Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

The Web Ravels

Each year that passes is like the weave
spinning ever faster on the loom
where there presses without reprieve
the web for lies leaving no room
but for what I am and forfend
to be: things and beings, all the coins
that spendthrift nothingness spends
to hide from its faithful what it purloins.
And each summer the sun still ravages
this aged skin, and this subtle web
seems more consumed down to its selvage.
The web ravels, blunting every neb.
Between my ears, nullity’s barrage
hisses that nothing can stem the ebb.
(Translated by Justin Vitiello)