When everyone else is crazy…
Author Archives: MIKECOHENSAYS... poetry you can trust
MISCOUNTING SHEEP
DEATH COMES TO LIFE
THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF DEATH
FIRST TIMES AND LAST TIMES
AN ENDING FOR EVERY BEGINNING
IS THERE A CHANCE AFTER ALL?
Truth & Inconvenience of a plasticized world
THREE MISERABLE MEN WALK INTO A BAR
Not everyone wants to pursue happiness.
Two cliches walk into a bar: Three’s Company & Misery Loves Company
VIEW FROM KYIV
We used to look up at the stars on chilly Ukranian nights.
Distant blazes twinkled in our eyes.
Now we look up and see lesser lights
that scorch our Ukranian skies.
The Way Time Works
Fast forward – one direction, deceptive speed…
THE POEM SHOULD BE THE LAST TO KNOW IT’S A POEM
LAST TO KNOW
If you want to write a poem, you’d better sneak up on it. Never, I warn you, never mention the word “poem” in a poem, Don’t let the poem know it’s a poem with a cadence, a conscience, a quick conclusion. Let it out like a breath into the air where it can rise and float off without a care or an awareness of its nature, of its own early demise. Don’t let on. Make some excuse for the line break; say you momentarily ran out of ink or ideas. Explain away the alliteration as purely coincidental. As for the metaphor – well, sometimes a river is just a river.
If the poem finds out it’s a poem, it will become self-conscious, and start to stutter and babble, sensing the urgency to be profound and erudite, inscrutable and poignant, glib and scarcely intelligible, all at once… oh yes, and brief. It’s too much pressure for any piece of writing!
Better to let it think it’s a novel that can take its time and meander at leisure, while a patient reader abides. Let it stroll along unknowing as it winds around each bend.
Don’t let it find out it’s a poem till the end…
till the end.
Don’t let it find out it’s a poem
till the end.
(Mike Cohen – 12/2020)
A CAUSE, AT LAST!
For a long while I’ve been doing poetry just for effect – not for a cause. I didn’t find a cause, not because I don’t believe in causes. I’m all for peace, for curing disease, for ending violence, for feeding the world, for a clean environment, for prosperity, for happiness. But too many words have been lent to such worthy causes. I needed to find a path less travelled, a cause that has not been overly underwritten.
I finally find myself with a cause, pitting my poetry against the penny…
penny-ante and anti-penny.
Pennies are more costly than valuable. Their production is time-consuming and environment-harming. They take up more space and time than they are worth. Americans have a sentimental attachment to them but, folks, it’s time to get over it. The penny has long outlived its useful span. And Lincoln won’t lose face, thanks to the five-dollar bill.