To define you

poems, poetry, tribute, Uncategorized, , ,

to define you
I could write a thesis
study your life, your metaphors and their meanings
fill a million pages with puny words of praise

to define you
I could cup my tears in thankful hands
and offer them up,
dripping from my fingers, as an unfinished description
of your beauty

to define my love for you
I could cut my wrists, and with the blood
paint your lyrics across my skin
I could set your famous blue raincoat in stone
and kiss its hem

but you are unique
and only one definition will do

to define you
and all that you have been,
are,
and will be to me
I only have to say your name:
Leonard Cohen

©Jane Paterson Basil

38 thoughts on “To define you”

  3. To quote your muse, “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”….damn! you can write! i love love love the way you put words to so many things and so many things make sense when you fit them into words!! (excuse if i dont make sense!)

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        1. Any one of those delicious meals you cooked would have sufficed, but what hurt me – what really hurt me – was that you consumed the whole saffron-fest ON YOUR OWN, while I trudged the streets searching for a lollipop stick I could chew, to extract the last of the flavour; or perhaps a discarded apple core, and then I heard, far away in the distance, the sweet lilt of beautiful music. I followed the heavenly sound, hoping it may come from a restaurant, where I’d find a skip, with good things to eat. The source of the mucic came from a factory window; there was no sustenance to be found there, nothing but LEONARD COHEN’S BEAUTIFUL voice inviting me to dance, and forget my hunger – and just for a moment, I did, I did, may God forgive me for my disloyalty to a SELFISH GREEDY GIT who ate two portions of a delicious meal without giving a thought to me.

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                  1. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they can be one and the same you know.

                    But fine. An actual dinner of actual food shall be your should you ever find yourself slumming it for some reason in the wilds of Sussex County, NJ and contact me therein. Bring your own spork.

                    🙂

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