Short Sisyphus Poems

Sisyphus would hardly stop
even on the mountain's top.

Volodymyr Knyr
2017...

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hard worker being
he really wants that ball
horn stuck on the thorn
happy like the Sisyphus
hill that heap a sound of stones...

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Sometimes Sisyphus may be envied amain
by long lean spell sufferers, no less.
Because at least he could time and again 
enjoy his euphoria near success....

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WE WILL ROCK YOU

Growing older
Pushing his boulder
Sisyphus retired to the valley 
And there he yearned 
To be the ball return 
In the bowling alley...

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“Sisyphus in love”


stuck in a forever
flowering field
of oddly
even

petalled daisies 
day in and day out
plucking and chanting

she loves me
she loves me

not...

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Kissing your cheek
time after time
then at once, you asked:
"What are you doing?"
"Counting my blessings," I said
"I was never good with numbers, though,
so I start it all over and over again
and imagine Sisyphus happy."...

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loss will one day resurrect its sum ~ good news for most too bad for some 

     tough break for menippean efilists ~ living with sisyphus syndrome 

             three rotating helios monokus ~ eternally rolling stones



By David Kavanagh...

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Pushing Up Hope

Though we walk wearily
through the valley of death,
the roaring redemptive river
of hope flows
towards us.  Presently
the mammoth mountain
of Sisyphus lies before us.  Yet
God’s giving grace
umbrella us from all the evil
we shall overcome....

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taping dancing freedom
on the mountaintop


tiptoeing
the mountain top
we slipped

fell like children
of Sisyphus

shooting galleries
caught us

life’s struggle
is over

weep not child
tomorrow comes
bearing new beginnings

if you believe
in the beginning...

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bird on a wire from Cohen’s mouth

words about moss on Dylan’s rolling stone

Sisyphus and his boulder never giving up

shadows in Plato’s cave leading the way

Diogenes’s barrel that captures the sun light

Pinocchio’s nose drip telling the absolute truth

the ability to feel think and remember


22 October 2020...

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Boston is for leaving.
Torgau is for brothers
Weimar is for mourners.
Dresden is for lovers.

Leipzig is for players. 
Meissen is for Sisyphus.
Frankfurt is for patience.
Berlin is for the two of us.

Ride the bus down,
board the flight across the earth.
fly "der Flug nach Deutschland"
and hold on for what it's worth....

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Rondelet: Bad Guy Dope*

See what I said
Head strong arm strong ham-strung bike dope
See what I said
Training ground's where villains are bred
Good guys strain up Sisyphus slope
Bad guys dope down Paris and mope
See what I said

*Please see poem posted on December 31, 2012, titled:
"This Bad Guy World (in all seriousness)"

(c) T. Wignesan, Paris, 2013...

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Minds on fire 
bodies racked with pain 
Eyes bleary 
Every day it seems 
that the great checkerboard 
of day and night 
has us in its grip 
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
These questions fill the air 
It seems that we are on a treadmill 
Like Sisyphus 
we face frustration 
But we can change 
the path we are on 
if we play our cards right...

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Occupations are not 
all useful, like when Sisyphus rolls
and nobody cares. Even Camus
can’t justify my love
of quantum or calculus, when it’s burn-lonely
rolling out the integrals: I integrate
myself into a human
-ist Existentialist here’s the point -ist
theory of why I am why I am
and when I differentiate my parents 
chide me. I gather the pieces again....

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With the weight of the world upon my shoulders,
Like Atlas doomed to uphold the Sky
Or Sisyphus and his boulder-
On Pegasus to thither fly?
The Minotaur and its Maze, 
Medusa and her stony gaze,
Aries in a monstrous rage,
As Hades steals my Soul to die
Prometheus, who gave us fire,
Apollo and his golden Lyre,
Hera and her jealous ire,
And Zeus, who ignores my cries!...

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Since I left, you still govern my mind,
like a rogue actor 
that dictator who rules 
an abandoned stage....
Like Sisyphus, I push you up the hill,
after I contain the essence of you in the boulder.
No punishment was greater than meeting you,
I wait for the moment when the boulder rolls away forever,
only then will the feather of the heart of the naive girl return....

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Sisyphus’ Silence

I sit, a silent, carved-out zone,

A soul entrapped, unlit, unwhole,

The majority’s tide grinds flesh to bone,

While others’ feelings wallow, roll

In mud that clings, a river’s drone.

Sisyphus slumps at mountain’s base,

Scowls at the stone, then dares a smile,

“Nevermore” hums through empty space,

The gods, once loud, now mute, exiled....

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The sound of animosity 
wakes you up.
There was a shadow war.

The ethnic otherness,
when you were ditching 
the sermons, the adjectives.

Will you accept the 
atrocity of nouns who keep 
on inviting the fat spiders ?

The vision has failed. 
I don’t find any cue
to the nests of sparrows.

Ah, the booming guns.
But I was talking 
to Sisyphus.



Satish Verma...

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Sisyphus pushes his rock up hill
While Atlas bears his load.
Damned by the ire of capricious gods,
Forced down a toilsome road.

And so it is with the gods of thrill
Who trap and hold you fast
With opioids and images,
Perniciously unsurpassed!

Beware the promise of wealth or skill
Contained in a bottle brown.
Hold to the rod of simple truth
Lest you be taken down!


June 29, 2017...

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I woke up and went into the backyard 
The big moon shone like a baking sheet 
The distance to it was short 
You could run to it
Every sound was frozen
Like drizzle on a blade of grass
Only my heart was hammering
And the moan of the Potomac 
Pushing the waters like Sisyphus into the sea
While my breath flowed like a white sail 
Leaving the empty shell of my body 
The ruined ship 
That had brought me this far...

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He threw at her the black of night
And then the fire of day
Roared as of a hurricane
With avalanching speed

She crackled as a lightning bolt
Within a thunderstorm
And then unleashed – in torrents
The cyclones of her wrath –

With violence they wrestled long
And raged the heaving seas
Hurled the stone of Sisyphus
At Scylla and Charybdis

And in the tempest, tooth and blood
Together bested love –...

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EBONY WE ON THE WAY

Beating our drums
singing our songs
rhythmically
foot printing
our hued feet
with eyes
still on the prize
and the summit
brightly in sight
we be proudly
marching 
in blues-jazz
liberty 
faithfully assured
no sisyphus-like
rocky rolling
oppression tappings
can get us offbeat
in our sojourn
to mountain to
liberation
awaiting 
the dream’s 
reality
for the ebony we:- 


 

...

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7:01 ~ this isn't any fun.
7:02 ~ but what can i do?
7:03 ~ the gods have it in for me.
7:04 ~ i can't stand this anymore.
7:05 ~ i am dead or alive?
7:06 ~ how did i get myself into this fix?
7:07 ~ why am I barred from 7:11?
7:08 ~ please! get this off my plate.
7:09 ~ anon, that sisyphean line!
7:10 ~ "go back to 7:00, and start all over again."

7:01 ~ this isn't any fun.
7:02 ~ but what can I do? 
7:03 ~ ...

...

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Trudging exhausted, weary and spent
Revolving in an ennui which will not relent
Each step closer to nowhere, be it fast or slow
As days crawl by friends come and they go
Dawn ushers forth a grand gift of renewel
Moon offers solace, serene bright and cool
Inside this cage I sense the light
Lost is my soul, a Sisyphus plight
Let my spirit take flight in the grace of night...

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I remember when
I was a frilly butterfly
With a need to be loved
While flying happily up the sky

I remember when
I met him my sweetheart
He was made of pure innocence
And gave my life a new start

I remember when
He broke me up badly
I was still a frail butterfly
But I could now only see love as my enemy

I remember when
I took the vow of turning into Narcissus
True, treading the path alone get lonely
But it is yet better than to be Sisyphus...

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