or arm or foot off

So they all seem like grisly stumps

Without their hats or shoes or pumps

So badly framed they all seem tilting

Together with the whole damn building

Yet when I'm back, by some grim humor

They hang it in the main Butsuma!)

But I say son there's sweat and toil

Behind a lot of this snake oil

Dredging up some petty nation's

Poets to flatter their delegation

When they're in the memorial hall

And I must give a "howdy y'all"

You think all this stuff grows on trees?

No son, it needs elbow grease

But now go find yourself a boiler

Like Kaneko - a doughty toiler!

Not your usual rich heiresses

Who only want your warm caresses

As ways in to the Gakkai's coffers

So they could take our greenbacks off us

No - find yourself a woman who'd

Enlarge the whole Ikeda brood!

So go forth, multiply my son!

This dynasty has just begun

There will be some who'll roll their eyeballs

To think I'd pass down my disciples

But lets not worry about their trammels

Just as Bedouins pass down camels

And other Bedouins keep their tempers

So will they when I leave members!

And I leave members in my debt!

Many here would not have led

The lives they have: just look around us

All these cheapskates, cads and bounders

Turned to upright citizens!

Rescued by the Buddha's medicines

Creating doctors, shrinks and lawyers

All proud, erect as huge sequoias!

For anglers who're in dotai-ishin

I bring them jihi when they're fishing

To daughters struggling with their mothers

Or golfers struggling with their putters

Or pimps who struggle with their "bitches"

Whose "homies" sleep among the fishes

Whose lives are now in latency

Whose karma is like "wait-and-see"

I bring relief! For can't in principle

Pimps become like us, invincible?

And chant, instead of being jailed

They might get cautioned or just bailed?

Use wisdom or just cash enticements

Hid inside their driving licence

Instead of pleading with Jehovah

To soothe the cop who pulls them over?

And might these lords of roadside hoochie

Have their own Tatsonokuchi?

When suddenly a great big orb

Across the sky makes some cop gawp?

And make him want to fast flee from it

And yet so transfixed by that comet

He turns from being stern and surly

To simpler like a star struck girly!

The lightbeam from the Buddha's tuft

Gleams on the frog-marched and the handcuffed!

Buddhahood has no restrictions

And calms those with unspent convictions!

The Buddha comes down to encourage

Even those who're doing porridge

And gives protection when they grope

Round shower floors to pick up soap!

I know I've made mistakes but I've

Also changed round many a life

To those I could - I gave out succour

And helped them fight, if not dig, dukkha!

My words turned the odd lunatic

To someone merely eccentric

And gave those who can't sink much lower

A friendly hug, a kind "aloha"

And so I know my legacy

Is not that Gandhi, King and me

Baloney that they haul round malls

To highly justified cat-calls

Its all those who'd messed up their lives

But now look round at kids and wives

And lives now great and rich and full

That once were inconceivable

But vanity of human wishes

I too will soon sleep with the fishes!

This voice that lifted multitudes

Gave guidances to all those faulty dudes

Gave stressed out housewives hope and solace

When they got hot under their collars

This voice must cease: I'm all loved out

And so my flame must be puffed out!

Saito! Saito! come Katsuji!

I'm dreaming of Tatsonokuchi!

Of strange things wild, of hoochie coochie

In the wilds of old Mount Fuji!

I see the shades of VP Tsuji

And "Mr" Hojo looming huge! He

Wants to steal my fresh made sushi

And run off with my leather gucci

Sandals! Oh the Sandalwood

Log, the Turtle, the Camphor Wood

Of Minobu, that makes the Dai Gohonz

on - Oh the TV - look the Fonz

On Happy Days - "These Happy Days are Yours

And Mine!" - and Nikken's on all fours

Before his geisha consiglieri

Those cherry tress chopped down, those cherry

Blossoms unreleased in air

The Sho-Hondo, like me, not there!

Toda, me and Makiguchi

Every one a Mensch! a Duce!

Nikken not. Kimono decked out

In! I haunt the hotels he's checked out

In! I see he's still foments his chakras

Wild with geishas and viagras

Sand-irons and Sudoku! Frickin

Holy Men! Frickin Hojo! Nikken!

You cannot go against the flow

Of these great times? Hey "Mr" Hojo?

Last time I will say Moshi

Moshi to you - you bitch Horishi!

Such time has passed, but still those words

"Against the time" like quick-lime hurts

Me to the quick! But then again...

This world is mine! This world of men

Is mine! This world of action! Deeds

Power! Like Baby Moses in the reeds

I will return! The sufferings

Of birth and death - to me small things!

Water off a duck's back - because I'm

"The man who flows against the time!"

But now across this great big atlas

I see great shoals of Boddhisatvas!

The thing that once my time is up

I'll be bigged up for training up!

Cos I'm your man! Your Kosen-Ruffian

Who hauled the Dharma from oblivion

Who told you all to bet on Nichiren

To haul you up from the shit you're in!

And now you see these gimps and losers

Low-lifes, junkies, grifters, boozers

Have now become respectable

(If not always delectable)

So Hiro, I pass you the baton

Which I hope will not get shat on

So that I won't have to doff,

In my next life, a plastic glove

When I must pick it up again!

But will find a world of men

Much better than the one I'm quitting

So Hiro, do Buddha's bidding

Go uplift the miserable

Go correct the risible

Take all losers 'neath your wing

And give em all a good tongue-lashing!

That my work, continue it

But now son, I just leave you to it

May our members grow like rabbits

And trounce Nikken and all his slap-heads!

Erect statues of Mom and me

That stretch as far as eyes can see

Carve out plaques of all my spiels

And make me taller (but not with heels!)