Goodbye Leonard Cohen, ( 21 /9/34 - 7/11/16) - Bringer of so much light.

Following news of Donald Trump's election, did not think the world could get any darker, I have  woken to the very sad news that  legendary visionary Canadian singer, songwriter,  poet and artist Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82. The news was announced on his Facebook page late last night, it reads  it reads: ‘It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away.‘We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.’In a statement to Rolling Stone, his son Adam, said: ‘My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records.‘He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.’

That last song  he had  written was  in reference to Cohen’s long-time muse Marianne Ihlen, who died earlier this year. It was revealed after her death that Cohen had written her a last letter two days before she died, telling her:

" Well Marianne it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I've always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don't need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road."
Born into a Jewish family in Montreal, Canada 1934 and raised in an affluent English-speaking neighborhood of the city, Cohen read Spanish poet Federico García Lorca as a teenager, learned to play guitar from a flamenco musician and formed a country band called the Buckskin Boys.
He attended McGill University when his poetry book, "Let Us Compare Mythologies," was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. It was followed by "The Spice-Box of Earth" in 1961. His first novel, "The Favourite Game," came out in 1963.He published several more poetry collections while living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s and began to get wide notice with his experimental novel "Beautiful Losers" in 1966..All  have been a  a profound influence for me over the years.
Disillusioned with his meager income from writing poetry , Cohen turned to songwriting and landed an audition in 1967 with John Hammond, the producer who had discovered Dylan. Hammond signed him to Columbia Records, which would remain Cohen's label for five decades. His first album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," came out in 1968.Cohen’s songs over sixty decades blended seemingly conflicting impulses: spirituality verging on the divine,  images of redemption and sexual desire combined a wicked sense of humor,carried  with such deep passion, which enabled him  to release such powerful emotional depth, with great understanding of the human condition.No other artist’s poetry and music felt or sounded  or touched in quite the way that his work did.
Cohen toured widely but also sought solace in meditation, far from the public eye.. For part of the 1990's he lived in a Zen Bhuddist monastery in the San Gabriel Mountains hust outside Los Angeles. Just weeks ago  he released another superb album You Want it Darker, an album continuing to shouw us his genius, his creative  gift, not afraid to touch on the subject of death, seemingly sensing it was not too far way.reflecting at length on his own mortality. And now this light has passed, a man who just seemed to keep going, but like all of us was taken away, gripped by the jaws of death. The world has lost another icon, a voice of inimitable force, a tower of strength.Of all the singer-songwiters  of his era labelled as poets, Cohen perhaps was the only one who truly bridged the divide.
Cohen who never married is survived by his daughter Lorca and his son Adam. So long Leonard Cohen. R.I.P

 Leonard Cohen - hallelujah

 Old poem that once dedicated to him

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/theres-crack-in-everything-thats-how_11.html

 There's crack in everything that's how the light gets in

( Thank you Leonard Cohen.)

There's a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in,
through empty gestures of times exhaust
that vent bitterness on tonque,
scars trace the nights laughter
sailing on ripped tides at dusk,
allow resurfacing days shadow to ignite
fizzing and nudging, in the process of awakening,
through depths of minds endeavor
moods of restless toil, 
voyages  of troubled sleep
deep in mood innate.
The magic of the moon,
in the dark shines bright,
waiting for dawns page to turn,
golden tickets of imagination,
in the ever present of eternity,
to purify and illuminate,
because there's a crack in everything,
that's how the light gets in.