Carta a Ahab / Caupolicán Ovalles

Letter to Ahab

[L-R: Rodolfo Izaguirre, Mary Ferrero, Adriano González León, Caupolicán Ovalles, Caracas, 1962]

I, father of two children
and a wife who supports me
so fucking sick already of so much stupidity
have decided to write to
captain ahab’s widow,
roof of the whale
beneath the wind on the sea.
your kisses please me
tower of the sea to whore in the port,
where we went to live
twenty disgraces for our
hearts.
on the red hill
because of you
police and ministers
discover treasures and secrets
from the past,
beneath the air of the house we inhabit
five hundred promises of love and twenty defeats.
I, father of two women
and a son to support,
wake up,
irritable, pissed off
by a decree of autumn
and the half orange
on the red hill




Originally published in Rayado sobre el techo, no. 1 (Caracas: Ediciones de El Techo de la Ballena, 24 March 1961).




{ Juan Calzadilla, Israel Ortega Oropeza & Daniel González, El Techo de la Ballena: Antología 1961-1969, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2008 }