11 Settembre 2001
Italian and English (below) versions by Max Consoli

Ho pietà
per gli illusi
di Dio,
che sognano vergini
a iosa
al cambio appropriato
d’un suicidio
ben fatto.
«Il mondo è
cambiato...
... non sarà più
lo stesso»...
E’ dal ventre materno
che lo sento affermare
ma mi sembra che tutto
vada avanti in eterno
in un gioco continuo
di alternanze e reazioni.
Anch’io sogno di
giorno:
talibani velati
condannati
al silenzio
per tutta la vita.
Casca cenere in polvere
dai camini di Auschwitz,
nella patria del Papa,
piove cenere fusa
dalle torri gemelle
sopra il centro del mondo.
«Oggi il mondo è
cambiato...
Oggi il mondo è un po’
peggio...»

September 11, 2001

I pity
those guys fooled
by God,
who dream of having
many virgins
just in exchange
for a well-done
suicide. ¹
«The world has
changed...
... it will never
be the same...»
I was still inside my mother’s
womb
but just the same I heard
those words,
but I think
everything
stays the same
in an eternal game
of alternations and reactions.
I also dream
during the day: ²
I dream about
talibans veiled ³
condemned to silence
for the rest of their life.
Powdered ⁴ ashes fall
from the Auschwitz chimneys
in the Pope’s land,
melted ashes rain
from the twin towers
over the center of the world.
«Today the world has
changed...
...Today the world just got
worse...»

Notes

  ¹ The Koran says that the faithful who die in battle for the greatness of Allah will be served, in heaven, by 70 virgin girls. (This is the main reason why we cannot become muslims...!) return

  ² Like those guys fooled by God. return

  ³ Face covered, as they impose on their women by force. In my dreams I see the male Talibans wearing the "burka", to be worn by law in retaliation. return

  ⁴ Here I make a comparison between the Nazi fury against their victims which ended with those victims being burned to ashes in the crematoriums (and their ashes were "dry", "dusty") at Auschwitz, which is in Poland, where the Pope comes from, and the fundamentalist fury which ends with the same burning of innocent victims. The only visible or evident difference is in the "nature" of the ashes: the latter ones are melted by the extremely high temperature and become almost liquid, and as a consequence they fall like rain on New York, which is today the center of the world. After the September 11 attack, the Twin Towers remind me of yesterday's Nazi concentration camp chimneys. return

Max Consoli is a prolific writer and
one of the founders of the Italian Gay Movement
(C) 2002 Massimo Consoli (e-mail)