I Who Must Eat


In the dense mood of these times
We think too much about food.
We want to avoid dying of an illness
Since we tend to avoid dying of hunger.
We take our pleasures with so much anger
All in haste and when the damage is done
I catch you knocking at my cellar door.

In the fossilised heads of young men
Are stale same ideas about making money
Holidays in St Tropez or Phuket
And lying on the hallowed sands they imprint
A graven image in other people’s memories
And are far too easily discouraged to find
How hard it is to inspire real jealousy.

In the garages of the bucolic suburbs
Are automobiles invented only so long ago
Covered over by a metaphor for speed
Far beyond the limits of what is necessary
To get from A to B
Not allowing for the lack of skill
in the hands of a normal driving being.

In the morning when I awake,
I am confronted by a wrenching resistance
Within my soul which says please do not.
Yet my body would rise to do the routine tasks
Transformed during the night into solemn duties
And I know not for what in particular.
Yet it is I who must eat.

Bevagna, 11 7 2014