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:

  • 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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