PENGUIN BOOKS

BOOK OF LONGING

LEONARD

COHEN

Book ofLonging

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Ltd. 2006

First published in Great Britain by Viking 2006

Published in Penguin Books 2007

9

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

Copyright © Leonard Cohen, 2006

Drawings and decorations copyright © Leonard Cohen, 2006

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-0-14-190317-0

for Irving Layton

THE BOOK OF LONGING

I can’t make the hills

The system is shot

I’m living on pills

For which I thank G-d

I followed the course

From chaos to art

Desire the horse

Depression the cart

I sailed like a swan

I sank like a rock

But time is long gone

Past my laughing stock

My page was too white

My ink was too thin

The day wouldn’t write

What the night pencilled in

My animal howls

My angel’s upset

But I’m not allowed

A trace of regret

For someone will us

What I couldn’t be

My heart will be hers

Impersonally

She’ll step on the path

She’ll see what I mean

My will cut in half

And freedom between

For less than a second

Our lives will collide

The endless suspended

The door open wide

Then she will be born

To someone like you

What no one has done

She’ll continue to do

I know she is coming

I know she will look

And that is the longing

And this is the book

MY LIFE IN ROBES

After a while

You can’t tell

If it’s missing

A woman

Or needing

A cigarette

And later on

If it’s night

Or day

Then suddenly

You know

The time

You get dressed

You go home

You light up

You get married

HIS MASTER’S VOICE

After listening to Mozart

(which I often did)

I would always

Carry a piano

Up and down

Mt. Baldy

And I don’t mean

A keyboard

I mean a full-sized

Grand piano

Made of cement

Now that I am dying

I don’t regret

A single step

ROSHI AT 89

Roshi’s very tired,

he’s lying on his bed

He’s been living with the living

and dying with the dead

But now he wants another drink

(will wonders never cease?)

He’s making war on war

and he’s making war on peace

He’s sitting in the throne-room

on his great Original Face

and he’s making war on Nothing

that has Something in its place

His stomach’s very happy

The prunes are working well

There’s no one going to Heaven

and there’s no one left in Hell

– Mt. Baldy, 1996

ONE OF MY LETTERS

I corresponded with a famous rabbi

but my teacher caught sight of one of my letters

and silenced me.

“Dear Rabbi,” I wrote him for the last time,

“I do not have the authority or understanding

to speak of these matters.

I was just showing off.

Please forgive me.

Your Jewish brother,

Jikan Eliezer.”

YOU’D SING TOO

You’d sing too

if you found yourself

in a place like this

You wouldn’t worry about

whether you were as good

as Ray Charles or Edith Piaf

You’d sing

You’d sing

not for yourself

but to make a self

out of the old food

rotting in the astral bowel

and the loveless thud

of your own breathing

You’d become a singer

faster than it takes

to hate a rival’s charm

and you’d sing, darling

you’d sing too

S.O.S. 1995

Take a long time with your anger,

sleepyhead.

Don’t waste it in riots.

Don’t tangle it with ideas.

The Devil won’t let me speak,

will only let me hint

that you are a slave,

your misery a deliberate policy

of those in whose thrall you suffer,

and who are sustained

by your misfortune.

The atrocities over there,

the interior paralysis over here –

Pleased with the better deal?

You are clamped down.

You are being bred for pain.

The Devil ties my tongue.

I’m speaking to you,

‘friend of my scribbled life.’

You have been conquered by those

who know how to conquer invisibly.

The curtains move so beautifully,

lace curtains of some

sweet old intrigue:

the Devil tempting me

to turn away from alarming you.

So I must say it quickly:

Whoever is in your life,

those who harm you,

those who help you;

those whom you know

and those whom you do not know –

let them off the hook,

help them off the hook.

Recognize the hook.

You are listening to Radio Resistance.

WHEN I DRINK

When I drink

the $300 scotch

with Roshi

it quenches every thirst

A song comes to my lips

a woman lies down with me

and every desire

invites me to curl up naked

in its dripping jaws

No more, I cry, no more

but Roshi fills my glass again

and new passions consume me

new appetites

For instance

I fall into a tulip

(and never hit the bottom)

or I hurtle through the night

in sweaty sexual union

with someone about twice the size

of the Big Dipper

When I eat meat with Roshi

the four-legged animals

don’t cry any more

and the two-legged animals

don’t try to fly away

and the exhausted salmon

come home to my hand

and Roshi’s wolf

biting at its broken chain

creates a sensation

in the cabin

by making friends with everyone

When I chow down with Roshi

and the Ballantine flows

the pine trees inch into my bosom

the great boring grey boulders

of Mt. Baldy

creep into my heart

and they all get fed

with the delicious fat

and the white cheese