Réplica nocturna / Eugenio Montejo

Nocturnal Reply

      I won’t write any more tonight,
silence, shades,
cover my voices with ash and memory,
bells are suddenly wolves,
each word becomes a knife
and stains my hands with blood.
Anyways, this old lamp
lies too much.

      It won’t be tonight. I’ll fill my eyes
with drunken morning surprise.
I’m stunned by the insomniac noise of taxis
as they descend through the suburbs,
birds that become stars
but don’t sing.
I’m going to mix with the sleep of the world
until dawn arrives to pronounce the words
from my somnambulant notebook.
This lamp returns to dead butterflies
and their glass monologues
cross the centuries and cut my speech.




{ Eugenio Montejo, Trópico absoluto, Caracas: Fundarte, 1982 }