album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK NINE. conversation by clair and chris

 

9

"If you ever come by here for Jane or for me.  Well,  your enemy is sleeping and his woman is free"
lenoard cohen

~ ~ ~

i am not the gatekeeper, the parks grown too wild, the chain rusted through long ago. You cant stop a flower scent cant stop the bees, cant stop a maiden so eager to please.

chris

indeed... the ideas around possesion keep rising up.  theres nothing to stop or to start it in relationship... is just is or it isnt (and anywhere inbetween).  she will give what she can and what she feels to. he will do the same. she is always free but might choose to share physical love with just one. and he might choose to do the same.

but here leonard cohen implies that the 'ememy' would have to be asleep (off guard) for this women to be free..?

clair

I think the key implication for me here, is a shared vulnerability to intrusion or loss and sleep,a deliberately ambiguous metaphor providing cover and multiple meaning to the exact nature of  relationship between the two persons, there circumstance, and whatever the enemy is, or could be.

Unless, of course, you know the entire lyric, and interpret the lines within that context.

I prefer not knowing, its more fun...!  Makes me think of Viking raids...and pre-raphaelite nymphs screaming as they run into the dark forest for cover !

Chris 

how the dark forest covers you, with all its branches and bracken and insects and noices... funny how we run for dark cover...and trust that cover...

clair

I find myself running for Duvet cover, I trust that cover with my life and with my dreams, i never think of think of the door to my room because it is made of steel and will never be broken whilst i sleep.

Sometimes the room becomes a prison that i made with my own bear mind and the other bears cant find me there, smarting, heaving, waiting, wanting.

chris

i like that...that last sentence...i know... sometimes i think that nobody knows that i'm here... like we turn invisable and silent...

i have been having the deepest siesta sleep... my body is so deep in them, so in the dreams, it refuses to come out without a tug of war style struggle between the two sides, the one who really wants to get up and the one that really doesnt want to...and then eventually i am flipped up and out like a pancake and into the world again... looking for lemon and sugar...
clair