leonardcohenforum.com

I'm good at love, I'm good at hate, it's in between I freeze

Every time I hear Leonard recite that line I feel like my heart will break. I really don't know why but it gets me every time.

Come forth from your cloud of unknowing and kiss the cheek of the moon.

How can one chose?
What about:
The dreamers ride against the men of action
Oh see the men of action falling back
"The Traitor"

I also love the way "Hunter's Lullaby" develops as the song progresses:
Your father's gone a-hunting He's deep in the forest so wild
And he cannot take his wife with him He cannot take his child

Your father's gone a-hunting In the quicksand and the clay
And a woman cannot follow him Although she knows the way

Your father's gone a-hunting Through the silver and the glass
Where only greed can enter But spirit, spirit cannot pass

Your father's gone a-hunting For the beast we'll never cannot bind
And he leaves a baby sleeping And his blessings all behind

Your father's gone a-hunting And he's lost his lucky charm
And he's lost the guardian heart That keeps the hunter from the harm

Your father's gone a-hunting He asked me to say goodbye
And he warned me not to stop him I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try

Climb on your tears and be silent
like a rose on its ladder of thorns

My mouth on the dew of your thighs.

"You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes me kind."

It has always amazed me how Holocaust survivors can keep on living, and even, like Yaacov Laskier, start a new life and a new family. Leonard's line illuminates this for me. It is true that those who have suffered most often become not bitter, as you would expect, but generous and considerate ... an altruism that seeks to protect others from suffering similar pain.

It also reminds me of the pact that soldiers returning from the Great War made: that they would never tell their families what it was truly like in the trenches.

"And when they ask us, how dangerous it was,
Oh, we'll never tell them, no, we'll never tell them:
We spent our pay in some cafe,
And fought wild women night and day,
'Twas the cushiest job we ever had.

And when they ask us, and they're certainly going to ask us,
The reason why we didn't win the Croix de Guerre,
Oh, we'll never tell them, oh, we'll never tell them
There was a front, but damned if we knew where."

http://www.crocodilemusic.com/index.cfm ... ion=detail

way too many to choose from but this one keeps coming back to me:
"I wanted so much to have nothing to touch
I've always been greedy that way"

"The holy books are open wide/ The doctors working day and night/ But they'll never find that cure for love/ There ain't no drink nor drug (Ah, tell them angels)/ There's nothing pure enough to be a cure for love"

and optimistic me, of course, my alltime favourite:

"There's a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

Carmen

There are so many to choose from, I can't choose just one.

For starters, from You Have Loved Enough:
I swept the marble chambers,
But you sent me down below.
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves –
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.

From Sisters of Mercy:
When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into
them soon.
Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by
the moon.
And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they
sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be
all right,

Finally, I would pick these lines from the Story of Isaac:
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.

Of course, I identify with the lyrics quoted in my signature line
I love all these for very different reason, but these are especially relevent to me right now.

'I did my best, it wasn't much,
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch'

I’m liking:

“I have begun to long for you,
I who have no greed;
I have begun to ask for you,
I who have no need.
You say you’ve gone away from me,
But I can feel you when you breathe”

and:

“I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time,
Walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme.
You know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
It’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea”

as well as:

“And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss.”

.......and as you all know there are oh so many, many more!!!

have I carved enough, my Lord
child, you are a bone

The story of Isaac is very frightening.

"You must not do this anymore".

He sounds like s school teacher.

There's more than one ...

...And he leans on her neck and he wispers low
Whither thou goest I will go...

...You were the Whore and the Beast of Babylon
I was Rin Tin Tin...

...The bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide...

and these 2 little poems

How sweet time feels
when it's too late
and you don't have to follow
her swinging hips
all the way into
your dying imagination

The old are kind
the young are hot
Love may blind
Desire is not

Inne

Sorry ...

Love may be blind
desire is not