Page 63 - Contrast2016

CONTRAST - 61

ON SISYPHUS

BY ALEX SEILER

he holds the chalk like a cigarette,
dances a warped waltz-step over the green pile carpet.
a catalogue of the absurdists graces the chalkboard,
and he digresses for a moment onto Dali,
and dreams.

we stare at him with glassy eyes-
everybody's listening, but no one really hears.
he asks us leading questions, an optimistic siege
against our blank gazes. he is an actor
on a sunken stage, raising his eyebrows,
furrowing his brow,
philosophizing to an audience in slumber,
looking for any reaction from our stone-set faces.
we watch him, but we do not really see.

he rattles of a litany of quotes,
Camus to Sartre to Beckett, onward,
upward, a crescendo to a question-
he asks us, a smile on his face like he is so sure
we know the answer, what we think this
means?

we glance at each other, blink away the shame,
avert our eyes, and no one
makes a sound. in the silence you can almost hear
the crash of the rock rolling back
to its resting place. he sighs-
and I see the repetition of history
in the slump of his shoulders,
the way he straightens his sweater vest
and pushes his glasses back up his nose-
and begins his trek down the mountain
to retrieve the boulder again.