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VOCAL AUTHORITY
 VOCAL
AUTHORITY

Singing style and ideology

JOHN POTTER

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, United Kingdom
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia

© Cambridge University Press 1998

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant
collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the
written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1998

Typeset in Baskerville 11 /12^ pt [ c E]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Potter, John, tenor.
Vocal authority: singing style and ideology /John Potter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o 521 56356 9 (hardback)
1. Singing - Interpretation (Phrasing, dynamics, etc.)
2. Singing - Instruction and study.
3. Vocal music - History and criticism.
I. Title.
MT892.P68 1998
783'.O43 - dC2I 97-IIO3I CIP MN

ISBN o 521 56356 9 hardback

Transferred to digital printing 2004

 for
A. G. POTTER
(1918-1988)
 Contents

Preface page xi
Acknowledgements xv

1 Classical ideology and the pre-history of singing i

2 The medieval period: religion, literacy and control 14
3 The Italian baroque revolution 31
4 The development of the modern voice 47
5 Concerts, choirs and music halls 67
6 Armstrong to Sinatra: swing and sub-text 87
7 Early music and the avant-garde: twentieth-century
fragmentation 113
8 Elvis Presley to rap: moments of change since the forties 133
9 Singing and social processes 158
10 Towards a theory of vocal style 190

Notes 200
List of references 206
Index 216

IX
 Preface

This book is an attempt to shed some light on why singers are more
likely to sing in certain styles than others; it is about how singing
styles evolve, change and relate to each other. It began life as a PhD
thesis, which I researched while working as a singer. Like many so-
called products of the English choral tradition, I first began to sing at
about the age of seven, when I joined my local church choir at the
insistence of my father, who happened to be the organist. A small
amount of talent and a lot of parental vision enabled me eventually
to get a place at the choir school of King's College, Cambridge just
as the Boris Ord era was giving way to that of David Willcocks. The
daily round of practices and services in that glorious fifteenth-
century chapel leaves an ineradicable mark on the children privi-
leged to sing in it, and when I moved on at the age of fourteen it
seemed the most natural thing to want to return to one of the
Oxford or Cambridge colleges as an undergraduate to carry on
where I had left off. In the mid-sixties, therefore, with a newly
acquired tenor voice, I found myself having singing lessons in order
to attempt the necessary choral scholarship. At about the same time
as I started this rather serious business, I became caught up in
something entirely other: the almost visceral excitement that was the
sixties pop scene. Like thousands of other teenagers, I started a band
to play rhythm and blues, and became fascinated both by the music
itself and the question of 'authenticity' in blues performance.
Teenage bands of that era had an almost religious respect for Muddy
Waters, Howlin' Wolf and a host of other more obscure singers, yet
we still assumed the right to make their songs our own and would
happily compare our versions with the 'originals' and with those of
other bands.
Naturally enough, or unnaturally enough as it seemed to me then,
I had to sing in one way to get a choral scholarship and quite
XI
xii Preface

another when fronting my band. Although the musics were very

different from each other, I could see no musical reasons why two
utterly incompatible modes of singing were required. I was not a
very good blues singer, and I put it down to the fact that my
'classical' training inhibited my blues delivery. Even forming the
words in a natural manner seemed to be hugely difficult. And
anyway, how could I, by then a thoroughly middle-class English boy,
hope to imitate these American accents with any integrity? At least
the Beatles had decent regional accents. My career as a pop singer
did not last long (though I later did some session singing for well-
known seventies bands), and I went on to become a 'classical5 singer,
seemingly the only possibility that my background allowed.
The question of why classical singing is so different from pop
singing has gnawed at me ever since, and during the seventies and
eighties it became even more pressing when conventional attitudes
to singing began to be questioned by the early music phenomenon
and the exploration of avant-garde vocal techniques which paral-
leled it (and had actually been going on for several decades). I found
myself again involved in a plurality of singings ranging from the
conventional variety that I had been taught through to the more
esoteric styles that some of us were trying to rediscover or invent.
Curiosity (research is too dignified a term for it) led me to look at
Renaissance and baroque singing treatises with the idea of finding
out whether or not pop and classical singing may once have been the
same thing, that there had perhaps been a time when singing was
simply singing, and singers did not have to make these socio-musical
distinctions. The more I delved, the more complicated the question
became, and I eventually formalised my search into a PhD thesis
with the Open University while still continuing to make the music
itself as a career. I still sing, and I still engage in a kind of critical
dialogue with my chosen profession, so this book should be read as a
kind of work-in-progress written against a background of continuing
experience.
It soon became became clear to me that if there ever was some
sort of primal song it could only have existed in a social context, and
that singing styles evolved as sociological circumstances changed. I
did not find that I could make specific links between singing and
society (although some anthroplogical studies suggest a case for this),
but rather that a general ideological process works on the singer in
the society in which he or she finds him- or herself. The earliest
 Preface xiii

writings about singing imply the communication of a text, and it is

an underlying assumption of this study that whatever else singing
may do, if it has an archetypal function it is to enable words to be
communicated in a particular way. My main conclusion is that
however singing develops, whether the singer is Mick Jagger or
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, stylistic renewal is driven by a need to find
more appropriate ways to deliver the text. Exactly what these ways
are will depend on the sociological context in which the music is
sung. Historically, there have been many moments at which it is
possible to identify significant text-related stylistic change. This is
often followed (and in the examples I give in this study, always
followed) by a period of development during which the style
becomes in some way more elaborate or virtuosic, eventually
reaching a plateau beyond which further evolution is not possible
until another text-related change is triggered.
Because the task at the back of my mind was to explain why
singers such as myself have to sing in different ways in different
circumstances, my account is inevitably a personal and Anglocentric
view of singing in the West. There is a much broader cultural
question yet to be tackled, and each chapter implies questions for
further research. I have used evidence from non-English sources
generally where it pertains to a notional outcome relevant to singers
in England today. It would be impossible to write an account of any
classical singing tradition, for example, without referring to Italian
singing, and the same principle applies to pop music and the USA.
The book is not intended to be a comprehensive history of singing
(which would need many volumes) but a broadly chronological series
of snap-shots of periods where stylistic developments seem to me to
be particularly significant. I begin not quite at the very beginning,
though as close to it as the surviving evidence will permit, with a
brief discussion of that period of antiquity which gave us the word
'classical'. This is followed by chapters on the medieval and baroque
periods, in which I look at the nature of singing in secular and
sacred contexts before the development of what we would recognise
as a modern technique. Exactly how the voice works, and how it
came to be used in opera in a very specific way is considered next,
and this is followed by a chapter on choral singing. I then turn to
popular music, beginning with the earliest recordings which can tell
us what the singing actually sounded like. Chapters 6-8, dealing
with more recent popular music and alternative varieties of singing
xiv Preface

used in classical music, also have the advantage of reference to

recordings rather than written sources. In the final two chapters I
examine meaning in singing and some of the ideological factors that
define the difference between classical and pop singing, and draw
together the various theoretical threads which run throughout the
book into an outline theory of why styles change and how they relate
to each other.
 Acknowledgements

I owe a great debt to the many people who have inspired me to sing
or encouraged me to write: to my late father, who in many senses
started me off on this quest; my fellow members of the long-derailed
South Bound Blues Train (and its successors with names too
embarrassing to mention); Edred Wright, for stimulating my interest
in 'serious5 singing; Ward Swingle, for opening my eyes to the way
words really work; Richard Wistreich, the other wing of Red Byrd,
for our often-terrifying flights into the vocal unknown, and my
Hilliard Ensemble colleagues for occasionally and unwittingly acting
as a kind of living laboratory. Thanks also to Richard Middleton at
the Open University, whose supervisory sessions were enormously
thought-provoking and kept my intellectual spirits up over a very
long period. I am grateful to Donald Burrows, who suggested that
what I had written might be a book, and to Alan Durant who in
coining the phrase 'vocal authority', turned a conceptual ragbag into
a useful portmanteau and gave the book its title. I should especially
like to thank John Butt, Richard Middleton and Christopher Page
whose many perceptive and helpful comments on earlier drafts
encouraged me to make the book a good deal more user-friendly
than it might otherwise have been. None of this would have been
possible without the unstinting support of my wife Penny.
Parts of chapters 6 and 7 have been previously published in Omega
(Open University Press, 1995) and Companion to Medieval and Renais-
sance Music (ed. Fallows and Knighton, Dent/Oxford University
Press, 1992) and are used by permission.
I am grateful to the British Voice Association for permission to
reproduce the diagrams on page 97, from D. Howard, 'Quantifiable
Aspects of Different Singing Styles' (Voice 1, 1992).
Lyric reproduction of 'Birth of the Blues' (lyric by Buddy deSylva
and Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson) is by kind permission of

xv
xvi Acknowledgements

Redwood Music Ltd. for the territories of the Commonwealth of

Nations, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Africa and Spain,
and by kind permission of Warner Chappell Music Inc. for the rest
of the world.
'Rockin' Chair' by Hoagy Carmichael copyright © 1929 by Peer
International Corporation. Copyright renewed. International copy-
right secured. Used by permission.
 CHAPTER I

Classical ideology and the

pre-history of singing

The human voice is a marker of individual personality: no two voices

sound the same. When the speaking voice is extended into song it
becomes the supreme articulator of human desires, emotions and
aspirations; almost every individual (or group of individuals) has the
potential to use this resource in whatever way is appropriate. Every
utterance we make, from the first scream or grunt onwards, is
conditioned by our own past and that of the society we live in, and
most of the time neither singer or listener is conscious of this
ideological baggage that we all carry with us. In western society of
the late twentieth century there seems to be an infinite number of
vocal styles and techniques (a style being the outward sign of a
singing variety, a technique the means of its realisation). The
relationships between varieties of singing change over time accord-
ing to the needs of singers and listeners. One variety, that used for
what we in the West call classical music, appears to have a uniquely
authoritative status relative to all other possible kinds.1 Its current
status (and that of all kinds of singing) is the result of historical
processes that have formed and re-formed over many hundreds of
years. We all know what we think we mean by the commonsense
term 'classical music' and the classical singing that comes with it.
What is less easy to grasp is the idea that the concepts that underlie
the term are extremely ancient, and although the use of the word
'classical' in connection with music dates only from the nineteenth
century, the ideology behind it stretches back to classical antiquity
and beyond.
The self-limiting orality of singing, its very existence defined by
its transience, means that a historical study of the subject which
pre-dates the gramophone era relies not on direct evidence in the
medium itself, but on speculation based on written sources. Evi-
dence for singing in pre- and proto-historical times depends on a
2 Vocal authority

tenuous mixture of iconographical archaeology and literary extra-

polation, to which may be added the cautious use of ethnomusico-
logical and anthropological studies. The link between speculation
about pre-history and deductions about the earliest historical
evidence is particularly problematic: while anthropological theories
have been developed to account for singing in 'primitive' societies,
little work has been done on how this relates to the earliest
historical references such as the Babylonian fragments.2 The oldest
surviving musical artefacts are palaeolithic bone whistles, which are
extremely crude compared with the Mesopotamian harps from the
mid third millennnium BG. It is probable that an oral tradition of
thousands of years, to which we shall never have access, occupies
the space between these two varieties of instrument, between the
anthropological theories of Livingston, Richman and others, and
the musicology of the ancient world which essentially began with
Sachs and Wellesz.3 Compared with the millennia during which
oral traditions apparently flourished, written music has a very short
pedigree.
In most early representations of musical activity (harpists repre-
sented on cylinder seals, for example)4 it is not possible to be certain
whether the player is also singing or speaking. It is only when
notation of some sort appears to coincide with text that we can be
reasonably sure that the text was actually sung. A critical moment
for the study of singing therefore occurs at the point where the
earliest indications of literacy are to be found. This is important not
only for the implications that flow from the idea of a literate culture,
but also because of the light that may be shed on the (presumably)
advanced oral culture that might have preceeded it, interacted with
it, and probably continued to co-exist with it. Similar periods of
oral-literary interaction are to be found in Gallo-Roman Europe,
where the legacy of classical texts existed alongside an evolving oral
culture and again in Europe after the invention of the printing press,
which fundamentally altered the definition of literacy. In the late
twentieth century we are in the process of coming to terms with a
plurality of literacies, a consequence of the development of infor-
mation technology and electronics, one aspect of which is the
legitimisation of Afro-American 'oral' musics as important cultural
forms in a society in which literacy is conventionally thought of as
playing a central cultural role. The earliest periods at which
oral-literary interaction can be analysed are therefore of particular
 Classical ideology and the pre-history of singing 3
significance to a sociological study of singing, especially since (as I
argue below) this terrain forms the field in which the ideology
underlying a number of central concepts in western music first
emerges.
It is as well to be clear what is meant by literacy and orality
(although different definitions may be seen to apply in different
circumstances and periods). There is a misplaced assumption in
much twentieth-century writing that oral and literate cultures are
mutually exclusive.5 The earlier writers were bound to what Leo
Treitler (1981) has called the 'literary paradigm' where it was
assumed that orality was a primitive precursor of literacy. This
meant, in musical terms, that research was conducted with the
assumption that the function for which notation eventually evolved
was somehow inherent in it as its goal at all stages of its develop-
ment. Anything that did not fit the model was discarded (which in
itself illustrates what has become one of the characteristics of
literacy: the ability to support reflexive analysis). The bias towards
literacy is further compounded by the fact that all academic work is
of necessity literate, and the attempts of more recent writers to
come to terms with this has occasionally led to considerable irony.6
As Richard Middleton (1990) has pointed out, a performance is in
some sense always 'oral5, which precludes the more extreme
reductive theories. A further stage in the definition of a purely
'oral' performance is the fact that it exists only for as long as the
performance takes. A written piece has a life independent of its
performance and can be decontextualised (or rather re-contextua-
lised); purely oral musics are context specific. The performance of
oral music is also the means of its transmission, which is then
dependent on specific social contexts for its dissemination. Written
music is transmitted independently of its performance by a class of
scribes who may not actually perform the music at all. What we
cannot know (because the surviving sources are few and fragmen-
tary) is how the first notations related to the oral tradition in which
they arose.
There has been a good deal of research on early Christian chant
which suggests that notation arose in that context for two related
reasons: to unify a system of widely varying traditions in order for 'a
full and flawless record of the truth' 7 to prevail, both in ritual
performance and in the learning process that is the means of
transmission. The unitary tradition is of fundamental importance in
4 Vocal authority

defining the terrain on which socio-musical relations evolve. The

dominance of any one tradition implies an ideological dominance
where such variants as there might be become marginalised as the
central tradition achieves an accepted legitimacy. This analysis is
certainly appropriate to the Frankish empire in which Christian
chant notation first appeared, and a similar case may be made for
the earliest Greek notations. However, in stating the case for an
ideologically determined change we must bear in mind the impli-
cations of Treitler's caveat that a new development does not of itself
imply a specific series of related developments. The new ideology
defines the terrain in which such developments are likely to occur,
but a complex and potentially infinite variety of possibilities may be
unleashed by such a change. The use of symbols in learning ritual
chant must also have had considerable advantages in terms of time,
for example, compared with a presumed mixture of mnemonic and
formulaic learning that it came to replace. This is a purely practical
result, but a further consequence with ideological implications is that
in exchange for easier access to the tradition the receiver of it gave
up the possibility of adding his own features to it. This pragmatic
consideration would in time become embedded in the ideology: it
would be impossible to conceive of the music except in terms of
what could be written. As Susan Rankin (1984) put it: cOnce
notational practice had altered to allow a greater degree of pitch
definition by placing notes on a Guidonian stave . . . all melodic
repertories had to be notated acording to the same criteria. This is a
sophisticated system, not one that would develop into something
else.'
Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists have given a great deal
of thought to the relationship between music and ritual, and it is in
these fields that an idea of the link between oral cultures and
written traditions may eventually be discerned. The earliest recog-
nisable (though, as yet, undecipherable) notation occurs in an
Assyrian document dated to around 800 BG.8 It consists of a text,
each line of which is preceded by what were for a long time
considered to be nonsense syllables. Research carried out on the
Samaritan sect during the 1960s and 70s suggested that these
syllables may in fact be musical notation. The Samaritans, of which
only a few hundred members survive, have been the subject of
much attention from philologists, anthropologists and musicologists
as the sect appears to have preserved its traditions virtually un-
 Classical ideology and the pre-history of singing 5
changed for some two and a half thousand years, having been
separated from Judaism since some time in the first millennium BG.
Evidence of continuity in the Samaritan tradition comes from their
similarity to the rituals of Yemenite, Kurdish and Lithuanian Jews,
who have been separated from each other since the post-AD 70
diaspora. It is now thought that the Assyrian syllables represent
groups of notes, similar versions of which appear in Samaritan
neumes. Some of the Samaritan signs are apparently ornamental,
having become so when the meaning of the signs (which were
supposed to be secret from the layman) failed to be passed on to
the following generation.9 The tradition of secrecy in early nota-
tions (similar examples can be found in India, Egypt and Ethiopia)
is a curious one. In a culture where the only known use for writing
was for recording commercial transactions and what would now be
called stock control, it is odd that the meaning of a ritual
formulation should be entrusted to this medium, rather than be
passed on directly to the intended recipient by word of mouth. A
possible answer (which recalls Treitler's warning not to see the final
destination inherent in the process) is that musical notation was
closer to a magical formula, something that would inform initiates
to whom its use was restricted, and intimidate the majority who
were outside the priest cult. Its only connection with other cunei-
form writings is that both are semiotic systems.
The Mycenean civilisation of the second millennium BG was also
literate in that it used a form of writing (Linear B) to record
commercial and legal transactions. There is no evidence that the
alphabet was used for literary or artistic purposes of any kind, and it
subsequently fell into disuse when the civilisation was destroyed
around 1200 BG. Evidence that an oral culture flourished during this
period is provided in spectacular form, however, by the appearance
in the eighth century BG of the 27,000 Greek hexameters that make
up the Iliad. For a long time Homer was thought to be the father of
European literature, who had somehow conjured up out of nowhere
one of the longest poems in any language. Thanks to the work of
Parry and Lord and their successors it is now generally accepted that
the Iliad represents not the beginning of a new tradition but the
watershed at which an oral poetry was written down.10 Pre-literate
societies are essentially rural and tribal, and the collective memory
of tribal society reinforces its cohesiveness. That memory, or
mythology, resides in the epics or sagas created by both the poet-
6 Vocal authority

singers of ancient Greece and the bards of post-Roman Europe. The

singer of such poems was neither composer nor performer in the
modern sense. Using a formulaic system the poem would be re-
created for each performance, the performer in effect becoming the
text in a way that ensured not only its performance but the survival
and transmission of the mythology of which it was a part. The
subjects of oral epics are typically family loyalty and war, with which
all strata of a tribal society can identify, but they were performed by
specialists who presumably had to spend many hours at the feet of a
master. Thus although the oral epic takes a different form from its
written counterpart, there is probably considerable overlapping of
social function.
The epic was not the only form of singing known to pre-literate
societies (though it is through literacy that we are aware of other
varieties). Homer tells of singing associated with drinking and after-
dinner entertainment, a context in which the oral formulae of
transmission of the epics themselves must have developed, but there
are also ritual songs which accompany weddings and funerals, the
latter using professional mourners for formalised laments, a custom
that still persists in the Aegean today. There is more private music,
sung to the phorminx (a plucked, harp-like instrument), and early
examples of the association of singing, dancing and gymnastic or
athletic display so characteristic of Greek culture. It may also be
assumed that the worksongs mentioned by later authors were also
being sung at this time. Athenaeus, for example, mentions songs
sung by flour-grinders, loom-workers, wool-workers, bath atten-
dants and reapers, among others.11 In their pre-written form the
Homeric poems would probably have been chanted to the accom-
paniment of the phorminx, in a heightened form of speech. This
flourishing musical tradition gives no hint as to why it was suddenly
considered appropriate to inscribe 27,000 lines of Homeric verse.
The fact that the Iliad and Odyssey are at least twice as long as any
other known Greek epic might perhaps have been a reason to
preserve them, had there been any danger of their disappearing.
There is no evidence for this (indeed the tradition seems to have
continued, and Parry and Lord's work in the former Yugoslavia
suggests that an oral tradition will work within and beside a literary
one if the social conditions are appropriate). Lord's own theory is
that the application of writing to poetry occurred in eighth-century
Greece because a similar phenomenon had happened elsewhere in
¡salvación del afán de un minuto
con toda la serie siglos que faltan!

Como aquellos duraznos salvajes

que comercias a sendas barcadas,
exquisitos algunos, carecen
de rojos matices, de pulpa y de savia:
cuando trueca su flor en espigas,—
si en la vil soledad no se mata,—
como fruto silvestre de bosque,
de ser una vida rodando no pasa.

Y una vida vulgar es un cofre

de inseguras, de fáciles tapas,
donde mete cualquiera sus manos
y el pobre tesoro completo le saca;
pero hay vidas vulgares que suelen,
como ciertas anónimas arcas,
ocultar cautelosos resortes
que saltan a veces... ¡y a veces no saltan!

¡Cautelosos resortes!... Lo mismo

que los raudos cohetes traspasan
el capuz de la noche y se vuelcan
a chorros de luces brillantes y varias;
de la mar bonancible, sumisa,
de vulgares cabezas humanas,
brotan siempre la curva silbante
que vuelca sus luces o rojas o blancas.

Lo ruín, lo vulgar; el repuesto

del templado cordaje del arpa;
las torcidas virutas endebles
que va como rulos dejando la tabla:
la porción de color que pudiera
ser mejilla, ser labio y es granza...
¡material de proyectos divinos
 p y
que sirve de cuñas, andamios y gradas.

Como ruedan las noches de invierno,

prematuras y torvas y tardas,
sobre cada primor de las yemas
poniendo colgajos de crudas escarchas,
va también su vejez a dormirse
del osario común a la zanja,
sobre cada ilusión que despunta
poniendo seguro, mordaz epigrama.

Porque toda vejez se defiende

de los rayos del sol que se alza,
circuyendo su calva de nimbos
y echando a la joven burlonas miradas;
porque toda vejez disimula
su rencor al placer de las alas,
desdoblando feroces antenas
que hieren precisos la nota que falla.

Porque a cada ilusión que perdemos

una fúlgida luz nos apagan
y un nidal de pichones azules
del fondo del pecho nos hurtan y matan:
¡y aquel antro se puebla de sombras
que maldicen la lumbre del alba,
y aquel nido desierto y helado,
se colma de sendas tarántulas bravas!

Mas cual esos heroicos guerreros,

cuya tez embellecen y manchan
cicatrices de sable y estoque...
con otras habidas en otras campañas;
por la tez de mi plebe proterva,
por sus manos roñosas y flacas,
el afán del oficio depuso
la tosca y excelsa señal de la garra
la tosca y excelsa señal de la garra.

Y así como los tales ilustres,—

descreídos, borrachos y mandrias,—
en las cuevas del pecho mantienen
cual santo rescoldo, la fe de su patria;
por haber ejercido de mártir
en la ruda, perpetua jornada,
yo no sé qué fulgor indecible
de gran sacerdote, sus ojos irradian.

Como aquel rapazuelo sin padres

que te sirve de pie mientras yantas,
cuanto más te retiene la gula
más fría recibe la sobra que traga:
mientras cubre de goces tu vida,
mientras llena de luz tu morada,
su ración del placer que te sobra,
se cubre, se llena de pútridas larvas.

Y cual esas mujeres abyectas

que te sorben la bolsa y el alma,
simulando llenar tus deseos
con una presteza de madres y hermanas:
cada vez que cualquier beneficio,
tus umbrales de pórfido baja...
¡baja un garfio voraz de drenaje,
un buzo equipado de recia escafandra!

¡Yo diviso diez lojas ardientes

que conminan la gleba reacia,
cuando miro tus dos manecitas
jugar en sus lomos de acémila exhausta!
¡Yo percibo tu voz alentando
la jipante cuadriga cansada
cuando veo caer tus coronas
en esas virtudes sombrías y flacas!
 Yo me tapo los ojos y tiemblo
cada vez que sus dotes alabas:
me pareces un boa del Chaco
que ya la fascina, que ya se la traga;
me pareces un pulpo inhartable
cuyas tenias flexibles alarga
y en las carnes del náufrago inerte
succiona la chispa final de substancia:

Me pareces un torpe cruz roja

que la quiere sentir consternada
y lo mismo que un sátiro ebrio
le busca, le frota, le lama la sarna...
¡Caridad es pillaje, comedia,
vanidad, precaución, diplomacia,
relucientes retobos que cubren
la bola de mármol del alma pagana!

Como aquellos hipócritas canes

que regresan contritos al alba,
rasguñando tu puerta febriles,
con sordo gruñido suplican y llaman:
a la faz de las puertas de bronce
que la Luz de la Sombra separan,
gemirán con gemido espantable
tus más soberanos ingenios y famas.

Y cual ven al pasar los obreros

que al par mismo del sol se levantan,
a los lacios, tenaces mastines
que lamen gimiendo la puerta cerrada:
las legiones de siglos y siglos
que lo Eterno en lo Eterno derrama,
mirarán al pasar a tus grandes
batiendo afanosos las áureas aldabas.
 Y así como los amos del perro,—
ya la sombra nocturna pasada,—
vagamente recuerdan que alguno
quién sabe ni cuándo ni dónde lloraba:
la flamígera mente absoluta
que al nidito de tórtolas haja,
puede ser que sospeche algún día
que suele ser genio la pécora humana.

¡Sí! Cual esa fugaz arenilla

que en las losas del pórtico vaga,
cuando silban los vientos airados
y al ras del arroyo sus sondas arrastran:
por los blancos pretiles del cielo
y a la faz de su puerta sellada,
rodarán reducidos a polvo...
laureles, retortas, diademas y espadas.

Pues lo mismo que al joven recluta

que reduce cobarde su talla,
le despojan furiosos y cuasi
le miden y escrutan las mismas entrañas:
para dar con el peso preciso
de la brizna de Amor que alentabas,
tendrá Dios que arrancarte a montones
las púrpuras necias que ciñen tu alma.

De la propia manera que cuando

la jauría descubre la caza,
si es algún jabalí temeroso,
ladrando los canes parece que hablan;
tu fortuna, tus leyes, tu ciencia
que no fueron,—no, nunca,—cristianas,
si perciben su faz en la sombra,
clamando castigo parece que ladran.

Y así como Eliphas esgrimía

 Y así como Eliphas esgrimía
su torzal de retórica sabia,
cuando Job delirante, rugiente,
royendo su podre con Dios altercaba
cualquier lengua señora del verbo
pretendió conducirla y salvarla...
¡si el Dolor es de Dios, Dios lo guía
y el mismo trabajo secreto trabajan!

Cuando da su pulmón el sonoro

resollar del titán que batalla:
cuando rompe los aires cerúleos
a enormes rebatos de viejas campanas
cuando brilla su faz a las rojas
claridades del odio y las llamas:
cuando va deponiendo cabezas
ya rubias y locas, ya graves y calvas.

Habrá siempre malignas y ocultas

filtraciones de hiel en su alma:
habrá siempre dos manos cubiertas
de gruesos diamantes que compren y aplaudan:
habrá siempre chispazos perdidos
que fulminen las trojes humanas:
habrá siempre fanáticos ebrios
que azucen al dogo por pura jactancia...

¡Habrá siempre, jamás en tus puertas

de valioso marfil incrustadas,
rajadura secreta por donde
vislumbre tu siervo verdades amargas!
¡Habrá siempre detrás de tus tronos
un Luzbel que les roa las gradas
y un bufón ofendido mostrando
que son deleznables montones de paja!

Como no se concierta la sierpe

con la sierpe vecina y hermana
con la sierpe vecina y hermana,
para dar un asalto de lenguas
regidas en orden, al tigre que pasa:
pero como la sierpe que yace
respirando rencor solitaria,
si la pisa la fiera se torna
silbante, furente, y el dardo le clava:

Cuando ya un dolor excesivo

de su torpe modorra la saca,
reacciona feroz y acomete
la insignia primera de mando que alcanza.
¡Porque nunca el Dolor tuvo tiempo
de inventar y medir represalias,
y atropella por sí; por impulso,
por ley, por instinto, por lógica innata!

Como va por el foso la Vida

de sutil fetidez rodeada;
como yacen los limos profícuos
detrás de sus vuelos de fúnebre miasma:
como triste, deforme, difusa,
la materia del caos aguardaba
los acentos de Dios que dijesen,
¡sé nube, sé piedra, sé carne, sé planta!

Así van las burbujas de gloria,

las virtudes más bellas y mansas,
por el ancho zanjón del arroyo,
prolijas y sordas, latentes y bravas;
así espera mi pulpa del genio,
fluctuante, deforme, callada,
la presión del Arar que decrete
su toga, su lauro, su cetro, su tiara.

Y cual brotan del mar esas nubes

que simulan paisajes de nácar;
como luego, por múltiples modos,
regresan y siempre la mar las exhala:
no son más que vapor de sí propia
tiranías, alcurnias y famas;
flotarán esas nubes el tiempo
que floten y rujan abajo esas aguas.

La crearon las leyes eternas

al tomar al Dolor como causa
y al poner la noción de lo Puro
por fin, por objeto de todas las ansias:
pero aquel bravo vivo doliente,
para dar con la Luz que le llama,
requirió sus declives y cauces,
su plan y esqueleto de leyes humanas.

Y así fueron las leyes... tus leyes,

que no salen jamás de una pauta:
la feroz oriental que produjo
los clásicos moldes de todos los parias;
la que dió sus pacientes ilotas
a la hirsuta virtud espartana;
la de Roma imperial recubriendo
de fúlgida gloria, cadenas y lacras:

La del recio trotar de barbarie

por la fría cultura pagana,
que llamó cosa vil al vencido,
gordura del campo, terruño con alma:
la cruel de tu ciencia de nombres
desatando las turbas incautas,
para verlas correr delirantes
detrás de rotundas vacías palabras;

La presente, la tuya, la nuestra,

la que tanto retocas y lavas,
la que llena de tildes al débil
la que llena de tildes al débil
y al fuerte le carpe y alfombra la cancha...
rufianesca noción de un querube
cuyas dobles, amplísimas alas
¡recubrieran cual toldos discretos,
los torpes deleites de quien las pagara!

Sólo fué la grandeza que gozas

por su fiebre de hacer, consumada...
¡mis hormigas de Dios, si quisieran,
con finos buriles el aire labraran...!
Mal oliente sudor de cuadrilla
sangre vil de las hordas en armas:
cenagoso caudal que tú riges...
¡lo mismo que rigen al mar sus resacas!

Si reclinas tu faz en el globo

como quien su pulmón auscultara,
cual recogen echados en tierra
los indios errantes la voz de la Pampa;
sentirás el traqueo solemne,
de su heroica labor cotidiana,
cual si fuera timbal ese globo
y en él repicase la Vida su marcha.

Si tu yunta pujante sujetas,

al plebeyo camino te bajas
y un puñado de polvo recojes
del mismo que bate la yunta que piafa:
cogerás un terrón del progreso
que sobó como el pan con sus palmas,
sentirás el hedor de la sangre
que puso diademas a todas las patrias.

Si cual un catador eminente

que cien viejos borgoñas compara,
comparando la sal de los mares
en todos los mares tu crátera escancias:
en todos los mares tu crátera escancias:
brindarás con el férvido mosto
de la carne de chusma que tragan,
con el trágico néctar del simple
que fió de los genios que tú desamparas.

Si registras el haz del planeta,

si sus dos hemisferios indagas
cual pudiese la tigre llorosa
buscar sus cachorros por cuevas y zarzas:
no verás un rincón del desierto
donde fije un pie la canalla,
buscarás el solar, sin hallarlo,
de aquel que tu feudo triangula y dilata.

Si barrenas la costra terrestre

más allá de las últimas napas,
como un niño voraz con sus dedos
perfora y vacía su propia naranja:
sacarás el serrín de los tristes
que debajo del suelo trabajan...
¡se cerró como un puño el abismo,
tal vez protestando de recua tan mansa!

Si tu joya más breve, más necia,

con tu rítmica mano contrastas,
como aquellas matronas que buscan
a graves tanteos los granos que faltan:
sentirás un imán prodigioso
que tus hilos de nervios alarma...
la pasión del orfebre ¡que puso
tremantes de vida las prendas que gastas!

Si lo propio que sueñas dormido

con un hecho anormal de tu infancia,
las arenas del circo rehaces
adonde moría la chusma cristiana:
a verás fulminar los excesos
faz a faz de Nerón que los ama:
faz a faz de la cruz y los garfios
cantar ideales, cantar esperanzas.

Y si como entre sueños consigues

prolongar los que más se regalan,
tu visión expectral prolongases
y en cuevas y osarios la noche pasaras:
la verías cavar en las tumbas
el zanjón de la tumba pagana,
la verías alzar los altares...
¡los mismos altares que ya no la salvan!

Si del reino ideal de Minerva

desarrollas y extiendes el mapa,
y persigues en él fríamente
la ciencia más pura, la más algebraica:
convendrás que tu triunfo primero
triunfo fué de la humana ignorancia,
y hallarás que los sueños de un loco
van siempre alumbrando cualquiera vanguardia.

Si tus graves filósofos abres

por sus hojas más plenas y sabias,
con el propio fervor con que buscas
los versos mejores del vate que aclamas:
no verás en las hojas aquellas
nada más que un montón de palabras
que fulguran, a veces, la chispa
del Sancho del siglo, la zona y la raza.

Si a tus negros presidios penetras,

en tus patios ruidosos te paras,
en la jerga del preso meditas
y acoges y estudias los dijes que labra:
sentirás que tu lengua y tus artes
sentirás que tu lengua y tus artes
de los fondos humanos arrancan,
como van por el cieno, latentes,
los lirios, los nardos, las rosas, las dalias.

Si visitas en noches de planes

de Caín y de Caco las aulas
y su bronca función de poderes,
la tuya de felpa, prolijo comparas:
hallarás con horror y amargura,
que tus goces orgánicos bajan
y concuerdan con ese del crimen
tan justo, tan fino manejo de garras.

Si la lívida frente del santo

con genial entereza trepanas,
y en sus nobles abismos arrojas
ecuánime, libre, sedienta mirada:
hallarás la molécula misma
de algún cáncer atroz de cloaca,
que pasando de padres en hijos
abrió candorosas clemátides blancas.

Si en tus rondas nocturnas asieras

al primer ganapán que pasara,
como quien al azar, distraído,
cualquier retoño del árbol arranca:
detenerlas al César del orbe
que sin rumbo ni séquito vaga,
mientras alguien combina sus horas
y el trono y el cetro de rey la depara.

Si la pulpa del vago, del ebrio,

del peor, del más ínfimo palpas,
como quien al buscar una perla
registra la zona más vil de una casa:
sentirás sollozar esas mudas,
adiposas abyectas piltrafas
adiposas, abyectas piltrafas
con el hondo plañir de los astros,
que se hunden por siempre jamás en la nada.

Si la voz del silencio interrogas,

del febril, del genial, del que brama,
del que llena de sangre los cráneos,
tañendo sonoras campanas de plata:
pasará galopando mi Chusma
por las teclas de luz de tu alma,
cual si Dios, con sus manos, pulsase
la gran sinfonía final de las causas.

Jadeante, grotesca, inasible:—

por tenaz, por insólita y vaga,—
soportando por siglos de siglos,
minuto a minuto la cúpula humana:
así está la misérrima plebe,
la inmortal invencible alimaña
que los tercos lebreles vigilan
y acosan y aturden y aprietan y aplastan.

¡No! ¡No puede quedar en mi Chusma,

nada más que la torva mirada
con que atisban, tahures vencidos,
sutiles, absurdas, quiméricas trampas!
¡No! ¡No puede sentir en su pecho
nada más que rencores de paria,
y el horresco furor de que todo
reviente y en finas moléculas caiga!

Ni podrás vaporar para siempre

las barreras de hiel que separan
la mansión de las risas amables,
de aquel «pandemonium» de sombras airadas,—
¡nada más que poniendo tus labios
donde mismo supuran sus llagas,
nada más que llenando tus leyes
del fuego divino del alma cristiana!

Ella ve desfilar tus manjares

en tus platos de Sévres y plata,
mientras yace rendida, gimiendo
debajo del bofe que cuasi no alcanza:
y pues tiene tus órganos mismos,
cualquier vez esos órganos mandan,
¡y sin dar una voz, cual un dogo
del menos culpable la faz ataraza!

Ella siente la péndula loca

de tus días felices, que pasan
como fresca visión capitante
de ninfas que ríen, de senos que saltan:
y pues tiene sentidos y tiene
por tenerlos, pasiones y ansias,
¡con su gran maldición de sedienta
maldice, hasta mismo, tu vaso de agua!

Ella ve tus pasiones que vienen

con talantes de santos y santas,
reprimiendo gazmoñas, en ella,
la mínima culpa, la mínima falta;
y pues tiene noción de lo justo,
de no sé qué suprema balanza,—
¡tu disfraz de Catón la sulfura,
y enloda y escupe tu clámide blanca!

Ella ve florecer tus virtudes

donde mismo resultan premiadas,
cual escogen, sagaces, las hiedras,
la sombra jocunda de cedros y tapias:
y pues ella, la gran perseguida,
sabe bien el coturno que calzas,
cuando pisa tus pisos de roble,
cuando pisa tus pisos de roble,
sospecha que pisa diabólicas trampas,

Ella ve que tu ley no sostiene

ni el derecho ni el bien que consagra,
cual un zarzo ruín que doblegan
los rubios, copiosos racimos que carga:
y pues ella prefiere los frutos
al sostén deleznable de cañas,
menosprecia tus leyes viviendo
la vida salvaje del puño y la daga.

Ella ve que cualquier sacerdocio

pone tren con la fe que levanta,
como aquellas mujeres que dicen:
¡más oro, más lujo de quien más nos ama!
y pues mora Minerva en su cráneo,
y pues vive Jesús en su alma,
¡ni respeto ni amor le despiertan
tus borlas de sabio, tus cruces de plata!

Ella ve que poder y fortuna

con tu solo sudor no los ganas:
que las flores no son del que riega,
sino del dichoso señor de las plantas:
y pues ese deber sin derechos,
del nivel del señor la rebaja,
¡le parecen dogales malditos
los clásicos yunques, las nobles azadas!

Ella busca la vida del ángel:

de la simple función soberana,
del dominio total de las olas
que el cerebro ciñen turbantes de llamas;
y al sermón del trabajo que suelen
predicar los que nunca trabajan,
magistrales modelos opone
de trágicos robos de finas estafas
de trágicos robos, de finas estafas.

Ella siente brotar en sí misma,

como sienten sus yemas las ramas,
la legión palpitante de sueños
que tientan, que buscan la luz de mañana:
y ella ve que su propia belleza
de lamentos del vientre no pasan:
pues un sólo mendrugo que baje,
cien días... ¡mil días de sueños aplasta!

Ella mira flotar en la zona

del poder, el honor y la fama,
las torcidas pasiones aquellas
que sólo merecen el fuego y el hacha:
y al buscar el abismo sin fondo
donde deben caer fulminadas,
¡con espanto sublime las oye
nombrar supervidas y cumbres humanas!

Y volviendo su rostro a sí misma

de sí misma dudando, se palpa;
y al mirar otra vez, le parece
que todos un mismo secreto se pasan:
y cien claros dilemas terribles
la postrer ilusión le desgarran;
¡y una risa glacial y cortante
del fétido fondo del hígado, lanza!

Formidable, diabólica risa...

si Luzbel sus cavernas dejara,
en los templos de Dios penetrase
los días que visten de luces y galas,
y riése de aquel artefacto
de cartones y tules y panas:
su rajante, su právida risa,
¡no, nunca pusiera más bajo las almas!
 Desquiciante, profética risa...
cual retumba la bóveda vasta
y al tremendo tronar, trepidando,
sus áureos, bruñidos estucos se rajan:
¡tal cuartea los tenues revoques,
tal asorda la bóveda glauca
del templo gentil del ensueño,
aquella pujante, bestial carcajada!

Carcajada bestial de la bestia

cuyo fuerte ronzal se desata:
que se sueña sin freno, sin brida,
sin un sofrenazo, sin una mirada;
que presiente la selva salvaje,
la continua, la libre vagancia;
la existencia imperial del instinto,
sin ver lo que pisan y rompen las patas.

¡No te pasme su furia! No temas

sus arranques de virgen insana:
mientras haya quien crea, no importa
que templos y reyes y códigos caigan.
Teme, sí, que cruzando tus ojos
con sus ojos sin luz, te deshagas,
como torre de horror y energía
si el firme cimiento de piedra, le falta.

Teme, si con pavor indecible,

con el mismo pavor de la nada,
cual si todas las furias en coro
pasasen mostrando sus hórridas caras,
cual si todos los puntos del orbe
le negasen apoyo a tus plantas,
cual si todos los astros del cielo
cerrasen de golpe sus ojos de llamas:
 Que la bestia sublime descubra
que no va su ración en la carga;
que la virgen hermética sueñe
y olvide sus votos de virgen y caiga:
¡que la mártir rechace su cáliz,
que renuncie su nimbo y su palma
cual un vil desertor, cual un Cristo
que un día dejase su cruz solitaria!

POSTAL

Toda ciudad es semejante a un anciano, lleno de recuerdos y

cicatrices. Cada una de sus calles tiene su historia, cada uno de sus
monumentos merece su capítulo y cada una de sus piedras, ha visto
lo que no se sabrá nunca.
MI JUVENTUD
Ayer te ví... No estabas bajo el techo
de tu tranquilo hogar
ni doblando la frente arrodillada
delante del altar,
ni reclinando la gentil cabeza
sobre el augusto pecho maternal.
Te ví... Si ayer no te siguió mi sombra
en el aire, en el sol,
es que la maldición de los amantes
no la recibe Dios,
¡o acaso el que me roba tus caricias
tiene en el cielo más poder que yo!

Otros te digan palmas del desierto,

otros te llamen flor de la mañana,
otros queman incienso a tu hermosura,
yo te diré mi amada;
ellos buscan un pago a sus vigilias,
ellos compran tu amor con sus palabras
ellos son elocuentes porque esperan,
¡y yo no espero nada!
yo sé que la mujer es vanidosa
yo sé que la lisonja la desarma,
y yo sé que un esclavo de rodillas
más que todos alcanza...
Otros te digan palma del desierto
otros compren tu amor con sus palabras,
yo seré más audaz pero más noble,
¡yo te diré mi amada!
MI FE
Y tal vez por eso mismo
Restallante de lirismo,
Lo fatal y lo imposible
Me deleita contrariar y resolver;
Cual un ángel del Averno
Partidario del Eterno,
Que a los réprobos absortos
Predicase las bellezas del Edén;
Cual un punto de la esfera
Que ser punto no quisiera,
Y en las cumbres de los soles
Resolviese proclamar su rebelión;
Cual un ente miserable
Que soñando lo inefable,
Desde el fondo de la sombra
¡Suspirase por su cruz de redentor!

Y delante de la furia
Con que rueda tu cintura,
Como tropa de bisontes
Poseída del delirio de migrar,
Cual innúmera majada
Perseguida y azotada
Por las lluvias invernales,
Que la llevan sin saber a dónde va.
Como férvido torrente
Que a la faz de la pendiente
Se desploma fragoroso
Sin más ley que la maldita de caer:
Yo la brizna sin historia,
Vil sobrante, vil escoria,
¡Me levanto formidable,
Me propongo fulminar tu estolidez!

Si vacía, si pomposa,
Si ruín, si delictuosa,
 , ,
Si maligna, si cobarde,
Si proterva, si bestial humanidad:
Por la faz arrebolada
Más abajo de la nada,
Más abajo, todavía,
Pues te voy a maldecir y apostrofar
Soy tu padre, tu poeta,
Tu maestro, tu profeta,
Tu señor indiscutible,
¡Tu verdugo sin entrañas y tu juez!
No me asustas: te domino,
Te someto, te fascino
Con la luz esplendorosa,
¡Con el hierro incandescente de la fe!
A LA LIBERTAD
 Como del fondo mismo de los cielos
el sol eterno rutilante se alza,
como el seno turgente de una virgen
al fuego de la vida se dilata;
Así radiosa,
y así gallarda,
se levantó del mar donde yacía
la exuberante tierra americana.
Como prende su túnica de raso
con su joya mejor, la soberana,
como entre todas las estrellas reina
el lucero magnífico del alba;
Así pulida,
y así gallarda,
sobre todos los pueblos de su estirpe,
resplandor y joyel, ¡surge mi patria!
Como buscan la luz y el aire libre
las macilentas yerbas subterráneas,
como ruedan tenaces y tranquilas
al anchuroso piélago, las aguas;
Así sedienta,
y así pordiada,
la triste humanidad se precipita
al pie de la bandera azul y blanca.
¡Allí van congregándose a la sombra,
para formar después una montaña!
¡Allí van adhiriéndose en el tiempo
partícula a partícula las razas!
Allí se funde,
y allí se amasa
el hombre, tal como surgió en la mente
del autor de los orbes y las almas.
Que así pulida,
y así gallarda,
sobre todos los pueblos de su estirpe,
resplandor y joyel ¡surgió mi patria!
resplandor y joyel, ¡surgió mi patria!
SÓLO DIOS
 Yo sé que fieros, hambrientos,
dos ojos, en ti clavados,
siguiendo van tus cuidados,
miradas y movimientos.
Por más que sigan atentos
los giros de tu pasión,
podrá ser que la ocasión
sin aprovechar se queden...
¡Pues vigilarte no pueden
las telas del corazón!

Yo sé que una mano artera,

porque te olvides de mí
separaría de ti
cuanto en mi pensar te hiciera.
Su dueño, infeliz, espera,
que al suprimir mi visión,
logrará que tu pasión
desamparada se quede...
¡Pero robarte no puede
mi sombra del corazón!

Yo sé, que el labio de un hombre,

por tu amor capaz de todo,
recoge, a montones, lodo,
para volcarlo en mi nombre.
Me callo, sin que me asombre
la bajeza de su acción;
de su vil difamación
si queda rastro que quede...
¡Yo sé que manchar no puede
Mi nombre en tu corazón!

Y ojos, mano y labio impío,

apostados, en acecho,
para robarte del pecho
tu corazón todo mío,
lucharán en el vacío,
sin lograr su pretensión,
hasta que de mi pasión,
libertada por Dios quedes...
¡Porque ni tú misma puedes
mandar en tu corazón!
NOCTURNO CANTO DE AMOR
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