The Bourgeois Blues
This concerns Lee Harper's amazing first poetic outpouring, which my father sent to Leonard Cohen. Lee was, and is, beautiful, so Ted enclosed a "head shot". A few days later Ted said to me, "You write poetry," and then something like, "Wow! Your good. You're really good*," and he sent my poetry to Leonard. Leonard said he didn't think that I had transcended my bourgeois upbringing. He also pointed out that Ted hadn't sent my "head shot". So I wrote Leonard "a bourgeois blues". |
The bourgeois blues have spread way beyond Vienna. Yesterday they rolled under my bedroom door. They crept up my William Morris wallpaper, down the velvet drapes; they stained the sheets and ate my gladiola. Leonard thinks I'm bathed in it. Leonard thinks he's free, But I know we're swimming through the Company's dross. This ain't the Jordan in which we've been tossed. It's the vomit of ages. Babylon is a large mother. Yesterday the bourgeois blues rolled under my door. Today I'll wash the curtain, and hope there ain't no more.
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Ted read the poem to Leonard over the phone and Leonard said, "Read it again."
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