leonardcohenforum.com

i don't usually post poems till long after they're written and i've had time to reconsider, but i just finished this one a few minutes ago. not really sure what it means, if anything.


I stay inside the walls
of the palace Leonardo
some of these new buildings
are so god damn beautiful

I know the weakness
that eats my time
the strange genius
of west Montreal

I am a student in the East
learning to read Marx
without an alphabet
it’s better than working

I like this, jim! Nice feeling to it.

Personally, I would have omitted god from the fourth line (not for religious reasons, but for rhythm...)

"not really sure what it means, if anything".. that's one of the reasons I like this - it's hard to pin down, it moves in a kind of bohemian dedication to some idiosyncratic truth. Not really sure what THAT means, myself...

Blessings of peace

~Taigaku

Whilst I work, it creates a longing for my days of college, when study predominated. Leisure prevailed, as well. Work came in third. Welcome to the Forum, Jim .

~ Lizzytysh

thank you both.

i found this forum just after i wrote that, and posted it without reading around much. sort of like looking for online lit mags, the submissions part takes more of my attention than the actual contents of the magazine, though now and then you stumble across a strong poem.

i've read a bit more now.

taigaku i liked your response to peter's poem about the angry jesus, and what you wrote in the religious tolerance thread. i strongly agree about the essential sameness of the experience at the heart of all religion.

and i appreciate your input regarding my poem, but i think it reads better the way it is. "damn beautiful" is saying "very beautiful" whereas "god damn beautiful" includes resentment of the beauty's oppressiveness, which is how i felt looking out the window at the skyscraper they are finishing.

this brings to mind leonard's line "oppressed by the figures of beauty". so i've decided to call this poem <one like us>.

not sure how much i like it. i like the beginning, but am less sure of the ending. as the canadian poet clive holden said "we've got to go deeper" and i feel the same way about a lot of my work so far.

i'm not convinced my current mode of existence is much better than a job. studying in china is relatively cheap, but you do have to read a lot of marxist analysis, though it's fun without an alphabet.

did you know that daoism is probably a reflection of the aimlessness of the rural upper classes in the warring states period?

ok. i'm more conviced now.

I hereby withdraw my comment about god...