Era una ciudad muerta / Francisco Pérez Perdomo

It was a dead city

It was a dead city
inhabited only by ghosts.
The past was whispering
in the door latches
and running freely through the streets.
The moan of the wind
was dragging somnambulant beings
through the patios.
Walls from other centuries were speaking
and yawning in the dust.
Wrapped in their big ears
the bats were sleeping
in the eaves of the archaic houses.
Through the open holes
in the stone parapets,
the old men simulating enormous beetles
appeared, lengthened themselves
with their canes and hobbling reached
the center of the plaza.
The melody of the canal and the bell tower
of the ancient church
with their scales were lifting them in the air
and swinging them through the ages.




{Francisco Pérez Perdomo, Los ritos secretos, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1988 }