poetry - Blog - Brock Shores Financial #ImprovingFutures2024-03-29T13:47:11Zhttps://improvingfutures.ning.com/blog/feed/tag/poetryLeonard Cohen - Flamehttps://improvingfutures.ning.com/blog/leonard-cohen-flame2018-09-30T08:26:19.000Z2018-09-30T08:26:19.000ZTimothy Rosshttps://improvingfutures.ning.com/members/TimothyRoss<div><p><a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/28/leonard-cohen-poetry-the-flame-adam-cohen-interview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Article - Romance, regrets and notebooks in the freezer: Leonard Cohen’s son on his father’s final poems</a></p>
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<p>Enjoyable article , I remember how the kids grand father would talk the time he met Leonard Cohen in Montreal. Memories, he lived his music and it got  his spirit moving. I rather like many of Cohen’s songs, not realizing the poetic side of him. Reflecting know, it makes perfect sense. Maybe I should revisit my own poem book. </p>
<p>“<span class="drop-cap"><span class="drop-cap__inner">W</span></span>as he, in the end, a musician or a poet? A grave philosopher or a grim sort of comedian? A cosmopolitan lady’s man or a profound, ascetic seeker? Jew or Buddhist? Hedonist or hermit? Across his 82 years, the Montreal-born <a class="u-underline" href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/11/leonard-cohen-obituary" target="_top" data-link-name="in body link">Leonard Cohen</a> was all of these things – and in his posthumous book of poetry, given the Lawrentian title <em>The Flame</em> by his son Adam, all sides of the man are present.”</p>
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<p>Will have to get this book for the library and glean some inspiration from it. Maybe I get two and send a copy to Maurice for his enjoyment. </p>
<p>Timothy Ross</p>
<p>#ImprovingFutures</p>
<p>“He’d call himself slow. He’d write poems about how Leonard Cohen was a lazy bastard living in a suit”</p>
<footer><cite class="pullquote-cite">Adam Cohen</cite></footer>
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<h2>Happens to the Heart</h2>
<p>I was always working steady<br />
But I never called it art<br />
I was funding my depression<br />
Meeting Jesus reading Marx<br />
Sure it failed my little fire<br />
But it’s bright the dying spark<br />
Go tell the young messiah<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>There’s a mist of summer kisses<br />
Where I tried to double-park<br />
The rivalry was vicious<br />
And the women were in charge<br />
It was nothing, it was business<br />
But it left an ugly mark<br />
So I’ve come here to revisit<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>I was selling holy trinkets<br />
I was dressing kind of sharp<br />
Had a pussy in the kitchen<br />
And a panther in the yard<br />
In the prison of the gifted<br />
I was friendly with the guard<br />
So I never had to witness<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>I should have seen it coming<br />
You could say I wrote the chart<br />
Just to look at her was trouble<br />
It was trouble from the start<br />
Sure we played a stunning couple<br />
But I never liked the part<br />
It ain’t pretty, it ain’t subtle<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>Now the angel’s got a fiddle<br />
And the devil’s got a harp<br />
Every soul is like a minnow<br />
Every mind is like a shark<br />
I’ve opened every window<br />
But the house, the house is dark<br />
Just say Uncle, then it’s simple<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>I was always working steady<br />
But I never called it art<br />
The slaves were there already<br />
The singers chained and charred<br />
Now the arc of justice bending<br />
And the injured soon to march<br />
I lost my job defending<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>I studied with this beggar<br />
He was filthy he was scarred<br />
By the claws of many women<br />
He had failed to disregard<br />
No fable here no lesson<br />
No singing meadowlark<br />
Just a filthy beggar blessing<br />
What happens to the heart</p>
<p>I was always working steady<br />
But I never called it art<br />
I could lift, but nothing heavy<br />
Almost lost my union card<br />
I was handy with a rifle<br />
My father’s .303<br />
We fought for something final<br />
Not the right to disagree</p>
<p><em>Sure it failed my little fire<br />
But it’s bright the dying spark<br />
Go tell the young messiah<br />
What happens to the heart</em></p>
<p><em>June 24, 2016<br /></em></p>
<h2><strong>Flying Over Iceland</strong></h2>
<p>over Reykjavik, the “smokey bay” <br />
where W.H. Auden went<br />
to discover the background<br />
of all our songs,<br />
where I myself was received<br />
by the Mayor and the President<br />
(600 miles an hour<br />
30,000 feet<br />
599 miles an hour<br />
my old street number on Belmont Ave) <br />
where I, a second-rater<br />
by any estimation,<br />
was honoured by the noblest<br />
and handsomest people of the West <br />
served with lobster<br />
and strong drink,<br />
and I never cared about eyes<br />
but the eyes of the waitress<br />
were so alarmingly mauve<br />
that I fell into a trance<br />
and ate the forbidden shellfish</p>
<h2>I Pray for Courage</h2>
<p>I pray for courage<br />
Now I’m old<br />
To greet the sickness<br />
And the cold</p>
<p>I pray for courage<br />
In the night<br />
To bear the burden<br />
Make it light</p>
<p>I pray for courage<br />
In the time<br />
When suffering comes and<br />
Starts to climb</p>
<p>I pray for courage<br />
At the end<br />
To see death coming<br />
As a friend</p>
<p><span class="bullet">•</span> <em><a class="u-underline" href="https://guardianbookshop.com/flame-617670.html?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article" target="_top" data-link-name="in body link">The Flame</a> is published by Canongate on 2 October.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q&feature=share" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hallelujah- Leonard Cohen London</a></em></p>
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<p>Order Book</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Flame-Leonard-Cohen/dp/077102441X" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.amazon.ca/Flame-Leonard-Cohen/dp/077102441X</a></p>
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