Waxing Poetic: Two Poems by Leonard Cohen

Song ("I almost went to bed ...") from "The Spice-Box of Earth"

 
I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater

and how i kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover

Waiting for Marianne from "Flowers for Hitler" 

 
I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it
I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost alseep
Did you take the telephone
knowing I'd sniff it immoderately
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath
and if you won't come back
how will you phone to say
you won't come back
so that I could at least argue