Swans Commentary » swans.com May 22, 2006  

 


 

There Are No Right Wars
... And Verses of Petronius

 

by Guido Monte

 

Poetry

 

 

(Swans - May 22, 2006)  
("dies...nihil est -- the day... is the slightest thing
dum versas te, nox fit , just one little move
                                 and the night has fallen."

 

Hoy los americanos viven en el miedo, eso murmúra
  el diario, lo ha eschuchado desde el viento del Norte.
  Moi aussi, de ma fenêtre, j'attends l'attaque radiactive
qui remporte pour jamais tous les hommes
  sous les petits ruisseaux des trottoirs...)

 

Alone I keep a long night vigil,
on the asphalt road long lines of shades,
                                to the two dream ways

 

there aren't right wars...
non esistono guerre giuste
non sunt iusta bella
il n'existe pas de guerres justes
koi bi lharai thik nhi he

 

in the Hades depths:
a steel building,
all the Authorities burning inside (what a silly demagogy),
  Prime Ministers Kings Generals & their disfigured faces,
cropped ears cropped noses. And (once hailing) crowds crawl
    before the river (in vain!), just shades
                                hunting for themselves...

 

("nos non pluris sumus quam bullae,
human beings: only bubbles, no more")

 

the weeping camp smells of hospital wards,
  syrinxes phleboclysis crutches & amputation saws.
    The woman-kamikaze: no arms; her mother, no legs,
                                killed in a refugee camp.

 

there aren't right wars...
non esistono guerre giuste
non sunt iusta bella
il n'existe pas de guerres justes
koi bi lharai thik nhi he

 

  "Elì Elì, lemà sabactani?"

 

          (comme en apparence de rêve nous traversons la porte d'ivoire)

 

at the dream doors: few guests in the Fourth House,
          on the stream only green leaves, pebbles & nests
                                on the water-lilies...
                      a twinkling morning star

 

("cum sciamus nos morituros esse, quare non vivamus?
we know the end; why don't we really live?")

 

there aren't right wars...
non esistono guerre giuste
non sunt iusta bella
il n'existe pas de guerres justes
koi bi lharai thik nhi he

 

                                                              finished. Go

 

 

(The author thanks Rosa Maria Costa, Jatin Surjit, and Liliana Lo Giudice.)

 

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Poetry

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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. To format Monte in HTML is a challenge that would necessitate a "Monte's" CSS of his own (we did not create one).

 

Legalese

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Swans -- ISSN: 1554-4915
URL for this work: http://www.swans.com/library/art12/gmonte01.html
Published May 22, 2006



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