Standing

Standing near L Cohen’s grave I saw
The long generations of Jews  with their  ceremonies
Their rituals and rites
Not to mention how they loved to argue
And how when he was a little boy his Dad died
Soon after he  learned about WW2 and the killing of European Jewry
All his life he was tormented by depression and terror.
In his song,The Future, he says
I’m just the little Jew who wrote the Bible.
I’ve seem the future and it’s murder
And,. do you know, he was right
Three thousand years,two thousand five hundred years
Cohen means priest,son of Aaron.
And they never had a Second Vatican Council  moment
As then the Catholic Church wrecked its own rituals
They seem a bit wiser but I don’t know enough about it
Leonard cut his father’s bow tie in half
He dug a a hole in the garden and buried it with a note
That’s when his poetry began
And we still hear it floating out like silk across the grasses and forests
Forget your perfect offering

Then love itself was gone

I heard there was a sacred chord

There’s no-one left to torture

We don’t  like babies, anyhow.

Anthem

We’ve seen them rise and fall

We’re just the little Jews who wrote the Bible

Jesus was a sailor

Forsaken, almost human,

Only drowning men could see him

So long