Translated by Donald Stang & Helen Wickes
THE EVENING NEWS
I won’t permit
my fierce
desire—
wholesome, clean—
to lose its nerve,
to become sullied
by brutal apparitions,
by the velvety red
of the flat screen,
by the triumphant procession
of victors
over their
small victims.
I have to protect
my desire
from the ideas
behind these facts,
behind these assaulting
images
which surround the foxhole
of my living room
and make my armchair
seem pitiful.
How to redeem
my wounded
longing,
hostage to a history
which seemed healed,
while the infection spread
beneath its skin?
How to isolate it
from evil
and rescue
this fragile motion
of the hormones?
I will respond to the gut
while awaiting
the creative juices.
Blessed be she
who, leading the way
through the barbed wire
and the cadavers of children,
took me inside her
and liberated me
from forced sterility.
Free to flow
through her.
In what vault
to safeguard
my desire?
At least until she arrives
and undresses on my bed?
Extending my arm,
I caress
the red key
of the remote.
The flood of history:
I will leave you outside,
out there in the cold!
My bed
will be an island in the midst
of the voracious abyss.
A blind and
deaf island,
made solely
of living flesh and breath.
But what is this roaring?
What is this
racket?
Good Lord,
what is this reporter
saying?
It makes no sense.
Great God, I don’t believe it!
It’s not possible!
It can’t be!
Our gaze burns
in the middle
of a rigid grimace
and the hand hangs
inert
alongside the body.
Hers.
Mine.
The discouraged desire
follows the hand,
sounds its
final note,
the most solemn of all,
somber, inaudible.
And then goes silent.
Julio Monteiro Martins
TELEGIORNALE
Non posso permettere
questo mio desiderio
imperioso,
sano, pulito,
di snervarsi,
di sporcarsi
di brutali apparizioni,
del rosso vellutato
sullo schermo piatto,
del corteo trionfale
dei vincitori
sopra le loro
piccole vittime.
Devo proteggere
il desiderio
dall’idea
che sta dietro questi fatti,
dietro queste immagini
assalenti
che circondano la trincea
del salotto
e rendono patetica
la mia poltrona.
Come riscattare più avanti
questa mia voglia
ferita,
ostaggio di una Storia
che sembrava risanata,
mentre l’infezione avanza
sotto la sua pelle?
Come isolarla
dal male
e salvare
questo fragile moto
degli ormoni?
Risponderò al ventre
in attesa
del latte fecondo.
Benedetta lei
che facendomi strada
tra il filo spinato
e i cadaveri dei bambini
mi portò dentro di sé
e mi affrancò
dalla sterilità forzata.
Libero di fluire
in lei.
In quale cassaforte
custodire
questo mio desiderio?
Almeno fin quando lei arrivi
e si spogli sopra il mio letto?
Distendo il braccio,
accarezzo
il tasto rosso
del telecomando.
Diluvio di Storia,
ti lascerò fuori,
all’addiaccio!
Il mio letto
sarà un’isola al centro
del vorace abisso.
Isola cieca
e sorda,
fatta solo
di carne viva e respiro.
Ma cos’è questo scroscio?
Cos’è questo
frastuono?
Cosa sta dicendo,
Dio mio,
la giornalista?
Non si capisce.
Dio mio, non ci credo!
Non è possibile!
Non è possibile!
Lo sguardo si infiamma
al centro
di una smorfia rigida
e la mano pende
inerte
accanto al corpo.
La sua.
La mia.
Il desiderio avvilito,
segue la mano,
suona la sua
nota finale,
la più grave di tutte,
fosca, inaudibile.
E poi si spegne.
The Evening News is from the final poetry collection of Julio Monteiro Martins, La grazia di casa mia, published in 2013 by Rediviva Edizioni (Milan). Martins (1955–2014) was born in Niterói, Brazil, but lived for many years in Italy. He was a prominent teacher, publisher, and writer of essays, stories, theater works, and poetry. In his home country, he worked as a lawyer for human rights and environmental causes; in Italy he was director of the online journal Sagarana. Almost none of his work has been published in English.
Translator Donald Stang is a longtime student of Italian. His translations of Italian poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Carrying the Branch by Glass Lyre Press, Silk Road, Pirene’s Fountain, Mantis, Newfound, Catamaran, Ghost Town, Apple Valley Review, Apricity Magazine, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance, and Resilience by Sixteen Rivers Press, and thedreamingmachine.com.
Translator Helen Wickes’s work appears in AGNI Online, Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Massachusetts Review, Slag Review, Sagarana, Soundings East, South Dakota Review, Spillway, TriQuarterly, Westview, Willow Review, ZYZZYVA, thedreamingmachine.com (poems and translations of Italian poetry,) as well as many others. Four books of her poetry have been published.