Book of Longing Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  BOOK OF LONGING

  LEONARD

  COHEN

  Book of

  Longing

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  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 m
ove 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 popcorn

  or whatever it is

  they’ve wanted all these years

  BETTER

  better than darkness

  is fake darkness

  which swindles you

  into necking with

  someone’s antique

  cousin

  better than banks

  are false banks

  where you change

  all your rough money

  into legal tender

  better than coffee

  is blue coffee

  which you drink

  in your last bath

  or sometimes waiting

  for your shoes

  to be dismantled

  better than poetry

  is my poetry

  which refers

  to everything

  that is beautiful and

  dignified, but is

  neither of these itself

  better than wild

  is secretly wild

  as when I am in

  the darkness of

  a parking space

  with a new snake

  better than art

  is repulsive art

  which demonstrates

  better than scripture

  the tiny measure

  of your improvement

  better than darkness

  is darkless

  which is inkier, vaster

  more profound

  and eerily refrigerated

  filled with caves

  and blinding tunnels

  in which appear

  beckoning dead relatives

  and other religious

  paraphernalia

  better than love

  is wuve

  which is more refined

  superbly erotic

  tiny serene people

  with huge genitalia

  but lighter than thought

  comfortably installed

  on an eyelash of mist

  and living grimly

  ever after

  cooking, gardening

  and raising kids

  better than my mother

  is your mother

  who is still alive

  while mine

  is not alive

  but what am I saying!

  forgive me mother

  better than me

  are you

  kinder than me

  are you

  sweeter smarter faster

  you you you

  prettier than me

  stronger than me

  lonelier than me

  I want to get

  to know you

  better and better

  – Mt. Baldy, 1996

  THE LOVESICK MONK

  I shaved my head

  I put on robes

  I sleep in the corner of a cabin

  sixty-five hundred feet up a mountain

  It’s dismal here

  The only thing I don’t need

  is a comb

  – Mt. Baldy, 1997

  TO A YOUNG NUN

  This undemanding love

  that our staggered births

  have purchased for us –

  You in your generation,

  I in mine.

  I am not the one

  you are looking for.

  You are not the one

  I’ve stopped looking for.

  How sweetly time

  disposes of us

  as we go arm in arm

  over the Bridge of Details:

  Your turn to chop.

  My turn to cook.

  Your turn to die for love.

  My turn to resurrect.

  OTHER WRITERS

  Steve Sanfield is a great haiku master.

  He lives in the country with Sarah,

  his beautiful wife,

  and he writes about the small things

  which stand for all things.

  Kyozan Joshu Roshi,

  who has brought hundreds of monks

  to a full awakening,

  addresses the simultaneous

  expansion and contraction

  of the cosmos.

  I go on and on

  about a noble young woman

  who unfastened her jeans

  in the front seat of my jeep

  and let me touch

  the source of life

  because I was so far from it.

  I’ve got to tell you, friends,

  I prefer my stuff to theirs.

  ROSHI

  I never really understood

  what he said

  but every now and then

  I find myself

  barking with the dog

  or bending with the irises

  or helping out

  in other little ways

  MEDICINE

  My medicine

  Has many contrasting flavours.

  Engrossed in, or perplexed by

  The differences between them,

  The patient forgets to suffer.

  TRUE SELF

  True Self, True Self

  has no will –

  It’s free from “Kill”

  or “Do not kill”

  but while I am

  a novice still

  I do embrace

  with all my will

  the First Commitment

  “Do not kill”

  THE COLLAPSE OF ZEN

  When I can wedge my face

  into the place

  and struggle with my breathing

  as she brings her eager fingers down

  to separate herself,

  to help me use my whole mouth

  against her hungriness,

  her most private of hungers –

  why should I want to be enlightened?

  Is there something that I missed?
<
br />   Have I forgotten yesterday’s mosquito

  or tomorrow’s hungry ghost?

  When I can roam this hill with a knife in my back

  caused by too much drinking of Chateau Latour

  and spill my heart into the valley

  of the lights of Caguas

  and freeze in fear as the watchdog

  comes drooling out of the bushes

  and refuses to recognize me

  and there we are, yes, bewildered

  as to who should kill the other first –

  and I move and it moves,

  and it moves and I move,

  why should I want to be enlightened?

  Did I leave something out?

  Was there some world I failed to embrace?

  Some bone I didn’t steal?

  When Jesus loves me so much that blood

  comes out of his heart

  and I climb a metal ladder

  into the hole in his bosom

  which is caused by sorrow as big as China

  and I enter the innermost room wearing white clothes

  and I entreat and I plead:

  “Not this one, Sir. Not that one, Sir. I beg you, Sir.”

  and I look through His eyes

  as the helpless are shit on again

  and the tender blooming nipple of mankind

  is caught in the pincers

  of power and muscle and money –

  why should I seek enlightenment?

  Did I fail to recognize some cockroach?

  Some vermin in the ooze of my majesty?

  When ‘men are stupid and women are crazy’

  and everyone is asleep in San Juan and Caguas

  and everyone is in love but me

  and everyone has a religion and a boyfriend

  and a great genius for loneliness –

  When I can dribble over all the universes

  and undress a woman without touching her

  and run errands for my urine

  and offer my huge silver shoulders

  to the pinhead moon –

  When my heart is broken as usual