The Flame by Leonard Cohen

I DIDN’T KNOW

I knew that I was weak I knew that you were strong I did not dare to kneel Where I did not belong And if I meant to touch Your beauty with my hand Then come the boils and blood Which I would understand You tore your knees apart The loneliness revealed That drew this unborn heart From chains that would not yield But weakened by your exercise You fell against my soul The stricken soul the mind denies Until you make it whole So I can love your beauty now Though seeming from afar Until my neutral world allow How intimate you are

Sometimes it gets so lonely I don’t know what to do I’d trade my stash of boredom For a little hit of you I didn’t know I didn’t know I didn’t know How much you needed me

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7/18/18 3:17 PM

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The Flame by Leonard Cohen

Published on Dec 19, 2018

Canongate

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THESE POEMS AND NOTEBOOKS ARE THE LAST WORD FROM THE LATE, GREAT LEONARD COHEN The Flame is a stunning collection of Leonard Cohen’s last poems and writings, selected and ordered by Cohen in the final months of his life. The book contains an extensive selection from Cohen’s notebooks, featuring lyrics, prose pieces and illustrations, which he kept in poetic form throughout his life, and offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist and thinker. An enormously powerful final chapter in Cohen’s storied literary career, The Flame showcases the full range of Leonard Cohen’s lyricism, from the exquisitely transcendent to the darkly funny. By turns devastatingly sad and winningly strange, these are the works of a poet and lyricist who has plumbed the depths of our darkest questions and come up wanting, yearning for more.

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