Julio Monteiro Martins (1955–2014) is a Brazilian-born Italian and translingual writer who worked in his home country as a lawyer for human rights and environment causes, and in Italy as director of the online journal Sagarana. These poems, translated by Donald Stang and Helen Wickes, are from his final poetry collection, La grazia di casa mia, published in 2013. The original follows the English translation.
Windows
A poet has written
that poetry and windows
don’t get along well together.
Perhaps he was right.
Windows
are a subject
that is too poetical.
Too often they serve
as tired clichés.
Here’s one:
the gaze
is the window
of the soul.
Another:
this treasure chest
is a window
to the past.
In fact,
one can scarcely make
poetry in this way.
It’s clear
that there are no windows
that open into the soul
or doors
that swing open into the past.
There are, instead,
true windows,
and about those
one can in fact write poetry.
Or write nothing.
It’s the same.
They exist, that’s all.
The world is certainly not down on its knees
begging to be written about
by someone.
The world could care less.
One true window,
for example,
was the one my grandfather
locked with an iron bolt
every evening at eight,
even when the weather was brutally hot.
Today I understand
that he was not worried about
security.
He believed—
but he would never have admitted—
that through the open window
evil spirits would enter
and that they would infest
my childhood home.
He was paranoid, my grandfather.
A good man,
but paranoid.
In his delusion
evil was everywhere
but it only came in through the window.
Another actual window
had been crashed through
by a gang of youths
in the outskirts
of Rio de Janeiro.
It was the bedroom window
of my great-grandmother Herminia.
They wanted hidden money
that did not exist.
They beat her
to death.
My great-grandmother
had silver hair.
She also was good.
A strong woman.
She was the director
of the nursing home
that the gang had for some time
besieged.
Herminia
wasn’t paranoid.
But she should have been.
It would have saved her life.
When I wake up breathless
in the middle of the night
or in the early morning tired and dull,
I never know where I am.
So many times
I have changed countries and cities,
feathers and coat,
that I don’t always remember
my most recent move.
The walls are always the same.
Lamps, bathrobes, bath mats—
I find them everywhere.
Only the window remains
capable of explaining
things to me.
The things of my life.
I stretch my head out the window
in search of a tower,
a mountain,
a type of skirt,
a hat,
that might let me know
where the hell
I have ended up
this time.
A bus,
a fruit vendor
on the corner
reveal
the state of things.
From the window
one sees neither the soul
nor the past.
The window
is the present.
The room, instead,
is eternity.
And the present,
as we know,
we either see from eternity
or we do not see at all.
Finestre
Un poeta ha scritto
che poesia e finestre
non stanno bene insieme.
Forse aveva ragione.
Le finestre
sono un soggetto
troppo poetico,
servono troppo spesso
per metafore scontate.
Ne volete una?
Lo sguardo
è la finestra
dell’anima.
Un’altra?
Quello scrigno
è una finestra
verso il passato remoto.
Infatti
non si può mica fare
poesia così.
È chiaro
non ci sono finestre
che si aprono verso l’anima
né porte
che si spalancano verso il passato.
Ci sono invece
le finestre vere
e su queste
si può anche scrivere poesia.
O non scrivere niente.
È uguale.
Esistono e basta.
Il mondo non se ne sta certo in ginocchio
a supplicare di essere scritto
da qualcuno.
Il mondo se ne frega.
Una finestra vera,
per esempio,
era quella che mio nonno
sprangava con una barra di ferro
tutte le sere alle otto
anche quando faceva un caldo bestiale.
Oggi capisco
che non si preoccupava
della sicurezza.
Lui credeva
– ma non l’avrebbe mai ammesso –
che dalla finestra aperta
entrassero spiriti maligni
che poi avrebbero infestato
la casa della mia infanzia.
Era paranoico, mio nonno.
Tanto buono,
ma paranoico.
Nel suo delirio
il male era dappertutto
ma entrava solo dalla finestra.
Un’altra finestra reale
è stata sfondata
da una banda di bambini
in un quartiere periferico
di Rio de Janeiro.
Era quella della camera da letto
della mia bisnonna Hermínia.
Volevano i soldi nascosti
che non esistevano.
L’hanno ammazzata
di botte.
La mia bisnonna
aveva capelli d’argento.
Anche lei era buona.
Una donna forte.
Era la direttrice
dell’ospizio
che i bambini da tempo assediavano.
Hermínia
non era paranoica.
Ma avrebbe dovuto esserlo,
invece.
Le avrebbe salvato la vita.
Quando mi sveglio ansimante
nel mezzo della notte
o la mattina presto stanco e ottuso,
non so mai dove sono.
Tante volte
ho cambiato paese e città,
piume e pelame,
che non sempre riesco a ricordare
l’ultimo spostamento.
Le pareti sono sempre uguali.
Lampadari, accappatoi, tappetini,
li trovo dappertutto.
Resta solo la finestra
in grado di spiegarmi
le cose.
Le cose della mia vita.
Mi sporgo sul davanzale,
in cerca di una torre,
di un monte,
di un tipo di gonna,
di cappello,
che mi faccia capire
dove diavolo
mi sono cacciato
questa volta.
Un autobus,
un fruttivendolo
all’angolo
mi rivelano
lo stato delle cose.
Dalla finestra
non si vede l’anima
né il passato.
La finestra
è il presente.
La camera invece
è l’eterno.
E il presente,
lo sappiamo,
o lo vediamo dall’eterno
o non lo vediamo affatto.
Living in Exile
To live in exile.
A bitter juxtaposition,
practically an oxymoron.
My children
speak different languages,
and even I,
between sleep and wakefulness,
hear separate languages
inside my head.
As I mourn, I am irritated
by the fragrance
of just-ground coffee,
of tangerines,
of cinnamon,
of just-ironed clothing,
of just-cut grass
that wafts in spring
through the open window.
Exile,
spilled wine
on the silver tray
around the glasses
left empty.
Exile,
cage without bars
protected by the impassible
distance
of our anguish.
Exile,
moth launched across the sea
by the scirocco
along with the sand
of the desert.
There would be another me
awaiting
in my homeland.
A useless wait,
a glitch.
If we encountered each other today
we would not
recognize one another.
One life is marble from Carrara,
the other is sand.
One man turns to stone
while the other crumbles.
Exile,
visions of
astonishing women
marred
by news of women
dying.
Exile,
a dismal dance
minus the music,
bodies flailing
among spasmodic memories,
articulating a vital
but mistaken rhythm.
Adagio without allegro.
Requiem for the living.
I experience exile
like a gloomy carnival,
awkwardly preparing myself
for the mysterious,
classic tragedy:
to die in exile.
To breathe the last breath
far away,
forever absent
from the grace of my home.
Vivere in esilio
Vivere in esilio.
Amaro accostamento,
quasi un ossimoro.
I miei figli
parlano lingue diverse
e anch’io,
tra sonno e veglia,
ascolto idiomi distinti
dentro la mia testa.
Il lutto innervosito
dal profumo
del caffè appena macinato.
del mandarino,
della cannella,
dei panni appena stirati,
dell’erba appena tagliata
che soffia in primavera
attraverso la finestra aperta.
Esilio,
vino versato
sul vassoio d’argento
mentre le tazze
restano vuote.
Esilio,
gabbia senza sbarre
protetta dalla distanza
invalicabile
delle nostre angosce.
Esilio,
falena lanciata in mare
dallo scirocco
insieme alla sabbia
del deserto.
Ci sarebbe un io stesso
ad aspettarmi
nella terra di partenza.
Inutile attesa,
disguido.
Se c’incontrassimo oggi
non ci potremmo
riconoscere.
Una vita è marmo di Carrara,
l’altra è sabbia.
Un uomo si pietrifica
mentre l’altro si sfalda.
Esilio,
visioni di donne
strabilianti
imbrattate
da notizie di donne
morenti.
Esilio,
squallido ballo
senza musica,
corpi a dimenarsi
tra spasmi di ricordi
a scandire un ritmo vitale
ma sbagliato.
Adagio senza Allegro.
Requiem per viventi.
Vivo l’esilio
come funebre kermesse,
preparandomi goffamente
per l’arcana,
classica tragedia:
morire in esilio.
Esalare l’ultimo respiro
in lontananza,
eternamente assente
dalla grazia di casa mia.
About the Author
These poems are from the final poetry collection of Julio Monteiro Martins, La grazia di casa mia, published in 2013 by Rediviva Edizioni (Milan). Monteiro Martins (1955–2014) was born in Niterói, Brazil, but lived for many years in Italy, where he was a prominent teacher, publisher, and writer of essays, stories, theater works, and poetry. In his home country he had 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, other than certain of the poems in this volume, has been published in English.
About the Translators
Donald Stang is a longtime student of Italian. His translations of Italian poetry have appeared in Carrying the Branch, by Glass Lyre Press, Silk Road, Pirene’s Fountain, Newfound, Catamaran, Ghost Town, Apple Valley Review, Apricity Magazine, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience by Sixteen Rivers Press, Blackbird, Boomer Lit Magazine, Mantis, The Opiate, Slag Review, The Virginia Normal, The Wax Paper, and thedreamingmachine.com.
Helen Wickes’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Confrontation, Massachusetts Review, Sagarana, Soundings East, South Dakota Review, Spillway, Spoon River Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Westview, Willow Review, Zone 3, and ZYZZYVA, among many others. She has published four books of her poetry and contributes Italian translations to thedreamingmachine.com.
