Suddenly thinking Karen

[vern.silver]

___0050___
clinging to the ritual
of life
suddenly seeming
important
to know
who you’ve been

the way we pass each other
talking softly
gentle asides
cautious hellos
constant replies
that shuffle into the thickness
of emotion
rattling the bones to the skin deep
devotion
to the meaning of words
those words important
as only the weight we put upon them
the wait becoming impotent
as we touch talk shift quietly
in place
haunted with memory
the way we are haunted by guilt
the choices we’ve made
our stories
enviously too short too nothing
too desperate
for us to suppose that the life was good
was great
in the episodic way that nostalgia
teases us
about the life that got away
from the one lived

___0100___
who was i when you kissed me that one time
drenched in the downpour
lightning making a shadow of our faces
1975 summer shilo manitoba
kneeling in the wet grass
feeling the wet mound between your legs
crushing me
squeezing the poems from me
that i had not yet learned to write

___0105___
cold here
snuggling up to memory
struggling for the truth of it
to slip through
the hole in my heart
i’ve grown tired
of trying to fill

___0120___
by my side
she sleeps
the idea of innocence
gentle on her face
the words i have chosen
for her
lost now
with this new memory
i take with me
knowing
it is not the love
that is important
but the hope
i am left with
as sleep takes me
to my place
beside her

___0125___
karen was only one
version of the dream
lyn another
and so was twylla
whose soft blonde hair
i still remember
the smell of

karen was only one
version
of the poem
i continue to write
and rewrite
& have never finished

one version
of the game played
and lost
the cards reshuffled
redealt
marked for a hand
other than mine

(sometimes 1975
1985 1995 2005
now
slivers through)

another line in the book
written in pencil
easily smudged
subject to erasure
censure
the moment always at hand

what importance are memories
to this
as life counts itself down
to who will remember

___0135___
06 july 2010 0135 am
and the easy rock on the
radio eating away
at the melancholy
i cocoon myself
in

___0150___
not a very good poem
but something
needing to be written
if only to say
goodbye
one more time

almost always
there is something to be said
about who we are
who we want to be
who we tried to be
the distance between all of them
far greater
than we could have known
from the beginning
or if we should have even tried
to set such limitations
on ourselves

what ever happens
all the love i have ever felt
strived for
grieved after
held
or lost

has been

06 July 2010

[lizzytysh]

If only I didn't know this kind of memory, Vern. Very evocative at times, the most in your one line about the rain.

Thanks for posting this.


~ Lizzy

[vern.silver]

Lizzy,
I guess most of have experienced difficult moments in our lives and I guess it is how we come through them that speaks about who we are.

The first few lines in this poem were written while lying in bed in a cardiac ward in a Toronto hospital where I spent three weeks. It was quite lonely as I do not have family there (closest was 700kms away.) If it wasn't for frequent visits from Anne Mitchell - another Cohenite that I met because of this forum and attending gatherings/concerts - it likely would have been a much more difficult time. The lines were actually part of another poem which I subsequently gave up on because it wasn't going anywhere. The part with the thunder storm is from an actual situation that later involved heartbreak. But our lives grown as much from the nasty bits as from the good times.

Anyway, have a great time in Krakow and hope to see you at one of the 2011 world tour concert!! And I will be helping Joe and Anne with the 2012 event: I'll be retired by then and will have lots of time to give.
Vern

[lizzytysh]

Oh, yes... Vern. It was just a couple days ago that a friend and I were talking about the immense relief when you're in ER on that 'bed,' those flimsy curtains drawn and just waiting in that cold environment and how a warmth floods the space when someone you know comes in response to your being there, having finally arrived, and touches you. I'm so glad to hear that Anne was able to be there for you. Just a familiar presence has such healing power. Are you okay now? Scarey time, by the sounds of it. I'm glad that you at least seem to feel okay.

Thanks for your further explanations on your poem. It caused me to remember some of our online conversations.


~ LiZzy