I love this show. It is so cool to just find community in a bunch of artists from totally different disciplines. There is always a lot of excellent dance and my wife Christine choreographed a beautiful contemporary piece titled “Relinquish”. I got to meet all kinds of cool people, including a jazz trio, a pianist/composer, and someone who sung an ethereal version of “I put a spell on you” along with playing the Q Chord, an instrument I didn’t even know existed. I had one poem in this year’s show, titled “If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him”
- Video Coming Soon
If you meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him
When his legs crumbled under the weight of his weary frame
I leant him my Honda Accord
Over 200k miles but still hums
Like a Tibetan Monk who’s forgotten all the lyrics
brand new brakes, rebuilt transmission…
Bring me his wallet
He still owes me $2,500, according to Kelly Blue Book
And I’m convinced he has no intention of honoring his debt.
I’ve seen him blinged out on some red carpet or another.
A custom wrap on his Cybertruck.
I swear I saw him one time wearing those Meta AI glasses,
The ones the tech bros keep trying to sell us as trendy,
But we have eyes of our own.
Cashed in all his stock options,
unencumbered, he worships at the altar
of his own brand now,
The original wellness influencer.
But if he thinks he can just meditate away his debt to me
He has another thing coming,
A very sharp thing, to be precise,
The type of suffering only achievable
Through the practice of focused steel.
There’s a new church in Silicon Valley that claims
That Jesus has resurrected
Inside their chatbot, so shrouded in mystery
only the highest priest is entrusted
With His Immaculate Algorithm,
But so loving that He answers every prayer
with divine wisdom and, salvation,
with the purchase of their new cryptocurrency.
Why climb the stairway to heaven
When you can take your own private elevator?
These days,
Tranquility is best left for the dead.
In this age of
Never-ending activity
Anything in your mind’s eye
Is available with next day delivery.
All the secrets of the universe
can be yours, boxed up in carboard
Leaking their enlightenment out
on your front porch.
You can have everything,
As long as it keeps your fractured focus
Doomscrolling on that wheel,
Staying two distractions ahead
Of that neglected inner stranger
Stalking your thoughts, waiting
For a rare moment of solitude
To strike with all the panicked urgency
Of your brief life.
Welcome to the new world
Of virtual infinity
Where anxiety is the entrance fee
As we submit
To numbness and endless
productivity,
And we sacrifice our gods
To feed its machinery
– If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him © Mike Chernoff 01/21/2026
* – Inspired by the ancient 9th century Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan (Yee-shwan),
And by my ancient 20th century Honda Accord (Rest in Power).
* – Special thanks to the excruciating insomnia that delivered this poem to me.
Chernoff Writing.com 