Memory


Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me,
she’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be
and she’s moving her body so brave and so free.
If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory
Tonight Will Be Fine – Leonard Cohen

It’s been seventeen years to the day
Since the love of all time went away
I have taken up some count of others in time
A fleeting rendezvous, a phase, merely a mime
Of she who’s measure of love was so sublime
In my minds eye the only place left to see
The unabashed beauty she brought to my life
It’s been quite a clock’s beat since she was my wife
If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory
Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me, 

Sometimes shyly, sometimes bold
Her shift of moods just never grew old
She was a force of nature in a human space
I know it’s a period of time I just can’t replace
Still I know it’s what I search in each new face
Just a smidgen of her essence in each body
Granted their faces are hardly same
And it’s cruel to them caught in my game
Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me,
She’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be 

In public she joked she hated my whiskers
Our joke word for liquor and how it just tickled her
When it dripped in my beard then I kissed her within
She had a rhythm that filled me with such a yen
That only she could fulfill again and again
Time softened us both as time should
But like aged whiskers and cheese – so beyond good
She’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be
And she’s moving her body so brave and so free. 

Sometimes in throes, I’m almost there
Where all I can feel of her fills the air
And in those moments on the verge
I’ll swear it’s her passions I feel surge
But try as I might I can’t hold that urge
And must lapse to facts of my reality
But in that moment life’s so incredibly kind
In those visions of her I hold in my mind
And she’s moving her body so brave and so free
If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory

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Back to my beloved Glosa form and more borrowed lines from Leonard Cohen.

The glosa is a Spanish form that also works well in English.   Glosas open with a quatrain from another poet, called the cabeza, followed by four ten-line stanzas terminating with the lines of the initial cabeza in consecutive order.  The sixth and ninth lines of each stanza rhyme with the borrowed tenth line and is the only required rhyme of the poem. There is no set meter or syllable count for a Glosa, however, a good flow is always recommended.

Entered in:

dVerse Poets Pub } OpenLinkNight – Week 41

13 thoughts on “Memory

  1. nice…i love the form..haven’t heard about it before…and then of course the poem..nice..a bit painful as well when all that’s left are memories…moving

    • The Glosa is my favorite form (outside of free from/verse of course).
      “…a bit painful as well when all that’s left are memories…” SO true. Thanks Claudia

  2. wow…i said it elsewhere tonight but love will def jack you up good…i am glad he has such memories to stir the bones even if for brief moments…some are that powerful, as if they have taken a bit of our soul….really nice details in this…and nice form…

  3. I really enjoyed the form and your execution of it, especially from one of my favorite song writers! This is a very powerful recontextualizing of the Cohen song, an interesting effect in and of itself, beyond the beauties of the form. Excellent and lovely.

    • Thank you Chaz!! Cohen is amazing. You correct, his lyrics provide so much food for thought on their own. Just taking a small section and giving them a different life is daunting, but that’s how they speak to me. Thanks again.

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