Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Poems

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
...

If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
...

With Annie gone,
whose eyes to compare
with the morning sun?
...

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
...

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
...

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
...

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
...

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
...

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
...

Baby, I've been waiting,
I've been waiting night and day.
I didn't see the time,
...

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
...

12.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
...

(After Lorca)

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
...

Lost my voice in New York City
never heard it again after sixty-seven
Now I talk like you
...

The Best Poem Of Leonard Cohen

Dance Me To The End Of Love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Leonard Cohen Comments

Mike Valentine 05 June 2012

I am almost the same age as the great Mr. Cohen and have followed his work for many years. To my mind he is one of the greatest poets/lyricists of the last 100 years. Thank you Leonard. An inspiration!

39 2 Reply
Lydia Glider-Shelley 13 March 2007

I don't know how I made it into my 40's before discovering Leonard Cohen's awe-inspiring work. When I watched 'I'm Your Man, ' at first I thought he'd died, and this was a tribute to him: the artists all brought such obvious emotion to their performances. But the further I got through this movie, the more I understood why these people were so intensely gripped by the songs they were sharing... because I felt it too. I feel as though his music has opened up a tightly capped wellspring within me, and the tears pour forth as I write this. I will never be the same again after experiencing his lyrical passion - and I pray for his continued health and well-being, that he may continue to grace us with these priceless soul-feeding jewels. Mr. Cohen: if you ever read this, thank you.

23 4 Reply
Swaroopa Rani 11 July 2009

Good Evening, How are you? Longback, we were in contact of messaging by our poetry, I received some messages and comments from you on my poetry. Shall I include your name and E-mail in my friend's list, for invitation of my poetry. I hope you will send your E-mail. Thank You, Dr.M.Swaroopa Rani M.A., Ph.D.

8 4 Reply
Denis Shiels 07 January 2015

You got me singing even though the news is bad You got me singing the only song I ever had You got me singing even though it all looks grim You got me singing the halalujah hymn

9 2 Reply
Martin Combs 10 November 2021

Grateful for the life of this man

0 0 Reply
fiorella 12 March 2019

I love this man and her voice.

0 0 Reply
Mahtab Bangalee 18 February 2019

Leonard Norman Cohen NAME of TRUE RHYTHM of LIFE. HE touched every single important parts of life. the TRUE MUSIC from his writings and poem came as the immortal veins of life.

4 0 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 28 November 2015

Leonard Norman Cohen - a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, painter, poet, and novelist - was born on 21 September 1934 in Westmount, Quebec, an English-speaking area of Montreal, into a middle-class Jewish family. His mother, Marsha (Masha) Klonitsky, was the daughter of a Talmudic writer, Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. His paternal grandfather, whose family had emigrated from Poland, was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial clothing store, died when Cohen was 9 years old. On the topic of ''being a Kohen'', Cohen has said that ''I had a very Messianic childhood''. He told Richard Goldstein in 1967, ''I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest''.

68 0 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 28 November 2015

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, painter, poet, and novelist. His work has explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2011, Cohen received a Princess of Asturias Awards for literature. The critic Bruce Eder assessed Cohen's overall career in popular music by asserting that [he is] one of the most fascinating and enigmatic … singer/songwriters of the late '60s … [and] has retained an audience across four decades of music-making.... Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon) [in terms of influence], he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who is still working at the outset of the 21st century. His second novel, Beautiful Losers (1966) , received attention from the Canadian press and was considered controversial because of a number of sexually graphic passages. The Academy of American Poets has commented more broadly on Cohen's overall career in the arts, including his work as a poet, novelist, and songwriter, stating that Cohen's successful blending of poetry, fiction, and music is made most clear in 'Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs', published in 1993, which gathered more than 200 of Cohen's poems … several novel excerpts, and almost 60 song lyrics... While it may seem to some that Leonard Cohen departed from the literary in pursuit of the musical, his fans continue to embrace him as a Renaissance man who straddles the elusive artistic borderlines. [from Wikipedia]

73 0 Reply

Leonard Cohen Quotes

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape.

I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jackie Kennedy. She is, to my mind, a very gallant lady, victimized by whoever it is who designs the tops of her uniforms.

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation—none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy.

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep confession. And still we hear, If only this nation had a soul, or, Let us change the way we trade, or, Let us be proud of our region.

To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself.

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.

It is painful to recall a past intensity, to estimate your distance from the Belsen heap, to make your peace with numbers. Just to get up each morning is to make a kind of peace.

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.

Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else.

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love.

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.

Leonard Cohen Popularity

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