poetry

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Borrowing Inspiration

  • Leonard Cohen

“And I’ll dance with you in Vienna,
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.”

Leonard Cohen

“In Vienna I will dance with you
in a costume with
a river’s head.
See how the hyacinths line my banks!
I will leave my mouth between your legs,
my soul in photographs and lilies,
and in the dark wake of your footsteps,
my love, my love, I will have to leave
violin and grave, the waltzing ribbons”

Federico Garcia Lorca

****

The words and the music take my breath away, my soul jumps with joy. It doesn’t matter to me the obvious use of Lorca’s poem. I just want to give Lorca a little credit here. As T. S. Eliot famously said: immature poets imitate but mature poets steal.

The Cohen photo & his words to the song were posted by Ravenous Butterflies.

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Daughters

And Poems of Truth

“When your little girl
asks you if she’s pretty
your heart will drop like a wineglass
on the hardwood floor
part of you will want to say
of course you are, don’t ever question it
and the other part
the part that is clawing at
you
will want to grab her by her shoulders
look straight into the wells of
her eyes until they echo back to you
and say
you do not have to be if you don’t want to
it is not your job
both will feel right
one will feel better
she will only understand the first
when she wants to cut her hair off
or wear her brother’s clothes
you will feel the words in your
mouth like marbles
you do not have to be pretty if you don’t want to
it is not your job.”

Caitlyn Siehl

Posted by Ravenous Butterflies


  • Henri Cartier-Bresson – Mexico (girl with braids), 1934.

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Truth

Posted by Poetic Outlaws

“I feel my failure intensely
as if it were a vital organ
the gods grew from the side of my head.
You can’t cover it with a hat and I no longer
can sleep on that side it’s so tender.
I wasn’t quite faithful enough
to carry this sort of weight up the mountain.
When I took my vows at nineteen
I had no idea that gods were so merciless.
Fear makes for good servants
and bravery is fraudulent. When I awoke
I wasn’t awake enough.”
~ Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison

Although Jimmy boy was quite a rotter in his lifetime, wasn’t he. Not only that, even to his fans he became a bit of a dirty-old man. Too sad that, that so many men—with or without true artistic credentials—become such lechers when in the presence of the beautiful younger ones. Why do they consider that their value? Their right? Perhaps he is indeed right when he says he wasn’t awake enough.

And he wrote beautiful prose, published some fine books.

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Because Lisa Died

She was a Bosch painting
Of mangled bodies deformed
And perverted into a nightmare
of her own screams
And
The meadows of Spring
Running through tall Indian grass
and daises and daffodils
And
A child of the Ether in skirts
Made of silver spider webs and butterfly wings

She was Hell itself anchored in
Despair and the flames of Demons
Rocked in the cradle of Doubt
Opened by a bloody knife
of her own wounds and scarred the same

She was a Poem of Light
And Smiles of soft shining fireflies,
Curls around an eternal face
Sparkled in diamonds and sunlight

She saved a life and killed a man
Ran full force across the world and
Dove off the cliffs unto the rocks
Unstoppable
Unbreathable
Unbearable

She searched for God
so she could punch Him
in the face,
Tear off His gowns to leave Him
Naked in His own blasphemy
of Creation
He Who created the Minotaur
As well as Theseus
Father of Evil, Tormentor of Souls

She wrote and Sang and Painted
She marched the stairs and
Laughed and cooked and baked
And Created her own music and Love
And
Still kept the unborn in jars
Fermented in the formaldehyde of
Alcohol underneath the floor

Until she became the Nightmare
Itself drowned alone in the vomit of her sins
And in the stream below the rocks her body broken
Where it can at last Sing out…
“So this is it? This is all ‘ya got?”

And she was all things

And she was nothing

And she wore boots so heavy
she could not leave the earth
her moans heard now only by Angels
who cry to God…our pain, her worth

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Happy St. Sylvester Day

Or Happy New year…to us all. May we all be who we are. May we all wish for nothing. May we all be at Peace. May we all be able to happily care for ourselves.

Tao and Zen “It has been said that the highest wisdom lies in detachment, or, in the words of Chung-Tzu, ‘The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.’ Life exists only at this very moment. You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now—otherwise you would not be here. Hence the infinite Tao is something which you can neither escape by flight nor catch by pursuit; there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it. So become what you are.” ~Alan Watts
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