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23-05-2015 02:58 PM
23-05-2015 02:58 PM
THE BOOK OF LONGING - By Leonard Cohen
This is my favourite book at the moment and has been for quite a few months. 'The Book of Longing' is a collection of poems from different eras of L. Cohens' life and some are mind blowing...
So I've started this thread to share some of my favourites with you all...
Pg. 34 - MOVING INTO A PERIOD
We are moving into a period of bewilderment, a curious moment in which people find light in the midst of despair, and vertigo at the summit of their hopes. It is a religious moment also, and here is the danger. People will want to obey the voice of Authority, and many strange constructs of just what Authority is will arise in every mind. The family will appear again as the Foundation, much honoured, much praised, but those of us who have been ierced by other possibilities, we will merely go through the motions, albeit the motions of love. The public yearning for Order will invite stubborn uncomprimising persons to impose it. The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society.
You and I, who year for blameless intimacy, we will be unwilling to speak even the first words of inquisitive delight, for fear of reprisals. Everything desperate will live behind a joke. But I swear that I will stand within the range of your perfume.
How severe seems the moon tonight, like the face of an Iron Maiden, instead of the usual indistinct idiot.
If you think Freud is dishonoured now, and Einstein, and Hemmingway, just wait and see what is to be done with all the white hair, by those who come after me.
But there will be a Cross, a sign, that some will understand; a secret meeting, a warning, a Jerusalem hidden in Jeruselam. I will be wearing white clothes, as usual, and I will enter The Innermost Place as I have done generation upon generation, to entreat, to plead, to justify. I will enter the chamber of the Bride and the Bridegroom, and no one will follow me.
Have no doubt, in the near future we will be seeing and hearing much more of this sort of thing from people like myself.
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23-05-2015 05:44 PM
23-05-2015 05:44 PM
Re: THE BOOK OF LONGING - By Leonard Cohen
PG 191/192 - The Great Divide
I never liked the way you loved
so devious, so dated
but still I fasted like a monk
and prayed to see you naked.
I'd see you hurting everyone
a government of suffering
I'd tell myself 'thy will be done
my will it counts for nothing'.
I drank a lot I lost my job
I lived like nothing mattered
and you, you never came across
you never even answered.
It was a blind and broken time
and kindness was forbidden
I guess I tried to hitch a ride
from acid to religion.
But every guiding light was gone
and every good direction
the book of love I read was wrong
it had a happy ending.
But when the system had been shocked
beyond all recognition
the simple things that I'd forgot
resumed their sweet position.
I thought I saw you with a child
I thought I heard you weeping
and all the garden round you wild
and safely in your keeping.
I dont recall what happened next
I kept you at a distance
but tangled in the know of sex
my punishment was lifted.
Your remedies beneath my hand
your fingers in my hair
the kisses on our lips began
that ended everywhere.
And when I gathered up to leave
you drew me to your side
to be like Adam was to Eve
before the great divide.
And fastened here we cannot move
except to one another
we spread and drown as lillies do
from nowhere to the centre.
And here I cannot lift a hand
to trace the lines of beauty
but lines are traced and love is is glad
to come and go so freely.
And here no sin can be confessed
no sinner be forgiven
it' written that the law must rest
before the law is written.
And here the silence is erased
the background all dismantled
your beauty cannot be compared
no mirror here, no shadow.
But now it comes, a grazing wind
aimless and serene
it wounds me as I part your lips
it wounds us in between.
And now the wars can start anew
the torture and the laughter
we cry aloud, as humans do
before the truth, and after.
I don't know how it's going to end
you always left that open
but oh, you are the only friend
I never thought of knowing.
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24-05-2015 05:20 AM
24-05-2015 05:20 AM
Re: THE BOOK OF LONGING - By Leonard Cohen
PG ONE - THE BOOK OF LONGING
I can't make the hills
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25-05-2015 05:29 AM
25-05-2015 05:29 AM
Re: THE BOOK OF LONGING - By Leonard Cohen
Page 56-57 - A thousand kisses deep.
1 -
You came to me this morning
and you handled me like meat
you'd have to be a man
to know how good that feels, how sweet
my mirror twin my next of kin
I'd know you in my sleep
and who but you would take me in
a thousand kisses deep.
I loved you when you opened
like a lily to the heat
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.
I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
to pose all hot and hide behind
the veils of sheer deciet
our perfect porn aristocrat
so elegant and cheap
I'm old but I'm still into that
a thousand kisses deep.
And I'm still working with the wine
still dancing cheek to cheek
the band is playing Auld Lang Syne
the heart will not retreat
I ran with Diz and Dante
I never had their sweep
but once or twice they let me play
a thousand kisses deep.
The autumn slipped across your skin
got something in my eye
a light that doesnt need to live
and doesn't need to die
a riddle in the book of love
obscure and obsolete
till witnessed here in time and blood
a thousand kisses deep.
I'm good at love I'm good at hate
it's in between I freeze
been working out but it's too late
it's been too late for years
but you look fine you really do
the pride of Boogie Street
somebody must have died for you
a thousand kisses deep.
I loved you when you opened
like a lily to the heat
I'm just another snowman
standing in the rain and sleet
but you dont need to hear me now
and every word I speak
it counts against me anyhow
a thousand kisses deep.
2.
The ponies run the girls are young
the odds are there to beat
you win a while and then it's done
your little winning streak
and summoned now to deal
with your invincible defeat
you live your life as if its real
a thousand kisses deep.
I'm turning tricks I'm getting fixed
I'm back on Boogie Street
you lose your grip and then you slip
into the masterpiece
and maybe I had miles to drive
and promises to keep
you ditch it all to stay alive
a thousand kisses deep.
Confined to sex we pressed against
the limits of the sea
i saw there were no oceans left
for scavengers like me
I made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet
and then consented to be wrecked
a thousand kisses deep.
I'm turning tricks I'm getting fixed
I'm back in Boogie Street
I guess they won't exchange the gifts
that you were meant to keep
and sometimes when the night is slow
the wretched and the meek
we gather up our hearts and go
a thousand kisses deep.
And fragrant is the thought of you
The file on you complete
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep.