Poem of the Day / Week / Month! | LEONARD COHEN - SOS 1995

SOS 1995

Take a long time with your anger,

sleepyhead.

Don’t waste it in riots.

Don’t tangle it with ideas.

The Devil won’t let me speak,

will only let me hint

that you are a slave,

your misery a deliberate policy

of those in whose thrall you suffer,

and who are sustained

by your misfortune.

The atrocities over there,

the interior paralysis over here —

Pleased with the better deal?

You are clamped down.

You are being bred for pain.

The Devil ties my tongue.

I’m speaking to you,

“friend of my scribbled life.”

You have been conquered by those

who know how to conquer invincibly.

The curtains move so beautifully,

lace curtains of some

sweet old intrigue:

the Devil tempting me

to turn away from alarming you.

So I must say it quickly:

Whoever is in your life,

those who harm you,

those who help you;

those whom you know

and those whom you do not know —

let them off the hook,

help them off the hook.

You are listening to Radio Resistance.

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen by Ralph Gibson 1973