Song for Leonard Cohen’s Birthday Benedict Brooke

Yesterday was Leonard Cohen’s birthday

and I can hear the music as the hours go by

I sometimes ask myself for a reason

then I realise I need only the present hour

Don’t call me stupid but it’s hard to touch

that swollen inner place that asks for so much

and now I check the hour

late again, I’m awake

to the vapid sound of night

and pallid fingers of time, winding about my face

I wanted to ask you, Mr Cohen

what was it all about?

until I realised that the silence

fills the spaces that always frighten us…