This night’s task is surely daunting:
To cure myself and stop the haunting.

Reach arm,
Where is my nightcap?
(A single drink will do no harm)
Twist hand,
Turn down my bed flap.
(No chill shall cause myself alarm)

Look eyes,
Seek that light switch.
(I cannot bear my visage longer)
Be still fingers,
Cease to shake and twitch.
(Of their agency I’m not the author)

Move legs,
Plunge into covers,
(Lest you carry me from this rest)
Deaden ears,
Your hearing smother.
(Let no sound disturb my final quest)

Drink throat,
Imbibe the potion.
(Solutions will come at last)
Halt mind,
Not one more notion.
(Devilish memories long past)

Quite heart,
Take respite from beating.
(All the world begins to swirl)
Escape life,
I’ve finished breathing.
(Past Pain’s deep bonds at last uncurl)

I thought joining my love would be better,
Now we two haunt this place together.

I am the jug that has been discarded,
I have tumbled down to the marble floor,
From the drunkard’s slack hand I have parted,
Hit the ground and rung hollow to my core.

I am the sky each dawn that paints the day.
While below men toss to me their prayers.
With thunder and lightning I try to say,
My air is vacant; your God is not there.

I am the cavity in a young boy’s chest.
In which compassion and joy did once lie.
What once did beat is now laid to rest,
You can hear it in the bare cavern, cry.

With love, prayers or drink your mortality escape.
I choose not surrender, the bare bodkin I’ll take.

Love means: no surrender;
No weapons thrown to the ground,
Don Quixote charging windmills,
Just to knock the giants down.

Love means: no more evils;
No more swallowed poison pills,
Men taking deadly medicine,
But it won’t cure the chills.

Love means: coming back again;
Never having to abstain,
From every sweet indulgence,
You never can contain.

Love means: the Heart’s evince;
A radiance not know here since,
A true mind took the blade,
And the bodkin took the prince.

Love means: no masquerade;
All our truth on Parade,
You don’t have to take the cross,
But you can’t stop the crusade.

Love means: No more loss;
All deep chasms bridged across.
You can still blow out the candle,
But you can’t switch it off.

Love means: souls entangled;
Entwined as dangling bangles,
Draw about your neck,
All other feeling strangled.

Love means: complete respect;
Unconditionally, you needn’t check.
Undeniably, we all need it.
Unconsciously, you feel effects.

Love means: The grand idea;
Conquering without fear.
And until Maria returns to Judea,
The truth is: Amor vincit omnia.

O Nature, your delightful changes,
Would shake the very heart of man.
The weather turns like parchment pages,
Flipped, as per the Deity’s plan.

What does better show your grandeur,
Then that most brilliant autumn,
Cloaked in shining gold and amber,
And each tree a glistening column.

When the summer’s spirit sleeps,
And the sun forgets his haste,
The trees begin to weep their leaves,
As Winter quickens up his pace.

Still no matter how the seasons change,
There’s not one, I’d for Fall exchange.

Sisyphus, my brother.  This rock you push is a great weight to bear. It is too much and too little.

What is this Rock?


Sisyphus, my brother.  Who can speak to you of toil? Who can claim your lack of will to be your restraint? That same rock to be pushed and rolled for time immortal is all that you have known. The rock is all your focus, all your desire. It is the world to you, in one indifferent globe. You have no thought of food, nor drink, nor rest, or other pleasures of this life. You know only your task and your object. The hill is of no consequence. The days spin past without you taking notice. Time is of no consequence.
What is this Rock?

Sisyphus, my brother.  Who can speak to you of futility? Who can claim your time is productively spent? You, who roll to the top of that grim mountain the same heavy stone; only for it to roll from its’ perch to the stopping spot from whence you hauled it. With each day and each night you strain to force your task onward. Each drop of your sweat becomes a testament to your duty. Each drop a second. Each second soon forgotten. No matter what you could endure, the charge of yours remains the same. Your stone must rise. Your stone must fall.

What is this Rock?

Sisyphus, my brother.  Who can speak to you of Fulfillment? Who can claim you are a man whose soul is empty? You, who look each day upon that same destiny without hesitation and without grief. Never have you turned from that same monotonous fate to other horizons; but have remained bound to it. Other men seek escapes and new journeys. They seek new faces and new glories. They want for gold and flesh and praise. You, who have none, do not grieve for them. You have the stone. And the stone must be lifted. The stone must be pursued. The stone gives life meaning. The stone gives life purpose. The stone banishes all doubt, all fear. The stone alone has worth. The stone alone has truth.

What is this Rock?

Sisyphus, my brother.  The Rock is Love.

I walked the lonely mountain Eyrian path,
To the chasm beyond the hills.
In that deep wretched dark I could find him at last,
I know the Devil dwells there still.

I marched through boulders and sharply jagged rocks,
I went down twixt walls of stone.
It seems in seeking the key I’d found the lock,
I first noticed I was alone…

I expected He’d be ringed in brimstone and fire,
To roar and imbue men with fear.
Epiphany thwarted my hell-bound desires;
The Devil had always been here.

There as I stood in the chasm alone,
I found what I knew to be true,
Realization wracked me to the bone,
Hell is to be without you.

I heard the great tumult of noise,
Ranging from the hills of Troy,
I head Amnon’s earnest whispering,
At the banquet of the king.

I saw the stark white midnight sun,
Blind Edward John Smith on his run,
I saw John Franklin not think twice,
Before he too was claimed by ice.

I was there the fateful day,
That earth and fire claimed Pompeii,
I was there as horizons shook,
And the sand Valdivia took.

I felt Isolde’s deep pain forlorn,
As Tristan from her side was torn
I felt Young Werther try in vain,
With love in heart but lead in brain.

Yet knowing grand calamity,
I sought naught but serenity.
Longing for love, as life depends.
My suit is cold, as so my end.