This Beautiful Loser







Now, much of the time when I bring up L. Cohen, even to English majors, they don't know him. This is because he is more well known as a musician than as a poet. I had known L. Cohen as a poet for many years before I ever heard his voice (a fact I am still somewhat, strangely, proud of).

Had my youngest child been a boy, I still insist that her name would have been Cohen.


A Kite is a Victim

A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gently enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a trained falcon
in the high sweet air,
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A kite is a fish you have already caught
in a pool where no fish come,
so you play him carefully and long,
and hope he won't give up,
or the wind die down.

A kite is the last poem you've written,
so you give it to the wind,
but you don't let it go
until someone finds you
something else to do.

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so you make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then you pray the whole cold night before,
under the travelling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

~Leonard Cohen