A song is a poem (and not just because of lyrics).

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Just when I thought I’d finally gotten over this song…I’m presented with a new reason to love it.

Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Leonard Cohen

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.
Ah but you got away, didn’t you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don’t need you,
I need you, I don’t need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music.”

I don’t mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can’t keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that’s all, I don’t even think of you that often.

Beloved poem of my college poetry professor (May Swenson).

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Question

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

A friend is a poem: part 2 (Joanna Roberts).

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“This is something I can give you for your birthday”

as told by Joanna Roberts to my message machine

I’m moving from my apartment
and I can’t stop thinking of this past fall
in which I only wore two pairs of boots—
such. city. boots. in that the tall brown ones
always made my ankles bleed and the little
black witchy ones somehow left
this irreversible lump of cartilage on my heel
and I walked so. much. in them and they’re not.
meant! for walking! they’re meant for viewing!
and they’ve left hilarious damage on my feet
and what makes me think of them is
that there’s this old woman who lives
in the apartment below me and I always hear her
coughing in the morning through the pipes
and I rarely every see her, the only times
I‘ve ever really seen her were when
in the fall I’d go trampling down the stairs
to get to work or to go off on some adventure
in those boots
and I would almost run her over
and she was coming back from brunch
with her sister or something like that
in her cane and her big floral dresses—

I’ll call it wisdom (Ilya Kaminsky).

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“A poem is not a report on life. A poem is life.”

And also, this week:

learned how to use a letter press

acquired dreams of grandeur associated with said letter press

constructed new life plan which combines countryside + visitors + artists + farming

read a poem that exploded some hairs from my head: woah

panicked about taxes & other numbers

humbled/thrilled by my poems in a screenplay thanks to jessie katz (!!)

piled lots of birthday mail on the table for wednesday

read lowell insatiably, aided by the notes of my mother, camels class of ’78 (thanks mom)

ate triple citrus

ate tuna fish

ate entire daytimes, ate a cookie from a stranger & ice cream from the carton

watched misha with a smartphone

remembered that when people make me uncomfortable i unconsciously sing otis redding to myself &

sissykatz arrives on saturday (& thank goodness for THAT)

 

 

Sonnet I carried around today (William Meredith).

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The Illiterate

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think that this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him,
Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
that keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

1958