Video

Prometheus Housebound

by Gianfranco Palmery

Italian

Poems from the book L'io non esiste (I Does Not Exist) by Gianfranco Palmery

Translation by Barbara Carle

Prometheus Housebound

Liver ailment, Titanic ill,
makes a poor theme for domestic, domiciliary
verses. Although under arrest
it doesn’t mean chained to a ridge
of stone with the gnawing of the fatal
vulture swooping down and from its own remains
the immortal liver is rosily reborn.
Here torments are obscure, modest:
melancholy or black bile: a stigma
of petrified gall inflames
the side—cause or effect of the affliction?
Are the poisons descending? Or will
the fumitory infusions of morning
free the mind from its funerary slothfulness?

I Does Not Exist web page