An uncertain time after Patmos*

we heard and remained: the islands
won't come they won't
wait                 at the light-blue
twilight
        you step your foot
on culture dry as milk
we wait and             we drink
to dance, spirits and lose the snow
hiding our purpose. if you had the dead
flowers in your hairskin rendezvous
with the past,       if you wait
and it comes with the golem
we wrote, some giotto
criminal        with the word
no one speaks–  eleven stars
from marburg, each god
pathetic, just like schubert
would have wanted it.
               who is the third, the false
beginning? sometimes in seas
   of ghosts turned athletes
      a fire flows downwards, graceful.

Miguel Monteiro, in Pedra da Ponte.

*Conta-se que o vate, depois de pousar a lira no chão e limpar o suor da testa, inevitável sinal do cansaço de dizer o poema, se terá virado para a audiência e proferido uma mensagem que alguns julgam terem sido qualquer coisa como: «Vamos lá a acalmar.»