Prompt #1 Place:
Toil of Tantalus
Furthest of my heights, can’t reach.
Depths of my bends, can’t taste.
Under the homage shade of fig and olive trees,
light rests on craggy branches and green leaves.
I came to realize eternity over dreams.
Even upon relief from my torment,
still asking when this time ends?
Here, the fruits are eaten by winds,
and the water is parched by lands.
I too, always set up tents in extreme,
when there is wilderness in-between.
The ground evolutionarily sips:
“Neither bow: might makes right,
and right that makes its own light”.
The wind ideologically keens:
“You want to keep wanting,
the bonds of old aren’t the promises of now”.
Both are the tortuous spirits of the
philosophy of push and pull. O how
love makes life as sweet as figs,
making it edible, with no vow.
So perched is the Owl of Minerva on
starlit branches. Silent flight, coming
back from dusk with deferred messages.
Turned heads forced by boredom, anguish
or salience? Still the rock is overhead.
To see my neighbors Tityos and Sisyphus.
Whose imagined happiness was handed by
one in Tartarus, gathering with constellations.
As if the stars had any concern for us.
Being ignorant on the origins of beauty,
and hubristic to the origins of ugliness.
My hands toiled not, greed comforted me.
Spoiled by comforts, attaining desires.
I lived as death, gorging on goodness.
Expedience came, as it left:
covering my nakedness.
Still, I hunger and thirst,
there must be such a thing
as drink and food first;
that fill, quench and spring.
