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I’M JUST A POET
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me why
do we see blue when no blue’s in the sky,
birdies don’t wallow and piggies don’t fly,
Mamma won’t holler and Daddy won’t cry.
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me why.
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me how
one may excuse what one cannot allow,
we’re willing to play though we’re too tired to plow,
we can do so much later and so little now.
None can depend upon promise or vow.
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me how.
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me why
life is a question without a reply.
To live is to stumble about till we die.
I’m just a poet, so don’t ask me why.
(Mike Cohen - Apr 2010)
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HOW EVERYTHING DOESN’T COME
The best would be for a poem to come out right
right away,
bursting full blown from your brain
like Athena from the head of Zeus
with no need of rearing, nurturing or coddling.
…Done at once, once and done, alla prima,
the way everything should come,
without the fits and false starts,
the faltering and floundering and blundering down blind alleys….
But sure as it took more than a day to build Rome,
it took more than six to build the universe,
and heaven knows
there remain kinks and wrinkles that still require ironing out.
Yet in some perfect city,
in some perfect universe,
on some perfect day,
some poem may just come out right
right away.
(Mike Cohen - May 2010)
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HE RECITES HIS POEM AS IF…
He recites his poem as if he wrote it in one burst.
As if he had not stopped for a snack then returned
to replace wrong word by wrong word,
by near-right word,
by right word,
by just-right word.
He recites his poem as if he had not put it aside half finished
to make love to you,
and forgotten about it and all the rest while he
tried on your fingers and slipped into your skin…
…as if that hadn’t changed him forever, once more…
…as if nothing ever changed… as if nothing that is might not be.
He recites his poem as if wisdom and love were effortless and endless…
…as if all his words were just-right words…
…as if he had not discarded so many just-right words and started over…
…as if he were the lion never outrun by a gazelle…
…as if he were the gazelle never to be outrun by the lion…
…as if truth were eternal and eternity were true…
…as if the perfect fit of your fingers and your skin
were not an extraordinary thing….
He recites his poem as if he were capable of writing it again.
(Mike Cohen - May 2007)
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THE STATE OF POETRY
Poetry has grown from a specific literary skill in the province of a small number of expert practitioners to a field of endeavor open to all levels of verbal virtuosity. This democratization of poetry has made it more writeable, less definable, and far less marketable. It has grown more popular from the participant’s aspect than the spectator’s. Perhaps this is a natural evolution for an art form built of ideas and words appropriated from the common lexicon and the collective psyche. Poets do not make their conceits from scratch, but seize existing concepts and whittle, mold, and fashion them into a form to suit the poetic aesthetic, arbitrary and capricious as it is.
The poetic aesthetic has branched outward to wild heterogeneity, taking over a large part of the garden of art, like an unruly shrub that defies trimming. No wonder an open poetry reading is an adventure.
Open-microphone public poetry readings are anything but predictable. There may be all sorts of offerings from sonnets to freestyle rap, from limericks to haiku, from free verse to blank verse to prose poems to rants.
The open-microphone dynamic provides an audience-performer interchange. And as they take turns changing places, sure as the audience doesn’t know what to expect of the performers, the performers don’t know what to expect of the audience.
Open hostility is rare as is flagrant adulation, but short of these extremes are a variety of common reactions, good, bad, and in between. No reaction is no good. Silence is fine during the poem but not at the end. Strange stares of incomprehensiveness are not good either. A gasp may indicate that a poem is poignant. A sigh can mean the poem is boring. It is often difficult to distinguish a gasp from a sigh. A nod or a smile is usually a good sign. Applause is ostensibly good, although it may merely mean that the audience can tell when the poem is over. My favorite reaction, particularly when it comes at an appropriate juncture, is laughter. Yes, a good laugh is hard to beat.
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ODE TO LINT
The lint from your dryer is fuzzy and warm.
It takes the color of your clothing but quite another form.
When freshly rendered, the lint can be seen
Spread in its splendor, adorning the screen.
It’s soft to the touch. The instant you feel it
You’ll find yourself compelled to peel it
From the mesh where its shape had been randomly wrought,
Like a cloud you may take to resemble a thought.
But once you remove it and have it in hand,
You’ll notice no substance, boxed, bottled or canned,
No manner of matter, no species of stuff
Has half the panache of this fragmental fluff.
It’s pleasant to work with, delightful at play.
From the dryer it bears such a fragrant bouquet.
For goods of less value, what prices we pay!
Imagine – some people just throw lint away!
(Mike Cohen – Feb 2006)
