Dreams of my Imprisonment (Sueños de mi encierro)

Music piece by:
Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi
Testimony by:
Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi
Experience in:
Cárcel de Valparaíso, Winter of 1975

I’d spent two years in prison and there was no end in sight for my time in jail. I observed during visiting hours that many prisoners had children, a wife, family.

In my case, however, having been arrested so young and just turned 19, I felt a growing concern that I’d die without bearing children, and never experience this wonderful human feeling.

This concern became a nightmare and led to these verses that turned into a song and filled the last page of my prison songbook, where I’d written down a number of ballads sung by other prisoners.

For a while, a musician from Valparaíso shared my cell and taught me my first chords. When he went into exile, he left me his guitar, which was my companion for another long year in captivity.


Tags:

Published on: 23 December 2014

Song recorded by Mario Patricio Cordero in 2015. Image from a songbook he compiled in prison.

A rock, the sea, a car
a scent, a shout, a dove
they wake me up on this dark night
I go out for a walk...

A shadow driven by the wind
a cloud crashes in the sky
a mother suckles her child
I go out for a walk...

A woman, a breast I have
in this night when I have no imprisonment
I speak of children smiling and dream
I go out for a walk...

A cold bed and many dreams
torture or a dead boot
wake me on this dark night
I go out for a walk...

Related testimonies:

  • The Black King (El rey negro)  Sergio Vesely, Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, 1975

    One cold winter night of 1975, the small clinic of Melinka, in the Puchuncaví Detention Camp, became the setting for a touching story.

  • National Anthem of Chile  Boris Chornik Aberbuch, Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, March 1975

    The Puchuncaví detention camp’s daily routine included mandatory participation in the ceremonies of raising and taking down the Chilean flag on the flagpole at the entrance to the camp.

  • Ode to Joy (Himno a la alegría)  Luis Madariaga, Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1974 - 1976

    In prison, we would sing the 'Ode to Joy' when a comrade was released or sent to exile.

  • To Sing by Improvising (Pa’ cantar de un improviso)  Claudio Enrique Durán Pardo (Kila Chico), Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, June 1975

    We made a Venezuelan cuatro from a large plank of wood attached to one of the walls of the "ranch" where we ate.

  • After the War (Después de la guerra)  Nelly Andrade Alcaino, Regimiento de Ingenieros de Tejas Verdes / Campamento de Prisioneros Nº 2 de la Escuela Militar de Ingenieros, February 1974

    The military officials in charge of the Tejas Verdes camp made us sing. They gave us just one day to select the songs and rehearse.

Testimonies from the Cantos Cautivos platform can be cited and shared as long as they are attributed (including the author, our project’s name and URL), for non-commercial purposes and without modifications, as per the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authorisation is required for 1) any reuse different from citations and sharing via the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license of the platform data and its associated metadata, and 2) any use in events, concerts, plays, films, etc., of musical works written or recorded by project participants. To that end, we request that you send a proposal at least one month in advance to contact@cantoscautivos.org. For uses of musical works written or recorded by people outside the project, please contact copyright holders.