I Always Daydreamed of Running Into Leonard
Outside a café table somewhere in Los Feliz, the poet in his vintage blue suit with his fedora tilted over to keep the LA sun from hindering his already wrinkled skin. While sipping a rare blend of European tea, I notice the way he flicks his cigarette ashes into the air, as he, slyly grins, Cohen waves me over, “You must be a poet.” he whispers in his deepest voice. “I can tell…” he says, as I sit down, I stammer: “I love the way you smoke that cigarette…” Glancing back at me, through his mirror shades, I picture Leonard delightfully giggling, “Each ash flicked is my way…” he begins to say while taking a giant drag of his already vanishing cigarette, he declares: of thanking her for the gifts that came like a seductive prayer” like an expressionistic memory filled with poetic smoke, as his aura clings— Leonard disappears 4 AM rewakens like Leonard Cohen He wakes up early as darkness shadows at the monastery in the Los Angeles mountains, peaks of monks chanting, even amid his resilient vows Leonard sparks lighting her cigarettes with his mind in the dark, blinking back his eyes begin to sing, remembering her lips ready for wordless conversations flashing back from the spotlight so smoky she returns… again and again, coming like a reimagined passion play, the roles between the sheets, bodies of poetry believe they were more than making, recreating love. Before their dance climaxed and he woke up alone, only her ashes remain, flickering in his mind, she arrives before the light of morning, she reaches inside reawakening the match between his half-closed eyes, the poet exhales, reliving the stars from their last night together, her drags rise from the floor, merging with shadows even more ashes from her smokiest flame this Lady Midnight reappears—glimmering candles ripple as his glowing skin loves to remember every space she loved to explore. She asked, why Leonard Cohen preferred his walls, empty and white? When he glares, in between sips of wine, Beaujolais 62, he loves imagining movies emotion pictures from his imagination coming alive his eyes, the blinking projector focusing daydreams, each scene becomes a poem, the pen and paper on the table, always there to recreate lines from the memoria verses he transcribed just by sitting starting at the walls, never white and empty, to Cohen’s eyes they filled up painting his mind with colors, resurrected focusing her glow Marianne’s body naked, wires filled with birds chirping waves of laughter, Hydra isle reawakening morning embodies the fantasies from his favorite shadow play, his mind dancing with the sun, Leonard loved watching his imagination rhymes coming into light. The Chills Standing in the vacant kitchen in his newly inherited home, Adam recalls the last night together drinking as father and son, asking the poet where he could find the last bottle of Tequila. Opening the fridge, he remembers discovering one of his father’s holy Cohen notebooks, rhymes frozen inside with so many little freezer burning icicle crystals on every page. Feeling the cold from the fridge, he doesn’t close the door, the son, Adam wants to stay here and inhale the freezing steam inhaling the verses chilled by his father, wanting to be thawed out waiting for the voice of The Flame deep dark smoking to reappear reliving the last moment discovering the last notebook his father the Poet—left with with the bottles and ice cubes, knowing each stanza inside he would know the stranger behind the father, with even one poem could he discover a line would that we answer so many lyrical labyrinths melting so many paradoxes glimmering inside. The Poet now gone, the house is even colder. But as Adam finds the tequila bottle with his father’s fingerprints back in the fridge, he clutches it and pours one last shot, although this “lost” notebook has only half-filled in elegiac treasures, with a toast he can still feel the chills, as Adam drinks, no chaser tears, missing Leonard the Poet his father, the son declares— “I wish I knew him better.” A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Adrian Ernesto Cepeda Bio: Adrian Ernesto is the author of Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, Between the Spine from Picture Show Press and La Belle Ajar & We Are the Ones Possessed from CLASH Books and Speaking con su Sombra with Alegría Publishing. His poetry has been featured in Harvard Palabritas, Glass Poetry: Poets Resist, Cultural Weekly, Yes, Poetry, Frontier Poetry, The Fem, poeticdiversity, Rigorous, Luna Luna Magazine, The Wild Word, The Revolution Relaunch and Palette Poetry. Adrian lives with his wife and their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold in Los Angeles. Adrian Ernesto Cepeda poetnotarockstar@gmail.com www.AdrianErnestoCepeda.com twitter.com/PoetNotRockStar instagram.com/thepoetnotarockstar/ facebook.com/poetnotarockstar/
Fevers of the Mind 