Love (Amor)

Music piece by:
Guillermo Núñez (lyrics) and Sergio Vesely (music)
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, 1975

This song is based on a poem Guillermo wrote in the Puchuncaví Prison Camp dedicated to his partner Soledad. Of all the songs I composed as a prisoner, this is the only one where the lyrics are not mine.

The reason is very human and simple. One day Guillermo asked me if I could set to music verses he had written so he could sing them to his beloved the next time she visited him.

I found the idea so original and I liked it so much that I decided to help him.

I took the sheet of paper with the poem to my cell in one of the adjacent huts. After reading and re-reading it several times, I began to compose this song.

It’s a shame, but I don’t recall if Soledad ever got a chance to hear it.


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Published on: 23 September 2015

Love
What smile, what song
what flower or pain
are you?

Love
What song without a history
what absence without you,
are you?

Even when you were not my smile
you were not my heartache
we knew that today
that you and I would be united
like a smile perched
on every tree, on every cloud.

The two of us…
Love…
If you leave every afternoon without me
you keep being here.

Love
there is a rose in my hand
that grows and becomes larger
for you.

Love
no cage anywhere in the world
can ever hide it
from you.

Like a nauseating air
a howl rises between us
and separated
we see ourselves retaining the whole sky
to hear each other, to see each other
to fly together, to fly forever.

The two of us…
Love…
There is a rose in my hand
that grows and becomes larger
and needs a sky
to fly….




Related testimonies:

  • Lament for the Death of Augusto the Dog (Lamento a la muerte del perro Augusto)  Sergio Vesely, Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, 1975

    Augusto the dog (not to be confused with the journalist Augusto Olivares, affectionately nicknamed 'Augusto the Dog', who was murdered in the Presidential Palace on 11 September 1973), was the mascot of the political prisoners held at the Ritoque concentration camp, and accompanied his master when the military junta decided to close that prison and transfer the inmates to the neighbouring Puchuncaví concentration 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.

  • Today Was Visitors’ Day (Hoy fue día de visitas)  Sergio Vesely, Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1976

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

  • Song of a Middle-Class Man (Canción de un hombre medio)  Sergio Vesely, Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1976

    In our political discussions, we always spoke disdainfully of the middle class. In the view of the Marxist ideologues in prison, that sector of society supported the dictatorship and it was necessary to reverse that trend.

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