Leonard Cohen was an island (part 1)

So, inevitably,

our mountain village addresses a valley

and Mediterranean bay.

The water’s blue attenuates

and blurs the broader lines—

disturbed horizon, skies erased.

There is no border, only hue — 

reminding me of Hydra and Cohen landed there.

Romanticism maybe —

a key, a house, an island;

ten years of intensity

with loving, drugs and song.

A novel or two, then

throw your typer in the sea.

‘Bohemian’ we say;

but he found some ancient sense,

a drawing basic pilgrimage,

a riddling on this island too.

Alignment with the mode of myth

expressed in depth and light 

that rinsed Homeric eyes

in time, those eyes, all time.

Cohen was a poet after all,

he was simply tuning

those older iterations.

A mode of search perhaps, desire:

what you see you then become.

In this light,

what here can be envisioned

is not that far removed:

the past becomes the now,

the myth ascends the muse.

                                           (Cyprus 2017)

Leonard Cohen was an island (part 2)

 

I now know why

he chose an island of the blue:

it wasn’t for ease

or cheap squid and retsina.

Callings are quiet voices

that barely move a thought of breath

in apprehension.

Sense must arise from telling vagueness,

a murmur in the line of sight.

Blue print of primitive life,

where primitive means to live by faith.

White stone and horseshoe harbour

the set and setting for hunger,

and the ascetic who follows the wine.

Everted exile: chosen, designed.

All that mythic seriousness, yes,

though his laughter wasn’t a choice

but the deepest agreement

with the natural ordering.

A diaspora of one

he used a liturgy of words

to mark the end of desire in song.

(Curious concept;

it didn’t last long.)

Leonard Cohen was an island (part 3, prose consideration)