Poem: This Rage—Silvia Batisti
This Rage
—Silvia Batisti
I say not unto thee until seven
times but until seventy times seven
Christian Bible, Book of Matthew, XVIII, 22
This rage is not aroused
by reflections or such; it would be too easy
to give birth to robots under
the pseudonym of men, there would be
no more pregnant women, to be displayed as
symbols of survival;
there would be nobody to substitute
for us, but only futile sports
like shooting or bombing cities.
But he is mistaken who thinks
that space is limited to consciousness,
and the body—used as a guinea pig by the genes—
only an object, with simple vegetative
functions; man is combustible
material that burns with honor
in any old piazza.
I can’t find any web pages with information about the poet. This is from the forward of the 1986 volume of poetry in which this poem is found:
Silvia Batisti was born in 1949 in Greve in Chianti, near Florence, Italy. Self-taught, she has worked as a hairdresser, metal worker, typesetter, and proofreader. Now she is an archivist, and lives in Antonella, near Florence. She works for a number of journals, including Salvo imprevisti, a quarterly of poetry and other documents of struggle. Batisti has published two volumes of verse, Di pari passo (1970) and Costruzione per un delirio (1975).
