Some More Thoughts on Death

For the Sake of Navigation

I will die in between two days, on a transatlantic flight,

after the stewardess has given me my drink.

I will be at peace with liminal space, false legroom.

I will be nation-less, ground-less, 63,000 feet up in the air.

My soul will thank me for doing

almost three-fourths of the job, the airline & co. will not.

Perhaps the plane will land in Paris,

but the chances are slim, instead I’ll be carrying bad news to a lover.

I will be one of the true, few mile-high club members,

receive a two-fer, a free plane ride back!

But if anything I just wanted to play with time,

make it wait for me zone by zone.

I will die in between two days, on a transatlantic flight,

inside the belly of an aeronautical Leviathan. 

A Mere Representation

A Presentation of Love




And now
it is the space
before
assessing one's soul in silence

more than the naked limbs
unseen
here is where the mind
waits to be alone
waits for that relief
like sleep
stirring
somewhere
between the tension
flickers the flame
of impatience,
pacing
to trespass the stranger
with rolling eyes,
searching for inward rolling
representations of romance.

Stirring
in the searching eyes
of those who claim love
I have yet to see the
assemblage of me,
acquired or
unrequited.

Stirring
within some portrait
of a reflection,
in stillness remains
a mere chance
of a reproduction,
unsuccessful.

So to diffuse
a portrait that has
not my eyes,
nor my mouth
that cannot seem to replicate
the curve of my breasts
I refrigerate any chance
of backhands
and dilute
pleasure's presentation of love.

When The Ripe Fruit Falls

Cherry Robbers


Under the long dark boughs, like jewels red
In the hair of an Eastern girl
Hangs strings of crimson cherries, as if had bled
Blood-drops beneath each curl.


Under the glistening cherries, with folded wings
Three dead birds lie:
Pale-breasted throstles and a blackbird, robberlings
Stained with red dye.


Against the haystack a girl stands laughing at me,
Cherries hung round her ears.
Offers me her scarlet fruit: I will see
If she has any tears.


How Beastly The Bourgeois Is

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?

Isn't he handsome?  Isn't he healthy?  Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
   thing

Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
   man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
  face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
   demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
   than his own.

And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.

Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
   England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.

Jouissance is Suffering

Poem

I heard of a man

who says words so beautifully

that if he only speaks their name

women give themselves to him.

If I am dumb beside your body

while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips

it is because I hear a man climb stairs

and clear his throat outside our door.

The Music Crept By Us

I would like to remind

the management

that the drinks are watered

and the hat-check girl

has syphilis

and the band is composed

of former SS monsters

However since it is

New Year's Eve

and I  have lip cancer

I will place my

paper hat on my

concussion and dance

The Nightmares Do Not Suddenly

The nightmares do not suddenly

develop happy endings

I merely step out of them

as a five year old scientist

leaves the room

where he has dissected an alarm clock

Love wears out

like overused mirrors unsilvering

and parts of your faces

make room for the wall behind

If terror needs my round green eyes

for a masterpiece

let it lure them with nude keyholes

mounted on an egg

And should Love decide

I am not the one

to stand scratching his head

wondering what wall to lean on

send King Farouk to argue

or come to me dressed as a fast

Leonard Cohen Selected Poems 1956-1968