A response to Leonard Cohen’s poem, ‘To Wilf and his House’ by Daniel Kelly 2022
Dm C Let us compare mythologies, Dm Am Messiahs hung on leafless trees, Dm C Of longing tongues and skinless touch, Dm Esus Am And hearts that yearn too late or much, Let saints and soldiers marching past, Debate who should be first and last, The great and small, undressed in verse, All victims of the poet’s curse, We’ll ponder on the guilt of old, How ancient Christ was bought and sold, And nailed like bat, against the barn, With dripping thorns, and tattered yarn, I’ll cringe beneath my heathen shame, And contemplate the secret name, While trembling at the sacred ark, As oil burns to bitter spark, At raven’s crow in Autumn air, I’ll feed my soul, hollow and bare, And kiss the feet, twisted and stained, On velvet laid in naked shame. Let us compare mythologies, In crusades of ideologies, With tale of ant and fly and saint, A Calvary of love we’ll paint.