Sunday is For Leonard
Sunday is for Leonard
When the sun glows on snowy ground
And there's nothing, but nothing on TV
You sleep in and out of conscience
His voice puts you at ease
And you float into the magical tour
Of old Montreal
Seeing his portrait,thinking, you wish
To write him
As the flamenco guitarist plays his poems
In a gypsy coffeehouse
And you waltz, as though, you are in Vienna
Singing praises of Hydra
He comes to you spiritually
And gives you a Zen smile
Knowing you have done yr duty
Come Gather -- Leonard Cohen [self portrait]
Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1934 and died there in 2016. In 1949 he discovered the poetry of Federico García Lorca ("he gave me permission to find a voice, to locate a voice; that is, to locate a self, a self that that is not fixed, a self that struggles for its own existence") and bought his 1st guitar. He took informal lessons in flamenco guitar from a Spanish man he met by a tennis court behind the family home. For three days they worked on the same 6-chord progression, but the guitar player did not show up on the 4th day because he had committed suicide. But those 6 chords became the foundation of all of Cohen's songs. Years later he named his daughter Lorca, and in 1986 he loosely translated the Spanish poet's "Pequeño vals vienés" (Little Viennese Waltz), calling it "Take This waltz." It 1st appeared in the Lorca tribute album "Poet in New York," named in honor of the 1930 book "Poeta en Nueva York" in which the poem had originally appeared.
ReplyDeleteNow in Vienna there are ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
I, I-I-I
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws
Oh, I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lilly
In some hallway where love's never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand
I, I-I-I
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea
There's a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They've been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
I, I-I-I
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz, it's been dying for years
There's an attic where children are playing
Where I've got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lillies of snow
I, I-I-I
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea
And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now, it's all that there is
Although he remained a practicing Jew throughout his life he was also deeply inspired by aspects of Christianity and was ordained a Zen Buddhist monk in 1996 and spent years as Jikan ("ordinary silence") on the Mt. Baldy monastery near Los Angeles.
After publishing 2 early collections of poetry "Let Us Compare Mythologies" (1956) and "The Spice-Box of Earth" (1961) he bought a small house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, where he wrote 2 more books of poetry "Flowers for Hitler" (1964) and "Parasites of Heaven" (1966), and 2 novels "The Favourite Game" (1963) and "Beautiful Losers" (1966). He also lived there with Marianne Ihlen after her writer husband deserted her. She was the inspiration for many of the songs on his 1st 2 albums, "Songs of Leonard Cohen" (1967) and "Songs from a Room" (1969). In 2016 he learned that she was dying of leukemia and wrote, "Well Marianne it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I've always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road." She died on 28 July and he on 7 November. One of his most popular songs was "So Long, Marianne":
ReplyDeleteCome over to the window, my little darling
I'd like to try to read your palm
I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy
Before I let you take me home
Now so long, Marianne
It's time that we began to laugh
And cry and cry and laugh about it all again
Well, you know that I love to live with you
But you make me forget so very much
I forget to pray for the angels
And then the angels forget to pray for us
We met when we were almost young
Deep in the green lilac park
You held on to me like I was a crucifix
As we went kneeling through the dark
Your letters, they all say that you're beside me now
Then why do I feel alone?
I'm standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone
For now I need your hidden love
I'm cold as a new razorblade
You left when I told you I was curious
I never said that I was brave
Oh, you are really such a pretty one
I see you've gone and changed your name again
And just when I climbed this whole mountainside
To wash my eyelids in the rain