leonardcohenforum.com

Dear Babz,
Thank you for the feedback that I appreciate very much. I definitely see your viewpoint about the 'offending line'. I also have mine for keeping it in....even if the thought in itself is redundant - sort of puts things in perspective that may be worth repeating. I do not deny that it might work better (atleast equally well) without that line....so here's still another version. Like Dylan said...every version is a blueprint for the next.
BTW, I almost named this poem 'Leonard Cohen's Observatory', so that is still another version with that title...

Leonard Cohen, high and afar in the tower of song
Sitting by the window
Untidily peeled orange in hand
A moldy cup that once was for tea
Witnessed this great event
In its entirety.
And so he coughed once, softly
And came down to write
"On a bed where the moon has been sweating"
A concord of man and cosmos
For one line of love.

Hey, Kush ~

I really like the placing of Leonard in the Tower, the untidily peeled orange taking on the strong image of his absently going through the physical motion of peeling it without looking. The molded tea cup also reenforces his 'absence' from his physical world, whilst he's been totally engrossed in his writing, isolating himself there.

For me, however, now 'Witnessed this great event / In its entirety" becomes a bit confusing in a stand-alone poem. I can read into it, how he did this, and 'exactly' the progression of this great "event," via your first version. However, it also now leaves room, for me, to wonder what else does Leonard have in his "observatory," i.e. a pair of high-definition, voyeuristic binoculars? This doesn't establish the astronomy aspects of it, as the first one did. It also causes me to wonder to where did he come down to....he was sitting by the window, not on the windowsill [from which he could come down].

In the previous version, I saw him in bed with the woman, then sitting, and then leaving the bedroom to go downstairs and write.

The poem is precise. However, for me it leaves some unanswered questions. I like the way you've dealt with the last-lines discussion. As I awoke this morning, I actually was thinking about this poem, and envisioned it ending with the line itself, the ray of light having transformed into words on a page. The visuals of the quotation marks in the line didn't work for me, though.

Ahhh, too early for all of this, considering I need to leave for work in 15 minutes, and just woke up [late!] !

Good Morning.......

~ Lizzytysh

LC is the observer....of the cosmos and of the human condition. Certainly not voyeuristic. The tower is both real and figurative (of song). The events he observes are both real and in his mind.
And this thread shall soon be 'Last Week's Poem'.

Tee-hee....I was referring to the ray of light making its way through the cosmos, and through the bedroom curtains onto the bed, revealing the moon's sweating . How Leonard was able to observe that process, particularly the latter portion of it. "Last Week's Poem" ~ clever.