Leonard Cohen Love Quotes

And I'll dance with you in Vienna, I'll be wearing a river's disguise. The hyacinth wild on my shoulder my mouth on the dew of your thighs. And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moss. And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty, my cheap violin and my cross.

... i didn't fall in love of course it's never up to you but she was walking back and forth and i was passing through

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love

We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.

In My Secret Life" "I saw you this morning, you were moving so fast. Can't seem to loosen my grip On the past. And I miss you so much, there's no one in sight. And we're still making love In my secret life. I smile when I am angry, I cheat and I lie, I do what I have to do to get by, In my secret life.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear.

A heavy burden lifted from my soul, I heard that love was out of my control.

Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.

Love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

My friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ache in places I used to play. And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on. I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask. If you want a different kind of love I'll wear a mask. If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand. If you want a partner in life take my hand. I'm your man.

Show me slowly what I only know the limits of Dance me to the end of love

And may my bronze name / touch always her thousand fingers / grow brighter with her weeping / until I am fixed like a galaxy / and memorized / in her secret and fragile skies.

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

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep.

Love is the only engine of survival

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.

It’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too.

I am not the one who loved, it's love that chooses me. When hatred with it's package comes, you forbid delivery.

The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to come.

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to. And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you.

It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear.

The Dream" "O I had such a wonderful dream, she said. I dreamed you made love to me. At last, he said to himself, the spirit has taken up some of the heavy work.

there's no forsaking what you love no existential leap as witnessed here in time and blood a thousand kisses deep

He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

Maybe there's a God above, As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight, It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah.

Well I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one.

What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape.

Now suzanne takes you hand And she leads you to the river She is wearing rags and feathers From salvation army counters And the sun pours down like honey On our lady of the harbour And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While suzanne holds the mirror And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For shes touched your perfect body with her mind.

The old are kind The young are hot Love may be blind Desire is not

We've got to learn to love appearances.

Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply. •

A teacher I once had told me that the older you get, the lonelier you become and the deeper the love you need. Loneliness creates an appetite for deeper love, and the entire predicament deepens. And as a result of suffering, your capacity to love deeply increases.

Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy, useless light behind the terror, deathless song in the house of night.

Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.

So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love.

Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.-Leonard Cohen

You don't know me from the wind you never will, you never did I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible. I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all but love's the only engine of survival.

We sold ourselves for love but now we are free I’m so sorry for that ghost I made you be Only one of us was real and that was me

Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.” —LEONARD COHEN, THE NEW YORKER

-You know how to call me although such a noise now would only confuse the air Neither of us can forget the steps we danced the words you stretched to call me out of dust Yes I long for you not just as a leaf for weather or vase for hands but with a narrow human longing that makes a man refuse any fields but his own I wait for you at an unexpected place in your journey like the rusted key or the feather you do not pick up.- -I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.- For Anyone Dressed in Marble The miracle we all are waiting for is waiting till the Parthenon falls down and House of Birthdays is a house no more and fathers are unpoisoned by renown. The medals and the records of abuse can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust, but like whips certain perverts never use, compel our flesh in paralysing trust. I see an orphan, lawless and serene, standing in a corner of the sky, body something like bodies that have been, but not the scar of naming in his eye. Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside. Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride. I Had It for a Moment I had it for a moment I knew why I must thank you I saw powerful governing men in black suits I saw them undressed in the arms of young mistresses the men more naked than the naked women the men crying quietly No that is not it I'm losing why I must thank you which means I'm left with pure longing How old are you Do you like your thighs I had it for a moment I had a reason for letting the picture of your mouth destroy my conversation Something on the radio the end of a Mexican song I saw the musicians getting paid they are not even surprised they knew it was only a job Now I've lost it completely A lot of people think you are beautiful How do I feel about that I have no feeling about that I had a wonderful reason for not merely courting you It was tied up with the newspapers I saw secret arrangements in high offices I saw men who loved their worldliness even though they had looked through big electric telescopes they still thought their worldliness was serious not just a hobby a taste a harmless affectation they thought the cosmos listened I was suddenly fearful one of their obscure regulations could separate us I was ready to beg for mercy Now I'm getting into humiliation I've lost why I began this I wanted to talk about your eyes I know nothing about your eyes and you've noticed how little I know I want you somewhere safe far from high offices I'll study you later So many people want to cry quietly beside you

I had wonderful love but I did not give back wonderful love, I was unable to reply to their love. Because I was obsessed with some fictional sense of separation, I couldn't touch the thing that was offered to me,and it was offered to me everywhere.

A Kite is a Victim A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it lives like a desperate trained falcon in the high sweet air, and you can always haul it down to tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caught in a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won't give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you've written so you give it to the wind, but you don't let it go until someone finds you something else to do. A kite is a contract of glory that must be made with the sun, so you make friends with the field the river and the wind, then you pray the whole cold night before, under the travelling cordless moon, to make you worthy and lyric and pure. Gift You tell me that silence is nearer to peace than poems but if for my gift I brought you silence (for I know silence) you would say This is not silence this is another poem and you would hand it back to me There are some men There are some men who should have mountains to bear their names through time Grave markers are not high enough or green and sons go far away to lose the fist their father’s hand will always seem I had a friend he lived and died in mighty silence and with dignity left no book son or lover to mourn. Nor is this a mourning song but only a naming of this mountain on which I walk fragrant, dark and softly white under the pale of mist I name this mountain after him. -Believe nothing of me Except that I felt your beauty more closely than my own. I did not see any cities burn, I heard no promises of endless night, I felt your beauty more closely than my own. Promise me that I will return.- -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.- 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 -Reach into the vineyard of arteries for my heart. Eat the fruit of ignorance and share with me the mist and fragrance of dying.-

I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.

I will starve till prophets find me, I will bleed till angels bind me, Still I sing till churches blind me, Still I love till cog-wheels wind me.

A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it lives like a desperate trained falcon in the high sweet air, and you can always haul it down to tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caught in a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won't give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you've written so you give it to the wind, but you don't let it go until someone finds you something else to do.

Love me this first day of June. I'd rather sleep with ashes than priestly wisdom. Of all the lonely places in the world this is best where debris is human. I kiss the precious ashes that fall from fiery flesh. On these familiar shapes I lay my kisses down.

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I bring them all back, to let them grow forever, not in poems or marble, but where they fell and rotted. And the ships in their great stalls, huge and transitory as heroes, ships I could not captain, today I bring them back to let them sail forever, not in model or ballad, but where they were wrecked and scuttled. And the child on whose shoulders I stand, whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline, today I bring him back to languish forever, not in confession or biography, but where he flourished, growing sly and hairy. It is not malice that draws me away, draws me to renunciation, betrayal: it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee, Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon- I have become the expert of the catalogue. My body once so familiar with glory, My body has become a museum: this part remembered because of someone's mouth, this because of a hand, this of wetness, this of heat. Who owns anything he has not made? With your beauty I am as uninvolved as with horses' manes and waterfalls. This is my last catalogue. I breathe the breathless I love you, I love you - and let you move forever.

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

There’s a quote that I share every time I talk about vulnerability and perfectionism. My fixation with these words from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” comes from how much comfort and hope they give me as I put “enough” into practice: “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

Now I need your hidden love, I’m cold as a new razor blade. You left when I told you I was curious… I never said that I was brave. from “So Long Marianne

Catherine Tekakwitha, who are you? Are you (1656-1680)? Is that enough? Are you the Iroquois Virgin? Are you the Lily of the Shores of the Mohawk River? Can I love you in my own way?

How Could I Have Doubted I stopped looking for you I stopped waiting for you I stopped dying for you and I started dying for myself I aged rapidly I became fat in the face and soft in the gut and I forgot that I’d ever loved you I was old I had no focus, no mission I wandered around eating and buying bigger and bigger clothes and I forgot why I hated every long moment that was mine to fill Why did you come back to me tonight I can’t even get off this chair Tears run down my cheeks I am in love again I can live like this

Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.

You are right, Sahara. There are no mists, or veils, or distances. But the mist is surrounded by a mist; and the veil is hidden behind a veil; and the distance continually draws away from the distance. That is why there are no mists, or veils, or distances. That is why it is called The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. It is here that The Traveler becomes The Wanderer, and The Wanderer becomes The One Who Is Lost, and The One Who Is Lost becomes The Seeker, and The Seeker becomes The Passionate Lover, and The Passionate Lover becomes The Beggar, and The Beggar becomes The Wretch, and The Wretch becomes The One Who Must Be Sacrificed, and The One Who Must Be Sacrificed becomes The Resurrected One and The Resurrected One becomes The One Who has Transcended The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Then for a thousand years, or the rest of the afternoon, such a One spins in the Blazing Fire of Changes, embodying all the transformations, one after the other, and then beginning again, and then ending again, 86,000 times a second. Then such a one, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman Sahara; and such a one, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Is it you who are waiting, Sahara, or is it I?

Blessed be the covenant of love between what is hidden and what is revealed.

People change and their bodies change and their hair grows gray and falls out and their bodies decay and die… but there is something that doesn’t change about love and about the feelings we have for people. Marianne, the woman of So Long, Marianne, when I hear her voice on the telephone, I know something is completely intact even though our lives have separated and we’ve gone our very different paths. I feel that love never dies, and that when there is an emotion strong enough to gather a song around it, that there is something about that emotion that is indestructible…

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer

Slowly I married her. Slowly and bitterly married her love / married her body in boredom and joy. Slowly I came to her bed and came to her table in hunger and habit came to be fed. Slowly I married her sanctioned by none with nobody's name / amid general warnings / amid general scorn. Came to her fragrance by nostrils wide. Came to her greed with seed for a child. Years in the coming and years in retreat / slowly I married her / slowly I kneeled and now we are wounded so deep and so well that no one can hurt us except Death itself.

BODY OF LONELINESS She entered my foot with her foot and she entered my waist with her snow. She entered my heart saying, “Yes, that’s right.” And so the Body of Loneliness was covered from without, and from within the Body of Loneliness was embraced. Now every time I try to draw a breath she whispers to my breathlessness, “Yes, my love, that’s right, that’s right.

My love is blonde and ancient I met her by the sea she was putting things together and she needed some of me

And when the hunger for your touch Rises from the hunger, You whisper, "You have loved enough, Now let me me the Lover.

need to see I never saw your need for me your longing raw

every heart, every heart to love will come but like a refugee.

We are so lightly here. It is in love we are made. In love we disappear.

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.

K'o magle što nema ni trag Po zelenim brdima sad, Tako moj ne ostaje trag Na tvom telu nigde, nikad. Vetar i soko kad su jedno, Kuda minu taj tren i dan? Tako na čas mi smo jedno A onda tišina i san. K'o zvezde noću nad nama Što sjaje skrite u tami, Tako svetlost je u nama I kad smo daleko, sami.

You have the lovers, they are nameless, their histories only for each other, and you have the room, the bed, and the windows. Pretend it is a ritual. Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows, let them live in that house for a generation or two. No one dares disturb them. Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door, they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song: nothing is heard, not even breathing. You know they are not dead, you can feel the presence of their intense love. Your children grow up, they leave you, they have become soldiers and riders. Your mate dies after a life of service. Who knows you? Who remembers you? But in your house a ritual is in progress: It is not finished: it needs more people. One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber. The room has become a dense garden, full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known. The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight, in the midst of the garden it stands alone. In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently, perform the act of love. Their eyes are closed, as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them. Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises. Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled. When he puts his mouth against her shoulder she is uncertain whether her shoulder has given or received the kiss. All her flesh is like a mouth. He carries his fingers along her waist and feels his own waist caressed. She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her. She kisses the hand besider her mouth. It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters, there are so many more kisses. You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness, you carefully peel away the sheets from the slow-moving bodies. Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers, As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent because now you believe it is the first human voice heard in that room. The garments you let fall grow into vines. You climb into bed and recover the flesh. You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut. You create an embrace and fall into it. There is only one moment of pain or doubt as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body, but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

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

what is the expression which the age demands? the age demands no expression whatever. we have seen photographs of bereaved asian mothers. we are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. there is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. do not even try. you will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. we have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. you are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. this should make you very quiet. speak the words, convey the data, step aside. everyone knows you are in pain. you cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. you have nothing to teach them. you are not more beautiful than they are. you are not wiser. do not shout at them. do not force a dry entry. that is bad sex. if you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. and remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. what is our need? to be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. the bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. they have also destroyed the stage. did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? there is no more stage. there are no more footlights. you are among the people. then be modest. speak the words, convey the data, step aside. be by yourself. be in your own room. do not put yourself on. do not act out words. never act out words. never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. if you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. if ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material. this is an interior landscape. it is inside. it is private. respect the privacy of the material. these pieces were written in silence. the courage of the play is to speak them. the discipline of the play is not to violate them. let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. be good whores. the poem is not a slogan. it cannot advertise you. it cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. you are students of discipline. do not act out the words. the words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition. the poem is nothing but information. it is the constitution of the inner country. if you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. you are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. think of the words as science, not as art. they are a report. you are speaking before a meeting of the explorers' club of the national geographic society. these people know all the risks of mountain climbing. they honour you by taking this for granted. if you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. if you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. it will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. it will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence. avoid the flourish. do not be afraid to be weak. do not be ashamed to be tired. you look good when you're tired. you look like you could go on forever. now come into my arms. you are the image of my beauty.

Maybe there’s a God above But all I’ve ever learned from love Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you It’s not a cry you can hear at night It’s not somebody who has seen the light It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

He was rowed down from the north in a leather skiff manned by a crew of trolls. His fur cape was caked with candle wax, his brow stained blue by wine - though the latter was seldom noticed due to the fox mask he wore at-all times. A quill in his teeth, a solitary teardrop a-squirm in his palm, he was the young poet prince of Montreal, handsome, immaculate, searching for sturdier doors to nail his poignant verses on. In Manhattan, grit drifted into his ink bottle. In Vienna, his spice box exploded. On the Greek island of Hydra, Orpheus came to him at dawn astride a transparent donkey and restrung his cheap guitar. From that moment on, he shamelessly and willingly exposed himself to the contagion of music. To the secretly religious curiosity of the traveler was added the openly foolhardy dignity of the troubadour. By the time he returned to America, songs were working in him like bees in an attic. Connoisseurs developed cravings for his nocturnal honey, despite the fact that hearts were occasionally stung. Now, thirty years later, as society staggers towards the millennium - nailing and screeching at the while, like an orangutan with a steak knife in its side - Leonard Cohen, his vision, his gift, his perseverance, are finally getting their due. It may be because he speaks to this wounded zeitgeist with particular eloquence and accuracy, it may be merely cultural time-lag, another example of the slow-to-catch-on many opening their ears belatedly to what the few have been hearing all along. In any case, the sparkle curtain has shredded, the boogie-woogie gate has rocked loose from its hinges, and here sits L. Cohen at an altar in the garden, solemnly enjoying new-found popularity and expanded respect. From the beginning, his musical peers have recognized Cohen´s ability to establish succinct analogies among life´s realities, his talent for creating intimate relationships between the interior world of longing and language and the exterior world of trains and violins. Even those performers who have neither "covered" his compositions nor been overtly influenced by them have professed to admire their artfulness: the darkly delicious melodies - aural bouquets of gardenia and thistle - that bring to mind an electrified, de-Germanized Kurt Weill; the playfully (and therefore dangerously) mournful lyrics that can peel the apple of love and the peach of lust with a knife that cuts all the way to the mystery, a layer Cole Porter just could`t expose. It is their desire to honor L. Cohen, songwriter, that has prompted a delegation of our brightest artists to climb, one by one, joss sticks smoldering, the steep and salty staircase in the Tower of Song.

TRAVEL Loving you, flesh to flesh, I often thought Of travelling penniless to some mud throne Where a master might instruct me how to plot My life away from pain, to love alone In the bruiseless embrace of stone and lake. Lost in the fields of your hair I was never lost Enough to lose a way I had to take; Breathless beside your body I could not exhaust The will that forbid me contract, vow, Or promise, and often while you slept I looked in awe beyond your beauty.                                                                   Now I know why many men have stopped and wept Halfway between the loves they leave and seek, And wondered if travel leads them anywhere — Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek, The windy sky’s a locket for your hair.

JINGLE To show the fat brain rotting like stumps of brown teeth in an old bright throat is the final clever thrill of summer lads all dead with love. So here is mine, torn and stretched for the sun, to be used for a drum or a tambourine, to be scratched with poetry by Kafka’s machine

THIS ISN’T CHINA Hold me close and tell me what the world is like I don’t want to look outside I want to depend on your eyes and your lips I don’t want to feel anything but your hand on the old raw bumper I don’t want to feel anything else If you love the dead rocks and the huge rough pine trees Ok I like them too Tell me if the wind makes a pretty sound in the billion billion needles I’ll close my eyes and smile Tell me if it’s a good morning or a clear morning Tell me what the fuck kind of morning it is and I’ll buy it And get the dog to stop whining and barking This isn’t China nobody’s going to eat it It’s just going to get fed and petted Ok where were we? Ok go if you must. I’ll create the cosmos by myself I’ll let it all stick to me every fucking pine needle And I’ll broadcast my affection from this shaven dome 360 degrees to all the dramatic vistas to all the mists and snows that moves across the shining mountains to the women bathing in the stream and combing their hair on the roofs to the voiceless ones who have petitioned me from their surprising silence to the poor in the heart (oh more and more to them) to all the thought-forms and leaking mental objects that you get up here at the end of your ghostly life

If words could describe one's writing, then mine would be the love child of Cole Porter and Leonard Cohen, and reading it would be like listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing.

We are not mad. We are human. We want to love and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in out journey.

Crazy to Love You" I had to go crazy to love you Had to go down to the pit Had to do time in the tower Now I'm too tired to quit I had to go crazy to love you You who were never the one Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache My braids and my blouse all undone Sometimes I'd head for the highway I'm old and the mirrors don't lie But crazy has places to hide me Deeper than saying goodbye I had to go crazy to love you Had to let everything fall Had to be people I hated Had to be no one at all Tired of choosing desire I've been saved by a blessed fatigue The gates of commitment unwired And nobody trying to leave Sometimes I'd head for the highway I'm old and the mirrors don't lie But crazy had places to hide me Deeper than saying goodbye

She also asked him his views on marrige and monogamy given the imminent arrival of his second child with Suzanne. "I think marrying is for very very high minded people" he said. "It is a discipline of extreme severity. To really turn your back on all the other possibilities and all the other experiences of love,of passion,of ecstasy,and to determine to find it within one embrace is a high and righteous notion. Marriage today is the monastery,the monastery today is freedom. " he told Marion he had arrived "at a more realistic vision" of himself. There was no "high purpose" in his activities. "I'm just going" he said "so I don't have to stay still

Now our Nile has turned to blood and in the cafes the scholars jest about a cosmic wound. Priests no longer smile at our catalogue of charities and even the beggars whom we pity and love refuse our coins with a curse.

He was beautiful when he sat alone, he was like me, he had wide lapels, he was holding the mug in the hardest possible way so that his fingers were all twisted but still long and beautiful, he didn’t like to sit alone all the time, but this time, I swear, he didn’t care on way or the other. I’ll tell you why I like to sit alone, because I’m a sadist, that’s why we like to sit alone, because we’re the sadists who like to sit alone. He sat alone because he was beautifully dressed for the occasion and because he was not a civilian. We are the sadists you don’t have to worry about, you think, and we have no opinion on the matter of whether you have to worry about us, and we don’t even like to think about the matter because it baffles us. Maybe he doesn’t mean a thing to me any more but I think he was like me. You didn’t expect to fall in love, I said to myself and at the same time I answered gently, Do you think so? I heard you humming beautifully, your hum said that I can’t ignore you, that I’d finally come around for a number of delicious reasons that only you knew about, and here I am, Miss Blood. And you won’t come back, you won’t come back to where you left me, and that’s why you keep my number, so you don’t dial it by mistake when you’re fooling with the dial not even dialing numbers. You begin to bore us with your pain and we have decided to change your pain. You said you were happiest when you danced, you said you were happiest when you danced with me, now which do you mean? And so we changed his pain, we threw the idea of a body at him and we told him a joke, and then he thought a great deal about laughing and about the code. And he thought that she thought that he thought that she thought the worst thing a woman could do was to take a man away from his work because that made her what, ugly or beautiful? And now you’ve entered the mathematical section of your soul which you claimed you never had. I suppose that this, plus the broken heart, makes you believe that now you have a perfect right to go out and tame the sadists. He had the last line of each verse of the song but he didn’t have any of the other lines, the last line was always the same, Don’t call yourself a secret unless you mean to keep it. He thought he knew, or he actually did know too much about singing to be a singer; and if there is actually such a condition, is anybody in it, and are sadists born there? It is not a question mark, it is not an exclamation point, it is a full stop by the man who wrote Parasites of Heaven. Even if we stated our case very clearly and all those who held as we do came to our side, all of them, we would still be very few.

O God, make me poor enough to love yurd diamond in the rough, or in my failure let me see, my greed raised to mistery. Do you hate the one who must turn your world all to dust? Do you hate the ones who ask if Creation wears a mask God beyond the God I name, if mask and fire are the same, repair the seam my love leaps through , uncreated fire to pursue. Network of cretated fire, maim my love and my desire. Make me poor so I may be, servant in the world I see

Give Me Back My Fingerprints Give me back my fingerprints My fingertips are raw If I don't get my fingerprints I'll have to call the law I touched you once too often I don't know who I am My fingerprints were missing When I wiped away the jam I called my fingerprints all night But they don't seem to care The last time that I saw them They were leafing through your hair I thought I'd leave this morning So I emptied out your drawer A hundred thousand fingerprints Floated to the floor You hardly stooped to pick them up You don't count what you lose You don't even seem to know Whose fingerprints are whose When I had to say goodbye You weren't there to find You took my fingerprints away So I would love your mind I don't pretend to understand Just what you mean by that But next time I'll inquire Before I scratch your back I wonder if my fingerprints Get lonely in the crowd There are no others like them And that should make them proud But now you want to marry me And take me down the aisle And throw confetti fingerprints You know that's not my style Sure I'd like to marry But I won't face the dawn With any girl who knew me When my fingerprints were on

A Kite is a Victim" A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it lives like a desperate trained falcon in the high sweet air, and you can always haul it down to tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caught in a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won’t give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you’ve written, so you give it to the wind, but you don’t let it go until someone finds you something else to do. A kite is a contract of glory that must be made with the sun, so make friends with the field the river and the wind, then you pray the whole cold night before, under the travelling cordless moon, to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

Love is that activity that makes the power of man and woman, that incorporates it into your own heart, when you can embody man and woman, when you can embody hell and heaven, when you can reconcile and contain, when man and woman becomes your content. In other words, when your women becomes your own content and you become her content, that’s love. And you recognize the full equality of that exchange because if she’s smaller than you, she can’t fill you. And if you’re larger than her, you can’t fill her. There has to be an understanding that there really is an absolute equaltity of power. Different kinds of power, obviously; different kinds of magic, different kinds of strength, different kinds of movement that's as different as night and day. And it is night and day, and it is the moon and the sun, and it is the land and the sea, and it is plus and minus, it is heaven and hell: it is all those antimonies, but they're all equal.

THIS IS IT 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 any more 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

Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" It seems so long ago, Nancy was alone, looking ate the Late Late show through a semi-precious stone. In the House of Honesty her father was on trial, in the House of Mystery there was no one at all, there was no one at all. It seems so long ago, none of us were strong; Nancy wore green stockings and she slept with everyone. She never said she'd wait for us although she was alone, I think she fell in love for us in nineteen sixty one, in nineteen sixty one. It seems so long ago, Nancy was alone, a forty five beside her head, an open telephone. We told her she was beautiful, we told her she was free but none of us would meet her in the House of Mystery, the House of Mystery. And now you look around you, see her everywhere, many use her body, many comb her hair. In the hollow of the night when you are cold and numb you hear her talking freely then, she's happy that you've come, she's happy that you've come.

God is alive; Magic is afoot God is alive; Magic is afoot God is afoot; Magic is alive Alive is afoot..... Magic never died. God never sickened; Many poor men lied Many sick men lied Magic never weakened Magic never hid Magic always ruled God is afoot God never died. God was ruler Though his funeral lengthened Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live Though his words were twisted The naked Magic thrived Though his death was published Round and round the world The heart did not believe Many hurt men wondered Many struck men bled Magic never faltered Magic always led. Many stones were rolled But God would not lie down Many wild men lied Many fat men listened Though they offered stones Magic still was fed Though they locked their coffers God was always served. Magic is afoot. God rules. Alive is afoot. Alive is in command. Many weak men hungered Many strong men thrived Though they boasted solitude God was at their side Nor the dreamer in his cell Nor the captain on the hill Magic is alive Though his death was pardoned Round and round the world The heart did not believe. Though laws were carved in marble They could not shelter men Though altars built in parliaments They could not order men Police arrested Magic And Magic went with them, For Magic loves the hungry. But Magic would not tarry It moves from arm to arm It would not stay with them Magic is afoot It cannot come to harm It rests in an empty palm It spawns in an empty mind But Magic is no instrument Magic is the end. Many men drove Magic But Magic stayed behind Many strong men lied They only passed through Magic And out the other side Many weak men lied They came to God in secret And though they left him nourished They would not say who healed Though mountains danced before them They said that God was dead Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live This I mean to whisper to my mind This I mean to laugh with in my mind This I mean my mind to serve 'til Service is but Magic Moving through the world And mind itself is Magic Coursing through the flesh And flesh itself is Magic Dancing on a clock And time itself the magic length of God.

Surrender” might be the most powerful word in the world, but now I’m caught between the life I know and the one I don’t. Can I just take a walk on Killiney Hill with my best friend, who happens to be my wife, and sit on that wooden seat that overlooks the bay and not check the phone to see what’s going on somewhere else in the world? Can I take in the view without having to be in it? Can I not take that call, in favor of this other call, to stillness? Is this what vision over visibility looks like now? I bow to no one in my love and respect for Leonard Cohen, but I can’t see myself following him up that mountain on his Zen retreat. I’m not sure I’m made to climb that hill. But then the drip, drip, drip. I hear the words of another Sufi, the poet Rumi. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Maybe I’m discovering surrender doesn’t always have to follow defeat and may be all the fuller after victory. When you’ve won the argument you now understand you never needed to have. The argument with your life

Primer of Love [Lesson 30] I didn't fall in love of course it's never up to you but she was walking back and forth and i was passing through ~ Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing Lesson 30) First fall in love, then grow in love, then harvest in love. The falling is the chemistry, the growing is the botany and the harvesting is the phenomenology of love. A couple in love is always planting seeds and nurturing them with tears and laughter. When their old they have this prickly bush in the garage they have no fucking idea what to do with. Really, they harvest a life well spent. ღ ღ ღ

My Chemical Romance, “I Don’t Love You” New Order, “Bizarre Love Triangle” Coheed and Cambria, “The Afterman” U2, “Ordinary Love” Coheed and Cambria, “Pearl of the Stars” Tears for Fears, “Woman in Chains” (with Oleta Adams) U2, “Every Breaking Wave” The Arcadian Project, “Hey There, Pretty Girl” Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” Everything But The Girl, “I Don’t Understand Anything” The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Fifth Day” Gnarls Barkley, “Smiley Faces” The Airborne Toxic Event, “This Is London” My Chemical Romance, “Planetary (GO!)” U2, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Way Home” Coldplay, “Fix You” The Strokes, “Reptilia” Simple Minds, “When Two Worlds Collide” The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979” The Arcadian Project, “The Windmill” Leonard Cohen, “Anthem” My Chemical Romance, “The Only Hope for Me Is You” Heaven 17, “Let Me Go” (extended version) Our Last Night, “Skyfall” My Chemical Romance, “The Kids from Yesterday” The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Graveyard near the House” Green Day, “Troublemaker” James Taylor, “Carolina in My Mind” Simple Minds, “Waterfront” Muse, “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)” U2, “Kite” The Arcadian Project, “The Disappearance Symphony: One Last Question

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever And you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then he gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you've touched her perfect body with your mind And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind And you think you maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with her mind Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river She's wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning They are leaning out for love and they wil lean that way forever While Suzanne holds her mirror And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And you know that you can trust her For she's touched your perfect body with her mind

Leonard: I remember Marianne and I were in a hotel in Piraeus, some inex- pensive hotel. We were both about twenty-five and we had to catch the boat back to Hydra. We got up and I guess we had a cup of coffee or something and got a taxi, and I’ve never forgotten this. Nothing happened, just sitting in the back of the taxi with Marianne, [lighting] a cigarette, a Greek cigarette that had that delicious deep flavour of a Greek cigarette that has a lot of Turkish to- bacco in it, and thinking, I have a life of my own, I’m an adult, I’m with this beautiful woman, we have a little money in our pocket, we’re going back to Hydra, we’re passing these painted walls. That feeling I think I’ve tried to recreate hun- dreds of times unsuccessfully. Just that feeling of being grown up, with some- body beautiful that you’re happy to be beside and all the world is in front of you. Your body is suntanned and you’re going to get on a boat. That’s a feeling I remember very, very accurately.

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 covenant, 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 your hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthem 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 God. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.

• The trick to staying out of resentment is maintaining better boundaries—blaming others less and holding myself more accountable for asking for what I need and want. • There is no integrity in blaming and turning to “it’s not fair” and “I deserve.” I need to take responsibility for my own well-being. If I believed I was not being treated fairly or not getting something I deserved, was I actually asking for it, or was I just looking for an excuse to assign blame and feel self-righteous? • I am trying not to numb my discomfort for myself, because I think I’m worth the effort. It’s not something that’s happening to me—it’s something I’m choosing for myself. • This rumble taught me why self-righteousness is dangerous. Most of us buy into the myth that it’s a long fall from “I’m better than you” to “I’m not good enough”—but the truth is that these are two sides of the same coin. Both are attacks on our worthiness. We don’t compare when we’re feeling good about ourselves; we look for what’s good in others. When we practice self-compassion, we are compassionate toward others. Self-righteousness is just the armor of self-loathing. In Daring Greatly, I talk about how the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah”—“Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”—capture how daring greatly can feel more like freedom with a little battle fatigue than a full-on celebration. The same is true for rising strong. What

The war was lost The treaty signed I was not caught I crossed the line I was not caught Though many tried I live among you Well-disguised I had to leave My life behind I dug some graves You'll never find The story's told With facts and lies I had a name But never mind Never mind Never mind The war was lost The treaty signed There's Truth that lives And Truth that dies I don't know which So never mind (...السلام و السلام) Your victory Was so complete Some among you Thought to keep A record of Our little lives The clothes we wore Our spoons our knives The games of luck Our soldiers played The stones we cut The songs we made Our law of peace Which understands A husband leads A wife commands And all of these Expressions of the Sweet indifference Some called love The high indifference Some call fate But we had names More intimate Names so deep And names so true They're blood to me They're dust to you There is no need And this survives There's Truth that lives And Truth that dies Never mind Never mind I leave the life I left behind There's Truth that lives And Truth that dies I don't know which So never mind (...السلام و السلام) I could not kill The way you kill I could not hate I tried, I failed You turned me in At least you tried You side with them whom You despise This was your heart This swarm of flies This was once your mouth This bowl of lies You serve them well I'm not surprised You're of their kin You're of their kind Never mind Never mind I had to leave my Life behind The story's told With facts and lies You own the world So never mind Never mind Never mind I live the life I left behind I live it full I live it wide Through layers of time You can't divide My woman's here My children too Their graves are safe From ghosts like you In places deep With roots entwined I live the life I left behind The war was lost The treaty signed I was not caught Across the line I was not caught Though many tried I live among you Well-disguised