How Can I Describe This to You? (Cómo hacer para darte una idea)

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

This is one of two songs I wrote in prison for my beloved Graciela. In the song I tried to draw her closer to me, describing my everyday world and my experience of life as a captive.


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Published on: 22 June 2015

How can I describe to you
this sad ferrous universe
with its eternal cold nights
shaken by sickened screams
and the desert, the desert of love
where I write you these verses.

How can I describe to you
the hours I have spent alone,
during the endless circles
that my feet draw in the cell
and the absurdity, the absurdity of believing
that I am still part of your kingdom.

How can I describe to you
the hatred that invades my dreams,
the battles I engage in by day
against the whip of impatience
and the delirium, the delirium that climbs
the concrete shadow.

How to finally make it possible
for your mind to see this small space,
so you can imagine
where I sleep every day
and you stay, and you stay a while
by my side and in silence.


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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