THE PRO

I leave my silence to a co-operative of poetswho have already bruised their mouths against it.
I leave my homesick charm to the scavengers ofspare change who work the old artistic corners.
I leave the shadow of my manly groin to those whowrite for pay.
I leave to several jealous men a second-rate legendof my life.
To those few high school girlswho preferred my work to Dylan'sI leave my stone earand my disposable Franciscan ambitions

L.Cohen from the Nashville Notebooks of 1969

Waiting for Marianne

I have lost a telephone

with your smell in it

I am living beside the radio

all the stations at once

but I pick out a Polish lullaby

I pick it out of the static

it fades I wait I keep the beat

it comes back almost alseep

Did you take the telephone

knowing I'd sniff it immoderately

maybe heat up the plastic

to get all the crumbs of your breath

and if you won't come back

how will you phone to say

you won't come back

so that I could at least argue

L.Cohen from "Flowers for Hitler"

Millennium

This could be my little

book about love

if I wrote it--

but my good demon said:

'Lay off documents!

'Everybody was watching me

burn my books--

I swung my liberty torch

happy as a gestapo brute;

the only thing I wanted to save

was a scar

a burn or two--

but my good demon said:

'Lay off documents!

The fire's not important!

'The pile was safely blazing.

I went home to take a bath.

I phoned my grandmother.

She is suffering from arthritis.

'Keep well,' I said, 'don't mind the pain.

''You neither,' she said.

Hours later I wondered

did she mean

don't mind my pain

or don't mind her pain?

Whereupon my good demon said:

'Is that all you can do?'

Well was it?

Was it all I could do?

There was the old lady

eating alone, thinking about

Prince Albert, Flanders Field,Kishenev,

her fingers too sore for TV knobs;

but how could I get there ?

The books were gone my address lists--

My good demon said again:

'Lay off documents!

You know how to get there!

' And suddenly I did!

I remembered it from memory!

I found her pouring over the royal family tree,

'Grandma,' I almost said, 'you've got it upside down--

''Take a look,' she said,

'it only goes to George V.'

'That's far enough you sweet old blood!'

'You're right!'

she sang and burned the London Illustrated Souvenir

I did not understand the day

it was till I looked outside

and saw a fire in every window

on the street and crowds of humans

crazy to talk and cats and dogs

and birds smiling at each other!

L.Cohen from Flowers for Hitler