Parasites of Heaven

by Leonard Cohen

  Maybe he doesn’t mean a thing to me anymore but I think he was like me.

  You didn’t expect to fall in love, I said to myself and at the same time I answered gently, Do you think so?

  I heard you humming beautifully, your hum said that I can’t ignore you, that I’d finally come around for a number of delicious reasons that only you knew about, and here I am, Miss Blood.

  And you won’t come back, you won’t come back to where you left me, and that’s why you keep my number, so you don’t dial it by mistake when you’re fooling with the dial not even dialing numbers.

  You begin to bore us with your pain and we have decided to change your pain.

  You said you were happiest when you danced, you said you were happiest when you danced with me, now which do you mean?

  And so we changed his pain, we threw the idea of a body at him and we told him a joke, and then he thought a great deal about laughing and about the code.

  And he thought that she thought that he thought that she thought that the worst thing a woman could do was to take a man away from his work because that made her what, ugly or beautiful?

  And now you have entered the mathematical section of your soul which you claimed you never had. I suppose that this, plus the broken heart, makes you believe that now you have a perfect right to go out and tame the sadists.

  He had the last line of each verse of the song but he didn’t have any of the other lines, the last line was always the same, Don’t call yourself a secret unless you mean to keep it.

  He thought he knew, or he actually did know too much about singing to be a singer; and if there actually is such a condition, is anybody in it, and are sadists born there?

  It is not a question mark, it is not an exclamation point, it is a full stop by the man who wrote Parasites of Heaven.

  Even if we stated our case very clearly and all those who held as we do came to our side, all of them, we would still be very few.

  1966

  I am a priest of G-d

  I walk down the road

  with my pockets in my hand

  Sometimes I’m bad

  then sometimes I’m very good

  I believe that I believe

  everything I should

  I like to hear you say

  when you dance with head rolling

  upon a silver tray

  that I am a priest of G-d

  I thought I was doing 100 other things

  but I was a priest of G-d

  I loved 100 women

  never told the same lie twice

  I said O Christ you’re selfish

  but I shared my bread and rice

  I heard my voice tell the crowd

  that I was alone and a priest of G-d

  making me so empty

  that even now in 1966

  I’m not sure I’m a priest of G-d

  In almond trees lemon trees

  wind and sun do as they please

  Butterflies and laundry flutter

  My love her hair is blonde as butter

  Wasps with yellow whiskers wait

  for food beside her china plate

  Ants beside her little feet

  are there to share what she will eat

  Who chopped down the bells that say

  the world is born again today

  We will feed you all my dears

  this morning or in later years

  Suzanne takes you down

  to her place near the river,

  you can hear the boats go by

  you can stay the night beside her.

  And you know that she’s half crazy

  but that’s why you want to be there

  and she feeds you tea and oranges

  that come all the way from China.

  Just when you mean to tell her

  that you have no gifts to give her,

  she gets you on her wave-length

  and she lets the river answer

  that you’ve always been her lover.

  And you want to travel with her,

  you want to travel blind

  and you know that she can trust you

  because you’ve touched her perfect body

  with your mind

  Jesus was a sailor

  when he walked upon the water

  and he spent a long time watching

  from a lonely wooden tower

  and when he knew for certain

  only drowning men could see him

  he said All men will be sailors then

  until the sea shall free them,

  but he himself was broken

  long before the sky would open,

  forsaken, almost human,

  he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

  And you want to travel with him,

  you want to travel blind

  and you think maybe you’ll trust him

  because he touched your perfect body

  with his mind.

  Suzanne takes your hand

  and she leads you to the river,

  she is wearing rags and feathers

  from Salvation Army counters.

  The sun pours down like honey

  on our lady of the harbour

  as she shows you where to look

  among the garbage and the flowers,

  there are heroes in the seaweed

  there are children in the morning,

  they are leaning out for love

  they will lean that way forever

  while Suzanne she holds the mirror.

  And you want to travel with her

  and you want to travel blind

  and you’re sure that she can find you

  because she’s touched her perfect body

  with her mind.

  Give me back my fingerprints

  My fingertips are raw

  If I don’t get my fingerprints

  I have to call the Law

  I touched you once too often

  & I don’t know who I am

  My fingerprints were missing

  When I wiped away the jam

  I called my fingerprints all night

  But they don’t seem to care

  The last time that I saw them

  They were leafing thru your hair

  I thought I’d leave this morning

  So I emptied out your drawer

  A hundred thousand fingerprints

  Floated to the floor

  You hardly stooped to pick them up

  You don’t count what you lose

  You don’t even seem to know

  Whose fingerprints are whose

  When I had to say goodbye

  You weren’t there to find

  You took my fingerprints away

  So I would love your mind

  I don’t pretend to understand

  Just what you mean by that

  But nextime I’ll inquire

  Before I scratch your back

  I wonder if my fingerprints

  Get lonely in the crowd

  There are no others like them

  & that should make them proud

  Now you want to marry me

  & take me down the aisle

  & throw confetti fingerprints

  You know that’s not my style

  Sure I’d like to marry

  But I won’t face the dawn

  With any girl who knew me

  When my fingerprints were on

  1966

  Foreign G-d, reigning in earthly glory between the G-dless G-d and this greedy telescope of mine: touch my hidden jelly muscle, ring me with some power, I must conquer Babylon and New York. Draw me with a valuable sign, raise me to your height. You and I, dear Foreign G-d, we both are demons who must disappear in the perpetual crawling light, the fumbling sparks printing the shape of each tired form. We must be lost soon in the elementary kodak experiment, in the paltry glory beyond our glory, the chalksqueak of our most limitless delight. We are
devoted yokels of the mothy parachute, the salvation of ordeal, we paid good money for the perfect holy scab, the pilgrim kneecap, the shoulder freakish under burden, the triumphant snowman who does not freeze. Down with your angels, Foreign G-d, down with us, adepts of magic: into the muddy fire of our furthest passionate park, let us consign ourselves now, puddles, peep-holes, dreary oceanic pomp seen through the right end of the telescope, the minor burn, the kingsize cigarette, the alibi atomic holocaust, let us consign ourselves to the unmeasured exile outside the rules of lawlessness. O G-d, in thy foreign or godless form, in thy form of illusion or with the ringscape of your lethal thumb, you stop direction, you crush this down, you abandon the evidence you pressed on its tongue.

  1965

  This morning I was dressed by the wind.

  The sky said, close your eyes and run

  this happy face into a sundrift.

  The forest said, never mind, I am as old

  as an emerald, walk into me gossiping.

  The village said, I am perfect and intricate,

  would you like to start right away?

  My darling said, I am washing my hair in the water

  we caught last year, it tastes of stone.

  This morning I was dressed by the wind,

  it was the middle of September in 1965.

  I believe you heard your master sing

  while I lay sick in bed

  I believe he told you everything

  I keep locked in my head

  Your master took you travelling

  at least that’s what you said

  O love did you come back to bring

  your prisoner wine and bread

  You met him at a nightclub where

  they take your clothes at the door

  He was just a numberless man of a pair

  who has just come back from the war

  You wrap his quiet face in your hair

  and he hands you the apple core

  and he touches your mouth now so suddenly bare

  of the kisses you had on before

  He gave you a German Shepherd to walk

  with a collar of leather and nails

  He never once made you explain or talk

  about all of the little details

  such as who had a worm and who had a rock

  and who had you through the mails

  Your love is a secret all over the block

  and it never stops when he fails

  He took you on his air-o-plane

  which he flew without any hands

  and you cruised above the ribbons of rain

  that drove the crowd from the stands

  Then he killed the lights on a lonely lane

  where an ape with angel glands

  erased the final wisps of pain

  with the music of rubber bands

  And now I hear your master sing

  You pray for him to come

  His body is a golden string

  that your body is hanging from

  His body is a golden string

  My body is growing numb

  O love I hear your master sing

  Your shirt is all undone

  Will you kneel beside the bed

  we polished long ago

  before your master chose instead

  to make my bed of snow

  Your hair is wild your knuckles red

  and you’re speaking much too low

  I can’t make out what your master said

  before he made you go

  I think you’re playing far too rough

  For a lady who’s been to the moon

  I’ve lain by the window long enough

  (you get used to an empty room)

  Your love is some dust in an old man’s cuff

  who is tapping his foot to a tune

  and your thighs are a ruin and you want too much

  Let’s say you came back too soon

  I loved your master perfectly

  I taught him all he knew

  He was starving in a mystery

  like a man who is sure what is true

  I sent you to him with my guarantee

  I could teach him something new

  I taught him how you would long for me

  No matter what he said no matter what you do

  I stepped into an avalanche

  It covered up my soul

  When I am not a hunchback

  I sleep beneath a hill

  You who wish to conquer pain

  Must learn to serve me well

  You strike my side by accident

  As you go down for gold

  The cripple that you clothe and feed

  is neither starved nor cold

  I do not beg for company

  in the centre of the world

  When I am on a pedestal

  you did not raise me there

  your laws do not compel me

  to kneel grotesque and bare

  I myself am pedestal

  for the thing at which you stare

  You who wish to conquer pain

  must learn what makes me kind

  The crumbs of love you offer me

  are the crumbs I’ve left behind

  Your pain is no credential

  It is the shadow of my wound

  I have begun to claim you

  I who have no greed

  I have begun to long for you

  I who have no need

  The avalanche you’re knocking at

  is uninhabited

  Do not dress in rags for me

  I know you are not poor

  Don’t love me so fiercely

  when you know you are not sure

  It is your world beloved

  It is your flesh I wear

  By Leonard Cohen

  Book of Mercy (1984)

  Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (1993)

  Book of Longing (2006)

  The Flame: Poems and Selections from Notebooks (2018)

  Leonard Cohen’s artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He published two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, and ten books of poetry, including Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs and Book of Longing. During a recording career that spanned almost fifty years, he released fourteen studio albums, the last of which, You Want It Darker, was released in 2016. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature and the Glenn Gould Prize in 2011. He died on November 7, 2016.