The Spice-Box of Earth

Oof. Cohen's best? Maybe? I still think of the earth in terms of its secret places, and those crannies in terms of clove and must and the hairs on the upper lip of the girl who is scared that she is not pretty. It's not as dark, not as full of trauma as Flowers for Hitler, and that alone makes me want to love it the most, although there is still this:


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 show more 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


Brrrr. But there is also this, of all poems the most key in my early sexual (as opposed to romantic, fuck you very much John Donne) development:


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.


Right? Those eyelashes, so shivery fragile. Those breasts, so impossibly warm against my cold hands. The memory of being fourteen, and the way that sex makes you fourteen again and again always and forever. And for those of us who fell for gypsy-thief Leonard a long time ago and never ever looked back, there's the most Coheny poem of all time, more than "Bird on a Wire", more than "MARITA", this affirmation:


I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.


If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door. show less

Yet another great collection of Leonard Cohen's poetry. Perhaps that's an unnecessary observation, for has he ever released a bad one? I've read quite a lot of them and never been disappointed. Some are, of course, better than others and The Spice-Box of Earth is one of the best of the stand-alone collections. Going for a compilation like Stranger Music is highly recommended, but you won't go wrong here either. A few of the poems are a bit more religious than I like, and I didn't care for the final piece, 'Lines from My Grandfather's Journal', but the book also contains some of my favourite poems so it balances out.

The basis of Cohen's reputation, and a good foundation it is! Clever and sensual poetry well drawn from his Montreal experience. Read it, and, sometimes weep.

*cough* There was a time when I enjoyed Leonard Cohen's first book of poetry but I'm unable to say why that would've been now. Overly saturated in portentous images I had a difficult time making it through the collection. I kept waiting for a poem to arrive around the bend but I only encountered bleating lyrics interspersed with some formal rhyme schemes.

Perhaps the best collection of poetry produced by Canada's well known singer/poet and novelist. Truly inspirational. A lyrical delight shot through with diadems of mythological light, sexual energy and joie de vivre. Highly recommended.

Místico, profano, obsceno, sarcástico, osado. Estos fueron los calificativos con los que fue recibido este libro en 1961. Desde entonces la gloria literaria de Leonard Cohen estaba asegurada bastantes años antes de grabar su primer disco.

Colección de poemas del cantautor canadiense Leonard Cohen en una edición bilingüe (traducción de Alberto Manzano) de la editorial Visor sin introducción ni notas a pie de página. El libro fue publicado en inglés en 1961, momento en el que fue calificado por distintos críticos como "místico", "profano", "obsceno", "sarcástico" u "osado", y la verdad es que tiene un poco de cada una de esas cosas, además de alguna que otra presencia de la cultura judía que marca en cierto modo parte de la personalidad del autor. Por lo demás, la temática es de lo más diversa y variopinta.
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