Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

Dylan’s only serious challenger for the title of greatest popular lyricist ever is a Canadian singer-songwriter-poet named Leonard Cohen. Who happens to be a genius. Absolutely.

Cohen started his career as a poet and writer; indeed, he finds prominent mention in any number of anthologies of contemporary verse, while his second novel prompted the reviewer of the Boston Globe to say ‘James Joyce is alive and well and living under the name of Leonard Cohen’. But when barely getting into his stride as a writer, he switched to performance; armed with a guitar and minimalistic (yet poignant) tunes, he hit home with a series of impassioned, truthful songs. He concentrated on exploring relationships - ‘the battles of the boudoirs’
- yet he was never out of touch with the social context of his lyrics; songs like “Please don’t pass me by” (a stunning 14-minute improvisation, which can be found on the album “Cohen Live”) and “First we take Manhattan” (from “I’m your man”) stand out as the defining classics of his genre.

Todays’ poem/song grows on you. Cohen himself once described it as being ‘the best song he’d ever written’, and looking at the simple, frank lyrics, it’s not hard to see why. Just read it aloud several times, or (better yet) listen to it… beautiful.

— Thomas

There are lots of Cohen websites out there (and I won’t even mention the number of Bob Dylan sites floating around in the ether :-)), but I think the most comprehensive one is http://nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/

For an interview with the Suzanne of the title, go to http://nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/verdal.html

For a rather gushingly written but nonetheless comprehensive Cohen biography, go to
http://nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/yourman.html

And finally, many thanks to Movin Miranda, Rajeev Chakravarthy and Sheetal Bahl for their suggestions for poems to run this week.

Next week: Aboriginal Poetry.