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Tag Archives: the heroine’s journey

“Sisyphus, it’s Zeus.”

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, medieval French fixed verse, poetry with a sense of humour, the heroine's journey, the myth of Sisyphus, triolet

Sisyphus-Image-01C

~~three triolets~~

I

Sisyphus, it’s Zeus, your ancient cortical
connection to full power over gods.

You no longer stand so vertical,
Sisyphus. It’s Zeus, your ancient cortical

desire to dominate, toppled to diagonal.
Where wisdom finds no purchase, idiocy plods.

Sisyphys, it’s Zeus, your ancient cortical
connection to full power over gods.

II

Oh, suspicious Sisyphus, your sibilance
sprays pointlessly like toms among the spayed.

What use is your opinionated vigilance,
oh, suspicious Sisyphus? Your sibilance,

unlike my rain, is spit and spit upon. To push against
resistance steepens your already hopeless grade.

Oh, suspicious Sisyphus, your sibilance
sprays pointlessly like toms among the spayed.

III

Thanatos (Death) and I with Hermes have conferred.
You’ve pushed your rock up long enough. No more!

So what, you’re man enough to give the gods a bird?
Thanatos (Death) and I with Hermes have conferred.

It’s time you faced downhill, my friend, and heard
what sings beyond the morbid river Styx dark shore.

Thanatos (Death) and I with Hermes have conferred.
You’ve pushed your rock up long enough. No more!

~~~

Some years ago, I co-facilitated a series of goddess workshops for women, based on my adaptation of The Hero’s Journey (called The Heroine’s Journey). We rented the upstairs floor of a Starbucks convenient to us all. The name of the Starbucks manager? Zeus. You can’t make that sh*t happen.

The tight, repetitive form of the triolet seemed to lend itself nicely to poor, boulder-pushing Sisyphus. It also gives a sense of how it might feel to have the father of the gods spray-talking at you.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

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Southeasterlies

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crow Medicine, Elaine Stirling, First Nations, inevitability, Medicine Wheel, new love, new mythologies, poetry, poms from the soles of her feet, romance, sacred geometry, symmetry, the hero's myth, the heroine's journey, the power of thought

crow%20in%20flight%20by%20Paneros

South
she walks
with sunset
in her hair and
nothing more to
prove or say
while words
like flagstones
shimmer gilt-edged
on the path
ahead.

East
enticed
no more by
hero myths, he
tunes his ear to
harmonies
pulsing
silver through
the fragile webs
of dew-soaked
morning.

North
west of
Abbot’s Sound
a crow flies straight
to higher ground
his chalk line
drawn, he
plumbs two hearts
their depths to a
single point
must come.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of crow in flight
from http://www.aljezurfarm.com

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