More and more

Yet again I am reminded of the power of words...

****

when i am on this pedestal
you did not raise me there
your laws do not compel me
to kneel grotesque and bare
i myself am the pedestal
for this hump at which you stare

you who wish to conquer pain
you must learn what makes me kind
the crumbs of love that you offer me
are the crumbs i've left behind

...

and don't love me quite so fiercely
when you know you are not sure
it is your world beloved
it is your flesh that i wear


****

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

****

lost in the fields of your hair i was never lost
enough to lose a way i had to take

****

i had it for a moment
i knew why i must thank you
...
i saw men who loved their worldliness
even though they had looked through
big electric telescopes
they still thought their worldliness was serious
...
i'll study you later
so many people want to cry quietly beside you

****
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
until the way back
after it is clear
the remote and painful destination
changed nothing in your life

****

i didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
i didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
i tried to sleep
but when i couldn't sleep
i learned to write
i learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

****

she said, your eyes are dead
what happened to you, lover
and since she spoke the truth to me
i tried to answer truly
whatever happened to my eyes
happened to your beauty

****

you thought
i was a man of roads
and you loved me for being such a man
i was not such a man

****

you will never feel me leading you
forever i escape your homage
i have no ideas to shackle you
i have nothing in mind for you
i have no prayers to put you in
i live for you
without the memory of what you deserve
or what you do not deserve

****
i watch myself from where you are:
do not be mistaken:
the spider web you see me through
is the view i've always taken

****

come with me
i want to talk
i've taken a drug that makes me want to talk

****

because you will not overthrow your life. you cannot breathe. because of the panic of homelessness. you cannot breathe.
you cannot breathe because your sorrow will not return to its birthplace.

****

Selected words of Leonard Cohen