waiting for marianne

I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it

I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost alseep

Did you take the telephone
knowing I'd sniff it immoderately
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath

and if you won't come back
how will you phone to say
you won't come back
so that I could at least argue


Leonard Cohen, Flowers for Hitler

a porta mais recôndita

Nenhum destino
Nada a dizer
Não me vais ouvir
Até estar longe
O cansaço é demasiado
Para continuar a luta
Por isso nos despedimos
Na porta mais recôndita

Quando eu ficar sozinha
Tu voltarás para mim
Já aconteceu antes
Chamamos-lhe memória

Tenho de regressar
Aonde começámos
Quando eu era uma mulher
E tu eras um homem
Se vieres comigo
Nunca começarei
Fizemos a nossa casa
Mas o telhado caiu

Quando eu ficar sozinha
Tu voltarás para mim
Já aconteceu antes
Chamamos-lhe memória

Nem tenho a certeza
Se sei onde começar
Mas começar vem depois
Antes temos de nos separar
O cansaço é demasiado
Para continuar a luta
Por isso nos despedimos
Na porta mais recôndita

Leonard Cohen, A Chama

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.


Leonard Cohen

darkness

I caught the darkness

Drinking from your cup

I caught the darkness

Drinking from your cup

I said: Is this contagious?

You said: Just drink it up.

Leonard Cohen, Darkness

i don’t remember

lighting this cigarette
and i don’t remember
if i’m here alone
or waiting for someone.


Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing

how to speak poetry

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than anounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. 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.

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. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. 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.

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 not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. 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.

Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them.

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. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps and 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.


Leonard Cohen, Death of a Lady's Man

estes versos heróicos

Se tivesse uma cabeça cintilante
e as pessoas se voltassem para me olhar
nos eléctricos
e pudesse espreguiçar o meu corpo
na água luminosa
e nadar com os peixes e as serpentes de água;
se pudesse destruir as minhas penas
voando diante do sol;
pensas que ficaria neste quarto
recitando-te poemas
e construindo sonhos excessivos
com os menores movimentos da tua boca?


Leonard Cohen, Poemas e Canções Vol. 1

fingerprints

Give me back my fingerprints
My fingertips are raw
If I don't get my figerprints
I 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 thru 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
& that should make them proud

But now you want to marry me
& take me down the aisle
& 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


Leonard Cohen, Poemas e Canções Vol. 1

I am dying

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


Leonard Cohen, Poemas e Canções Vol. 1

a thousand kisses deep

waiting for it to rain

I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin


Leonard Cohen