The Subject Matter Is Not New & Not The Sorrow - For Leonard Cohen Poem by Warren Falcon

Though I take my song from a withered limb - Leonard Cohen1


upon my chaste
return sunburned
churned by the
Atlantic I will have
discovered a haunting
sound again

an animal
music of the air

the lungs

screams really

gulls falling
by arrows of
blue which

blue

saturate
sky and
sea to
learn the
heart again



to learn the heart again

avoid the narrows
at the island's end
where feet are easily
mistaken for doves

there large currents
beckon/compel them
to descend

*

the subject matter
is not new

& not the sorrow

old as the first cave
bearing first fire
in human hand the
expiring artist torn
from blank sky to
an expectant wall

a herd there
a declaration

one day we too will
fill the earth as
hooves have done
capture sun & be
doneover/overdone
& so come to such
an edge of ruin

*

Let us rejoice what is in scarlet shed.
Let us praise iron.
Let oxidation within us reign.

O lead us all to right ruin.

*

Dear ones. Dear ones, pray.

Pray that feather ash is more preservative than the feather outright.




1 an image from the song "By The Rivers Dark" by Leonard Cohen as performed in his record album "10 New Songs" (you may hear the entire album on youtube)