Venezuelan Poetry: 1921-2001

The InsomniacVicente Gerbasi (Canoabo, 1913 - Caracas, 1992)To Francisco Pérez PerdomoThe insomniac doesn’t rest.He closes his eyesand keeps seeing a specter that passes through the wall and comes back when the lamp turns on, opaque, from the dead. The insomniac touches the wood on the bed, cold, and he feels like he’s sleeping in the coffin. The insomniac opens his eyes and sees the

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-54692563472818802912014-02-18T13:40:00.001-05:002014-02-18T15:02:38.541-05:00Mi padre, el inmigrante: XIII / Vicente Gerbasi

My Father, the Immigrant: XIII Vicente Gerbasi (Canoabo, 1913-Caracas, 1992) Who calls me, who lights up leopard eyes in the tamarind night? The guitars quiet down to the mysterious blowing of death, and the voices hush, and only the kids stay up late. They are the inhabitants of the night, when silence spreads throughout the stars, and the domestic animal moves through the corridors, and

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-86858799647136841832007-03-04T01:37:00.012-05:002012-02-06T01:09:45.544-05:00Prelude

José Antonio Ramos Sucre (Cumaná, Venezuela 1890 - Geneva, Switzerland 1930)&#160 &#160 &#160I want to exist amid empty darkness, because the world damages my senses cruelly and life afflicts me, impertinent lover whispering bitter stories.&#160 &#160 &#160By then my memories will have abandoned me: now they flee and return with a rhythm of ceaseless waves, they are wolves howling in the night

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-12431793720081864672007-01-01T06:38:00.002-05:002009-03-22T13:01:22.941-04:00Memories and Rain

Ludovico Silva (Caracas, 1937-1988)One evening, in Saint Germain of the Fieldsso long ago already, Paris, so long agoit strayed from my memoryand has become a chunk of quartz,a night where the streets of Pariswere full of poet corpsesrotting in the Metro vents,I emerged trembling from my shelter on Cuyas Streetand went out to find death.Dragging myself, I arrived like an ancient marbleat the café

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1136354408516788962006-01-04T00:57:00.003-05:002009-09-05T21:44:14.502-04:00The Exile Notebooks

Rafael Cadenas (Barquisimeto, 1930)I belonged to a town of big snake eaters, sensual, vehement, quiet and able to go mad with love. But my race was of a different lineage. It is written and known—or supposed—by those who occupy themselves in reading signs that are not expressly manifested that their austerity had a proverbial nature. It was possible to notice it, rummaging a bit through the

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1133714381979184812005-12-04T11:33:00.001-05:002009-01-31T14:38:08.291-05:00Sky, Your Big Arch

Hanni Ossott (Caracas, 1946-2002)If it doesn't comeif it doesn't arrivelet it beThat is there, alwayslike a convocationIf it doesn't comewaitThe moon's song has its time.October 1987This anguishfor the Egyptian poetthe old one, the most archaic onethe one who saw the Nile's cobalt bluethe black blueThis shamefor his already forgotten wordamidst the desert's infinite sandsMy headplaced thereat the

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1131318358818774482005-11-06T18:01:00.002-05:002012-02-05T13:45:30.707-05:00Displacement Texts

Antonia Palacios (Caracas, 1904-2001)To my children Fernán and ElizabethWhere is the road where light dwelleth,And wherof is the place of darkness?JOB: 38:19They will take all my belongings, all the offerings. The ones that arrived lifted in garlands and branches, the ones that fell lavishing themselves, the ones that remained in suspense, the ones left behind for long fatigues, the ones of

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1128315421795541482005-10-03T00:47:00.002-04:002012-02-06T01:04:24.615-05:00The Residents

Alfredo Silva Estrada (Caracas, 1933-2009)1The residents project their shadowOn the walls of a happier cityThey don't stop at the thresholdThey create itFrom roots stirring at their stepsWith the sometimes dramatic gesturesOf a radiant interimTheir hands guide ivy that rises slowlyEngendering airs made rhythmic by the fervor of the invisibleBy love's breathingIn that still nameless zealThey make

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1125681397339497192005-09-02T12:58:00.001-04:002014-02-18T13:44:32.112-05:00My Father, the Immigrant

(excerpts) Vicente Gerbasi (Canoabo, 1913-Caracas, 1992) I We come from night and toward night we go. The earth stays behind wrapped in her vapors, where the almond tree, the child and the leopard live. The days stay behind with lakes, reindeer, snow, with austere volcanoes, with charmed jungles where fear’s blue shadows hover. The tombs stay behind at the foot of the cypress, alone in the

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1122909393441683142005-08-01T11:12:00.001-04:002009-01-31T14:39:29.914-05:00Miami Beach Sunstrokes

(excerpts)Jacqueline Goldberg (Maracaibo, 1966)the balcony is a chunk of Collins Avenuea viewreduced to extremesno one noticesat lunchwe watch its swim suit blendwe've got towelstuna sandwichesDiet Cokewe pause at the dry shotof an airplane over the bayMr. Jones guards exits and entranceshe couldn't have another name—as a true characterout of English classes—Mr. Jones is a guachmanripit egeinMr.

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1120230846465627242005-07-01T11:07:00.001-04:002009-01-31T14:39:45.506-05:00Providence

(excerpts)Rafael Castillo Zapata (Caracas, 1958)When will we build a pyre with these dark branches and with these thorns, when will we chop up your forehead with axe blows imitating starving invaders?I love the word lámpara associated to your future. Won’t I see you shine, perhaps, beneath the stars, rescued from your shrouds like a nocturnal bride? Surrounded by bonfires, by flames, your face

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1118268516401472452005-06-08T17:55:00.001-04:002009-01-31T14:39:58.470-05:00Prayers to an Absent God

(excerpts)Martha Kornblith (Lima, Peru 1959-Caracas, Venezuela 1997)That's why we dedicate our booksto the dead.Because we carry the hopeless convictionthey listen to us.We, accomplices toless innocent careers,believe we will be godsin other worldsbecause we think happinessis the miracle's distancewhen we dream of one word,when we watch airplanes rising.That's why I became a poetbecause time

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1115785019808907512005-05-11T00:07:00.001-04:002009-01-31T14:40:11.337-05:00Above the White Waters of Disappearance

Elizabeth Schön (Caracas, 1921-2007)The sunken leaf on the sidewalkis direct cultivation to what we're transitingTo grip the realits own and originaluntil staying amid solitude, windand that taste of watersborn of the heartas if one day's breezeyesterdayand yet another daytodaywere the same riverthat blood's other, the skinwith soft eyessweetly following changeConfidenceif the heart approaches

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1112786037821433842005-04-06T07:06:00.002-04:002009-11-10T11:46:58.593-05:00Air over the Air

(excerpts)Juan Sánchez Peláez (Altagracia de Orituco, 1922-Caracas, 2003)IA round horse entersmy house after wandering for so longin the fieldsa brown and drunken horse withmany spots in the shadeand with such a voice, my God.I told him: you will not lick my hand,wandering star of the specters.And that was enough. I didn’t see him again. Hehad left. Because the specterscannot be mentioned to

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1109716248466496152005-03-01T17:23:00.001-05:002015-03-31T13:26:12.600-04:00The Wall

Fernando Paz Castillo (Caracas, 1893-1981) "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," —that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.—John Keats I A wall in the afternoon and in the hour a white line, indefinite over the green field and under the sky. II A bird—on the leaf— has placed its most beautiful song over the wall. III Grieved by its own existence —stopped amid its brief shadow and

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6176735.post-1107827511378826842005-02-07T20:51:00.002-05:002009-01-31T14:41:01.213-05:00Poems from Quebrada de la Virgen

(excerpts)Armando Rojas Guardia (Caracas, 1949)19Unsought, they rise todaythe bread without the table's support,the clear water without the cup,the tree without the letters to write or pronounce it,the punctual bird in the sleeping city.The rain stepping on grass and resucitatingvirgin perfumes. The new limeglows on the wall of the belltowerwhere Sunday calls me in.That moss on the

Guillermo Parrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13383940105241352465noreply@blogger.com