The Baffled King For Leonard Cohen...and David, I guess Compose hallelujah. Try it. Take a pen and put it to paper, watch the hallelujah grow into some recognizable shape. Now that you’ve failed, compose an apology. Five or so couplets that can cast your hubris as imagery, a picture of you giving up, frustrated. Crumpling paper as each attempt sounds less and less like hallelujah. Apologies are weak as long as they’re just words, so go outside, take to the streets. Talk to the first five people you see. Make their lives easier, mow their lawns, help their mothers move into their last home. Give them twenty dollars, so they cannot feel guilty for eating out tonight. Put an arm around their shoulder, tell them it’s okay to have to apologize for things. Now that you’ve made their problems your problems, go home and apologize. In the mirror. Who the hell are you to give mercy? To decide who needs it? Feel lost. Pace. Walk your floor, the same path in your carpet over and over until you actually are lost. Baffled. Until every breath you draw is an apology. Now tie yourself to your chair and remember that writers who deal in secrets die unread. You will try again. Compose an apology in pencil. Proofread, erasing every appearance of "you made me feel” and replacing it with with forgiveness, with a nod and a wink, with hallelujah.
About the Author: Timothy Tarkelly’s work has appeared in Vocivia Magazine, Clayjar Review, Ekstasis Magazine, and others. He’s written several collections of poetry, including Angie and Her Roommate (Alien Buddha Press), Luckhound (Spartan Press), and On Slip Rigs and Spiritual Growth (OAC Books). When he’s not writing, he teaches in Southeast Kansas.
Image Credit: Harris & Ewing, photographer “Dog At Piano” (1936) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
As It Ought To Be 