Review – Leonard Cohen at the MTS Centre, Winnipeg, April 30 2009

– text by eugene osudar/photo by Rebecca Ritters

take this waltz
take this dance
take these words
take it all
(oh your birds!
L cohen)
and skip
away
like a gleeful
boy
“give me
crack,
anal sex”
“sincerely,
L cohen”

don’t confuse
abuse
his masterful
meter
i, will, dare
to twist
and turn
the meaning
give me
L cohen
or give me
Democracy
Repent
Repent
Repent

not as if
you’re 74
(Repent)
bathed in blue
light and singing
(Repent)
(silky
rumbling
rumba
voice)
(Rep[ent)
Famous
(Blue)
Raincoat

“dance me to the end of love”
begin the night
in poetry
and dance
of tongues
of syllables
of purr,fect
meter
i/
am/
bic/
flick,
your cell,phones
black,berries
your wasted lives
of excess
and distant,comfort
instantly,
messaged

he recites
the (sacred) text
‘a thousand kisses deep’
and i cried
(did you?)

“what’s your favorite woody allen
movie?” says me
“crimes and misdemeanors,”
says she
she’s beautiful,
she’s a van gogh
sunflower
she’s a chagall
bouquet of
naked blue
swirrrrrrrrrling
flowers

so this is what we did,
to celebrate L cohen’s
(re)appearance in
(G maddin’s)
My Winnipeg

after 14 years,

shayna and i
brought books of
poet tree
L Cohen

(“death of a ladies man”
one side the poem,
the other
the journal entry
from which the seed
planted in L cohen’s
fertile imaginative soil
did s,p,ring!
a van gogh
sun/flower)
(and a couple of books
of his selected poems
one from the 70s,
one from the 90s)
Pablo Neruda
(the slim, pink
Love Poems)
and
ee cummings
selected poems

over thai food,
matsaman curry
green coconut
soup at the sublime
magic thailand
spice level 3
(0 being zero,
10 being SCReaMMMM!),

reading the poems
the enlightenment
true and pure

research and
discover now
the power
of their in,tense
fragility

ee cummings,
the first lines,

“i like my body when it is with your”
“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
“may my heart always be open”
“may i feel said he”

L cohen,
the titles

“I Knelt Beside a Stream”
“Travel”
“Poem”

neruda,

“In You the Earth”

these are the beauties
these
the treasures

“not the losers
trying to sound
like charlie manson”
The Future

“when they said Repent,
i wonder what they meant”

“you don’t know me from the wind
you never did
you never will”

“love is the only engine of survival”

take these birds
and fly

“you feel the devil’s riding crop”

(what made you cry?)

take,
take this waltz
and let’s move
to the rumba
of his samba
voice
and from the ends
of L
cohen’s parallel
existences
in these parallel
uni(verses)
of poetry
contemplate
the template,

“give me stalin
and st paul
give me christ
or give me hiroshima”

“destroy another fetus”

“we don’t like children anyhow”

“i’ve seen The Future
and it is murder”

it is,
mur/der
and “waiting for the miracle to come”

i’ll take you in my arms
and break you
with “a thousand kisses deep”

Love The Man
love his laughter
love his fury
love his passion
love his bowing
love his doffed chapeau
love his rumbling voice
love his “closing time”
love his kneeling
love his gracious/poetic
introductions
his love of the musicians
love his perfected old man’s shuffle
love his gleeful boy skipping
love his love
love his knowledge
love his reciting
love his chapeau pressed to his humble heart
love his grace
love his face
love his closed eyes
love,love,love
love his precise meter
love his words
love his birds
love his joy
love his stones
for they are gems
love his offerings
love his breath
love the naked caress
of his voice
love his “bird on a wire”
“who by fire”
love his “anthem”
love these tears
“for there is a crack in
everything
that’s how the light gets in”
love his everything
and Love most, love his light

love his light

“i’m not afraid to grow old anymore,”
says 25 year old shayna,

love his passing of courage
to the young
and the young at heart
45,55,75

to the angel
who sat beside
us and sang
every word
in perfect harmony
i thank you
more than you’ll never
know,
my beautiful hand pressed to my beautiful heart

love his beauty,

(i feel you shaking)

“i need to see you naked”
cuz there ain’t no cure for love

“i walked into this broken church
there was no other place for me to go”

“it’s written in the scriptures
it’s written there in blood”

love his blood
love his kisses
a thousand deep

love his masterpiece

“if i have been unkind
if i have been untrue
it’s just that i thought
a lover had to be
some kind of liar too”

love his “everybody knows”

“almost makes me believe in god,”
says she
“almost,” says me
“almost,” says she
“i love beautiful stories too,”
says me
and we smile,

“14 years ago
i was 60
i was a kid with a crazy dream”
(and here we laugh, at The Kid)
(then he lists all the pharmaceuticals
he takes, has taken
his rigorous
self examinations,
philosophies
religions
but it’s all about the beauty
of feeling
of being A Poet)
and that’s when
Anthem
shook, me,
to
the
core

love his “tower of song”
love “suzanne”
his “gypsy wife”
“the partisan”

and we sang,
“hallelujah”
the angels in the choir
and their deep voiced men

remember this
we need to live for music
for poetry
for dance
for beauty
for love
for the poet
for the kiss

love his “chelsea hotel”

“i’m your man”
“take this waltz”

take these Loving tears,
and celebrate and
love his encores

“so long marianne”
“first we take manhattan”
“famous blue raincoat”
(he recites the opening to)
(recite more,more,more)
“if it be your will”
“closing time”

and “Whither Thou Goest”

love,
love the crazy light of
The Crazy Kid Poet,

sincerely,

(at 74)

L
cohen