Atlas has posted a terrific video of Leonard Cohen, the Psalmist of Searching, singing “Hallelujah” in 1984, along with excerpts from Jay Michaelson’s review in last Friday’s Forward of Cohen’s book of poems – “The Book of Longing” – which is coming out in paperback on June 1, 2007.
Here is the title poem from the book:
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 penciled in
My animal howls
My angel’s upset
But I’m not allowed
A trace of regret
For someone will use
What I couldn’t be
My heart will be hers
Impersonally
She’ll step on the part
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
The spelling of “G-d” in the first stanza of the poem is Cohen’s.