Israel by Leonard Cohen

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. Who will say it? Will America say, We have stolen it, or France step down? Will Russia confess, or Poland say, we have sinned? All bloated on their scraps of destiny, all swaggering in the immunity of superstition. Ishmael, who was saved in the wilderness, and given shade in the desert, and a deadly treasure under you: has Mercy made you wise? Will Ishmael declare, We are in debt forever? Therefore the lands belong to none of you, the borders do not hold, the Law will never serve the lawless. To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Convenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself. The Covenant is broken, the condition is dishonoured, have you not noticed that the world has been taken away? You have no place, you will wander through yourselves from generation to generation without a thread. Therefore you rule over chaos, you hoist your flags with no authority, and the heart that is still alive hates you, and the remnant of Mercy is ashamed to look at you. You decompose behind your flimsy armour, your stench alarms you, your panic strikes at love. The land is not yours, the land has been taken back, your shrines fall through empty air, your tablets are quickly revised, and you bow down in hell beside you hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthems full of blood and vanity, and your children singing to themselves. He has overturned the vehicle of nationhood, he has spilled the precious cargo, and every nation he has taken back. Because you are swollen with your little time. Because you do not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live without G-d. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.

And now for something completely different...

So, I know this is a very odd but I wanted to make a big post. When I was at dinner on Monday, the family were all discussing their star signs and the Chinese years they were born on. This led, inevitably, to The Birthday Book. It is something of a tradition between myself and A, so you need to be included in it.

The Birthday Book has two pages of 'personology profiles' for each day of the year. What follows is some of yours.
We shall start with the very basics; though a Gemini you were born on the Taurus-Gemini cusp. A consequence is that, in spite of being Gemini, you actually have traits of both zodiac signs. The central concept of your zodiac period "Energy" where mine, for example, is "The Empath" and you are ruled by both Venus and Mercury.

'The T-G cusp may be symbolically linked to the period around 14 years of age' (nice)... thus 'in many ways, people born on the...cusp may be spoken of as eternal adolescents. They are energetic, convincing and prolific. Whatever it is they do, they like to do it a lot.'

General advice offered to such cusp-ies:

"Monitor the pace of your activities carefully. Seek to be more consistent and less casual in jettisoning people and ideas. Don't come on so strong. Turn off you mental motor from time to time. Confront your fears and insecurities."

[My two cents, come on so strong!] Anyway, now on to your actual birthday itself. Also know as the Day of the Magnifier. Really.

Famous people born on this day include such heroes of yours as Bob Dylan and Queen Victoria, not to mention Jean-Paul Marat who, if nothing else, was a good excuse for a damn fine painting by one Jacques-Louis David.

Your tarot is the Lovers, the 6th card of the Major Arcana. This card symbolizes love that unites all humanity through integration of masculine and feminine polarities. On the good side this card indicates affections and desires on a high moral, aesthetic and physical plane; on the bad side, unfulfilled desires, sentimentality and indecisiveness.

Strengths

Expressive
Incisive
Socially Involved

Numbers and Planets. Those born on this day are ruled by the number 6 and by the planet Venus. Since those ruled by the number 6 are magnetic in attracting love and admiration, and Venus is strongly connected with social interaction, such people inevitably work with others. Often love is the dominant theme of such lives but in the case of those born on this day lasting love is, perhaps, received by them but more rarely given. In this respect those born on this day can be flighty and hard to pin down.

Health. Such people have highly sensitive nervous systems and must ensure that they do not overextend themselves in social situations. Their urge to seek retreat, to hideaway, is generally a healthy one, as it is in seclusion that they get the rest that is so necessary for them to function.

Specific Advice:

Slow down lest your frenetic pace and demands wear others out. Learn to control your tongue and be less judgemental. Be more faithful to your friends and your beliefs. Avoid making pronouncements from on high.

Meditation: For many people the bedroom is the battlefield.

None of the above was made up by me for a laugh. The Birthday Book has spoken... I love you even if it's right, but I don't believe it always is. Only the good parts.

Yours, etc.


K

Happy 16th to you too...

So there is no way I can live up to your amazingness (because you stole my poem amongst other things.) I thought I should try at least and use black and white photos to help.

It took me a long long time to find a picture that managed to get the feeling of how you make me laugh. Do not take offense, you do not look like a penguin. Even in a tux.

Then I thought there should be flowers. There should always be flowers. It is, however, damn difficult to rival the beautiful Giles Norman lily, so I'm not going to. I'm going to take a leaf out of your own anniversary book and have a picture of a flower that means something to us. So (though you had a beautiful picture of this flower as well) below is a picture of the kind of gladiolus I bought you. It was worth talking to silence for 20 minutes on the offchance you could hear me and well worth carrying really BIG flowers on the G-train at 3 a.m.

This next picture is one that I hope shows how you make me feel a lot:

Then of course, the inevitable picture that depicts unconditional love:

I don't even know what to say now, I say a lot of it a lot. Here again it should be said though, so I love you, I miss you like crazy, I'm ridiculously glad that we're still together through ALL of it. I've been trying to find a poem to say things that I can't (one you haven't stolen, you see). In deference to your Irish and preferences the first verses:

Leaba Shioda

Do chóireoinn leaba duit

i Leaba Shíoda

sa bhféar ard

faoi iomrascáil na gcrann

is bheadh do chraiceann ann

mar shíoda ar shioda

sa doircheacht

am lonnaithe na leamhan.

Labysheedy (The Silken Bed)

I'd make a bed for you
in Labysheedy
in the tall grass
under the wrestling trees
where your skin
would be silk upon silk
in the darkness
when the moths are coming down.

Anyway, I love you.

Yours, etc.


K

Table.

So this is the new half-tonne table (made from a Thai tree) and your sunflowers in action. Those around the table you don't recognise are the uncle and the aunt.

Raincoat

It's the black one. And is huge on me, even though it's the smallest they have. The desciption they give is:

Unique, made-to-measure unisex rainwear. Cut to size along the dotted line around the hem and cuffs of this E.V.A raincoat. Comes neatly folded in a pouch and is compact and easy to carry.

Flamingos

I also love this photo of the designer Barbara Hulanicki and flamingos on Kensington High Street in 1973. It was taken by photographer Desmond O'Neill who died in 2003.

Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton led the ultimate glamorous life. He lived in the Chateau Marmont in the winter months, to keep the cold and gloom at bay, befriending Billy Wilder, Dennis Hopper and Robert Evans. He was married to fellow photographer Alice Springs, quirkily named after a pin was placed in a map.

Newton arrived in Paris in a white Porsche, was hired immediately by French Vogue, commissioned by Playboy, had a heart attack at 50, and lived in Monte Carlo. Then in a final fling - or what Karl Lagerfeld poetically described as "his last picture, taken by himself", he crashed his Cadillac on Sunset Boulevard aged 83, on January 23 2004.

• After taking a model onto the streets during an early assignment at British Vogue, he was sternly told by the editor that "ladies, Helmut, do not lean against lampposts"

• All Newton's exhibitions were curated by his devoted wife; all books edited by her, including: White Women (1976), Sleepless Nights (1978), Big Nudes (1978), World Without Men (1984) and the massive Sumo (1999), which came out at 31 inches, 26 kilos, £625, and with its own coffee table (Brad Pitt bought several copies)

• Celebrating 51 years of marriage in 1999, their joint exhibition and book, Us And Them, included Alice's photo of Newton wearing nothing but black stockings and his strangely tender portrait of her lying on a hospital bed, following a major operation, wearing a catheter and a huge metal zip running up her stomach.

- as found on www.vogue.co.uk

You can't hear me!

I am replying, but you can't hear me. Just thought you should know.

Yours, etc.

K

We should split the Klondike bar...

Sorry.

I didn't know you were online. I'm so sorry I missed you. Text me next time okay? On my account if that's easier.

Yours, etc.

K

Gulliver!

This is another Arthur Rackham. Of Gulliver, obviously. I am of course working under the assumption that you've read every book under the sun, and the moon too, in all her phases. It's an assumption that has worked well for me.

I miss you, I hope somewhere you're warm and sleeping.

Yours, etc.

K

What do you think of this poem?

She walks in Beauty

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light 5
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 15
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

- Lord Byron