leonardcohenforum.com

There’s a mono-sodium moon
slicing through cracky branches
Of stripped December trees.
And the walk back
Is jagged, although the road is straight,
And no-one is talking sense
but that’s my kind of language anyway.

Ditches issue invitations
Mud waits to entertain me
With dry leaves for a blanket
and we walk in a rowdy row
of old jokes and playground songs
that make us young for one more night

reunions are always risky
I calculate that junior school debt
Spent on the wrong sweets
To be now worth hundreds and thousands


And I also calculate that if the prettiest 12 year old girl
had let me kiss her just once then
she would be long forgotten
Instead of 40 years of dreams
And a warm fear to take her hand even now
as I dance so close behind her
On a friendly black curve home.

As one soon to attend a reunion, I would like your permission to use your poem there, Sir. As an aside, I did kiss the one I wished. Your poem is charming, perhaps moreso through the eyes of one about to go there and reviewing memories now.

I am honored! Permission certainly granted. BTW "hundreds and thousands" is a pun as this is the name for those tiny tiny sweety things used for cake decoration.

Dear Sir ~

I wasn't aware of that phrase or its meaning, so thanks for that clarification....as well as for your permission to use your delightful poem.

Would you care to P.M. me with your real name for inclusion? Choice certainly optional, not mandatory.

~ Lizzytysh

no credit necessary, just happy that you like it!

OK ~ done! Lancelot is it.....my former classmates will appreciate the romance of that name, anyway ! Thanks again......is it England where that phrase is used to depict all those tiny decorations?

Shwmae Lancelot

Welcome to the forum - enjoy your stay may it be a long one.

JTS (I always preferred Sir Bedwyr - a proper Celtic name)

This one does take me back to memories of primary school, though I have no reunions to attend in my home town. The agony of being obsessed with that pretty girl in the 6th. grade, long before the onset of puberty and all those attendant urges. Strange to remember how one can be so entranced by a beauty of the opposite sex long before the hormones have kicked in. This does have intimations of 'innocence'.
Strange also to find that the brother in law of my partner of the last 4 years is a chap I used to walk to school with in those early years.
This poem also reminds me of a song by Hot Chocolate(I think) that was recently covered by Paul Kelly- "It Started With A Kiss".
Regards,

Or, as Tom T. Hall once put it:

"I'm the guy who didn't marry
Pretty Pamela Brown..."

and:

"I guess the guy she married
Was the best part of my luck."