I was reading Irving Layton’s love poems, listening to a
Leonard Cohen you-tube video ‘Come
Healing’ drinking a steamy cup of double bergamot Earl Grey tea when this
poem materialized. The title came to me,
equally inspired by a title of one of Layton’s poems and a small lyrics from
The Hip’s ‘Fiddler’s Green’. I mashed them together and started to write
and I almost felt like it was impossible to stop but it had to end somewhere. Interestingly enough, I started out
peacefully and the more I wrote the angrier I got. Perhaps there were some residual remnants of
lost love I hadn’t considered when I put all of that away? Nevertheless, it was an intense writing
experience, to feel myself go from zero to angry, feeling it mounting, aching
in my bones, spreading through my organs and flushing my flesh. I went from a woman sipping tea to a
gladiator ready to destroy but then with the mention of soup and the possibility
of dessert soothed the rage and I retired the poem at just the right time. It’s raw and unedited and out in the universe
how. It isn’t meant to be karmic or
boastful or begrudging, just cathartic, serving as a reminder that I moved
through some heart trauma and came out on the best side of a bad situation. And while I will never fully understand the
past, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that this moment is all that truly matters
and the things that are to come. Good
things.
Letter To A Lost Love From A Tiny Knotted Heart
Irving Layton urged me to write to you
I was reluctant to cash in on old love’s dividends
I am just a timeworn poor poet whose only wealth
is the weight of words and I fear that I have
expended plenty of them in your precious name
for love for leaving for anger for sadness for forgiveness
words equivalent to the number of tears pooled on my
pillow
undeserved exultation inexcusable passion unjustified umbrage
I am only writing to you because Irving Layton was
adamant about it
I no longer wish for you or understand the unbridled
attraction
I refuse to recall the fire of your lips nor the heat of
your instinctive touch
nor the taste of your tongue and the few warm moments composed
of madness or fever amplified by wine by denial by
inflamed reason
Leonard Cohen mentioned we were nothing more than
tenderness and irony
divided by naiveté plus deceit your trickery ensnaring me
into your web
without the intention to love me feed me keep me safe
from harm
in many ways now you are nothing more than an elapsed rhyme
a cartoon
character a figment of my overactive imagination a pipe
dream a ghost
Leonard Cohen told me that you would turn me away shun me
when you were
finished toying with me sneering if you pass me by you
are talented at
passing me over especially now that you read the book and
did your research
to determine how Venus and Mars co-exist you can’t commit
to anything
without reading how do it first or without a protective
nudge you lack guts
you lack courage you lack freedom to be to live to rejoice
without instruction
you are a boy full of fear held back by maternity by obligation
to God by insecurity
I lack the desire to accept garnished affection I reject
the notion that you broke
my heart into a million little pieces and scattered them
so easily in one fell swoop
Irving Layton reminded me that my work has been praised
by international critics,
acclaimed writers and has one prizes accolades stronger
than your hatred for me
I cannot say how you came to loathe someone who loved you
so sweetly
someone who would move Heaven and Earth to prevent you
from slipping away
Leonard Cohen said if you ever came near me again I
should push you off the
balcony of my high-rise and watch you fall in slow slow motion
down down down
where you belong with the bugs and the snakes and the
worms and the bottom feeders
from above looking down I will pose framed with a sense
of purpose and audacity
and I will feel victorious just like you did looking down
at me while I wept
Irving Layton said he would buy me a hot beverage and a hearty
meal when I am finished
writing you this letter after I fold it slip it into an
envelope seal it and send it off
I am going to sip a fragrant pot of earl grey tea and devour
a bowlful of potato leek soup
laugh and write and live a full life and if I’m lucky
Leonard Cohen will buy me dessert.
**
For the rest of my Wednesday afternoon, I plan to drink
more tea, work and in my down time, peck away a little more at my new story
that I can now reveal the title of, ‘Half Windsor Knot’. I’m excited to see where it takes me. I’m three and a half pages in and I know my
stories don’t tend to be long and I don’t put any expectations or caps on word
count. I just like to see where they go and who I meet. I will keep you updated on my progress.
Dinner tonight with some friends I haven’t seen in a
really long time. I so look forward to
sitting with them and catching up.
Today’s kindness challenge, get in touch with someone you
haven’t seen in a long time, give them a call, text them or drop a line. However it is best for you. You’ll be glad you did and it will delight
them to know you thought of them today for no other reason than just to say
hello.
In propinquity,
Nic
