Leonard Cohen — A Poem to Detain Me

I bound to my temples a box of flesh filled with holy letters & captured poems -- & I am probably wrong. With thongs of time bind to your body the heart of a man. I'm heading for another border, my scrapbooks stuffed with murder & a crazy rumour of glory whispering through the wires of my spine. Lucky Cain wandered for one crime & received on his forehead a sign which proved in every mirror who was the slayer and who was the slain. Blood still is vocal, the ground is still a home, but now the voice accuses so many names I do not know which name is mine. O you will be listening for music while I turn on a spit of song; you will increase your love while I experiment with pain; while others amputate their limbs you will master a ballet-step away from voluntary gangrene. Believe nothing of me except that I felt your beauty more closely than my own. I did not see any cities burn, I heard no promises of endless night, I felt your beauty more closely than my own. Promise me that I will return.