9.29.2016

Realidad de la noche / Vicente Gerbasi

Reality of the Night

A bitter almond shadow
I savor amidst the world.
Under my eyelids the night’s fury is locked
and behind the days is the murmur of the sea against the breakwater.
My senses echo in the cranium’s chamber,
in the concave darkness of lightning bugs.
There’s a collapse of the night like carbon
in my left rib,
a water fright.
Shadow of the poisonous bushes, round shiny leaves,
refuge for beggars beneath the fireworks.
Hidden shade behind the windows,
shade of the plains, of the chair, of the lamp.
Shade of the epileptics, of the blind.
Shade of medicine, of clocks, of hats.
Here are my hands playing in the dirt,
mute sustenance, simple conviction of death.
I’m a witness, an exile on crepuscular avenues,
on a Tuesday during Carnival,
with kids that reach my knees.
A foreboding pursues me like a nocturnal mask.
Stars fall on the plains, at the edge of the cities.
The hands that make the bread mold the night.
The lamps illuminate the bread.




Los espacios cálidos (1952)




{ Vicente Gerbasi, Conversación con la intemperie. Seis poetas venezolanos, selección y prólogo de Gustavo Guerrero, Barcelona, España: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores, 2008 }

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