Swans Commentary » swans.com January 1, 2007  

 

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by Guido Monte

 

Poetry

 

 

 

 

(Swans - January 1, 2007)  
[Once Terence's Chremes: humani nil
a me alienum puto, 'all that's human,
  it isn't far from me'—
  but Hesiod's visiting angels: idmen
pseýdea pollà léghein etýmoisin omoia,
    'ours are voices of credible lies'—
at last Pindar, dedaidalmenai pseydesi poikilois
  ecsapatonti mýthoi... 'miths, mixed
  with credible lies, confuse us...']


1.
When it's caught up
  every little human illusion...
Wenn aus den Weltenweiten
an ending voice says:
"es medianoche...midnight,"
je reçois the last black human clouds
d'un monde encore tout seul,
of a wars world alone
               wars that can't be off

2.
Ting,
the melting pot:
_______
___ ___
_______
_______
_______
___ ___
linn the fire, sunn the wind
on this different way
où nous sommes des otages de l'obscurité,
where we' re hostages of darkness
(sed Ezra: "nor are here souls, nec personae...
nothing matters but the quality
  of affections")


3.
L'antico umore una volta
s'accese nel calore del sole
  once the ancient mood caught life;
here are the lands, vastes mondes,
"beithe luis nin"—
  how many stars listen
to the mutable human noises

et dans un instant
you must decypher un long espoir,
time sweeping away the pale day—
dans une terre loin de la terre
and before chaos...
chaos, the only cosmos' face:
nous ne sommes rien d'autre

 

Note:
The author thanks Rosa Maria Costa and Giusy Chirco.
Beithe luis nin (birch, ash, rowan) are the universal references of beth luis nion, the first three letters of an ancient Celtic alphabet. The verses of "Ezra": Ezra Pound, Canti Pisani (Pisan cantos), LXXVI.

 

 

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About the Author

Guido Monte teaches Italian and Latin literature in Palermo, Italy. He blends living and dead languages, and ancient and modern poets, in search of deeper relations between different people and cultures. He was born in 1962. You can find more creative writing of his own on happano.org, Words Without Borders, Segue, the multilingual magazine Litterae, and on BlazeVox (PDF file), an online journal of voice.

 

Legalese

Please, feel free to insert a link to this work on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge, or repost this work on the Web or any electronic media. Inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. Pulp re-publishing is welcome -- please contact the publisher. This material is copyrighted, © Guido Monte 2007. All rights reserved.

 

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