he says he wants to kill us
he says he wants to kill us
he says it very often
just let him know you love him
his attitude will soften
let’s wait a little while
let’s wait a little longer
the enemy is gaining strength
let’s wait until he’s stronger
By Leonard Cohen; collected in The Flame, published posthumously in 2018. Cohen died in 2016, so this could be about what it feels like it’s about, but I’m not sure whether it is. Or, well, it is now.
As a person who can’t write a first draft of a short story under 10,000 words or a novel under 120,000, it’s humbling to see how every feature of this poem works to create the effect. The timidity of the all-lower-case, the self-soothing singsonginess of the meter, the erosion of hope with each successive “let’s wait.” And maybe the most important part, which I only noticed when I was transcribing it:
The third line could easily have been “tell him that you love him.” It scans, maybe you even remember it that way. “Tell him” implies a necessary deception. But the line isn’t “tell him,” it’s “let him know.”
Knowledge, to a first approximation, is justified true belief.
The Flame is pretty uneven, maybe by necessity for a collection completed without the author. This is the high-water mark, or close to it. But there are at least a couple more that are this good.
Currently listening: She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan, read by Natalie Naudus.
