I stand facing my reflection
Gaze acting as a barrier
I would reach forward to reach you
But I hesitate lest you withdraw from my touch
My heart clenched and my eyes hold back
And if I could comfort you, if the warmth of my heart could reach you
We would be one
And yet whisps and words trace their fingers along my mind
Humming a tune my mind and heart fall into step with uneasily
And she strokes my face to will my heart and mind out of the tune
But the tune is continuous, seeded and unwavering

Medusa combs her snakes back,
licks her lips,
crosses her legs on throne,
giggles,
sets her eyes on mine,
then opens her mouth,
souring the precedent she sets,
as a figure of merit.

Medusa says,
You better be the shape
Sent from the top down,
Obey, because
Medusa says,
You better hit the gym
Because you ruin
****** for everyone
You better obey,
because

The pantheon
you worship,
judges you
on high.

it’s morning
groggy-eyed, zombie-like,
stubbled, disheveled,
he rises.

Outside is the gleam of dew,
the scent of fresh bloom,
the chatter of birds and squirrels.
Not for him, though,
the brilliant hues of early dawn,
the bustle and cheer of the day just born.

Tarry he cant, mustn’t
shouldn’t, oughtn’t
for he has work to do.

And so he scurries about,
not much unlike a rat-at-night.
scratching the stubble out,
shocking the slumber out,
with a splash of rusty water
and scented alcohol

glassy-eyed on the clammy-cold seat,
with the daily in hand,
he lets in garbage as he lets it out.
(let’s see: “six killed, talks fail,
girl *****, man robbed,
chain snatched, stocks down, jobs lost…)

but no, tarry he cant, mustn’t,
shouldn’t, oughtn’t.
for he has work to do.

Not for him
to reminisce and wonder
at bright-eyed kids straining at their yokes
to remember that kind teacher
who patted his cheek
and held him to her smock
smelling strangely of
freshly ironed starch.

Nor must he think
of  progress cards and golden stars
and hobbies learnt at leisure,
of cycling in the rain,
and endless hours spent
under the mango trees
waiting for heaven’s manna,
of books devoured, adventures vicariously lived
in strange English lands
where they breakfasted on
bread and poached eggs and bacon.

Nay, tarry he cant, mustnt,
shouldn’t, oughtn’t..
for hasn’t he got work to do?

‘ Tis his lot to weave
his own web of chaos
as the road turns a
tangled mess of trails
darting here and braking there
in feverish, frenetic fits
of stopping and going
and spewing
clouds of carbon and venom
and especial epithets

no, no, tarry he cant, mustn’t,
shouldn’t, oughtn’t,
for he has work to do.

So what if he didn’t see
--just ahead of him on the bike,
the baby’s pink,delicate,
fingers as she clutched
her mamma tight?
--the shriveled, outstretched,
hand that cried for a morsel of mercy
since even the cataracted eye
was drained of hope?
--the strange aromas of
fresh coffee, incense, cigarettes
and some open sewer?
--the signals that said “relax,
you’ve 68,67,66” seconds to go?

Not for him to tarry—he cant,
he mustn’t, shouldn’t, oughtn’t, god forbid!
He has work to do!

Quotations to send
calls to attend, meetings to sit in,
sipping soulless coffee,
nitpicking.
accounts to tally,
targets to meet;
better still, exceed,
‘in’ trays to empty,
‘out’ trays to fill,
reports to make,
power points to present,
all before lunch
and, strangely, until after
until, outside the prison,
life has , once again, ebbed away.
one more sun has died,
or so cries the muezzin,
some distant bells pealing
in doleful agreement.
oh where has the day gone?

Stray thoughts appear
like lights switched on-
thoughts of children, wife,
neighbour
thoughts that convince
that here, indeed, is a person
with kith and kin and others to love.
But no, they must perish—the thoughts—
he must instead focus on the task at hand.

of  first weaving through
the now dark chaos
of blinding headlights
and urgent horns, darting bikes,
neon fireflies
and reaching ‘home’ where
the ***** is busy cooking
and the cubs scampering…
“hi dad ”says the kid
as he mindlessly waves
his soul numbed by
the monotony of the day just gone
and the tv that’s ever on—
and already on the report for the morrow

can he afford to tarry awhile?
to hug, hold, talk?
to share with him
a childhood anecdote?
horrors! he cant, he mustn’t,
absolutely shouldn’t oughtn’t!
for he has work to do!

And so the bedroom light’s on
until long after she’s embraced
by slumber, deep slumber—
her eyes closed
in childlike innocence.
can he watch the slow rhythm of her *****?
the languid curves?
the cozy bed
with its promise of warmth?
on the screen , scowling,
is the clutter of data
that must be processed
into bite-sized bits of
decipherable hieroglyphics—
now, not later!

Its so dark, so  still,
even the stray dog has stopped
howling its pitiful howl
one more cigarette
burnt at the altar of work
one more hour burnt at the stake
he simply cant tarry,
mustn’t, shouldn’t, oughtn’t…
he has work to do.

It’s morning.

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.

Philosophically, Camus is known for his conception of the absurd. Perhaps we should clarify from the very beginning what the absurd is not. The absurd is not nihilism. For Camus the acceptance of the absurd does not lead to nihilism (according to Nietzsche nihilism denotes the state in which the highest values devalue themselves) or to inertia, but rather to their opposite: to action and participation. The notion of the absurd signifies the space which opens up between, on the one hand, man’s need for intelligibility and, on the other hand, 'the unreasonable silence of the world' as he beautifully puts it. In a world devoid of God, eternal truths or any other guiding principle, how could man bear the responsibility of a meaning-giving activity? The absurd man, like an astronaut looking at the earth from above, wonders whether a philosophical system, a religion or a political ideology is able to make the world respond to the questioning of man, or rather whether all human constructions are nothing but the excessive face-paint of a clown which is there to cover his sadness. This terrible suspicion haunts the absurd man. In one of the most memorable openings of a non-fictional book he states: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer” (Camus 2000:11). The problem of suicide (a deeply personal problem) manifests the exigency of a meaning-giving response. Indeed for Camus a suicidal response to the problem of meaning would be the confirmation that the absurd has taken over man’s inner life. It would mean that man is not any more an animal going after answers, in accordance with some inner drive that leads him to act in order to endow the world with meaning. The suicide has become but a passive recipient of the muteness of the world. “...The absurd ... is simultaneously awareness and rejection of death” (Camus 2000:54). One has to be aware of death – because it is precisely the realization of man’s mortality that pushes someone to strive for answers – and one has ultimately to reject death – that is, reject suicide as well as the living death of inertia and inaction. At the end one has to keep the absurd alive, as Camus says. But what does it that mean?

In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus tells the story of the mythical Sisyphus who was condemned by the Gods to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain and then have to let it fall back again of its own weight. “Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn” (Camus 2000:109). One must imagine then Sisyphus victorious: fate and absurdity have been overcome by a joyful contempt. Scorn is the appropriate response in the face of the absurd; another name for this 'scorn' though would be artistic creation. When Camus says: “One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness” (Camus 2000:110) he writes about a moment of exhilarated madness, which is the moment of the genesis of the artistic work. Madness, but nevertheless profound – think of the function of the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear as the one who reveals to the king the most profound truths through play, mimicry and songs. Such madness can overcome the absurd without cancelling it altogether.