• 

“And I’ll dance with you in Vienna,
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.”

Leonard Cohen

“In Vienna I will dance with you
in a costume with
a river’s head.
See how the hyacinths line my banks!
I will leave my mouth between your legs,
my soul in photographs and lilies,
and in the dark wake of your footsteps,
my love, my love, I will have to leave
violin and grave, the waltzing ribbons”

Federico Garcia Lorca

****

The words and the music take my breath away, my soul jumps with joy. It doesn’t matter to me the obvious use of Lorca’s poem. I just want to give Lorca a little credit here. As T. S. Eliot famously said: immature poets imitate but mature poets steal.

The Cohen photo & his words to the song were posted by Ravenous Butterflies.