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Oris is an international bilingual (Croatian-English) magazine for achitecture and culture, published in Zagreb, Croatia. Poems were printed in issue 34, Fall 2005. http://www.oris.hr


I WROTE FOR LOVE

I wrote for love.
Then I wrote for money.
With someone like me
it's the same thing.
(1975)

Puppets

German puppets
burnt the Jews
Please forgive
My puppet views

Puppet vultures
eat the dead
Puppet corpses
they are fed

Puppet winds
and puppet waves
Puppet sailors
in their graves

Puppet flower
Puppet stem
Puppet Time
dismantles them

Puppet me
and puppet you
Puppet German
Puppet Jew

Puppet presidents
command
puppet troops
to burn the land

Puppet fire
puppet flames
feed on all
the puppet names

Puppet lovers
in their bliss
turn away
from all of this

Puppet reader
shakes his head
takes his puppet wife
to bed

Puppet night
comes down to say
the epilogue
to puppet day
(2000)

GRAVITY

I never tried to see your face,
Nor did I want to know
The details of some lower place
Where I would have to go.

But love is strong as gravity,
And everyone must fall.
At first it's from the apple tree,
And then the western wall.

At first it's from the apple tree,
And then the western wall.
And then from you and then from me
And then from one and all

ON THE PATH
FOR C.C.

On the path of loneliness
I came to the place of song
and tarried there
for half my life
Now I leave my guitar
and my keyboards
my friends and s-x companions
and I stumble out again
on the path of loneliness
I am old but I have no regrets
not one
even though I am angry and alone
and filled with fear and desire
Bend down to me
from your mist and vines
O high one, long-fingered
and deep-seeing
Bend down to this sack of poison
and rotting teeth
and press your lips
to the light of my heart
(1987)

WHY I LOVE FRANCE

O France, you gave your language to my children, your lovers and your mushrooms to my wife. You sang my songs. You delivered my uncle and my auntie to the Nazis. I met the leather chests of the police in Place de la Bastille. I took money from the Communists. I gave my middle age to the milky towns of Luberon. I ran from farm dogs on a road outside of Roussillon. My hand trembles in the land of France. I came to you with a soiled philosophy of holiness, and you bade me sit down for an interview. O France, where I was taken so seriously, I had to reconsider my position. O France, every little Messiah thanks you for his loneliness. I want be somewhere else, but I am always in France. Be strong, be nuclear, my France. Flirt with every side, and talk, talk, never stop talking about how to live without G-d.
(Paris 1985)

TY for these poems. I don't have time to try and come to a full understanding of them now but will return later to enjoy them more. "On The Path" seems to illustrate why I think that Mr Cohen was at least at one time very confused about his own feelings and worth. And I still wonder about this. How can a person refer to themselves as a "sack of poison" and other such and not have a regret? I believe he was and may still be in denial about his own view of his life, his work, etc. (Many of us are in this condition.) He says essentially the same thing in fewer but more vituperative words in "I Wrote For Love" and is very confused about his regard for France in the last one.

I think the dates under poems are important. "On The Path" is in contradiction with his recent poems and statements, I also think so, but it's signed 1987 - what was Leonard's period of deep depression, just after I'm Your Man album, nevertheless its huge success, but as proof, this period brought us songs like Democracy and The Future. It obviously was a period of confusion.

Thank you so much for bringing these here, Tom. Very interesting.