Sisyphus

There's
emptiness in my eyes,
fire in my nose
and
drink in my gut.

Now if you were to
say to me, "Hello,"
I would surely answer
back brightly,
but the incoherent
reply may offend and affront.

There's
cobwebs in my
mind, dust on
my glasses and
burn-marks on my
cheeks.

Now if you were to
address me for who I
am,
and not for
who I look like,
I would surely greet
you cordially
and shake your hand.

My body has
kinks, my
legs have too many joints
and my wrists
are killing me.

However, if you
were to examine
my specimen you would
find no
outward dermal
affliction nor
internal infarction.

I've been called noble
but my sense
of Southern Chivalry
sometimes fails me.
I've been called interesting
but sometimes
inner deadening is necessary
and my
mouth just isn't such a
fount
for a time.

Though I have been cursed
for believing myself clever,
when I get the boulder near the top,
and it begins to
roll back down,
I notice how much farther
I pushed it
this
time.

And No One will Miss Him

With money
being pulled out of
the pockets
of the poor
and the lonely
being rejected
once again,
I have thus decided
to ignore it all.
What care I of
callous women
and civil suits?
What does it matter
now that I have
nothing
left to take away?
With breasted
beasts bearing down
on fragile psyches
and
pillared institutions
inciting depravity
and depression
within once fortified
men,
I have thus decided
to break the bonds
of servitude to mankind
and to my own
self-doubt.
There, in Elysian
swamps I will drink
the pool-water nectar
and slay dragons for
boot-leather.
There, above the
branches of the
Southern Yggsdrasil
I will lose at Ragnarok
and fight forever
within the
cigarette smoke-stained
Halls of Valhalla.
The floors will
be sticky
with beer and
the Valkyries
will sing my
favorite old-time tunes
and all the while
reality will float on
by, like a barge
of garbage
in the Ohio.
With one more
whore
adding insult to
incapacitation, and
with one more
reason the Peace Corps
won't even take me,
I have thus decided to
construct wings of wax
and cross the Aegean.

My prison at Knossos
is far too unpleasant
to make a life there.