Prelude

José Antonio Ramos Sucre (Cumaná, Venezuela 1890 - Geneva, Switzerland 1930)



I want to exist among empty fog banks, because the world damages my senses cruelly and life afflicts me, impertinent lover whispering bitter stories.
     By then my memories will have abandoned me: now they flee and return with a rhythm of ceaseless waves, they are wolves howling within the night shrouding desert snows.
     Reality's disturbed symbol, movement respects my fantastic asylum; moreover, I will have scaled it with death at my arm. She is a white Beatriz, and, standing on the crescent of the moon, she will visit my painful sea. Under her spell I will repose forever and I will no longer lament offended beauty or impossible love.




La torre de Timón, 1925




(José Antonio Ramos Sucre, "Preludio," Antología poética, ed. Francisco Pérez Perdomo, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1969)