I'm sure most people who listen to Leonard Cohen have had encounters with past lovers who they still care for very much and who still care for them, but alas they both know that it will never work, which to me, that's exactly what the song is about. Person A loves Person B. Person B loves Person A. They know they can't be together so they have passionate encounters, ones they will always treasure, then go back to living their lives as if nothing has happened.

Giving in to passions, enjoying an encounter with the knowledge that it will not last or amount to anything...Leonard Cohen is the King of Pathos.

This is an amazing song to dance to with that particular person...or engage in other activities with while playing in the background. Nice atmosphere and the lyrics...what can one say? Vague, but beautiful.

The song is about accepting things we can't change, and accepting a path we didn't exactly envision for ourselves. (same theme as the traitor).

"Can't return the gifts you were mean't to keep"
You can't pick and choose events, and gifts, life has a large element of choice, but accept the things you are meant to have.

"Summoned now to deal... ...invincible defeat"
Down on your luck? Its the way it goes, accept it and live through it.

"No oceans left..."
Being a scavenger is like a fantasy, but there are no oceans, that is not who he is. "Consent to be wrecked" Accept your fates you cannot control and move forward from there.

He believes there is a quiet courage in accepting the path that is laid ahead of you, as you gather up your heart and go a thousand kisses deep.

Anyone else catch the reference to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"?

And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep:

Wow, those are some great comments. I did catch the reference to Frost. I remember an interview when Leonard spoke about "The Traitor" and everytime I here this song, I think it speaks to the greater courage being accepting life as it is and not as we wanted it to be. He explains that this is the meaning in "The Traitor." It really comforts me to hear him talk about our percieved failures, being true courage. I think I will just slip into the masterpiece.

I hope the following will be helpful, its the full poem

Don't matter if the road is long
Don't matter if it's steep
Don't matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don't matter if we lose our way
It's written that we'll meet
At least, that's what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see, I'm just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
You learned it on your father's knee
And at your mother's feet
But did you have to fight your way
Across the burning street
When all our vital interests lay
A thousand kisses deep

I'm turning tricks
I'm getting fixed
I'm back on boogie street
I'd like to quit the business
But I'm in it, so to speak
The thought of you is peaceful
And the file on you complete
Except what I forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep

Don't matter if you're rich and strong
Don't matter if you're weak
Don't matter if you write a song
The nightingales repeat
Don't matter if it's nine to five
Or timeless and unique
You ditch your life to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run
The girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while, and then it's done
Your little winning streak
And summon now to deal with your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it's real
A thousand kisses deep

I hear their voices in the wine
That sometimes did me seek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
But the heart will not retreat
There's no forsaking what you love
No existential leap
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

Definitely about being heartbroken and back on "boogie street" even though you didnt want to.
Cause everyones a liar, maybe including himself..and he accepts that.

a downcast lover talking to the tattered memories of a faded former flame; crouched beneath the heroin-addiction her/his love once lifted him hopefully from, where he began on lonely street

Keep in mind how old LC is. The first stanza seems to be a commentary on the arc of a lovelife. The "you" may well be a former lover as suggested above. If so, she is past her prime. Cohen responds to this in his Zen way, "You live your life as if it's real." Remember, he wrote much of the lyrics for this album at a Zen monastary.

Boogie Street is a red light district that actually has a lot of transvestites and transsexuals on it. It's a Pacific thing. Singapore. It's actually spelled Bugis Street. Perhaps that's about leaving the zendo and being back in the world of desires and commerce. Slipping into the masterpiece is Buddhism again. Then a Robert Frost reference, but the reference is specifically about why he did not linger in the past, though the woods may have been lovely, dark and deep. (Wink wink nudge nudge say no more.)

"Confined to sex, we pressed against the limits of the sea" is an interesting idea. We know we're talking about sex. Also, we know that the uterus has a salinity level equal to the ocean. "I saw there were no oceans left for scavengers like me" suggest to me 1) that the woman is postmenopausal or 2) that there were no oceans for him but hers. "I made it to the forward deck/ I blessed our remnant fleet/ and then consented to be wrecked/ a thousand kisses deep." The fleet? His seamen. Why scavenger? A pair of ragged claws and all that. Also, he never married.

And then he's back on Bugi street again. Now that the relationship is consummated, he can forget about her. The file is complete except for one thing they forgot to do: fall in love? forgive? conceive? marry? I don't know. Still, the song ends with regret.

I like the paradoxes:
"You win a while, and then it's done
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it's real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep".

At certain level you win, but there is a level inside where there will always be insatisfaction,
where you'll never be god. Great with the paradox "invincible defeat" as with the "swallowed appetite" in Joan of Arc.
But, of, when are really in love -a thousand kisses deep- and you see nothing else, you are baptized by love, all looks 100% real, you can feel it. Or is it really real?

This is an experience for all. But to enter better you should who have nothing to lose: "The wretched and the meek". Because to be fully focused, you don't have to be focused on losing something. Full commitment is required. So you should be nothing. But how to be nothing? It has to happen to you, you cannot decide to be nothing, because it is you doing something then.

And here is the ilusion of getting there through the sensation of absolute that sex gives us. We are confined to take actions in that illusion, since we cannot do nothing to reach the absolute we desire.
"Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea;
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me".

Sea and oceans being the absolute, one is just a scavenger looking for it in sex. This defeat (this illusion) is in our nature, that's why it is invincible.

Boogie street is normal life. OK, after the little death of sex or dillusion, whatever,
lets go back to earth and common sense. It helps. But there's always that feeling of incompleteness:
"The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A Thousand Kisses Deep."

Don't forget Leonard's first stanza with his live, spoken word edition from the concert tour of '08:

You came to me this morning, and you handled me like meat
You'd have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet
My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I'd know you in my sleep
And who but you would let me in
A thousand kisses deep.

Awesome! Always got a laugh during his concerts, and inevitably a standing ovation after this moving performance.