Jim Reed
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The Humanitarian Man
I’ve known about Leonard Cohen since I was a young man. I read one of his first collections of poetry, called "A Spice Box of Earth". 
I followed his career through controversey and the search for truth, which he so ardently pursued.
I’ve been looking again - a lot - at his poetic songs and I am struck once more by the truly visionary nature of his writing.
He’s Canadian, but perhaps that’s precisely why his writing has such a strong and deeply meaningful application to modern America. Only a Canadian, who understands America by virtue of being in the same cultural bed, could write such prophetic words about a nation we Canadians identify with.
The terrible convergence of bad vibrations in the world, set off by an Imperial government that has spiralled out of control gets expression in Cohen’s words and music.
Who else but a poet/prophet could issue such a dire warning as he does in this particular piece of work - The Future - it ought to be sobering to us all. And especially to those who so mindlessly support the Bush America’s imperialistic policies.
I read this song as a desperate call, by a prophet-poet for George W. Bush to repent his arrogant desire to contol this world in which we live. Cohen is the epitome of a good and true Human Being, who is at once, a true humanitarian…and who sees our planetary society clearly- in all its complexity. When you read the lyric along with his singing, think of what the Bush-Cheney-neo-conspiracy are doing to us. Cohen has seen the future and says: It’s Murder. There are prophets and then there are prophets. No one can say that the last one was Jesus or Mohammed…there is prophecy within us all. Cohen proves that, beyond all question. This song is a warning; but it’s still not to late for repentance.
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder
Things are going to slide …
There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder
Things are going to slide …
When they said REPENT REPENT …