Leonard Cohen - Stories Of The Street

The stories of the street are mine,
the Spanish voices laugh.
The Cadillacs go creeping now through
the night and the poison gas,
and I lean from my window
sill in this old hotel I chose,
yes one hand on my suicide,
one hand on the rose.

I know you've heard it's over now
and war must surely come,
the cities they are broke in half
and the middle men are gone.
But let me ask you one more time,
O children of the dusk,
All these hunters who are shrieking
now oh do they speak for us?

And where do all these highways go,
now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still
that were coming home to me?
O lady with your legs so fine
O stranger at your wheel,
You are locked into your suffering
and your pleasures are the seal.

The age of lust is giving birth,
and both the parents ask
the nurse to tell them fairy tales
on both sides of the glass.
And now the infant with his cord
is hauled in like a kite,
and one eye filled with blueprints,
one eye filled with night.

O come with me my little one,
we will find that farm
and grow us grass and apples there
and keep all the animals warm.
And if by chance I wake at night
and I ask you who I am,
O take me to the slaughterhouse,
I will wait there with the lamb.

With one hand on the hexagram
and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well
that all men call the world.
We are so small between the stars,
so large against the sky,
and lost among the subway crowds
I try to catch your eye.