Prometheus’ Eagle
The Caucasus is a cage for me too.
Even though I’m not chained to that cliff
I have to peck his liver all day long
so at night, of course, I’m just buggered.
While his liver regenerates and grows
I dream of the endless space
where I used to glide freely
before the gods gave me this damned job.
They don’t know what they want anymore:
they say – peck him, but not too much, don’t let him die.
Let it hurt him, yet sometimes just tickle him
so that he blurps out his thoughts.
Yel I don’t even understand his words!
I know what’s in his entrails,
I know what he eats and drinks
but how figure out the language of his cells?
Hmmm, they pretend to be gods, but they understand zilch.
While I peck away, and I can’t do much more,
mice and rats eat up even the sacrifices
still offered by the people
not to mention the summer and winter crops.
As I say, I’m so stuffed I can’t even fly
(and I’ve grown to loathe liver, I’ve had a gutfull, enough for a lifetime!).
The poor guys, they must think Prometheus is only the liver.
translated by Ilija Čašule and Tomas Shapcott (An Island on Land, Anthology of Contemporary Macedonian Poetry, Compiled, edited and translated by Ilija Čašule and Tomas Shapcott, Macquarie Univeristy, Australia, 1999)