Let Us Compare Mythologies

The only book of poetry to escape the Brooklyn tornado(!) unscathed was Leonard Cohen's first book, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He wrote it when he was 22. It's frustratingly brilliant and, despite being set beneath a (newly) leaky window, the chosen book for a reader to survive a tornado with. (And what a great title for that.)

If you've got the time, I suggest reading the whole book and watching some of these tornado videos posted by New York Magazine. Streets of Brooklyn have been littered with broken trees from last week's chaotic act of God and the videos show different cityscapes getting completely engorged by the tornado. Some stoned kids screaming, some fellas in a barber shop laughing, a strangely silent guy overlooking a huge parking lot in Red Hook. It's worth a go.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming: Letter by Leonard Cohen.

Letter

How you murdered your family
means nothing to me
as your mouth moves across my body

And I know your dreams
of crumbling cities and galloping horses
of the sun coming too close
and the night never ending

but these mean nothing to me
beside your body

I know that outside a war is raging
That you issue orders
That babies are smothered and generals beheaded

But blood means nothing to me
It does not disturb your flesh

tasting blood on your tongue
does not shock me
as my arms grow into your hair

Do not think I do not understand
what happens
after the troops have been massacred
and the harlots put to the sword

And I write this only to rob you

that when one morning my head
hangs dripping with the other generals
from your house gate

that all this was anticipated
and so you will know that it meant nothing to me.