A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable
ally in the battle for love.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city,
like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past
that happened somewhere else.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done
in the absence of a caress.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets
to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and
forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech
with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to
converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves
against wonder.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority
to the sleeping world.
Leonard Cohen
The Favorite Game |
It is painful to recall a past intensity, to estimate your
distance from the Belsen heap, to make your peace with numbers.
Just to get up each morning is to make a kind of peace.
Leonard Cohen
Lines From My Grandfather's Journal, from
book The Spicebox of Earth |
Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will
be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing
will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their
compassion will be true.
Leonard Cohen
Lines From My Grandfather's Journal, from
book The Spicebox of Earth |
History is a needle
for putting men asleep
anointed with the poison
of all they want to keep.
Leonard Cohen
On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken, from Flowers
for Hitler |
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy, golden storm,
Yes many loved before us, I know we are not new,
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
But now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
Your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
Leonard Cohen
That's No Way to Say Goodbye |