Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2023
Poem 9 from Veinte poemas de amor …, 1932
Poem 9 from Neruda's 1924 collection of love poems was substituted by the following poem in 1932:
Ebrio de trementina y largos besos,
estival, el velero de las rosas dirijo,
torcido hacia la muerte del delgado día,
cimentado en el sólido frenesí marino.
Pálido y amarrado a mi agua devorante
cruzo en el agrio olor del clima descubierto,
aún vestido de gris y sonidos amargos,
y una cimera triste de abandonada espuma.
Voy, duro de pasiones, montado en mi ola única,
lunar, solar, ardiente y frío, repentino,
dormido en la garganta de las afortunadas
islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas.
Tiembla en la noche húmeda mi vestido de besos
locamente cargado de eléctricas gestiones,
de modo heroico dividido en sueños
y embriagadoras rosas practicándose en mí.
Aguas arriba, en medio de las olas externas,
tu paralelo cuerpo se sujeta en mis brazos
como un pez infinitamente pegado a mi alma
rápido y lento en la energía subceleste (PN1 185– 6)
[Drunk with turpentine and long kisses, summery I steer the sail of the roses, twisted towards the death of the thin day, cemented in the solid marine frenzy. Pale and lashed to my devouring water, I cruise in the sour smell of the naked climate, still dressed in grey and bitter sounds and a sad crest of abandoned spray. I go, hard with passions, mounted on my unique wave, lunar, solar, burning and cold, all at once, asleep in the throat of the fortunate islands, white and sweet as fresh hips. My suit of kisses trembles in the moist night, madly charged with electric actions, in a heroic way divided into dreams and intoxicating roses practising on me. Upstream, in the middle of external waves, your parallel body submits to my arms like a fish infinitely stuck to my soul, quick and slow in the sub-celestial energy]
This opaque poem, if judged chronologically, jars with the twenty other poems of 1924. It belongs to the Residencia en la tierra 1 love poems, yet Neruda backdated it. A biographic, not poetic, explanation might be that the poet still hoped that Albertina would return his love (though both he and she were married), so as a poem about love-longing it belonged to the 1924 collection. But what is this dark poem about?
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