Category Archives: love

michelle mcgrane – cento for leonard cohen (2006)

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Leonard Cohen, Montreal, 1973. Photo: Ralph Gibson

once there was a path and a girl with chestnut hair – – – we met when we were almost young – – deep in the green lilac park – – you held on to me like i was a crucifix – – as we went kneeling through the dark – – – i loved you in the morning – our kisses deep and warm – – your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm – – yes – many loved before us – i know that we are not new – – in city and in forest they smiled like me and you – – – let me see you moving like they do in babylon – – show me slowly what i only know the limits of – – dance me very tenderly and dance me very long – – dance me to the wedding now – dance me on and on – – – there’s a concert hall in vienna – – where your mouth had a thousand reviews – – i remember you well in the chelsea hotel – – you were famous – your heart was a legend – – i thought you were the crown prince – – of all the wheels in ivory town – and everywhere that you wandered – – love seemed to go along with you – – – lost among the subway crowds – – i tried to catch your eye – – i saw you there with the rose in your teeth – – i’d been waiting – i was sure – – – but you’d been to the station to meet every train – – – i knew i was in danger of losing what i used to think was mine – – just dance me to the dark side of the gym – – chances are i’ll let you do most anything – – so we’re dancing close – the band is playing stardust – – balloons and paper streamers floating down on us – – – i know you’re hungry – i can hear it in your voice – – and there are many parts of me to touch – you have your choice – – – the women in your scrapbook – – – (i was in that army – yes i stayed a little while – – though i wore a uniform i was not born to fight) – – – now your love is a secret all over the block – – – i’m just a station on your way – – – where are you golden boy – – where is your famous golden touch? – – the sun pours down like honey – – and yes it’s come to this – it’s come to this – – hey prince you need a shave – – – i forget to pray for the angels – – and then the angels forget to pray for us – – – your letters they all say that you’re beside me now – – then why do i feel alone? – – i’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web – – is fastening my ankle to a stone – – – everybody knows that you love me baby – – everybody knows that you really do – – everybody knows that you’ve been faithful – – ah – give or take a night or two – – everybody knows you’ve been discreet – – but there were so many people you just had to meet – – without your clothes – and everybody knows – – – and i can’t wait to tell you to your face – – and i can’t wait for you to take my place – – – i cannot follow you – my love – – you cannot follow me – – i am the distance you put between – – all of the moments that we will be – – – i choose the rooms that i live in with care – – the windows are small and the walls almost bare – – there’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer – – i listen all night for your step on the stair – – – i don’t like your fashion business mister – – and i don’t like those drugs that keep you thin – – – some women wait for jesus – and some women wait for cain – – i was waiting for a miracle – i waited half my life away – – – lately you’ve started to stutter – as though you had nothing to say – – – you don’t love me quite so fiercely now – – you’re weak and you’re harmless – – you’re sleeping in your harness – – – you thought that it could never happen – – to all the people you became – – the rain falls down on last year’s man – – that’s a crayon in his hand – – – like any dealer he was watching for the card – – that is so high and wild – – he’ll never need to deal another – – – (o you’ve seen that man before) – – his golden arm dispatching cards – – (but now it’s rusted from the elbow to the finger – – and he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter) – – – everybody knows that the dice are loaded – – everybody rolls with their fingers crossed – – everybody knows that the war is over – – everybody knows the good guys lost – – everybody knows the fight was fixed – – the poor stay poor – the rich get rich – – that’s how it goes – everybody knows – – – well – i found a silver needle – i put it into my arm – – it did some good – did some harm – – but the nights were cold – and it almost kept me warm – – – in a dream of hungarian lanterns – – in the mist of some sweet afternoon – – some girls wander by mistake – – into the mess that scalpels make – – – morning came and then came noon – – dinner time a scalpel blade – – lay beside my silver spoon – – those who earnestly are lost – – are lost and lost again – – – i journey down the hundred steps – – the street is still the very same – – was i – was i only limping – was i really lame? – – – i can’t run no more with this lawless crowd – – – you say you’ve been humbled in love – – cut down in your love – – – you say you’ve gone away from me – – (i see you’ve gone and changed your name again) – – but i can feel you when you breathe – – – you stumble into this movie-house – then climb in to the frame – – – your pain is no credential here – – of course you’ll say you can’t complain – – you who wish to conquer pain – – love calls you by your name – – – why do you stand by the window – – abandoned to beauty and pride – – the thorn of the night in your chest – – the spear of the age in your side – – lost in the rages of fragrance – – lost in the rags of remorse – – lost in the waves of a sickness – – that loosens the high silver nerves – – – yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control – – it begins with your family – but soon it comes around to your soul – – – well i’ve been where you’re hanging – i think i can see how you’re pinned – – when you’re not feeling holy – your loneliness says that you’ve sinned – – – it’s four in the morning – the end of december – – it’s dark now and it’s snowing – – the cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas – – the cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone – – – all the rocket-ships are climbing through the sky – – the holy books are open wide – – – the blizzard – the blizzard of the world – – has crossed the threshold – – – do you remember all of those pledges – – that we pledged in the passionate night – – ah they’re soiled now – they’re torn at the edges – – like moths on a still yellow light – – no penance serves to renew them – – no massive transfusions of trust – – why not even revenge can undo them – – so twisted these vows and so crushed – – – i’m cold as a new razor blade – – your shirt is all undone – – – will you kneel beside this bed – – that we polished so long ago – – your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red – – and you’re speaking far too low – – – you don’t know me from the wind – – you never will – you never did – – – the crumbs of love that you offer me – – they’re the crumbs i’ve left behind – – – and is this what you wanted – – to live in a house that is haunted – – by the ghost of you and me? – – – i’ve lain by this window long enough – – to get used to an empty room – – and your love is some dust in an old man’s cough – – who is tapping his foot to a tune – – – and why are you so quiet now – – standing there in the doorway? – – you chose your journey long before – – you came upon this highway – – remember when the scenery started fading – – i held you till you learned to walk on air – – so don’t look down the ground is gone – – there’s no one waiting anyway – – the smokey life is practised – -everywhere – – – looks like freedom but it feels like death – – – i balance on a wishing well that all men call the world – – we are so small between the stars – so large against the sky – – – and where do all these highways go – now that we are free? – – the age of lust is giving birth – and both the parents ask – – the nurse to tell them fairytales on both sides of the glass – – – there is a war between the rich and poor – – a war between the man and the woman – – there is a war between the ones who say there is a war – – and the ones who say there isn’t – – – there is a war between the left and right – – a war between the black and white – – a war between the odd and even – – – i can’t pretend i still feel very much like singing – – as they carry the bodies away – – – there’s blood on every bracelet – – you can see it – you can taste it – – – (every heart – every heart – – to love will come but like a refugee) – – – too early for the rainbow – too early for the dove – – these are the final days – this is the darkness – this is the flood – – and there is no man or woman who can’t be touched – – but you who come between them will be judged – – – so the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed – – it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed – – – it’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star – – i guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far – – – it’s over – it ain’t going any further – – i’m sick of pretending – i’m broken from bending – – i’ve lived too long on my knees – – – the river is swollen up with rusty cans – – and the trees are burning in your promised land – – – along with several thousand dreams – – – there’s nothing left to do – – when you know that you’ve been taken – – – it’s closing time.

(cento: a composition made up of quotations from other authors; latin: patchwork garment)

lyrics taken from:
songs of leonard cohen: suzanne; master song; winter lady; stranger song; sisters of mercy; so long marianne; hey, that’s no way to say goodbye; stories of the street; teachers
i’m your man: first we take manhattan; ain’t no cure for love; everybody knows; take this waltz
songs of love and hate: avalanche; last year’s man; dress rehearsal rag; diamonds in the mine; love calls you by your name; famous blue raincoat
the future: the future; waiting for the miracle; closing time; anthem; light as the breeze; death of a ladies’ man: iodine; paper thin hotel; memories; death of a ladies’ man
songs from a room: the old revolution; the butcher; you know who i am; tonight will be fine
new skin for the old ceremony: is this what you wanted; chelsea hotel #2; there is a war
various positions: dance me to the end of love
recent songs: the guests; humbled in love; the window; the gypsy’s wife; the smokey life

galway kinnell – little sleep-head’s sprouting hair in the moonlight (1971)

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galway-kinnell-book-of-nightmares1
You scream, waking from a nightmare.
When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.

2
I have heard you tell
the sun, don’t go down, I have stood by
as you told the flower, don’t grow old,
don’t die. Little Maud,
I would blow the flame out of your silver cup,
I would suck the rot from your fingernail,
I would brush your sprouting hair of the dying light,
I would scrape the rust off your ivory bones,
I would help death escape through the little ribs of your body,
I would alchemize the ashes of your cradle back into wood,
I would let nothing of you go, ever,
until washerwomen
feel the clothes fall asleep in their hands,
and hens scratch their spell across hatchet blades,
and rats walk away from the cultures of the plague,
and iron twists weapons toward the true north,
and grease refuses to slide in the machinery of progress,
and men feel as free on earth as fleas on the bodies of men,
and lovers no longer whisper to the presence beside them in the
dark, O corpse-to-be …
And yet perhaps this is the reason you cry,
this the nightmare you wake screaming from:
being forever
in the pre-trembling of a house that falls.

3
In a restaurant once, everyone
quietly eating, you clambered up
on my lap: to all
the mouthfuls rising toward
all the mouths, at the top of your voice
you cried
your one word, caca! caca! caca!
and each spoonful
stopped, a moment, in midair, in its withering
steam.
Yes,
you cling because
I, like you, only sooner
than you, will go down
the path of vanished alphabets,
the roadlessness
to the other side of the darkness,
your arms
like the shoes left behind,
like the adjectives in the halting speech
of old men,
which once could call up the lost nouns.

4
And you yourself,
some impossible Tuesday
in the year Two Thousand and Nine, will walk out
among the black stones
of the field, in the rain,
and the stones saying
over their one word, ci-gît, ci-gît, ci-gît,
and the raindrops
hitting you on the fontanel
over and over, and you standing there
unable to let them in.

5
If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,
and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,
learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come – to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.
The still undanced cadence of vanishing.

6
In the light the moon
sends back, I can see in your eyes
the hand that waved once
in my father’s eyes, a tiny kite
wobbling far up in the twilight of his last look:
and the angel
of all mortal things lets go the string.

7
Back you go, into your crib.
The last blackbird lights up his gold wings: farewell.
Your eyes close inside your head,
in sleep. Already
in your dreams the hours begin to sing.
Little sleep’s-head sprouting hair in the moonlight,
when I come back
we will go out together,
we will walk out together among
the ten thousand things,
each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages
of dying is love.

__
from The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell (Mariner Books, 1971). Thank you Kelly Rosenthal for sharing this on Facebook this morning.

ana maría gonzález, josé mojíca & silvana roth – solamente una vez (1942)

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“Solamente una vez“, written by Agustin Lara, was first recorded by Ana María González & José Mojíca (January 21,1942). An English version of the song was recorded a few years later by Dora Luz, as “You belong to my heart“, which was used in Disney’s The Three Caballeros, but the lyrics are really lost in translation.

chet baker – for all we know (1987)

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“Recorded just before he passed and released posthumously, this is some of Chet’s best work. Arguably it’s his best work. As his life deteriorated from drugs through the years, his work had suffered and he had faded from the music world. It all came together in this concert in Tokyo. Absolutely fantastic musicians backing him up, and Chet had somehow come back into top form for this show. In fact he was better than he used to be… the years, the pain, the experiences, the feeling all came through in a more mature fashion in his voice and trumpet.”

aimless love – billy collins

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This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

__
(Thanks Debbie for this.)
From Aimless Love, Penguin Random House, 2014.

tim hjersted on what we are here for

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I have made a promise to this world that I will carry with me to my last days. It is my vow to lessen the suffering of the world while I am here – it is to ensure that every toxic legacy that I inherited from our culture ends with me – and, ideally, ends with all of us, in our lifetime. The task may be impossible, but I have to help. I have to do it because my true nature wants me to. When I do this work, my heart sings. My inner self rejoices. That is because your happiness is my happiness. Doing the work connects me with what is really true. We are all connected. We are all in relationship.

Still from Hayao Miyazaki’s “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” (1984)

Focusing on media activism, it is quite easy to get swept up in a thousand different messages, leaving me sometimes feeling like I’ve gotten off track with my core message and purpose. What am I doing here? Why am I here?

The answer is in an old Sufi song I learned as a child, “What are we here for? To love, serve and remember.”

To love, serve and remember.

Remember what?

That we are all family.

That you are because I am.

That what is sacred in me is sacred in you. And that sacredness pervades the cosmos, if we choose.*

Reverence and awe for the world is our choice to make. We can see that beauty, and live that life, or we can choose not to see it, and live without that beauty.

Look at your lover this way today. See the sacred in her. See the sacred in him. When you see it in them, see it in your family and your friends. Then, start looking for it in people you see at the grocery store and on the street. Then see it in all of the animal creatures in your life. See it in the trees and plants that grow outside your house. See life in everything, truly be present to its nature and vibrational energy.

Each person in the world is family – caught with us amid the “splendour and travail of the earth.”

When we see the sacred in every person, we can see that those who cause others to suffer are also suffering and have been deeply wounded by this culture since they were born. Every child is born with love in their hearts. The child does not know that we are not all family until they are taught so. This is how we forget.

Our culture teaches us to forget. Our culture teaches us who to love and who not to love. It is a very small circle of people. But that circle is growing bigger for more and more people each day.

More and more people are remembering that our family is life itself.

That is the core message I am trying to spread with my activism.

From this revolution of the heart flowers every other revolution. Sexism, racism, environmental destruction, poverty and war are not possible when true love is there. True love dissolves illusion. True love shatters prejudice and malice. True love liberates both the child and the adult from centuries of our inherited suffering. It is the revolution we need most desperately to save every 5 year old child from the suffering they will inherit if we do not vow to ensure that every toxic cultural legacy of our culture ends with us.

*I define sacred as something having intrinsic worth and value, so for me the word connects with me on both a secular and spiritual level. In a scientific sense that value may be entirely subjective, but I’m okay with that. For me, it’s a choice to see the sacred in life. I can choose to see that beauty, or not see it.

___
Tim Hjersted is the director and co-founder of Films For Action. 16 August 2016.

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

so long, marianne…

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Leonard Cohen’s Marianne died last week. Two days before she left earth, he sent her a beautiful letter.

“Well, Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.

“And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.”

Read more here.

patti smith – kimberly (1975)

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Patti Smith and her sister Kimberly, 1962. (Photo posted on Facebook by Kimberly.)

The wall is high, the black barn,
The babe in my arms in her swaddling clothes
And I know soon that the sky will split
And the planets will shift,
Balls of jade will drop and existence will stop.
Little sister, the sky is falling, I don’t mind, I don’t mind.
Little sister, the fates are calling on you.

Ah, here I stand again in this old ‘lectric whirlwind,
The sea rushes up my knees like flame
And I feel like just some misplaced Joan Of Arc
And the cause is you lookin’ up at me.
Oh baby, I remember when you were born,
It was dawn and the storm settled in my belly
And I rolled in the grass and I spit out the gas
And I lit a match and the void went flash
And the sky split and the planets hit,
Balls of jade dropped and existence stopped, stopped, stop, stop.
Little sister, the sky is falling, I don’t mind, I don’t mind.
Little sister, the fates are calling on you.

I was young ‘n crazy, so crazy I knew I could break through with you,
So with one hand I rocked you and with one heart I reached for you.
Ah, I knew your youth was for the takin’, fire on a mental plane,
So I ran through the fields as the bats with their baby vein faces
Burst from the barn and flames in a violent violet sky,
And I fell on my knees and pressed you against me.
Your soul was like a network of spittle,
Like glass balls movin’ in like cold streams of logic,
And I prayed as the lightning attacked
That something will make it go crack, something will make it go crack,
Something will make it go crack, something will make it go crack.

The palm trees fall into the sea,
It doesn’t matter much to me
As long as you’re safe, Kimberly.
And I can gaze deep
Into your starry eyes, baby, looking deep in your eyes, baby,
Looking deep in your eyes, baby, looking deep in your eyes, baby,
Into your starry eyes, oh.

Oh, in your starry eyes, baby,
Looking deep in your eyes, baby, looking deep in your eyes, baby, oh.

Oh, looking deep in your eyes, baby,
Into your starry eyes, baby, looking deep in your eyes, baby…

—
Simon Reynolds in a fascinating discussion with Patti Smith of her Horses album here.

the awakening woman

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Robin's avatarSacred Dreams

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The Awakening Woman is consciously aware of herself and strives to be intimate with all facets of her being. She is her own person as well as relational. She nurtures and honors the relationship with herself as well as with others. She is actively awakening and supports the awakening of those around her. Her devotion to herself allows her devotion to others to be genuine and nourishing. She is sincere, authentic, vulnerable and strong. She is protective, and accepts and values protection from others when appropriate. She establishes healthy boundaries while keeping an open heart.

The Awakening Woman is intimate with her painbody and the feminine wound. She does not deny her pain, but turns towards it for healing. She knows that the dysfunctional views and oppression of females/femaleness is nothing she caused, but acknowledges the ways in which she has participated or was complacent in the unjust treatment of…

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kathy acker – from “my mother: demonology” (1994)

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But the desire you have for me cuts off my breath – These blind eyes see you, and no one else – My blind eyes see how desire is contorting your mouth – They see your mad eyes-
To see.  I must see your face, which is enough for me, and now I don’t need anything else.
None of this is realizable.
As soon as I knew this, I agreed that we had to meet in person.
But at the moment we met, all was over.  At that moment, I no longer felt anything.  I became calm.  (I who’ve been searching so hard for calmness.)
I can’t be calm, simple, for more than a moment when I’m with you. Because of want. Because your eyes are holes.  In want, everything is always being risked; being is being overturned and ends up on the other side.
It’s me who’s let me play with fire: whatever is ‘I’ are the remnants.  I’ve never considered any results before those results happened.

At this moment if I could only roll myself under your feet, I would, and the whole world would see what I am…,
Etc.
Etc.
Do you see how easy it is for me to ask to be regarded as low and dirty?  To ask to be spat upon?  This isn’t… The sluttishness… But the language of a woman who thinks: it’s a role.  I’ve always thought for myself.  I’m a woman who’s alone, outside the accepted.  Outside the Law, which is language.  This is the only role that allows me to be intelligent as I am and to avoid persecution.

But now I’m not thinking for myself, because my life is disintegrating right under me. My inability to bear that lie is what’s giving me strength.  Even when I believed in meaning, when I felt defined by opposition between desire and the search for self-knowledge and self-reclamation was tearing me apart, even back then I knew that I was only lying, that I was lying superbly, disgustingly, triumphally.

Life doesn’t exist inside language: too bad for me.

__
Excerpted from Kathy Acker’s My Mother: Demonology, A Novel (pp 252-3). (1994)

acker - my mother: demonology

Based loosely on the relationship between Colette Peignot and Georges Bataille, My Mother: Demonology is the powerful story of a woman’s struggle with the contradictory impulses for love and solitude. At the dawn of her adult life, Laure becomes involved in a passionate and all-consuming love affair with her companion, B. But this ultimately leaves her dissatisfied, as she acknowledges her need to establish an identity independent of her relationship with him.

Yearning to better understand herself, Laure embarks on a journey of self-discovery, an odyssey that takes her into the territory of her past, into memories and fantasies of childhood, into wildness and witchcraft, into a world where the power of dreams can transcend the legacies of the past and confront the dilemmas of the present.

With a poet’s attention to the power of language and a keen sense of the dislocation that can occur when the narrative encompasses violence and pornography, as well as the traumas of childhood memory, Kathy Acker here takes another major step toward establishing her vision of a new literary aesthetic.

“Memories do not obey the law of linear time,” reads one of the many aphorisms in this novel, and it seems a key point of departure for Acker’s unconventional exploration of memory and its manifestations in dreams. Here, a woman tries to come to terms with her vulnerability and with the excess mental baggage conferred by time. But that simple narrative is just one of the many important levels in the work, which also contains vast psychological wallpaper. Visceral, unflinching, wildly experimental with shifting contexts and settings, this is written in the “punk” style for which Acker (In Memoriam to Identity , LJ 7/90) is well known. Forget categories, though. Her formidably talented hand gives the cacophonous materials compelling poetic rhythm and balance.

pablo neruda – from sonnet xvii

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“… I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body…”

__
From 100 Love Sonnets. Translated by Stephen Tapscott (UT Press, 1986).