by Viviana Fiorentino & Guido Monte
Multilingual Poetry
Mistica della visione © 2010 Giuseppe Zimmardi [l'angolo α (per la fig. 93) necessaria per inquadrare esattamente l'immagine nella rispettiva maschera limitatrice. Praticamente, la messa in fase viene effettuata girando la carcassa della ruota sincrona] |
(Swans - November 1, 2010)
Inside the fortress a swarm of creatures assigned to the gear of the big clock. The big clock assigns the actions. What must be done, what has been done and what still must be done. The big clock flows and strikes. It's heard inside the fortress. Nobody knows the time. A multitude of men and women flowed like a river. It submerged everything. Silent. Endless. Thin rivulets of anxiety flowed up till remote hamlets. The refugees reached the fortress and camped there, tired, and waited. Then they took down the settlement and begin to walk again. They tried to return, but the town had been destroyed. Destroyed the house. "Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt." And others toasted to the and to the And the night moved forward and it didn't know "dawn." Life as a whole seemed to breathe with individual nostrils. With mouths spread all over the bend of the planet. Humanity was a big man made from millions of little men, who gave him life. He dreamed of a sea of trees pouring in the lake. The forest and the dash to cross it, mentally. Legs couldn't support him.
The day after, over the lake, legs couldn't support him yet. So he turned back and left behind him the water basin, with its swans and silent willows. He entered in the dash of the city and of the time and run. He hoped his sorrow would last forever. He examined his crime. Looking back, past years seemed like images running in the corner of the eyes, while running. Running and running he dipped into the city he was born in.
He looked like in a mirror into the unintelligible face of the city. They looked like each other. The setting emerged from the face. Behind the eye pupils. The setting was inside. The setting of the room, the setting of the world. A single word, the same, behind the face or behind the face of the world. On a gaming table with a single camp were the memories. A movement took to the other side of the mirror. The movement pursued the shadows behind the face. Shadows and beasts walk wandering inside. The sea closed and it twinkled with stars.
La neige sur les terrasses blanches, neve sobre as terrazas brancas, le temps prisonnier des silhouettes au crépuscule, dans la géométrie de cette forteresse aux ponts suspendus.
Il n'y a que des ponts suspendus au-delà des murs, des nuages blanches et la voix du jugement.
J'attends une nouvelle existence éloignée d'interminables jours sans éclat et des fantasmes du passé, je choisis le gris et l'attente de la forteresse... cela suffit. Les fissures au plafond et goutte à goutte, l'eau de la citerne; le vent de la quatrième redoute sur le limite de la terre de Gog et Magog, le pays du nord.
Maintenant le temps et la mort n'existent plus, même pour les pierres autour de moi... les pierres de la forteresse, qui ne parlent pas ma langue... as pedras, que non falan a miña lingua.
Translation by Michelle Abbott (English), Francesca Saieva (French), Paula Iglesias Garcia (Galitian).
Viviana Fiorentino obtained her Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Siena; currently she is a Post-Doc biologist at the University of Potsdam.
Picture: Mistica della visione, by Giuseppe Zimmardi (2010).
Care about Guido's work? Then please consider a donation. Thank you.
Legalese
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, 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 2010. All rights reserved.
Have your say
Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number (the city, state/country where you reside is paramount information). When/if we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country.
About the Author
Guido Monte on Swans (with bio). Also, please check Guido's entry on Wikipedia. (back)