sisyphus by S.M. Foran

suffer me

to push this offing stone

up the yellowed front of time

while purpled trails of sweatened beads

hone the flesh

to feel the thousand thousand needles

of each indiscretion

to worry the bone of memory

as revolution

follows revolution

and blue dream is crushed beneath

the sandaled tread of one

left to long after life once held firm in fist of youth

Bio

S.M. Foran has a Master of Arts in English and a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and has been teaching literature and creative writing for almost thirty years. He currently works at Montreat College in North Carolina and lives in Asheville with his wife and two sons. He has had poems and short stories appear in a wide variety of literary publications, including Arboreal Literary Magazine, Euphony Journal, Metonym, Between, and Portfolio North, and is also the author of a collection of short stories, Bite of the Bacchae and Other Stories, and a collection of poems, recently wise. His most recent publication is a poetry chapbook entitled a reader's miscellany (Bottlecap Press, 2024).

Author's note

This poem is part of a new collection I am working on that centers on the underworld as portrayed in various world mythologies. The story of Sisyphus is usually a warning against defying the gods, but I wanted to focus, much as Albert Camus did in "The Myth of Sisyphus," on the existential nature of the punishment.