David Remnick from The New Yorker: last interview with Leonard Cohen

This is a beautiful interview. Perhaps, not so much an interview as a testimony.

I hope this doesn't sound too glib, but I honestly believe a major strength of Leonard Cohen was his preparedness and ability to hold paradoxical contradictions in tension as, perhaps, only a poet can do: life, death; sex, love and loneliness; dark and light; brokenness and healing; guilt, melancholy and humorous self-deprecation; relentlessly seeking God, banging on God's door which for the longest time seemed to be closed; and then, at the end of his life, in his "white-knuckle" pain, relaxing into "hearing God speaking" - no longer in judgement, but compassionately: "Eat something, you're losing too much weight."

Abstract musing on favourite colours

Credit: www.allaboutbirds.org

Grey, brown, black and white
are not my favourite colouring colours
drab, boring, cold, depressing

yet on a chickadee delighting,
even playing.

A zebra...
magnificent, flaunting,
shy, demure, seducing.

Credit i.livescience.com/

Touching, hearing, seeing
creatures foraging, flying,
living, breathing, laughing, crying
dispel the abstract musing
on favourite colours
as dawn's awaking
dispels the sleeping dreaming.

November 11 - Lest We Forget

We pause to remember.

Wilfred Owen is the writer of war poetry whose works speak to me more than any other - and there are many other good war poets. Owen was killed in action one week before the end of the First World War.

On this Remembrance Day I found this poem, The Sentry, very sobering. For Owen there was nothing glorious about war even as we remember with gratitude those who died for the freedoms we take for granted.

(Whizz-bangs was the term used widely in WWI by British and Commonwealth servicemen to describe any form of German field artillery shells. The term was originally attributed to the noise made by shells from German 77mm field guns where the whizz of the shell, travelling faster than sound, was heard before the bang of the gun.)

WWI - wounded soldiers

Wilfred Owen

The Sentry 

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses. . . .
                        There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck —
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes — I'm blind — I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
"I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, —
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath —
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.

To Ingrid - On Our Anniversay

I love travelling with you
The two of us together
Travelling with you the view
Is always perfect.


There are twists
And there are curves
And there've been bumps along the way -


But travelling with you the view
Is always perfect.

Vacation Update #1

Ingrid and I are on our Way to Winnipeg for Jonathan's baptism planned for this coming Sunday - in Saskatchewan, actually, where Luisa's sister and her husband and family live on their farm.

We set out on Saturday morning for Tobermory where we had booked a ferry to take us to Manitoulin Island. The ferry trip was notable for the beauty of the island views on the water, the numerous pictures of sea gulls that I took as they slowly overtook the ferry, the thick fog that settled in unexpectedly - at least for me.

On "The Island" we stayed at Willow Shores, a B&B run by Gord and Charleen Gorman. I can tell you straight off that Ingrid and I were both very happy with our stay there; we would definitely use it again if the occasion arose and I certainly recommend it to any friends travelling that route. Manitoulin Island, by the way, is the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world.

Saturday night we had an unscheduled and unexpected treat. After fish and chips at a pub called The Musky Widow we were invited to attend a poetry competition put on across the road by a local Aboriginal theatre group, Debajehmujig.

Immaculate Conception Church, Manitoulin Island

We spent Sunday sight seeing and eating, starting off with the high point, mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, built to resemble a roundhouse and incorporating elements of First Nations culture into the liturgy and church architecture and furnishings.

Today, Monday, we had an uneventful but enjoyable drive to Sault St Marie. Ingrid and I have just enjoyed a jacuzzi in our new B&B. Up early tomorrow for a planned day outing on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train.

Good night.

The Moomba Song - Lyrics

By popular demand Kwa-McCann brings you the lyrics of "The Moomba Song" as sung by the McCann Family Singers at Luisa and Mark's wedding reception.

Words by Ingrid "Moed" McCann

To the tune of Zulu Warrior

Moomba Song

Mark found his Moomba, Moomba, Moomba

Mark found his Moomba, Moomba Love. 2x

Hold your course you mighty captain,

Straight and fast you mighty chief, chief, chief, chief.

Here comes his Moomba, Moomba, Moomba

Here comes his Moomba, Moomba love. 2x

Then Mark met lovely Luisa,

Mark has found his wedding match, match, match, match.

Ayikhona Moomba, Moomba, Moomba

Ayikhona Moomba, Moomba love. 2x

One bright day, Luisa’s family,

Came to visit very brief, brief, brief.

Mark went boating with his Moomba,

Luisa’s heart was filled with grief, grief, grief, grief.

Mark chose his Moomba, Moomba, Moomba

Mark chose his Moomba over me.

Mark loves his Moomba, Moomba, Moomba

Mark loves his Moomba more than me.

Mark decided to do something,

He proposed for them to wed, wed, wed.

One romantic Saturday morning.

With rose petals in her bed, bed, bed, bed.

So…. Here comes the bride,

All dressed in white…

Slipped on a banana peel

And went for a ride.

Ballad of the MoCann Terriers - Let Me See That Mo

Stephen's YouTube Contribution


...or you can go to YouTube:

To sponsor me just click on the link in the picture. All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada who will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer.

Movember: MoCann Terriers Poetry Competiton

Please do go to our official Movember Log and click on Comment next to any photo of your choice. Enter your name and email address, and in the comment field put in a rhyme of two lines or more. It could be as simple as: Poor old Terry's mo, the damn thing just won't grow.

You don't have to be a sponsor/donor - anyone can enter. The only rules are:
Leave a comment in verse. Please do not curse.
I will publish a good rhyme in good time.

I will take counsel on which rhymes are considered the "best" and the winners will get public acclamation on our Movember Log as well as on this blog.