leonard cohen’s latest album old ideas is quite brilliant. he’s widely recognised as a wonderful poet but what immediately grabbed me about the opening song going home following my last blog posts is the connection he makes bewteen poetry and prophecy. i may be reading too much into it, i don’t know – but it’s a description of his calling, his vocation to speak out. it reminds me of the call of jeremiah or ezekiel!

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He just doesn’t have the freedom
To refuse

the whole album is shot through with spiritual reflection and religious imagery with great poetry and depth. it’s melancholy gospel if such a thing exists! simple but powerful songs stripped back allowing cohen’s voice in all its aged maturity to weave its words of brokenness and hope. the struggle and darkness are there as ever but a world is spoken where the victims are singing and the laws of remorse are restored, the filth of the butcher is washed in the blood of the lamb. cohen asks to be shown the place where the word became a man, where the suffering began. and in a penitential hymn of invocation, come healing, he calls for the healing of the body mind and limb and spirit

O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow

The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

the cracks are letting a lot of light in on this one. it’s the most compelling set of songs i have heard in quite some time…