NATIONAL CINEMA Poem by Luis Vidales

Through the yellowish
lantern sky
pass the Colombian clouds.
And how they show they haven't rehearsed
before.

The trees
- because it's the first time they have worked in the movies -
appear
stiff
inhibited
affected.

On the outskirts of Bogotá
prowls the moon.
And what a moon!
It is a moon varnished white
and with its own installation.

Outside
the night sky
dark . . . pompous
is an immense Gongorism.

Then I see the moon.
Oh! Oh!
It projects on the wall
the anthropometric charts of the passers-by!

They are like burnt plates
escaping!

And in the movie theatre of the night
I applaud
the incoherent pictures
of this Pathé baby.