More Leonard Cohen

I’ve just watched Leonard Cohen singing “Hallelujah” his own self over at PJ’s, and I liked it more than I usually like his singing. (Except for “Suzanne”.) So here’s some Leonard Cohen to enjoy in silence.

Beneath My Hands ("In my hands, your small breasts ...") from "The Spice-Box of Earth"

Beneath my hands
your small breasts
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.

Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings.

I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.

When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.

I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.

When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.

---

Poem ("I heard of a man ...") from "Let Us Compare Mythologies"

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.

If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumours on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door.