Pronunciar la oscuridad es posible. Deletrear uno a uno los signos de la noche es una tarea realizable por gargantas humanas. Aunque parezca inverosímil, podemos alcanzar los abismos de la Tierra mediante la lengua mortal. Cada que el nombre de Leonard Cohen se apropia del sonido y la bruma, ya sea por un recuerdo fugaz de su presencia en el mundo o el poder de su obra magistral, profundidades no sólo de la música sino de los senderos retóricos se hacen notar en un paisaje urgente de belleza sofisticada. De monstruosidad seductora.
Leonard Cohen, una de las personalidades más extravagantes del arte terrenal, ha surcado los mares de la disciplina para impregnar el aire de perfumes reflexivos, filosóficos, literarios y armoniosos como nunca nadie. Si bien él pertenece a un oleaje creativo cuyo origen se sitúa en una ya remota década de los 70, su trabajo se percibe inmortal a cada sílaba emitida e instrumento acariciado. Entre las múltiples facetas de este genio sin precedentes, no debemos olvidar que sus inicios se marcaron en el espacio de la poesía y evolucionaron hacia las alturas de la musicalidad. No debemos despreciar su labor sólo por pensarlo un hombre del entretenimiento.
Entonces, retomando entre nuestros brazos el genio de sus letras y la rica melancolía que juguetea con su producción, podemos advertir que la obra literaria de Cohen es, a la par de Dylan y la gracia que de él también emana, un trabajo que escapa de cualquier individualidad estética para seducir al planeta entero por flancos indistintos. La voluptuosidad escrita convertida en pasión noctámbula.
Partiendo de una de sus piezas más importantes, “A Thousand Kisses Deep”, podemos dar principio a este recorrido poético en la lentitud de las noches, tomando forma de miserables o mansos seres opacos que, al recoger sus corazones, nos dirigimos hacia un destino que se encuentra a mil besos de profundidad. Comencemos la siguiente colección de poemas besando con tal intensidad y aprendiendo a perforar los labios ajenos.
–
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 summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses deep
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed
I’m back on boogie street
You lose your grip and then you slip
Into the masterpiece
And maybe I had miles to drive
And promises to keep
You ditch it all to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep
And sometimes when the night is slow
The wretched and the meek
We gather up our hearts and go
A thousand kisses deep
Confined to sex we pressed against
The limits of the sea
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me
I made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep
I’m turning tricks I’m getting fixed
I’m back on boogie street
I guess they won’t exchange the gifts
That you were meant to keep
And quiet is the thought of you
The file on you complete
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep
And sometimes when the night is slow
The wretched and the meek
We gather up our hearts and go
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 summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses Deep
–
The Genius
For you
I will be a ghetto jew
and dance
and put white stockings
on my twisted limbs
and poison wells
across the town
For you
I will be an apostate jew
and tell the Spanish priest
of the blood vow
in the Talmud
and where the bones
of the child are hid
For you
I will be a banker jew
and bring to ruin
a proud old hunting king
and end his line
For you
I will be a Broadway jew
and cry in theatres
for my mother
and sell bargain goods
beneath the counter
For you
I will be a doctor jew
and search
in all the garbage cans for foreskins
to sew back again
For you
I will be a Dachau jew
and lie down in lime
with twisted limbs
and bloated pain
no mind can understand
–
Beneath My Hands (“In my hands, your small breasts …”)
Beneath my hands
your small breasts
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.
Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings.
I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.
I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.
–
Poem 17
I perceived the outline of your breasts
through your Hallowe’en costume
I knew you were falling in love with me
because no other man could perceive
the advance of your bosom into his imagination
It was a rupture of your unusual modesty
for me and me alone
through which you impressed upon my shapeless hunger
the incomparable and final outline of your breasts
like two deep fossil shells
which remained all night long and probably forever
Waiting for Marianne
I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it
I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost alseep
Did you take the telephone
knowing I’d sniff it immoderately
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath
and if you won’t come back
how will you phone to say
you won’t come back
so that I could at least argue
–
You Want It Darker
If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord
There’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
They’re lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game
If you are the healer, I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker.
–
Desde la oscuridad de donde parece provenir su voz, Leonard Cohen es un artista que no ha titubeado para demostrar la emotividad en cada detalle del universo. Cogiendo al amor, la religión y el vínculo espiritual como ejes de su discurso, partiendo de un lenguaje complejo y metafórico, el poeta legendario es una provocación erótica que llega al oído para, después, escurrir hasta donde sea posible y entrar por el primer orificio que le sea posible. Todo con el fin de llegar directamente al torrente sanguíneo y profanar con perniciosa divinidad nuestros negros corazones. Siguiendo esta línea, puedes leer Poesía budista para recibir a la muerte y entender por qué Los corazones rotos de los mexicanos sólo se curan con la poesía.
