Enjoy. Poem I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their names women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door. *** I wonder how many people in this city live in furnished rooms. Late at night when I look out at the buildings I swear I see a face in every window looking back at me, and when I turn away I wonder how many go back to their desks and write this down. *** Song I almost went to bed without remembering the four white violets I put in the button-hole of your green sweater and how I kissed you then and you kissed me shy as though I'd never been your lover *** The Music Crept By Us I would like to remind the management that the drinks are watered and the hat-check girl has syphilis and the band is composed of former SS monsters However since it is New Year's Eve and I have lip cancer I will place my paper hat on my concussion and dance *** Another Night with Telescope Come back to me .. brutal empty room Thin Byzantine face .. preside over this new fast I am broken with easy grace Let me be neither .. father nor child but one who spins on an eternal unimportant loom .. patterns of wars and grass which do not last the night .. I know the stars are wild as dust and wait for no man's discipline .. but as they wheel from sky to sky they rake .. our lives with pins of light *** One night I burned the house I loved, It lit a perfect ring In which I saw some weeds and stone Beyond -- not anything. Certain creatures of the air Frightened by the night, They came to see the world again And perished in the light. Now I sail from sky to sky And all the blackness sings Against the boat that I have made Of mutilated wings. *** You do not have to love me just because you are all the women I have ever wanted I was born to follow you every night while I am still the many men who love you I meet you at a table I take your fist between my hands in a solemn taxi I wake up alone my hand on your absence in Hotel Discipline I wrote all these songs for you I burned red and black candles shaped like a man and a woman I married the smoke of two pyramids of sandalwood I prayed for you I prayed that you would love me and that you would not love me *** The reason I write is to make something as beautiful as you are When I'm with you I want to be the kind of hero I wanted to be when I was seven years old a perfect man who kills *** A person who eats meat wants to get his teeth into something A person who does not eat meat wants to get his teeth into something else If these thoughts interest you for even a moment you are lost ---from Selected Poems 1956-1968

More. I'd like to read one of the poems that drove me into poetry I can't remember one line or where to look The same thing happened with money girls and late evenings of talk Where are the poems that led me away from everything I loved to stand here naked with the thought of finding thee *** I did not know .. until you walked away you had the perfect ass Forgive me .. for not falling in love with your face or your conversation *** I perceived the outline of your breasts through your Hallowe'en costume I knew you were falling in love with me because no other man could perceive the advance of your bosom into his imagination It was a rupture of your unusual modesty for me and me alone through which you impressed upon my shapeless hunger the incomparable and final outline of your breasts like two deep fossil shells which remained all night long and probably forever *** I am dying .. because you have not died for me .. and the world still loves you I write this because I know that your kisses .. are born blind on the songs that touch you I don't want a purpose .. in your life I want to be lost among .. your thoughts the way you listen to New York City when you fall asleep *** I make this song for thee Lord of the World who has everything in the world except this song *** You need her so you can get your boots off the bedspread We who have always ruled the world don't like the way you dance And she said, I for one am happy with the world She seized the lapel of a cut-throat and said it again with all her small voice trembling, I for one am happy with the world I don't know if I want to kill her or not *** What has taken place in your body and your head that allows you to address yourself like this Surely you know And if you do not know as obviously you do not know how can I destroy the wretch who does not love you *** Come down to my room I was thinking about you and I made a pass at myself *** Whenever I happen to see you I forget for a while that I am ugly in my own eyes for not winning you I wanted you to choose me over all the men you know .. because I am destroyed in their company I have often prayed for you like this .. Let me have her *** I see the ocean from my window it is very dull no whales today no tidal wave The fisherman fiddles with his air conditioner The sunset is slowly squashed by the huge forces of night I telephone my wife We watch it in each other's arms ---from The Energy of Slaves

He wrote another poem that I just love but can't find. The last lines are: old friend, you are a mess by every measure except the ladder of love Help?

i don't get poetry.

thank you spider very apropos tonite

http://nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/ I went there and looked for your poem, but I didn't see it anywhere. You might try e-mailing the owner of the site, he'd probably know.

Thanks, Gee. I know it's one of the last poems in his book "Stranger Music," which I don't have with me but I could in about a week or so. If I remember, I'll find the poem and post it. It's really nice. I love that man. If anyone ever dares to write me a love poem, it better sound like one of his.

Every time I hear "Famous Blue Raincoat" it makes me weep. I think Leonard Cohen is scary, but I love that fucking song. My band used to cover it and we were quite genuinely wretched. Thanks, Spiderhiannon.

Lyrics : It's four in the morning, the end of December I'm writing you now just to see if you're better New York is cold, but I like where I'm living There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening. I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear Did you ever go clear? Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder You'd been to the station to meet every train And you came home without Lili Marlene And you treated my woman to a flake of your life And when she came back she was nobody's wife. Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth One more thin gypsy thief Well I see Jane's awake -- She sends her regards. And what can I tell you my brother, my killer What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you I'm glad you stood in my way. If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free. Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes I thought it was there for good so I never tried. And Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear -- Sincerely, L. Cohen

This is soooooooo nice............

My Utne Reader (Dec. 98) said that at the time Leonard Cohen was doing the religious retreat thing in California doing monthly retreats where he does 'virtually nothing but sit zazen 24 hours a day for seven days on end'. He said 'sometimes I'll hear my voice, and I think: This guy has got to be the great comedian of his generation. These songs are hilarious: hilariously inept, hilariously solemn and out of keeping with the times; hilariously inappropriate." He's a sexy bastard.

TO A FELLOW STUDENT I thought about you a lot. I still do. You sat still, your hands clasped on your lap like a schoolchild. You were allowed to cry because you have been true to your grief. I saw you today sitting in the same way, the same tears on your cheeks, as if you had not moved in all these years - the same bad headache in your right eye, the same housefly trying to fertilize your lips. Old friend, you're a mess by every measure except the ladder of love.

Ooh ooh ooh! Guess what I'm getting in the mail soon? A 1st ed. copy of Leonard Cohen's long OOP "Energy of Slaves." Yes. Drool away. You know it.

you know though.....maybe its a little joke on his part, but i was listening to Leonard on Friday and god damn if some of his songs and the accompanying music (especially the music, Casio synth pop) are just retarded cheesy and i wonder if some are afraid to say that for fear of being intellectually alienated.

No, dude, you're right....some of his later albums are scary like that. Try his very first album, though -- "Songs of Leonard Cohen." It's just him and his guitar, for the most part (though there are some annoying female backup singers in some songs). Or look for mp3s of "The Stranger Song" or "Teachers."