The Poem

This is the poem I've been promising to post for so long. For some odd reason, I can get to blogger from work today, so here tis:

Sisyphus Days

Too often my life becomes
the tritest of Greek tragedies.
The worn wood door opens on my classroom –
I step in as Prometheus
ambrosia-fed
Dickinson and Plath
Frost and Cummings
fill heart and battered brown tote
with fire to transfigure, refine,
burn away the dross
of unthinking childhood.

By the end of the day
I am battered and bruised.
The gods are sullen or filled with ennui
and do not interfere.

The boulder I have been pushing
uphill
with such foolish optimism
crashes across me
as it races
unthinking
bell-driven
to the door
to the bus
to the sweet Lethe
of television-video-game-all-night-phone-call
and I sit in the abandoned room
alone.