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APOLOGIES
I beg your pardon, but I hope you’ll excuse me
for having excused myself
from doing anything more helpful for you
than to provide an innocuous bit of entertainment.
I could have gone into research
or medicine
or medical research,
and maybe, just maybe, come up with a remedy
for whatever malady you happen to be dying of right now
whether you realize it or not.
It might have been simply a matter of applying myself.
Who knows? God knows we never will.
But you could have had a longer, healthier, happier life.
And I beg your pardon,
but all I can offer you now are my profoundest apologies.
On the other hand, you could have done the same for me.
And if you actually did go into research
or medicine
or medical research,
I beg your pardon, but why didn’t you work harder at it?
Maybe, just maybe, you could have come up with a remedy
for whatever malady I happen to be dying of right now
whether I realize it or not.
It might have been simply a matter of applying yourself.
Who knows? God knows we never will.
But I could have had a longer, healthier, happier life.
And I beg your pardon,
but I think maybe, just maybe,
you owe me an apology.
(Mike Cohen - Jan 2008)
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CAPITAL I:
THE MOST IMPORTANT LETTER,
THE MOST IMPORTANT WORD
You use I, and he and she
use I, much as I do;
Yet she is she and he is he
and you are surely you.
It certainly is fine
that there are things a person shares.
but that pronoun, I, is mine
and others act as though it’s theirs.
Everyone uses I and me
(except when one’s to blame).
If we each need an identity,
why is it all the same?
He uses I. She uses I.
Now, may I be excused?
But you all use I. Perhaps that’s why
I feel so very used.
(Mike Cohen – 1999)
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I DON’T KNOW WHAT
I used to think I had that “je ne sais quois.”
“Je ne sais quois” translates to “I don’t know what.”
But it is that special something that,
though you don’t know what it is,
it is evident that some people just have it.
Well, the more I’ve seen of the world
and the more the world has seen of me,
it’s become evident that I don’t have it after all.
And I’ve become increasingly suspicious of those who do.
French expression notwithstanding,
maybe you can’t have it if you don’t know what it is;
maybe those who have it do know what it is,
and perhaps they use a different expression
to refer to it in yet a different language…
a secret language they keep to themselves
even as they flaunt that special something they have
before the rest of us who don’t have it
and know it only as “je ne sais quois.”
(Mike Cohen - Apr 2002)
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NOTHIN’ TO SELL BUT OURSELVES
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
There ain’t no merchandise up on these shelves.
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
The maid-for-hire stands there displayin’ her wares.
On the street she sees what the traffic bears.
And all of them love her, but nobody cares.
No one remembers those instant affairs.
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
There ain’t no merchandise up on these shelves.
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
We’re all harlots, we’re all Hessians.
We share the oldest of professions.
We make the most of our concessions
and all we leave are vague impressions.
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
There ain’t no merchandise up on these shelves.
There ain’t no Santa Claus. There ain’t no elves.
We got nothin’ to sell but ourselves.
(Mike Cohen – c. 1995)
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WHOSEITS AND WHATCHAMACALLITS
In time you find yourself
amidst a worldful of whoseits and whatchamacallits
that no longer seem to be themselves
and perhaps never really were.
Most of your life has been spent
trying to tell things apart,
categorizing animal, vegetable, and mineral,
identifying elements, homing in on
class, order, family, genus, species.
And if you are failing at this now, it is only because
you can finally see clearly
the indistinctness of it all.
The truth is not in the specifics
but in the generalities.
We live in a world that incites us
to distinguish every thing
from everything else.
But we die in a universe
that allows no enduring identity except its own,
a universe where energy and mass are interchangeable
and all the whatchamacallits and whoseits,
including our precious selves,
are nothing but…
stuff.
(Mike Cohen - Feb 2010)
