Swans Commentary » swans.com October 4, 2010  

 


 

Special Issue on Immigration

 

Boats Of Death From Africa
 

 

by Guido Monte

 

Multilingual Poetry

 

(Comments by Francesca Saieva)

Pic: "marks" - © 2010 Guido Monte - Size: 10k
marks
© 2010 Guido Monte

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(Swans - October 4, 2010)  

how many migrants,
how many boats of death
lie under the channel of Sicily?
how many opened hands,
unheard screams,
how many eyes, mouths?
and who remembers they died?

but their shipwrecks
are not our business,
we didn't know them
they were strangers and far,
and nobody knows, no more,
they lived

noi non li conosciamo
we don't know them
wir kennen sie nicht
nós não os conhecemos
nous ne les connaissons pas
nós non os coñecemos

 

 

Francesca Saieva's comment: Out of focus, eyes and mouths of people without face, and a doubt: if they were really or not (Szymborska). Iron chains for a painful travel (Pawloska). No more pilgrims, they are the forms without form (Pessoa); now the focus is good, and everything is incurable (Bachmann). Brushwood burning where winds are nobody... onde os ventos são ninguém (Pessoa). But on the horizon you can see again a little boat, suffering (Szymborska).

The author thanks Giusy Chirco, Silvia Dello Russo, Graciela Muller Pozzebon, and Paula Iglesias Garcia.

Picture: marks, by Guido Monte (2010).
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

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About the Author

Guido Monte on Swans (with bio). Also, please check Guido's entry on Wikipedia.   (back)

 

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Swans -- ISSN: 1554-4915
URL for this work: http://www.swans.com/library/art16/gmonte100.html
Published October 4, 2010



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