Of birdsongs, I know only three for certain: cardinal, blue jay, raven, though perhaps the last two don’t count—not as song. More call than song. More cry, by which I mean
The first poem in Leonard Cohen’s posthumous book The Flame made me laugh. Not because the lyrics are especially funny (although there are touches of Cohen’s characteristic wry humor), and not because the poem is foolish (it’s quite good), but because it is practically a medley of every single theme and obsession Cohen took up over his sixty-year career. Holiness and pussies are just a start. One almost senses him (knowingly, always knowingly) ticking off boxes. Angels and devils: check. Art, sartorial elegance, and slaves: check, check, check. Messianism: check:
No car to drive to the dump and too embarrassed to borrow one, you scrape the black mold off the underside as best you can, muscle it onto your shoulder. Spores multiplied to the size
After pulling a score from the dumpster behind Krogers I stroll through sliding doors with egg-caked hands. The greeter greets me as I pass. I scan the aisles like a surgeon studying the mint
I want my web to hold. I want to repair what I have made. I was not given the gold hive. In me seethes the silk of invisible worlds. Spinning my body inside of hairline emptiness, I project
Two tree-limb-switched heretics born of Baptist parents, we reveled in a Ouija. But the only black spirits we conjured were our own shadows which flickered against the wall like a private screening. Both of us church boys sweltered in June pews, our bodies a new gospel.
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