Sisyphus, the king, deceitful and lacking scruples
today, I think, would have an amazing queue of pupils
all too eager to ascend upon the bodies and bones of others
all too content to defend it as if possessed of noble druthers
Each step upon a limb, each crunch of the prone and supine
a mark of one’s superiority; circular reason, fuel to climb
as if the world is made by dominance, intimidation, and hubris
as if the progress may be found from the hands of a practiced Judas
The stair to lofty heights from which choirs and seraphim sing
hold not the weight of pride that comes from one who would be king
yet still the foolish, decked in surety and drunk on power so claim
yet still the chant of “knowing” by which all wisdom is set to shame
Sisyphus, the fool, struggling ‘neath his own vanity’s weight
to push the pebble of ascendancy, strive with ego and its hunger, sate
just to have a tremulous moment upon the pinnacle as if a throne
just to have grasp at the certainty that tis possible to do so alone
As if the scattered corpses are inconsequential, no more than trash
as if the treading as stairs make of them more than an idiot, brash
history repeats itself through the actions of these Sisyphian fools
whose arrogance before repeated failures like blood at the feet, pools
The astonishment before the bouncing pebble is at once a humor and a horror
but still reason enough it seems all the more to pretend as if grand restorer
broken record of rationalization and self-cherishing, insisting on the spin
like the accursed king of old or cycles that may well break, but never end
Lessons, it seems, are best learned by those who are willing to acknowledge
that life itself is an endless tryst at the hands of experience’s college
before the reality of unknown futures and the truth of chaos amidst order
the ability to proclaim one’s ignorance it seems may be the choicest warder
Let Sisyphus have his pebble and too his insufferable, inflated certainty
let that nasal protuberance lift and press the damn thing through all eternity
on occasion, gods of Olympus, allow me the most elementary chance encounter
on occasion, permit me of him to inquire of success and hear of its founder
There is no comfort had in it, for all it will in such moments suffice
reminder of why his path is poisoned though it may sometimes seem quite nice
perhaps it is true that, in my life, I shall ne’er ascend a mighty throne
yet if I do, tis surely true, only by good will and grace by other’s shown