Broken Lights (Free Verse)

Broken Street Lantern on the Campus, UDO-Sucre - Personal Archive

“I want to do to you what spring does to cherries” (by Acción Poética Cumaná). The piece stands on the old wall with peeling paint like a sad memento, as the broken street lantern witnesses the power of oblivion and of its own shattered glass like a crushed heart, and I remember the broken window Wilson and Kelling spoke about in 1982: when it becomes obvious there’s nobody there to keep things in order, evil arises; there’s mess, triumphant impunity. The devil laughs.

◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘

Broken Lights

Lights have broken—, old friend—. House me, dear; hold my true want. Your rays should bleed green blades of grass for me to lay down next to the memories of good to almost beat my longing and my reckoning.

Clear mornings visit the huge window in the library, that one which opened deep inside the page of rare literature and unknown History—“ere long”, “ere long,” I read, but know not a thing—. (Fake Valkyries pour their wine, a sea of glowing feathers over the majestic blue; images of mythologies mingled in an anxious mind just too crowded with excitement and yearning and curiosity. Eyes behold the foreign wonders as the winds of reality went missing, along with all the beautiful birds, the breeze from the golden gulf, the profuse blues and whites of the stately sky. Today the sun shines with remoteness on the horizon, where ships have gone to die along with the old hearts of too many people feeling sorry for the loss of the inhabitants of a house now too big and abandoned.).

Lights have broken in the hallway. The figures walk as they drag their feet and their wills, the many unsettling wills. I hear them from my private cubicle, and I fear I should find a familiar face if I dared to look beyond my door. I see the shadows going past, but the light that casts them is late. I have gone outside; I have dared to look after thirteen years. Bad luck? Nay! I should’ve stayed inside. I should’ve closed my eyes.

I'm out. There’s a message on the wall, but the place is empty, and not a single person is around; the message on the damaged wall speaks of spring and cherries, but it’s October now and the year is fading soon along with poetry: “I want to do to you what spring does to cherries.” Indeed, but it’s October now and our time won’t see the flowery season or the plump cherries. Lights have broken, and this evil which has made itself comfortable in this forgotten temple won't let us fix them.

◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘