Poem In Your Post Blog Hop: In honor of Sisyphus...

After working sixty hours again for what reason

The best job I had was moving a stone

from one side of the road to the other.

This required a permit which required

a bribe. The bribe took all my salary.

Yet because I hadn’t finished the job

I had no salary, and to pay the bribe

I took a job moving the stone

the other way. Because the official

wanted his bribe, he gave me a permit

for the second job. When I pointed out

that the work would be best completed

if I did nothing, he complimented   

my brain and wrote a letter

to my employer suggesting promotion

on stationery bearing the wings

of a raptor spread in flight

over a mountain smaller than the bird.

My boss, fearing my intelligence,

paid me to sleep on the sofa

and take lunch with the official

who required a bribe to keep anything

from being done. When I told my parents,

they wrote my brother to come home

from university to be slapped

on the back of the head. Dutifully,

he arrived and bowed to receive

his instruction, at which point

sense entered his body and he asked

what I could do by way of a job.

I pointed out there were stones

everywhere trying not to move,

all it took was a little gumption

to be the man who didn’t move them.

It was harder to explain the intricacies

of not obtaining a permit to not

do this. Just yesterday he got up

at dawn and shaved, as if the lack

of hair on his face has anything

to do with the appearance of food

on an empty table.

                         - by Bob Hicok

We've been studying words with origins in mythology and when I read this poem on the Poetry Out Loud website, I thought: Ha!  Here again is the relevance of myth to modern folk.  Our very lives take on a sisyphean cast most days, do they not?  And perhaps, as we're climbing into our professional attire and pushing that boulder up the mountain for the 364th time this year, with futility ever our companion, we may from time to time stride alongside a Muse or two, and catch a fleeting glimpse of Humor as she winks past.

What poem's captured your fancy today?  Share it with us in a link below or post it in the comments.

MFB,

L