[744] Joan of Arc

I've always enjoyed poetry (and prose) that takes an established sequence of
events and offers a different way of interpreting them...

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I've watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine."
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."

"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

	-- Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen's subject material has always been the beauty and pain of
human emotion, and he brings a sensitive and experienced eye to his study.
His songs are often anguished and lonely, yet they're rarely depressing or
bitter; instead, they're permeated by an intense, almost touching faith in
the power of love, an optimism that redeems his superficial bitterness and
brittlety.

Today's allegorical song/poem is very interesting [1]. The theme is handled
more directly than in several other of Cohen's offerings; at the same time,
the poem is less personal, and (perhaps for that very reason) less
gut-wrenching. At first reading it seems irrevocably, inexorably
pessimistic: Joan's death by fire betokens no hint of the healing effect of
love, only its agony. And yet... there seems to be an element of paradox
here, for after all, the historical figure of Joan of Arc [2] is almost the
canonical example of the power of faith in the face of overwhelming odds.
This insight leads us to another, more positive interpretation of the poem:
_despite_ the cruelty and brightness of the fire's embrace, Joan chooses to
accept it, to accept the pain and the suffering, in the hope of redemption
and salvation. This is Cohen's testament; it may be harsh, but it rings
true.

thomas.

[1] In other words, I completely misunderstood its meaning, the first time I
heard it <grin>.

[2] who, incidentally, figures in several of Cohen's song lyrics - see, for
example, "Last Year's Man".

[Moreover]

This the fourth in a series of poems which are actually the lyrics to
popular (or, as the case may be, obscure) songs. I forgot to mention that
the previous member of the series, "Conquistador", by Keith Reid, was a
guest poem submitted by Amit Chakrabarti, <amitc@>. Sorry,
Amit.

From: "SD Williams" <sdwedit@>

Rick and I sat up playing the music last week, not having done so in
more than 30 years, with Glenmorangie beside and the children all safe
upstairs, and we tried to remember songs and remembered Leonard Cohen, I
seeing him play once in the '60s or '70s, him too shy to take his gaze
from the stage floor, so that Buffy St. Marie had to coax him, but he
would not look at the audience as he sang Suzanne, and even all the
other sensitive singer poets of the age thought his vulnerability was
deeper than their's, and however else you interpret his songs, in the
end they are all different paths to delicious doomed love, the need to
find salvation in someone's embrace, sex, eyes, voice, and then to part
in so satisfying melancholy, blue streets, lone cigarettes, because, ya
know, it could never work, it never works, there's just a night or a
week or a month when you know one of you is fire and the other's wood,
and then you're just the ashes of the wedding dress. Joan of Arc, she
was just one more ice queen.

Manchester

From: "Dennis Smith" <denniss@>

I find the greatest value in these words to be the simplest.  Through all of
her sacrifice and tremendous struggle, her redemption was never to be
victory.  If he was fire then she must be wood says that there is something
essential about being Joan of Arc that requires martyrdom.  She might be
thought of as "a Joan of Arc."

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From: "Jones, Susan M." <Susan.M.Jones@>

I am a huge fan of Cohen - always have been, always will be.  It was to
"Suzanne" that I felt my first stirrings of sexuality.  Anyway, this song is
the "our song" for my husband and I, and we have talked about the lyrics
often.  My husband postulated that Joan was pregnant, with part of her
wanting to go back to traditional life and get married:   "a wedding dress
or something white, to wear upon my swollen appetite".  I like the idea of a
brave and honest unconventional woman, bottom line.  I think it's easy to
call her cold; certainly almost all strong women have been labeled so at one
point or another.  How can someone willing to embrace fire ever be truly
cold?  

From: Beverly Pirtle <bevpirt@>

If the astrologers are correct in casting Joan's horoscope, it has some
similar aspects to mine, so here are my insights into her pysche. 
Perhaps that is why my adolescent rite of passage dream was one of being
burned, among other things - the other sordid details are only for those
who truly know me well and love me.  She had Saturn opposition Venus,
mine is Saturn square Venus (this indicates a suppressing of the feminine
in an almost martyr-like fashion); she had Mars square Jupiter, my natal
horoscope shows Mars opposition Jupiter (this indicates an iconoclastic,
fighting nature, especially directed toward those in positions of
authority).  She had Moon in Pisces in the eighth house (Scorpionic).  I
have Moon in Scorpio (0 degrees, some few minutes) conjunct Neptune
(Piscean) conjuncting my Ascendant.  It is very easy for folks with
prominent planets in water signs or water houses to be psychic, to hear
things that others do not hear.  After all, water is an infinitely better
conductor of sound than air, fire or earth.

I personally think Joan was running from the fire of her parents' wrath
at a very early age.  She was animus dominated.  She was already so close
to her father and brothers psychologically, that to get any closer -
which is part of the task of the psyche when a young woman begins to come
of age - would be to engage in some sort of sexual relations with them. 
The threat was probably so real to her, as it was to me, although my
conscious mind could not handle the truth of it.  I could never have
believed that my precious father would do anything to hurt me - we
already had an emotionally incestuous relationship.  But he did turn out
to be quite the pervert later in life; and my mother later yelled at me,
when kicking me out of her home, that I had been conceived in rape.  Go
figure.  If Joan was anything like me, and natal charts do tell a story,
her mother was cold and distant, manly and masculine and physically
brutal.  Femininity and feeling were not encouraged in her household. 
Those damned Greeks!!!  Joan did not know how to express her budding
femininity, without risking that those who were supposed to be her
protectors would do her harm, would compromise her.  So she did the only
thing she could do - she ran.  

I also ran from home at a very young age.  My psychiatrist finally
convinced my father after several years of therapy and a suicide attempt
that I needed to "get out of the house" or I would be in and out of
psychiatrists' offices for the rest of my life.  So I was sent to
boarding school at the tender age of 15.  I had the highest IQ of anybody
in my boarding school and I was sort of ashamed of it, since girls were
not supposed to be smart.  I ended up skipping my senior year in high
school and going to college when I was 16 because I was so precocious.

Joan was brilliant and psychic and afraid. 

One of the "crimes" for which she was burned at the stake was for wearing
mens' clothing.  I can remember in my 9th grade year of high school (I
was still 13), I was so extremely incensed that girls were not allowed to
wear pants.  How dare they try to keep me down!!!  If boys had the right
to wear pants, then I should be afforded the same right.  So in all my
adolescent and rebellious wisdom, I snuck a pair of brown jeans to
school, put them on, and began going to my classes wearing my jeans.  It
was not long before I was accosted by the powers that be and hauled into
the principal's office.  Boy was I in hot water.  My parents were
furious.  My father told me later that the principal told him "She was so
angry, she could spit nails."  I knew my father was thinking that I was
going to turn out just like my fiery mother, and he was not happy for me.

Joan's relationship with the fire, if like mine, was the dysfuntional one
of not feeling loved or attended to unless she was being beaten or put
down or chastised severely by her very sick, sex- and love-starved
mother.  Joan, like me, subconsciously did things to bring about the
wrath of one or both of her parents just to feel like she was alive. 
Being beaten is better than being ignored.

I welcome any comments.

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