GIFT
You tell me that silence
is nearer to peace than poems
but if for my gift
I brought you silence
(for I know silence)
you would say
This is not silence
this is another poem
and you would hand it back to me
-Leonard Cohen
“Are you talkin’ to me?”
Writing a blog is such a stupid thing. Like writing a poem. It accomplishes nothing important, feeds and clothes no one. It builds nothing tangible. Truth be told, (bluntly, as most truths have no tact or table manners) nobody cares about this blog or any other one. Which is fine by me, but only some of the time. Blogs of poetry are particularly irrelevant, which is rather humbling, and honestly, pretty frustrating, when one considers all the time one invests in them. But, for poets, the good and even the bad ones, sometimes such outlets are necessary.
“After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover.” -Leonard Cohen
Trying to get this thing to fly…
You tie your kite to the string of the internet and run through your fields hoping it will fly. If it’s a clear day, your eyes water as you look into the sky begging for a breeze, and on stormy days, your skin glistens and shivers as you run in the rain trying to avoid lightning. You lose your grip when you hit submit and then you stand helpless as your kites inevitably wander off unnoticed or crash violently into a tree.
Being a stupid wanna-be writer, you go back in the house, and you mop the floor with rhythmic strokes, cook dinner and listen to your children play, and then go somewhere quiet and pull out a few more ribs and some seemingly unimportant internal organs in an effort to begin to build another kite, because it’s all you can think to do in such situations. “Initiate self-destruct sequence in five…four…three…”
Such innocent looking toys, these kites poets try to fly…
“A Kite is a Victim
A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a desperate trained falcon
in the high sweet air,
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.”
-Leonard Cohen, from “A Kite is a Victim”
I’ve been in a Cohen-esque mood, sort of wallowing in his beautiful new album (which some precious soul posted to YouTube in its entirety…link below), wishing I was capable of writing as he does, while at the same time, being desperately grateful that I can’t: I’m not brave enough or humble enough to allow myself to be so exposed. His gift would be wasted on me. I must reluctantly admit God knows what He’s doing…
“Deprivation is the mother of poetry.”
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
“I don’t remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don’t remember
if I’m here alone
or waiting for someone.”
Maybe sharing what we write is like smoking cigars outdoors. (Cigar smokers rarely smoke indoors-cigars are too intense for enclosed spaces.) Cigar smokers are an odd group: their habit sort of isolates them from the rest of the world, and they seem to be fine with that. They revel in the intense scent of the tobacco that most people find repulsive. The ashes sort of swirl and dance, and the wind takes the cigar’s strong scent of time and tries to spread it so thin no one will notice it’s there. The scent clings to the cigar smoker though, like memories and fears they can not shake. Sometimes if you’re smoking a cigar under the night sky, the wind will come singing bass in a gust, dumping ashes in your lap, and extinguishing the flame. This always seems to happen to me when I least expect it and there’s half a cigar left to smoke. Re-lighting that thing is never as easy as I think it should be.
Sometimes, finding something new to say or allowing an old private thought out is like re-lighting a cigar, or ripping off a scab, or exposing a ugly scar.
“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”
Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
Funny how the scriptures record Jesus saying, “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” (Mark 10:15) Maybe Leonard is such a good poet because he’s not afraid to show his scars and reveal his humanity. I think that’s commonly referred to as humility.
“You live your life as if it’s real…
….a thousand kisses deep”