365 Celsius per hour

van Gogh's Amsterdam Nights

What has changed from there to here?
The wind? That appears and disappears like a fast car’s ghost?
The nights? Beyond the dark winter and into the sparkling spring?
The fireflies? Speeding up towards new labyrinths?
Or myself? Saying goodbye to the one of yesterday…
And scared shitless of the one waiting ahead?

All these doubts sketched on a Technicolor sci-fi canvas
Spread on dark rivers with a five hundred years stench
On fire like the witches of Numarkt
Hurting like childhood tears and youth’s scars
All this doubts hanging from my skin, hunting…

But then again, what has changed from there to here?
The new face of that beautiful poet’s kiss?
The new friends that came out of nowhere into my days?
Or all those forgotten nights lying behind on deleted emails?
Perhaps my new old-fashioned mistakes
Those new old versions of the same…

Feet holding tight on tight ropes that shred on time
Old continent’s digital pictures repeating themselves
Full of fears and tears and pleasures from others’ white sands
And vanishing safety running away like soft remains…
Or like soft diamonds… from thirsty black hands.

What has changed from there to here?
Every sin. Everywhere.
Everything there is to imagine. Burning.


Amsterdam, March 31st – 2005
Carlos Peralta-Cáceres