leonardcohenforum.com

sometimes
when i begin a poem
i pretend
it's already finished
and i'm showing it to you -
those poems are my best ones

beautiful, great fun
I really enjoy the self-irony

...and I wonder if the critics do

Ummm... I think Geoffrey actually IS one of the critics, Iveta...

Your poem is touching Geoffrey; I am a little surprised; I like it. Thank you.

I am a fan of Geoffrey's writing but I believe his little poem here can only have been a tease for the audience.

he wrote

sometimes
when i begin a poem
i pretend
it's already finished
and i'm showing it to you -
those poems are my best ones

it has as much merit (which is almost zero) as something I posted here a few years ago

In later years
I have stayed
in the seediest hotels
where ladies have clung to me
out of respect
for my age
and loved me
without disclosing
who they really think I am.

they are both tiny pieces of pretend enigmatic flim-flam. they take about 3 minutes to write and deserve no more than 3 seconds attention.


they are not bad, neither Geoffrey's nor mine, but don't praise such easy bits of nothing.

Here was Lizzy's post about mine

Truly touched my heart, this one. I'm amazed. Excellent!

neither are excellent, far too easy to produce poems like this.

Lion

I like it Geoffrey - it's simple, tender with slight hint of sad.
It might be cheesy to say that something touched me - but it did, I easily identified with and felt the sentiment expressed here.

Mr. Lion, this an old argument and I suppose not worth bringing up, but there can be great beauty in the simplest things. I think orchids are beautiful but I still love daisies.

there was a poem above the one you had posted (I looked it up) that I liked.

Lie with me in this seedy hotel
let the world pass by the broken windows.

Here’s the test of our love
no silk sheets
no room service
no comforts to turn your eyes away from mine
as I search for certainty.

Will we always have reservations
in this seedy hotel ?

It's simple, it's sweet but not saccharine and speaks well to that feeling that most of us have had in our lives of would you still want me? would you still love me? are we bigger then that other stuff?... (or it could just be a really good line from a budget conscious lover)
I think something would have been lost if it had been a more complicated piece.

I found something similarly ephemeral just a bit more complicated
guess most of you know it but its short and always nice to read

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

By Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh