Poetry: the Sublime to the Ridiculous

I made two nostalgic purchases this weekend: Leonard Cohen's Stranger Music, a collection of his poems and songs, and The Flintstones, season 1 on DVD.


Ah, Leonard Cohen. The same age as my dad, yet I've had a crush on him since I was an adolescent, when I - uh - "liberated" Let Us Compare Mythologies, and The Spice-Box of Earth from my junior high school in northern Ontario.

What attracted me then was his lyric yet manic depressive writing. What attracts me now is his sense of humour. His poems are like Zen koans - seemingly accessible, yet ultimately mysterious. For example, many have remarked that Famous Blue Raincoat seems like straightforward letter, but it begs for interpretation (PDF link). Anyway, one of the poems I loved as a teen was this one:

A kite is a victim you're sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives like a trained falcon
in the high sweet air,
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A few verses later, he compares the kite to, "the last poem you've written", saying,

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so you make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then pray the whole cold night before,
under the traveling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

To me, that poem to me was sheer magic. "Worthy and lyric and pure" would echo through my head.


Now, The Flintstones. I explained to my kids that this program was to me what The Simpsons is to them. Like the latter (in relation to them): The Flintstones was on the air before I was born, aired several times a day, and I never missed an episode. Even if I had seen a particular episode a hundred times already, if it was on, I would watch it.

You may recognize some of these snippets (I made up the titles):

The Frogmouth
[Wilma] Bill, the baby's college-fund money is missing. Did you take it?
[Big actor with tiny, high-pitched voice] Yes, I did. So what? You wanna make something of it?

The Tasty Pastry Contest
Wilma and Betty enter the contest with their Upside-Down Flint-Rubble Bubble Cake. They get the measles and have to skip the final bake-off. Picture Fred and Barney in drag, trying to act coy.

Frying Pans
Fred suspects Wilma is cheating on him, so he hires a tough detective - really tough. At a bar, the guy orders, "rocks, on rocks… and put it in a dirty glass."

This episode also featured Fred's poetry:

Your shell-like ears,
Your dainty hands,
And eyes so black
Like frying pans.*

* said with a questioning lilt at the end (but you knew that)

You're a perfect peach.
Together we're a pair.
You’re sweet,
you're nice,
you're paradise,
and all kinda stuff like that there.

Ah, bliss!