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 }

¿Duerme usted, señor Presidente? / Capoulicán Ovalles

Are You Sleeping, Mr. President?

If instead of sleeping

you danced the tango

with your ministers

and your chief of loves

we would be able to

hear

from night to night

your heels

clacking

like an archduke

or duchess.

We could just laugh

by watching you,

ridiculous as you are,

waiting for the applause

of all the frenetic

gendarmerie.

Of course we're all tired

and want a little entertainment,

monstrous,

like this one

watching you

with a lyre hanging

around your neck,

like a Roman,

or like a blind Roman

woman with absurd optimistic beliefs.

If instead of promising

the discovery of the philosopher's

stone

that might produce bread

and twenty dollar bills

you'd spend more time,

because of how arrogant you are,

selling rotten potatoes

or rancid corn,

the Indians of this nation

might call you

Chief Eye of Pearl.

If instead of crying

you'd die one of these days,

like an elegant pig with its grease

imported from the North,

we,

who are tired

of so many stupid confessions,

would make the stones dance

and the trees would provide manufactured fruit.

With your old and putrid skeleton,

food for rats,

we will fill a single place on this earth

and we will call it

the Cursed Cave

and people will be proscribed from seeing

and approaching it

for fear of awakening hysterical

tenderness.

They call you

José of the dreams,

the one with the sacred cows,

the owner of the skinniest cows

and President of the "Condal Society of Dreams."

Your friends call you

Barbiturate.

How late do you sleep, Mr. President?

If you adore the cow,

sleep!

If you adore the calf,

sleep!

And if the General gives you lunch,

you sleep like a log

or you have a seizure of drowsiness.

Mud Face,

Eye to see the Serpents

and call them,

Eye to keep company

and burn you

with humble Kerosene,

Eye to have at your service

like a cheap bellhop.

Are you sleeping, Mr. President?

I ask you because I'm a smart young man

unlike you, gentleman of the siesta.

1962

Caupolicán Ovalles (Venezuela, 1936-2001)