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.
Canadian singer, songwriter and poet (1934–2016)
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, GOQ (21 September 1934 - 7 November 2016) was a Canadian poet, songwriter, singer, and novelist noted for the bold exploration of religion, politics, sexuality, personal relationships and personal isolation in his works.
Bio from: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Portrait adapted from: Wikimedia Commons, Gorupdebesanez (CC BY-SA)
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To a Young Nun
This undemanding love
that our staggered births
have purchased for us — You in your generation,
I in mine.
I am not the one
you are looking for.
You are not the one
I've stopped looking for.
How sweetly time
disposes of us
as we go arm in arm
over the Bridge of Details:
Your turn to chop.
My turn to cook.
Your turn to die for love.
My turn to resurrect.
This is it
I’m not coming after you
I’m going to lie down for half an hour
This is it
I’m not going down
On your memory
I’m not rubbing my face in it anymore
I’m going to yawn
I’m going to stretch
I’m going to put a knitting needle
Up my nose
And poke out my brain
I don’t want to love you
For the rest of my life
I want your skin
To fall off my skin
I want my clamp
To release your clamp
I don’t want to live
With this tongue hanging out
And another filthy song
In the place
Of my baseball bat
This is it
I’m going to sleep now darling
Don’t try to stop me
I’m going to sleep
I’ll have a smooth face
And I’m going to drool
I’ll be asleep
Whether you love me or not
This is it
The new world order
Of wrinkles and bad breath
It’s not going to be
Like it was before
Eating you
With my eyes closed
Hoping you won’t get up
And go away
It’s going to be something else
Something worse
Something sillier
Something like this
Only shorter
Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau.
European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.
I see you standing on the other side. I don't know how the river got so wide. I loved you, baby, way back when. And all the bridges are burning that We might have crossed and I feel so close to everything that we've lost. We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again. Now I bid You farewell, I don't when I'll be back. They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track. But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone. I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower Of Song