(from Roma, Danger For Walkers, 1967)

I get bored.
I am getting blue.
I am become boredom.
So ever bored— 
     in the city of Rome!
More than ever I weary,
I am so weary!
I want to express the chiseled 
     manner of boredom 
     in my bones.
Everyone sees it in my face.

Sir, are you?
There’s no denying
it cannot be disguised
you seem transported.
Tell me, where do you go, so soulless?  
That you go to basilicas with that boredom?
Perhaps, sir, you go to basilicas brandishing 
     a burdensome boorishness? 
What about museums—say—feeling monotonous?
Who wouldn’t feel in my wooden walk how tasked 
     to crying in breathless sobs am I?
What breath, boredom!
A mile away you spy his hot mirage, the great white 
     boredom.
My great boredom.
How low, sleek, and boring am I.
And yet… Oooh!
I have stepped on a poo…
I have just stepped—-holy God!—-on a poo…  
They say it is lucky to step on a poo…
That it brings lots of luck to step on a poo…
Luck, gentlemen, luck?  
The luck, the luck, the luck?
I’m glued to the ground.
I can’t walk.
Now I will never walk again.
I am getting bored, oh! I am becoming bored!
More than ever I get bored!
Bored to death.
I will never speak again.
I died.

Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi