We Christianized barbarians,
more alone than ever
beneath the world’s gaze
no longer have the Ptolomeus dynasty
or the Basileus
to explain us to others,
nor other converted Goths
to draw the sword
in our name.
We are alone,
without recourse.
Gazing over the desert
that predicts the lions
we see everywhere
mirages of ferocious
beasts,
naked martyrs
forever in the centre of the circus.
Antioch has fallen,
as have Carthage and Byzantium,
the lighthouse of Alexandria,
the towers of Damascus,
the Twin Towers.
All the towers have fallen,
and though Vienna is holding out,
Lisbon is ready to succumb.
Blood flows
against the current,
up the Tagus and the Guadalquivir.
Still stammering
with the revelation
we have cut our braids
to sail around the seas
with Magellan.
Few of us have returned
and few are left
-- a handful struck dumb
in Vancouver, in Brasilia,
in Riga, in La Valletta –
too few infantrymen
for too many doors
unguarded.
From the Friuli crossings,
to the Pyrenees passes
from the hottest waters
the world grows closer
and tightens around us
in a circle of fire.
Cramped, squeezed,
we explode upwards:
Apollo, Voyager,
Soyuz, Mir,
are spurts into the ether,
new mirages
on new deserts.
(When the Justinian
Empire fell
we did the same:
we cast out
into shadowy seas.
But then
there were the Indies).
Our eyes,
hundreds of them,
go around the planet.
They see everything,
but understand little.
Do we want to cancel
the frantic preaching
with atomic blasts
to remain alone here
speaking
among the stumps of columns?
It is not the nails that kill
in crucifixions.
It is only the weight
of the crucified
that blocks the breath.
This at least
we should have understood
when we saw the crosses
on the mount.
But we barbarians
are like children.
We have no memories
of the sacrifices.
We have memories
of nothing.
We do not know who we are
ourselves.
We have not been granted
the centuries to learn this.
Julio Monteiro Martins was born in 1955 in Niterói in Brazil. "Honorary Fellow in Writing" at the University of Iowa in the United States, he has taught creative writing at Goddard College in Vermont (1979-82), at the Oficina Literária Afrânio Coutinho, Rio de Janeiro (1982-91), at the Instituto Camões, Lisbona (1994) and at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1995). Between 1996 and 2000 he held courses in several Tuscan cities. He was among the founders of the Brazilian Partito Verde and of the environmentalist movement "Os Verdes". As a defender of human rights in Rio de Janeiro, he guaranteed the safety of the meninos de rua. In his country of origin he has published nine books, including short story collections, novels and essay, among which are Torpalium (Ática, São Paulo 1977), Sabe quem dançou? (Codecri, Rio 1978), A oeste de nada (Civilização Brasileira, Rio 1981) and O espaço imaginário (Anima, Rio 1987). In Italy he has published Il percorso dell'idea (petits poèmes en prose, with original photos by Enzo Cei, Vivaldi & Baldecchi, Pontedera 1998), as well as the short stories collections Racconti italiani(Besa, Lecce 2000), La passione del vuoto (Besa, Lecce 2003), and madrelingua (Besa, Lecce 2005). His story L'irruzionewas included in the anthology Non siamo in vendita - Voci contro il regime (edited by Stefania Scateni and Beppe Sebaste, with a forward by Furio Colombo, Arcana Libri / L'Unità, Roma 2002). His poems have been published by various literary journals, among which the international three-monthly "Pagine" and the online magazine "El Ghibli", as well as in the anthologies I confini del verso. Poesia della migrazione in italiano (Florence, Le Lettere 2006) and A New Map: the Poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy (Los Angeles, Green Integer 2006). He is the creator of the event "Scrivere Oltre le Mura". He now lives in Tuscany where, besides teaching Portuguese and literary translation at the University of Pisa, he directs and teaches at the narrative workshop, part of the Masters programs of the Scuola Sagarana in Lucca, and he is editor in chief of the online literary magazine, "Sagarana" .