Leonard Cohen

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
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 swept the marble chambers, But you sent me down below. You kept me from believing Until you let me know: That I am not the one who loves — It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, You forbid delivery.

When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.

Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom...for trying to change the system from within

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a
real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was but
one mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed and
changed into itself over and over.

This is the only poem I can read. I am the only one who can write it. I didn’t kill myself when things went wrong. I didn’t turn to drugs or teaching. I tried to sleep. But when I couldn’t sleep, I learned to write. I learned to write what might be read on nights like this by one like me.

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

The day wasn't exactly my own
since I checked
and found it on a public calendar.
Tripping over many pairs of legs
as I walked down the park
I also learned my lust
was not so rare a masterpiece.

It's you my love, you who are the stranger.

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
Did you ever go clear?

I'm old and the mirrors don't lie.

What I loved in my old life — I haven’t forgotten — it lives in my spine.

* It's coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.