This is from Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing, sent to me by the lovely Katie.
My Time
By Leonard Cohen
My time is running out
and still
I have not sung
the true song
the great song
I admit
that I seem
to have lost my courage
a glance at the mirror
a glimpse into my heart
makes me want
to shut up forever
so why do you lean me here
Lord of my life
lean me at this table
in the middle of the night
wondering
how to be beautiful
This was rather indignantly suggested by a reader appalled at the dearth of Cohen in the PotD.
The flowers that I left in the ground
By Leonard Cohen
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.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light.
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