There were a number of comments on the Saturday Salon thread enquiring about ideas for Chrissie presents. Popping into a bookshop on the way to work, I noticed the perfect one. An anthology of Leonard Cohen’s poems and music. While Cohen’s novels are in print, and his lyrics easy to track down on the net, many of his poems are hard to obtain. Cohen deserves renown not just for his music, but also as a poet in his own right, as indeed do many lyricists. As one reader review puts it:
I’ve been reading Leonard Cohen since I was 13 and in love with the words “freakish nipples”.
Over the fold are a couple of favourites.
I perceived the outline of your breasts
through your Hallowe’en costume
I knew you were falling in love with me
because no other man could perceive
the advance of your bosom into his imagination
It was a rupture of your unusual modesty
for me and me alone
through which you impressed upon my shapeless hunger
the incomparable and final outline of your breasts
like two deep fossil shells
which remained all night long and probably forever
I Have Not Lingered In European Monasteries
and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights
who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;
I have not parted the grasses
or purposefully left them thatched.I have not held my breath
so that I might hear the breathing of God
or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,
or starved for visions.
Although I have watched him often
I have not become the heron,
leaving my body on the shore,
and I have not become the luminous trout,
leaving my body in the air.I have not worshipped wounds and relics,
or combs of iron,
or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.I have not been unhappy for ten thousand years.
During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.
My favourite cooks prepare my meals,
my body cleans and repairs itself,
and all my work goes well.
Which bookshop?
Borders! In the poetry section…
Mark
How eerie is ‘First we take Manhattan’?! And it was written in 1988!
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’d really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you’re worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don’t have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I don’t like your fashion business mister
And I don’t like these drugs that keep you thin
I don’t like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’d really like to live beside you, baby …
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I’m ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I am guided
Ah remember me, I used to live for music
Remember me, I brought your groceries in
Well it’s Father’s Day and everybody’s wounded
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
The Lloyd Cole version of “Chelsea Hotel” goes urfff. And everybody knows who it was that Lennie is speaking about when he mentioned that “she was giving me head on an unnamed bed”
I think Democracy is a very interesting song, as is the Tower of Song.
Cohen’s novel “Favourite Game” was superb. (At least at the tender age of 23 when I read it.)
A personal favourite is the beginning of Famous Blue Raincoat, which sounds like a letter from anyone I’ve ever known well, back when we were all 23:
It’s four in the morning, the end of December,
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better.
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living,
there’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
Dunno what is it about him, but it just takes you back and back.