Ed Higgins’ poems and short fiction have appeared in various print and online journals including: Monkeybicycle, Danse Macabre, Ekphrastic Review, and Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Ed is Asst. Editor for Brilliant Flash Fiction. He has a small farm in Yamhill, OR, raising a menagerie of animals—including a rooster named StarTrek.
Sisyphus takes time for breakfast
First Greek vrekos bacon into the pan
sizzling, while slices of eliopsomo
black olive bread (or sometimes
paximadia rusks) in the toaster
waiting to be pushed down
Zeus in a piss dance offended
at this transgressive morning
break from the punishing boulder.
There are no other meal breaks
as Sisyphus bends his body,
aches his chastised soul,
the soles of his feet,
hands rough as stone,
from the rock-worn path.
Two eggs carefully broken
into the pan’s leftover bacon grease,
over easy–unlike the day ahead
up and down up and down
the implacable hill again and again.
After eggs, yogurt with honey
topped with in-season fruit–
tart Morello cherries a favorite,
ripe figs in late summer.
Finally Greek coffee,
a sweet-strong variglykos,
briki-boiled, sipped slowly
found to increase life expectancy
(an irony in this case).
But no further dallying
the unrelenting boulder
waiting at the hill’s bottom.
Camus observed, “One must imagine
Sisyphus happy; the struggle itself
towards the heights enough
to fill a man’s heart.” Yes,
but only after a good breakfast–
then briefly alongside the boulder
enjoying a Mediterranean sunrise.
For other contributions by Ed Higgins, please follow the links below:
Poetry in this post: © Ed Higgins
Published with the permission of Ed Higgins