The energy of slaves.

Leonard Cohen was a great singer, amazing stature on stage, great voice and brilliant song writer. This is the first book of poetry I've read by him and i've been surprised by just how insecure he was, at times he seems so lonely and at others he is doubting himself, including at one point his voice! Wha??? He has one of the best sounding voices in music. It's amazing what a bit of poetry can reveal about a person.

Some good poems here, a few made me laugh, like the threat against Norman Mailer and this one:

"I did not know 
until you walked away 
 you had the perfect ass
Forgive me
for not falling in love
 with your face or your conversation"

Some are incredibly bleak:

"I could not wait for you
to find me dead in a rented room
 with my sunglasses dusty 
on the card table
So once again
I tried to set my throat on fire
this time in silence
and not thinking of you at all
(I had so much time to kill)"

This was a real good place to start reading his poetry and I'll be checking out more. Here is my favourite from the book, shows what a rebel he was.

"Any system you contrive without us
 will be brought down
 We warned you before
and nothing that you built has stood
Hear it as you lean over your blueprint
Hear it as you roll up your sleeve
Hear it once again
 Any system you contrive without us
 will be brought down
 You have your drugs
 You have your guns
 You have your Pyramids your Pentagons
 With all your grass and bullets
 you cannot hunt us any more
 All that we disclose of ourselves forever
is this warning
Nothing that you built has stood
 Any system you contrive without us
 will be brought down"

Blog review> felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/the-energy-of-slaves-by-leonard-cohen/