Let Your Mercy Spill

If it be your will 

That I speak no more 

And my voice be still 

As it was before 

I will speak no more 

I shall abide until 

I am spoken for 

If it be your will

 – Leonard Cohen

. . . . . 

At the core of experience lies a set of ideals that stir the collective conscience. A common set of values that bind us tight, each of us in our rags of light. We must believe in the silence of mind, the unfolding of hearts and in those moments of epiphany, for through darkness there is always light.

Nourished By A Delicate Enigma

Some compose their lengthy lines

nourished by a delicate enigma

that envelops the senses

with an essence of dark roast

manifested from within.

Study the aroma,

this way of life.

Suddenly, I espy the fact

that I am blessed in sharing

this moment with you, 

balanced, as we are,

cozily held in the tenderness

of a shared solitary withdrawal.

I Don't Know Why I Come Here

Don’t really know who sent me
To raise my voice and say:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.

– Leonard Cohen

To Advance or Not To Advance

In an army's strength

Therein lies the denouement

From here you're haunting me

By the Seine so beautiful

Only not to be of use

Impossible

So strange

Victory - 1,200 spires

The only sound

Moscow burning

Empty like the Tuileries

Like a dream

Vienna seems 

Only not to be of use

Impossible

In the last extremity

To advance or not to advance

I hear you laughing

Even still you're calling me

"Not tonight, not tonight, not tonight"

Josephine

– Tori Amos

To Be On The Run

The Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness

You come home late
And you come home early
You come on big
When you're feelin' small
You come home straight
And you home curly
Sometimes you just don't come home at all

So what in the world's come over you?
What in heaven's name have you done?
You've broken the speed of the sound of loneliness
You're out there runnin'
Just to be on the run

Well, I got a heart that burns with a fever
And I got a worried and jealous mind
Well how can a love
That will last forever
Get left so far behind?

– John Prine

Silent All These Years

Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand?
Years go by
If I'm stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds raining in my head
Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left?
One more casualty
You know we're too easy, easy, easy…


– Tori Amos

. . . . .

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 the door.

– Leonard Cohen

But I Did Not Know

I set out one night

When the tide was low

There were signs in the sky

But I did not know

I'd be caught in the grip

Of the undertow

Ditched on a beach

Where the sea hates to go

With a child in my arms

And a chill in my soul

And my heart the shape

Of a begging bowl.

– Leonard Cohen

Moments That We Will Be

One By One

Full Of Fire and Forgetful

I was takin’ my pride in the pleasures I’d known
I laughed and thought I’d be forgiven
But my laughter turned ’round eyes blazing and
Said my friend, we’re holdin’ a wedding
I buried my face but it spoke once again
The night to the day we’re a bindin’
And now the dark air is like fire on my skin
And even the moonlight is blinding.

– Townes van zandt

Something Of The Marvelous

In all things 

of nature there is 

something of the 

marvelous.

– Aristotle

An Elsewhere

Having wandered into some strange, 

surreal dimension – an elsewhere…

… a brief vertigo 

of disorientation 

ensued, caught 

as she was 

in the dizziness 

of that time. 

As she travelled along 

the pure raw lines 

of his songs, 

her soul recharged 

itself and found 

great satisfaction 

in its release. 

She was at one 

with him, held in the heart

of his song.

From A Distance

A Test Of What Is Real

Come Into Its Fold

If you really believe

in the brotherhood of man, 

AND

you want to come into its fold, 

you've got to let everyone else in, too.

~ Oscar Hammerstein

A White Rose

A joyous melody sings out to me from a long distant past, and my face is lit with an out of this world kind of joy. It is here I am anchored, cinched upon this cloud, drawn to these vast states of reflection. But when my reason starts to stir, these words shall scatter then flatten and the sky will resume its vacant calm.

Bird On The Wire

Oh like a bird on the wire, 

like a drunk in a midnight choir


I have tried in my way to be free.




~ Leonard Cohen

. . . . .

  

If we can create a quietness

within ourselves by silencing

all desires and opinions.

AND IF WITH LOVE,

without formulating any words,

we can bind our whole soul to think 

‘Thy will be done’,  we are sure

to acquire an energy of renewal

raised to an nth power.

I Understand Him

I would like to lose my faith in this poet, but I can't,

I would like to say that I have discovered 

in him something glib. I want to disqualify him. 

He comes too close to betraying me.

He comes too close to reeling me in.

I want to say that he was too rich. 

I want to prove that his marriage was happy.

I want to say that I only thought he was that good 

because I misunderstood him.

But I am afraid I do not misunderstand him.

I understand him.

– Leonard Cohen

Come Forth Into The Light

When surrounded by the wonders of nature

be both observant and ebullient in spirit,

for her effect is vastly affecting.

Lott-in-dah-dah-dah

People came from miles around, everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air
'n' over in the corner, much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes wearing his disguise
 
lott-in-dah-dah-dah, lot-in-dah-dah-dah…


~ Ricky Nelson - Garden Party

A Spell Of Awe

And somewhere over there, just beyond the thick rope of my reasoning, the imagination hits a high note and the voice begins to sing as the heart skips its beat! I bathe in that precious, passionate place of glory for, what seems, a number of luminous hours. A place so verdant it sweats out a spell of awe and you are nothing but humbled to be there.

Blessed Are You

You are the truth of loneliness, and only your

name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may 

be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations

that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name 

can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness

is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy.

– Leonard Cohen


. . . . .

With great intensity Leonard Cohen poets his words, coloring interior worlds of the soul with every fiber of his being - engrossed as he is within the realms of wild abandon. Rekindled, the soul is aroused with a strong and suggestive compliance towards the beauty and awe of creation. And there he dwells contentedly in the empathy of the moment he has so generously composed.

You Have No Form

You have no form, you move among, yet do

not move, the relics of exhausted thought

of which you are not made, but which give world to

you, who are of nothing made, nothing wrought.

There you long for one who is not me, O

queen of no subject, newer than the morning,

more antique than first seed dropped below

the wash where you are called and Adam born.

And here, not your essence, not your absence

weds the emptiness which is never me,

though these motions and these formless events

are preparation for humanity,

and I get up to love and eat and kill

not by my own, but by our married will.

– Leonard Cohen

Without Debate or Pause

Forever – is composed of Nows –

‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These –

Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be

From Anno Dominies –

– Emily Dickinson

. . . . .

Ambiguous and abstruse
as the supposition may be, 

time is one of the most precious
and valuable aspects of life. 
This present moment is what counts.

It can not be measured by the clock.

The breadth of a single moment

measures the meaning of every life. 

This Now must be treasured
and celebrated always for its
each and every glorious instant.

Auguries of Innocence

Even in those simplest of moments,

something glorious comes,

but we are so blatantly unaware

of all that has just transpired. 

Besieged, we try desperately

to envisage some sort of thought.

Distressed, we labour hard

to articulate what it is that has pierced us, 

camouflaged as it is – a secret code

rendered within the lines of its own design.

Ameliorated and Liberated

Through our interactions with Mother Nature we are able to escape individual boundaries. As the power of individualism is unleashed, our spirit is ameliorated and liberated. Taking refuge in all that she is, we abandon ourselves as our freed-up attention turns toward her deeper meanings. We are calmed then appeased in that characteristically obsequious deep. 

As our thoughts teem with life, pivoting amidst the expanse of her omnipresent, ever-changing milieu, the soul acquiesces. For a brief eternity we are content. Lullabied, her Love rants. Silently our energy is impregnated with renewed strength and vigor. Our soul begins to flow directly from her most subtle, yet refined realms.

The beauty of Mother Nature enlightens all, in all her sovereignty.

Aye, What Then?

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream,

and have a flower presented to him

as a pledge that his soul had really been there,

and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake -

Aye, what then?



~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Awe-inspiring

"Hunger makes you restless. 

You dream about food - 

not just any food, but perfect food, 

the best food, magical meals, 

famous and awe-inspiring. 

The one piece of meat, 

the exact taste of buttery corn, 

tomatoes so ripe they split 

and sweeten the air, 

beans so crisp they snap 

between the teeth, 

gravy like mother’s milk 

singing to your bloodstream."

– Dorothy Allison

Hungry, she'd buried herself deep within her pale, dispirited body where any growth of strength and spirit seemed to have ceased. That gut feeling of emptiness produced in her a longing for nourishment as it gnawed restlessly at the very core of her being. 

One day out of the blue, the hunger that had kept her on edge for so long, was miraculously assuaged and finally stilled. Hunger slaked, her heart was nourished, her mind, body and spirit, were now at ease and blithely rejuvinated.

Keeping The Faith

The Faith

The sea so deep and blind

The sun, the wild regret

The club, the wheel, the mind,

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The club, the wheel, the mind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith

These words you can't forget

Your vow, your holy place

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith

O love, aren't you tired yet?

A cross on every hill

A star, a minaret

So many graves to fill

O love, aren't you tired yet?

So many graves to fill

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The sea so deep and blind

Where still the sun must set

And time itself unwind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

And time itself unwind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

– Leonard Cohen

Friends of mine lived in a small little cottage by the ocean. The house consisted of a kitchen, sitting room, bathroom and two bedrooms. Everywhere the eye chose to wander, battered yet still highly regarded books lay silently scattered here and there on the floor. Some were compiled in various heaps that rose as high as the ceiling. An eclectic assortment of titles popped out of the glorious woodwork, such as W. Blake, D.H Lawrence, C. Baudelaire, S. Weil, W. S. Maugham, W. Faulkner, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, L. Cohen etc. In amongst the organized confusion sat an old fashioned turntable. 

My friends would each eagerly choose and then cradle the LP of Leonard Cohen’s that resonated the most with them. Dear Heather was one of the chosen one's that a few of my friend's confessed, had become one of their own personal defining albums from that year. Each friend excitedly placed their favourite Cohen record on the turntable and from both speakers we would all anticipate the arrival of that specific moment when the stylus tactfully touched and made contact with the LP. 

Cohen’s voice in all it’s glory existed there, in that moment and the air became a radiant “Bible white”. Each new verse so blatantly soaked in love and religion, held our intrigue and we became enraptured by a divine primordial calm. Despair and epiphany bled together, forming a cohesive portrait of a God-hungry, shipwrecked man. Cohen's music worked well to haunt and enchant each of us from beginning to end, which truly enticed our listening experience. And even to this day, his words continue their pulse long into tomorrow's tomorrow.

I must admit, I loved it when we listened endlessly to Leonard’s music. It always produced in each of us an endless dizzying discussion, lasting well into the early hours of the morning. Individually we took the liberty to expound upon his writing and his words, interjecting in the end, our own…O Leonard aren’t you tired yet!!

Of Leonard Cohen's music:

"A delicate fabric of biblical song

buoyantly poised in the air, 

as his wet, wild verse percolates,

the blood, the soil, the faith,

is witnessed everywhere."

In This Time That Is Unlit

In this time that is unlit, 

where silence

e x i s t s, 

abduct and convert this heart 

so that words

of  L O V E 

invisibly scripted,

can be wholly embraced.