So I wrote
Never a fine work
Of art,
I was a broken potsherd
On which the craftsman painted
A wizard.
My one shred of grace
I lost.
Left with only a rock
To roll uphill,
I chose to push.
At least, in pushing,
I could remember her.
I hate rocks.
Yet they tell me the granite
Has sculpted my hands,
Shaped muscles,
Honed my soul.
A stern beauty, they call it.
What do they know?
She was a pitcher
From which I greedily drank.
Since her loss,
I pray that I have somehow
Refilled it.
at a poetry website. Even though the poem was in a contest clearly marked as 'science fiction/fantasy,' most of the people reading it had no idea who Sisyphus was and thought the last section was talking about environmentalism. O.O
Don't people have brains, anymore? Don't people read, anymore--I mean, even just the Author's Notes section in which I quoted the literary reference that directly explains this poem?
*whines*
Most Recent Entries
Links
My Other Journals
Friends Filters
Links of Interest
|
Looking for a Few Good, Educated People
With all the Classics-oriented classes I've taken during college, you'd think I'd be able to remember this myth. Sisyphus was the one who was cursed to spend eternity trying to roll a boulder uphill, only to have it roll back again, correct? Only I can't remember why he was being punished. I guess I should look that up. I don't know who Sisyphus is. Does this mean I don't have a brain? ;-) It might be fun to be brainless. Imagine all the things I could get away with doing and saying! (eg) Anna--*giggles!* I think I had to read the Sisyphus myth because it related to some short story I was assigned to read for a literature class. I had a book of Greek myths when I was a kid, but I'm not sure if the Sisyphus story was in it. I'll have to check, the next time I visit my parents. He (or she) whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. |