IF IT BE YOUR WILL

Leonard Cohen

If it be your will

that I speak no more,

and my voice be still

as it was before;

I will speak no more,

I shall abide until

I am spoken for.

if it be your will.

If it be your will

that a voice be true,

from this broken hill

I will sing to you.

From this broken hill

all your praises they shall ring

if it be your will

to let me sing.

If it be your will

if there is a choice,

let the rivers fill 

let the hills rejoice.

Let your mercy spill

on all these burning hearts in hell,

if it be your will

to make us well.

And draw us near

and bind us tight,

all your children here

in their rags of light;

in our rags of light,

all dressed to kill;

and end this night,

if it be your will.

Leonard Cohen

1934-

Leonard Cohen is best known as a singer/songwriter; 'If it be your will' is a song from his 1984 album, Various Positions. A Jew who practises Zen Buddhism, Cohen's interest in Judaism was re-awakened in the 1980s and he began using Hebrew prayer in his songs. This song was inspired by the opening lines of the Kol Nidre service on Yom Kippur eve, which begins, 'May it therefore be Your will, Lord our God, and God of our Fathers, to forgive us all our sins . . . .'

From Poems For The Day   - Two  -

HOW MANY PALTRY FOOLISH PAINTED THINGS

How many paltry foolish painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet!
Where I to thee eternity shall give,
When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And queens hereafter shall be glad to live
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise.
Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story
That they shall grieve they lived not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sex's only glory:
So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.

Michael Drayton's birthplace in Hartshill,
Warwickshire.

Michael Drayton
1563-1631






Tomorrow our poetry group meets and the subject is 'Sonnets'.
Michael Drayton is one of my favourite Elizabethan poets.

HOW EVERYTHING LOVES BEING ALIVE

What

if you were

a beetle, and a soft wind

and a certain allowance of time

had summoned you

out of your wrapping,

and there you were,

so many legs

hardening,

maybe even

more than one pair of eyes

and the whole world

in front of you?

And what if you had wings

and flew

into the garden,

then fell

into the up-tipped

face

of a white flower,

and what if you had

a sort of mouth,

a lip

to place close

to the skim

of honey

that kept offering itself

what would you think then

of the world

as, night and day,

you were kept there -

oh happy prisoner -

sighing, humming,

roaming

that deep cup?

Mary Oliver

1935

THE MAYO TAO

Abend am Niederrhein

I have abandoned the dream kitchens for a low fire
and a prescriptive literature of the spirit;
a storm snores on the desolate sea.
The nearest shop is four miles away -
when I walk there through the shambles
of the morning for tea and firelighters
the mountain paces me in a snow-lit silence.
My days are spent in conversaiton
with deer and blackbirds;
at night fox and badger gather at my door.
I have stood for hours
watching a salmon doze in the tea-gold dark,
for months listening to the sob story
of a stone in the road, the best,
most monotonous sob story I have ever heard.

I am an expert on frost crystals
and the silence of crickets, a confidant
of the stinking shore, the stars in the mud -
there is an immanence in these things
which drives me, despite my scepticism,
almost to the point of speech,
like sunlight cleaving the lake mist at morning
or when tepid water
runs cold at last from the tap.

I have been working for years
on a four-line poem
about the life of a leaf;
I think it might come out right this winter.



Derek Mahon
1941

WHAT IF THIS ROAD

What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, subtle bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what's on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story's end, or where a road will go?


Sheenagh Pugh
1950

THE ICEBERG THEORY

all the food critics hate iceberg lettuce.
you'd think romaine was descended from
Orpheus's laurel wreath;
you'd think raw spinach had all the nutritional
benefits attributed to it by Popeye,
not to mention aesthetic subtleties worthy of
Verlaine and Debussy.
they'll even salivate over chopped red cabbage
just to disparage poor old  Mr. iceberg lettuce.

I guess the problem is
it's just too common for them.
it doesn't matter that it tastes good,
has a satisfying crunchy texture,
holds its freshness,
and has crevices for the dressing,
whereas the darker leafier varieties
are often bitter, gritty and flat.
it just isn't different enough, and
it's too goddam American.


of course a critic has to criticise;
a critic has to have something to say.
perhaps that's why literary critics
purport to find interesting
so much contemporary poetry
that just bores the shit out of me.

at any rate, I really enjoy a salad
with plenty of chunky iceberg lettuce,
the more the merrier,
drenched in an Italian or Roquefort dressing,
and the poems I enjoy are those I don't have
to pretend that I'm enjoying.


Gerald Locklin
1941

FUNNY

Photo by Navesh Chitrakar (on Pixdaus.com)

Idol Kathmandu - An Offering

What's it like to be human

the bird asked

I myself don't know

it's being held prisoner by your skin

while reaching infinity

being a captive of your scrap of time

while touching eternity

being hopelessly uncertain

and helplessly hopeful

being a needle of frost

and a handful of heat

breathing in the air

and choking wordlessly

it's being on fire

with a nest made of ashes

eating bread

while filling up on hunger

it's dying without love

it's loving through death

That's funny said the bird

and flew effortlessly up into the air.

Anna Kamienska

1920-1986

translated from the Polish by

Stanislav Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh