Leonard.
septiembre 13, 2009
I saw him yesterday at the concert he gave in Madrid. He appeared on stage running like a twenty year old, dressed in black and wearing his hat, and he gave a concert which turned into a sublime experience that lasted for over three hours. He started with Dance me to the end of love, and followed a studied succession of songs that only got better. I wasn’t expecting much more than whispers from a man of his age, but his voice was deep as ever, and his musicians were exceptional. I didn’t feel the time and I could have gone on forever, just listening. My perception was not being altered by the inevitable excitement of seeing a legend live -effect I have no intention of denying- but his music is just an excuse, just the vehicle he uses to put on songs whatever he could just leave on paper with no music, all the same.
I will say no more of the concert, one had to be there. But I have been reading him a lot lately, and I will leave one of his poems here, because they are filled with the same overpowering sensitivity, the same sharpness and almost insulting precision of his songs.
There it goes.
And it goes to Kiron, who thought he couldn’t be there.
And to Bárbara, who most unfortunately couldn’t be there either, after all.
And to Paul, who likes to be considered his alter ego.
And more generally, to all those who are born into this world to be oppressed by the figures of beauty, like Leonard himself.
The collapse of Zen.
When I can wedge my face
into the place
and struggle with my breathing
as she brings her eager fingers down
to separate herself,
to help me use my whole mouth
against her hungriness,
her most private of hungers-
why should I want to be enlightened?
Is there something that I missed?
Have I forgotten yesterday’s mosquito
or tomorrow’s hungry ghost?
When I can roam this hill with a knife in my back
caused by too much drinking of Chateau Latour
and spill my heart into the valley
of the lights of Caguas
and freeze in fear as the watchdog
comes drooling out of the bushes
and refuses to recognize me
and there we are, yes, bewildered
as to who should kill the other first-
and I move and it moves,
and it moves and I move,
why should I want to be enlightened?
Did I leave something out?
Was there some world I failed to embrace?
Some bone I didn’t steal?
When Jesus loves me so much that blood
comes out of his heart
and I climb a mettal ladder
into the hole in his bosom
which is caused by sorrow as big as China
and I enter the innermost room wearing white clothes
and I entreat and I plead:
“Not this one, Sir. Not that one, Sir. I beg you, Sir”.
and I look through His eyes
as the helpless are shit on again
and the tender blooming nipple of mankind
is caught in the pincers
of power and muscle and money-
why should I seek enlightenment?
Did I fail to recognise some cockroach?
Some vermin in the ooze of my majesty?
When “men are stupid and women are crazy”
and everyone is asleep in San Juan and Caguas
and everyone is in love but me
and everyone has a religion and a boyfriend
and a great genious for loneliness-
When I can dribble over all the universes
and undress a woman without touching her
and run errands for my urine
and offer my huge silver shoulders
to the pinhead moon-
When my heart is broken as usual
over someone’s evanescent beauty
and design after design
they fade like kingdoms with no writing
and, look, I wheeze my way
up to the station of Sahara’s
incomparable privacy
and churn the air into a dark cocoon
of effortless forgetting-
why should I shiver on the altar of enlightenment?
why should I want to smile forever?
…………………………………………………………………………………
…and now just listen to this. And cry, or go to sleep, but don’t go out in the street.
septiembre 14, 2009 a las 7:18 pm
Re: Collapse of Zen – well, quite!! The man’s a genius.. a joy to read if not always comfortable. I’ll never be able to think of pincers (or nipples) again without wincing.
BTW – that poem deserves not to be deconstructed but he did put the place names in so… he must have written it while staying (as apparently he did) at the Zen Centre in Puerto Rico, near Caguas. There’s a giant Jesus in Dorado a few miles away. Fine dust from the Sahara desert blows in sometimes from the Atlantic and carpets everything ready to be churned back into the air by human feet. I imagine an irritated Leonard losing patience with the mystics one day and taking to the hills..
septiembre 14, 2009 a las 10:08 pm
I saw him live in London late last year. Absolutely stunning. I wept through several songs. He leapt on and off stage with so much spritely energy, shared his poetic thoughts between songs also crafted of poetry. As you said, there isn’t a lot that can be said of it – you have to have been there. I love listening to the Live in London album, being taken back to that moment, where the O2 area somehow felt like a cosy living room.
septiembre 14, 2009 a las 10:19 pm
Oh well, he wouldn’t be wise if he didn’t lose patience with those, wouldn’t he? There’s actually a short essay in his book in which he goes on about the problem, I’ll transcribe a fragment of it that I’m sure you’ll love:
“Although insects value their lives, and even though their relentless industry is an example for all of us, they rarely have a thought about death, and when they do, it is not accompanied by powerful emotions, as it is with you and me. They hardly discriminate between life and death. In this sense they are like mystics, and like mystics, many are poisonous. It is difficult to make love to an insect, especially if you are well endowed. As for my own experience, not one single insect has ever complained. If you are not sure which mystics are poisonous, it is best to kill the one you come accross with a blow to the head using a hammer, or a shoe, or a large old vegetable, such as a petrified giant daikon radish”.
septiembre 14, 2009 a las 10:22 pm
Oh, hi Phoebs! It’s funny you mentioned that, I was listening to that same album while I wrote my reply to Paul… in my cosy living room.
Xxx.
septiembre 15, 2009 a las 11:50 am
I was there in heart and spirit, which unfortunately, amounts to very little. Damn, I wish I was there. What a man, what a mind, what a poet…
septiembre 15, 2009 a las 10:30 pm
You were there. ;)
septiembre 16, 2009 a las 1:06 pm
Where can I find a petrified giant daikon radish? I have checked the ‘Taste the Difference’ section in Sainsburys..
septiembre 17, 2009 a las 5:26 pm
No, not in Sainsburys. You must look for a little shop up in some corner of Finsbury Park, I don’t remember the name of the street now. Inside it smells of cat’s piss and rotten Chinese dumplings, but the man knows his stuff and sells petrified giant daikon radishes too, among many other things.
But first, you will have to go to the back room and sip on green tea, or maybe chai if you’re lucky and he just came from India with some pink sarees to sell. He will tell you about his latest trips so close to your face that you will practically drink his halitosis. But you’ll get the chance to kill a mystic that same night, with the radish you just bought for ten pounds. They’re expensive these days, petrified daikons, but you’ll see it’s well worth the effort.
septiembre 18, 2009 a las 10:33 am
Ah yes – that will be the old man with a long beard which/that he strokes continually with bony fingers as he relates the strange story of how he came to posess this particular radish (The Giant Radish of Khartoum), and how you have been chosen as the carrier of the radish and you must bear your responsibility well. And that’s why it’s a bit more expensive than all the other radishes etc
Trouble is, Leonard is forgetting that you can’t kill a mystic – they just come back….
septiembre 18, 2009 a las 8:52 pm
That’s the trouble, my friend.
mayo 5, 2010 a las 12:08 am
You made some fine points there. I did a search on real topic furthermore found most folks will agree with your blog.
mayo 5, 2010 a las 11:42 am
Thanks, Daniel.
I guess they’d agree with me if they already like him, as a reassurance to their taste, which often happens. A very different thin is if people might feel compelled to give him a shot if they’ve never been interested in him before.
Thanks for reading me.
Xx,
Gara.