Dharma Pops by Jack Kerouac

Kerouac was a novelist and poet of the Beat Generation in the 1950's and 1960's. He was not a Buddhist, but he studied and appreciated Buddhism most of his adult life. He described his Dharma Pops as American haiku, short, three-line poems telling of his little samadis. Here are some of my favorities.

Take a cup of water
from the ocean
and there I am

Samsara in the morning
--puppy yipping,
Hot motor steaming

Haiku, shmaiku, I cant
understand the intention
Of reality

There's no Buddha
because
There's no me

The dog yawned
and almost swallowed
My Dharma

For more Dharma Pops, and hundreds more of Kerouac's haiku, read Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac, edited by Regin Weinreich, Penguin Books, first published in 2003.