Killers in High Places

 

One thing that troubles me about writing poetry is that what you write is so commonly misunderstood; and the same is so for creative fiction. So if people are not going to get it, are you wasting your time writing it?

A recent discussion on a Leonard Cohen Facebook group was over someone’s puzzlement over the lines

I can't run no more

With that lawless crowd

While the killers in high places

Say their prayers out loud

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

A thundercloud

They're going to hear from me

And the interpretations they got were various. Some suggested that “killers in high places” referred to the government of George W. Bush. And the “thundercloud” was a political revolution.

The reference, of course, is to all governments. It is the plain understanding of both the New Testament and the Old that “the nations” are up to no good, that the Devil is the lord of this world: “it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.” (Luke 4:6).

All governments kill as a matter of course. Being able to kill without repercussions is pretty much definitive of government: the monopoly on force. We even tacitly acknowledge this in selecting as our leaders relatively ruthless men. A Churchill, a Lincoln, a Sherman; they did some very cruel things. This is why Constantine delayed his baptism until his deathbed—because he had to sin so long as he was going to be Emperor, and so baptism would be insincere and meaningless until then.

Government is necessary. Government cannot be much improved. Revolution does little. The thundercloud is divine judgement.