Now And Zen Cohen

I have abdicated the throne
both the temporal and the spiritual
-- Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing

[Welcome, readers referred by online muses, Fausta's Blog and Atlas Shrugs and Alarming News.]

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Yesterday I read the bestselling collection of latter-day Leonard Cohen poetry and drawings, Book of Longing. Read it start-to-finish and in silence, the way it's intended, I sense. For one thing, the bulk of it was written inside a Zen monastery.... A daintier presenter will give readers leave to "pick and choose" through this 229-page volume, but Jeremayakovka does not advise that.

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Leonard's longing is longer than any of the Book of Longing's 100-something individual compositions and 40-something drawings. The little works smolder in the ear and/or eye, bolder than quips or limericks yet shy of odes or elegies. Taken individually in short-footed, almost sing-song cadence, their form contradicts the pretended gravity of Leonard's notoriously heat- (and wet-) seeking flesh. Some of the Book of Longing's freshest moments are stringent admissions of his own, often priapic, aporias. Out of context they would rateas just an old man's dirty dunceries. Here they ring in deadpan, almost comic relief:

still looking / at the girls / but there are / no girls / none at all / there is only / (this'll kill ya) / inner peace / & harmony (p. 207)

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Leonard is neither gone nor forgotten of course, but either state can turn inert. Neither guarantees a just appreciation. For "appreciation" without estimation is flattery; if not, it might render one vulnerable to flattery. One thing Leonard reminds by the Book of Longing is that he's always longed for order. Not an angelic order (his order being baser), but something closer to that of Rilke who elegized Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel / Ordnungen? Who, if I cried out, would hear me out of the orders of the angels?

Still, the Canadian Jew is not as transcendent as his German predecessor. Leonard's verses (as Rilke's) do not scream so much as murmur, murmuring of the heart while filtering through feminine flesh. This order is, as it must be, of Leonard's own devising. The trick (and this is every artist's acid bath) is that it also be a calling, and that the calling, if it doesn't do the devising, then revises it.

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Whatever may be Crooner Leonard's proven power, Poet Cohen writes at times in the baffled habit of the ex-monk. The habit fits too close for confidence as well as for comfort. Wrestling not with an angel, the ex-monk eats the embarrassment of having stumbled out of that order. His witness  is always to a kind of beauty. It's just that the witness is sometimes lowly and at most just short of holy. Or holy only inadvertently (see p. 207, above):

taxes / children / lost pussy / war / constipation // the living poet / in his harness / of beauty // offers the day / back to g-d (p. 175);

Anyone who says / I'm not a Jew / is not a Jew / I'm very sorry / but this decision / is final "Not a Jew" (p. 158)

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--Hypocrite Leonard,--mon semblable,--mon frère!
--Mon vieux,--mon pauvre,--mon debonaire!
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the road is too long / the sky is too vast / the wandering heart / is homeless at last (p. 215)
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(p. 167)

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For you, Gentle Reader. Verses I jotted, and worked, since opening the Book of Longing:
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Fanfare

My genius is an anchor
Grappling o'er the waves.
Hauled 'weigh by steaming Rancor
The calm seabed it craves.

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This Birthmark On My Skin

Thinking about my father
Gets in the way of thinking
About the men I admire.
Which is how he thinks
About his father.

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California Hotel #1

Having me put out of mind
Once inscribed I on your heart,
     Your inmost rind
     Is where they'll find
Your torrents bloodying my mark.
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California Hotel #2

Come! Nibble at my rotted heart.
Speed your tongue along wormworn trails.
Pay no heed when the thing falls apart.
     Feed then, Liebe. Bitte,
     Feed on the frittered entrails.

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Tenderloin Hotel #1

You know it is no casting chore
     to lick you by the bushel.
Just nod a knee to bid me more
     or sigh my first initial.
How tyrant Time tricks every whore.
     Dare you defy the benevolent official?
Go, then! Anoint your imperious store
     whose lounging supple diadem
     wrings reign o'er brittle thistle.
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Comments

[Fausta]

Beautiful post, Jeremayakovka.

In my younger days I wasn't all that enthused about LC, but as I mature (ehem), I keep coming back to his songs.

Will have to get the book - I'm planning on taking the train cross-country to SF next July. This will be the perfect book to savor in that journey.

[GM Roper]

I am NEVER any less than amazed when I stop to read you, Jeremayakovka. Long may your banner wave.

[JMK]

Thanks. There is much that is true in Leonard, but also things that are false. Each have wizened him, also scarred him.