Flaminia Cruciani
Born in Rome, Flaminia Cruciani graduated from Rome’s Sapienza University with a thesis on “Archeology and History in the Ancient Near East”. She then went on to receive a Research Doctorate in “Oriental Archeology” from the same University.”For many years she took part in the yearly digs conducted at Ebla, in Syria, as a member of the “Italian Archeological Mission at Ebla”.She went on to study for a second degree, this time in history of art.She has also specialized in Analogical Disciplines. In 2008 Cruciani published Sorso di NottePotabile (A Sip of Night Water) with LietoColle. Lapidariumcame in 2015with Puntoacapo, and Semiotica del Male (The Semiotics of Evil) in 2016 with Ed. Campanotto. Her literary work has appeared in several Italian and foreign anthologies.
SPARTA
You don’t know how all wept quietly in Sparta
on the heap of Dorian ancestors
from the crowded sepulchres when
an inferior sky got married
the father was cursed along with his
gospel of oaths
cracked with use
swallowed into theological chaos
soiled by the equestrian circus.
The stopwatch started and we were already late
to train as warriors
the chains that had to be fixed with
hands stiffened by the cold
for us to taste the ruin of a miracle
to grow strong as an army
a woman strong as an army
one step from immortality
with a crushed orchid in her fist.
I asked for nuclear mercy,
to weep and cry “at ease!”
I would have wanted a raft of almonds
to shelter under a kiss.
But within the voice’s range I only
marched with silence, with head lowered
there was an enemy to be defeated,
it was me.
I am the artillery and the peace
the convent of feathers
the gaiety of terracotta
where the crucifix keeps its fast
I am the angel drunk with god
the bread that starves the spectres
the target blindfolded with light
I am the bell of air
that rings the silence
the back on which the bed rests
I am the prayer that washes water
the vineyard of ink
where light is harvested
I am the map for going astray
I am the sheer altar
where the all-powerful sits
when he repents.
Reason strove
devoured by the unrecognizable Flaminias
in the spectral descent of the disguised icon
you ploughed your hair and peddled your mouth for broom
on your rivals’ black blood
my breathless absent-minded genitals
handed down in battle
for a bitter sacrament.
Drink the warm erection you use to beat
the women jostling in my body
in my bed crowned by fire.
Sit down beside me, now –
make me a wheaten sign on the cross
I recite the blasphemous breviary of perdition.
I am condemned to life.
