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Peter,
I've been looking at this poem from a variety of perspectives for awhile now, still liking it, still not certain as to all of the whys. Your synopsis adds more validity to why I do. The existential aspect really rings true. In fact, all of what you're saying here does. Thanks.

'while' surely?

p.

Peter, what are you talking about ????

Lizzytysh....may I suggest that you have seized Peter's nebulous comments "like a starving vulture, a pit-bull gone mad."

Of course, you may, Kush..... ~ you may suggest anything you like. This, as all poems, is open to interpretation. I happen to like his....and Leonard is certainly existential in his writing. Glad you liked my phrase...rather an equal-opportunity one, isn't it?

khhh, khhh,

i know i'm ignorant (dumb?), but i don't know what (sic) means, so it's hard to understand the former argument. i know it's wrong place to ask, but... please fill me in on this.

now, about the song ...

i have different idea of this poem (or poem as some of us feel) than mr. Danielsen (thought he's probably got better arguments than i). i think it's about having to lower oneself from his trone to experience love. hm, i'm making it more confusing than before.
let's say that a subject of the poem is a young man playing (as we all did sometimes) a role of a macho guy. he pretends to be cool and unsensitive - ABOVE other people. he doesn't even bother to look at other people's faces, and thinks that's never going to change.
BUT then he FALLS in love (even english word sugests decending), and everything changes. first he has to get off the apple tree (perhaps he's alluding on childrens' game where the bravest climbs and looks from above onto those less brave), and then the western wall, where I feel he's addresing his judaisam. perhaps he has to forget it on account of a gentile woman?

i know this interpretation barely holds water, but it's still what i think when i read the poem.

love,
JURICA

p.s.
i have to agree with mr. McGeever about it being a portion of a poem rather than proper poem.
p.p.s.
be it whatever it is, it draw the longest thread this forum has seen, right?

WoW! This is why they have poetry and book discussion groups. So much more added by what each person brings to the table. How dare you say yours doesn't hold water, however, Jurica ~ I think you followed through just as logically with your own arguments and perspective ~ such a romantic truth about maturing out of images and into genuine, honest love. Leonard appears to have made this "discovery," as well. Thanks for your addition. It's great!

~Lizzytysh

The apple tree could be the one in The Favourite Game. (If you have the book, it's in section 7 of book 1.) Breavman used to climb the tree with his friend Bertha until one day she climbed too high and fell and was killed.

'sic' is a Latin word meaning 'thus'. It is usually used when quoting something that you know contains an error, and you want to make it clear that the error was in the original, and not in your copying of it.

Dear Eeey.
"There's nothing more dangerous than writing poetry? Tell that to the marines"(sic).
I am aware of your hackneyed cliche about "the marines", and it just happens to be true: yes I did tell it to the marines, on October 26th, when my "Tunes and Flowers" poem was unveilled.
Hours later, a Royal Marine Commando veteran of El Alamein approached me, shook my hand, and said "Andrew, your poem is beautiful.It touched me right here. It says it all." He wanted a memorial for his comrades who died in the Normandy assault in 1944, something similar to what he had witnessed in Perth on that day.
I felt humbled when I saw the tears in his eyes: how on earth could that man pay homage to me? He added that my poem would retain a place in his heart, and those of the Marine Commandos. I have withheld his name from this post, though this has been recorded elsewhere.
Oh yes, Eeey, I have told it to the marines.

Yours, Andrew.

P.S. Re the use of the term "sic" : I have used it in parenthesis for over 30 years. My knowledge of Latin may not be as sharp as it was 40 years ago, but my usage of the term remains correct.

And to elaborate on LinMag's reply...

It's proper to use sic only when there is an actual error (either grammatical or spelling). It is often inserted in a quoted passage to indicate that, in spite of apparent error, it is quoted correctly.

Sic is not used as some sort of redundant quotation mark. And it's not used to indicate fallacy of logic or reason.


eeey

Comparing love to gravity is kind of interesting. I think his reference to the apple tree goes back to his reference to love being as strong as gravity, Isaac Newton showed that the same force that made the apple fall from the apple tree holds the moon in orbit around the earth. So if love is as strong as gravity it is the force that makes us fall and also holds all together. Falling from the Western Wall may have to do with prayer. In the song Marrianne doesn't he say I forget so very much,I forget to pray for the angels. I also thought once when I read the poem your face meant God, and lower place was possibly depression. Just some of my thoughts tonite, tomorrow if I read it they may be different

Well, eeey I think it's sic Sorry I just had to say that.

Come on, Andrew...


Meeting the enemy on a battlefield is more dangerous than sitting in one's room putting lines on a paper.

In fact, there are a lot of things more dangerous than writing poetry.

eeey

Linda,

I'm crazy about puns, so I think it's sic too!


eeey

I love [the operative word ] seeing Leonard's poem getting the attention and serious analysis it deserves here ~ after being so roundly discounted by some in the beginning.

After a point, I'm going to print out everyone's input and break the poem down line by line, with all interpretations for each immediately following. Then read it as a "whole" and see how it feels.

It looks to me like you had a very good night last night, Linda, given what you had to say about the poem. I like your observations on comparing love to gravity, and a reminder of the line I've always liked so much in Marianne about forgetting about praying to the angels "and then the angels forget to pray for us," which I've always experienced as disarming. Linmag, your input is interesting with a reference back to Leonard's own work. In some ways, people seem to equate falling in love with the destruction of themselves as potentially serious as death....the fear of losing oneself, et al.

It's also interesting to see love and war dovetailing in this thread.

~Lizzytysh

Dear Lizzytysh,

Sorry to take so long to respond to your last post to me...I have been very busy lately but now I have a little time on my hands.

And so to battle,

I am interpreting "Impersonal" the only way it can be interpreted, which is...non-personal....without being. It's not "akin to agape love." Love is not some amorphous, impersonal force floating around the cosmos. (And by the way, neither is Evil.) Love is relational. It is a function of being. Beings love. A cold potato doesn't. And if the Absolute is without being there can be no pesky I-Thou relationship. Which I think is critically important in the mindset of those who practice this particular strand of Buddhism.

I agree that the elimination of Being is the goal (in most forms of Buddhism) but isn't it odd that complete focus and meditation on the Self (Being!!!) is seen as the way to achieve this end. That is what I meant by the "all encompassing, all-important, glorious Self."

What interests me most of all is why a man is attracted to this Impersonal Absolute and a destiny of non-being. Why is annihilation (an unspeakable horror to the Old Testament writers) so appealing? Especially to a man raised and brought up in a religious tradition in which God is anything but Impersonal.

Sincerely,

SL

P.S.

Likewise, "elimination of desire" goes way beyond eliminating the "pleasures" ~ elimination of desire for power, money, sex, material belongings, etc. all come under that. Not just the hedonistic aspects."

Of course, that goes without saying. A ninety-year-old great-grandmother with an inordinate desire for watercress sandwiches is guilty of hedonism if she indulges this passion.