Santiago de León de Caracas / William Osuna

Santiago de León de Caracas

This earth is mine and mine
these women
you I haven’t seen before
I made signs at you
from naked alleys and you didn’t find me.
City of arrogant towers
noise of stone and thorn
sprouts from the deep iron.
This is the erased word, light as a cloud
this is the hour of din
hardest walls like hurricane hands
and the morning burns and the heat is indecipherable.

In the plazas in the cliffs
in this ring of sadness where they hammer the passage
the future caterpillars tend to face off the winds
turn back the bites
scratch themselves slowly in meaningless limitations
a people with ropes at their neck.
Everything is a confusion of faces
in the gloom
horses that want to burst into
the halls of vintage
single houses, funereal rooftops, regions for disenchantment
and not for a mouth in the mouth:
slaughter of birds and sheep.

Central avenue where millions of dead walk
Everyday places     public offices
No one gets excited about the beautiful or the ugly.
Confused city        Festive city
the grey arc lies over Caracas and in this beautiful piece
        of the world.
               Generous water so lovely
               faithful and true
               cloak of the humble.
               Beautiful women Piled up cars
               I’ll speak of other matters later,
               a multitude with an unrevealed name
                      discovers its secret and attacks.




Antología de la mala calle (1990)




{ William Osuna, Miré los muros de la patria mía, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2004 }