For me, the Caucasus is just a cage as well.
Though I’m unbound. No rock, after
all’s said and done, holds him.
I tear at his liver every day. By night,
obviously, I’m exhausted.
So then the damn thing grows back again.
And he recovers. I dream of that infinite space
I lived in, thermalling on unfettered air,
before the gods handed me this horrid work.
They–the gods–have no idea what is it they want.
They’ll tell me: Make him suffer, but don’t let him croak!
Taunt him with pain enough to make him matter
what he thinks, to let us know his thought disgorge…
Our languages, of course, are different–can’t understand
a thing he tells me. And yet, when you consume his innards,
you understand the voice of such exquisite pain,
you know the voice inside his singing blood?
They may be divine but they’re doomed by ignorance.
While I ravage this titan, who screams and thrashes,
does he know I’ll never really damage him
enough? Rats and lesser vermin gather at his feet
and slaughter one another for the sacrifices
Mankind will offer–so much more that simple summer
crops, winter provisions. I, meanwhile, remain
so stuffed I cannot fly. (This hateful diet,
forever!) Those fools, they think
Prometheus is just his liver.