Today Was Visitors’ Day (Hoy fue día de visitas)

Music piece by:
Sergio Vesely
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
Experience in:
Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1976

Visitors’ day was an exceptional day that broke the monotonous routine of all the other days of the week.

I wrote this song in Valparaíso Jail, where I sang it countless times accompanied by my dearly remembered cellmate, the musician Antonio Suzarte from Valparaíso.


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Published on: 22 June 2015

Today the teapot, the coffee and bread roll
awoke at dawn
behind bars, lock and grid.

And between whistles and line-ups
between the soap and toothpaste
thread by thread a prisoner embroidered his dream.

Today the cell was a palace of laughter
a riot of shoes and shirts
an endless grind of hopes and fantasies.

All because today was visitors’ day.

Today in the shadow of the wall
two lovers had a date
far from the jailer’s eye.

And with the seagull’s feather
with the cooing of the dove
the wind and the tide
their love ascended to the rooftop.

Today the emotion of meeting his little boy
made a prisoner burst into tears
while sadness covered the face of one
who waited in vain for his brother.

All because today was visitors’ day.

In these evenings nostalgia will visit everyone
now lying down, perhaps smoking in their bunks
reading letters of a great love,
gazing at the portrait of a passion
between four bitter walls,
which are alien to love.

But tomorrow everything will have passed
and the routine of the calendar
will make the bars of our souls fall
until the next visit.


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.

  • Dreams of my Imprisonment (Sueños de mi encierro)  Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi, 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.

  • 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.

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