Sunday, November 18, 2012

Alexandra Leaving: Issa's Sunday Service, #144

C. P. Cavafy
Alexandra Leaving by Leonard Cohen on Grooveshark 
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This is, indeed, an interesting twist for this week's Sunday Service: one poet (Leonard Cohen) reworking the work of another poet (C. P. Cavay) into song.  First the song, then the poem.


"Alexandra Leaving"

Suddenly the night has grown colder.
The god of love preparing to depart.
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,
They slip between the sentries of the heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine.

It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving,
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.

And you who had the honor of her evening,
And by the honor had your own restored –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;
Alexandra leaving with her lord.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who were bewildered by a meaning;
Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.



The god forsakes Antony

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard 

According to Leonard Cohen's website, here is what the poem is about:

Anthony, in Cavafy's poem is, of course, Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra's lover. The poem refers to Plutarch's story (Read it) that, when Anthony was besieged in Alexandria by Octavian, the night before the city fell into enemy hands, he heard an invisible troupe leaving the city. He heard the sounds of instruments and voices making their way through the city. Then, he passed out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him. It is obviously a poem with many layers of meaning; but, I see it as a poem / lesson on how someone must face a great loss (Alexandria being a symbol for a beloved city, woman, past glory, but, above all else, life itself). It is a beautiful lesson on how to face death.
Now Mr.Cohen has changed Alexandria (a beloved city) to Alexandra (a beloved woman), thus giving a lesson on how to face a lost love.

Here is the video:

 
 
Cohen has appeared on the Sunday Service previously and, no doubt, will again in the future. He, and his work, are simply stunning.
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Woodblock by Utagawa Hiroshige



lazy--
leaving blossoms and moon
for tomorrow
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




One quick note before closing - the coffers at Wednesday Haiku are getting a little low. I'm thinking of going back to one poem per week if things get any thinner. So, now would be a great time to send in work. Here's the details on how:




best,
Don 

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 143 songs

4 comments:

Ed Baker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Constance Campbell said...

Hi, Don. Thanks so much for that poem. I love his work and didn't know this one. Strikes many chords and is quite soothing at the same time.

Charles Gramlich said...

I've read some of his stuff. Always interesting.

Ed Baker said...


Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

first off i got chills hearing her version
then especially after that last long exit into the silence
Tears

same reactions to whatever LC does
and I tell you

no matter what happens to Greece
Greece will always have their language
and Leonard Cohen

no matter what anyone thinks of his body-of-work
he has certainly put-it-together and (simultaneously) pinned-it-down

Charles Olson and Leonard Cohen HUGE
fire-sources here

when I was in Lindos 1968-69 not only was Jack Gilbert there with us

one week LC came over with his guitar and "hung" with us at Willard and Mavis' house... played some of the pieces that he was then working on

he also has a neat version of this... maybe several ..

neat that the lady is dressed an he so does in a black suit..

who she ? &

could she but want to

'take me down to her place by the water'



ps

I deleted this priorly
acause
I didn't want to dis-suade other's comments
by jumping-the-gun)