Sisyphus (a news report):

To lift the weight
he met her

For coffee London 9am

and because it was simpler not to ask
he let her speak

Feverishly they smoked
as church bells rang
Feverishly they smoked
shielded by the rain

Amidst the cacophony of silences
so many silences bid to less than sound

She in her untarnished northern marsh
he in a low whisper of a north London tongue

They swallowed the black liquid
and were gone...

As they swallowed the bitter poison
the soft background tone on the radio
described an IRA incendiary device

As church bells rang...

Sisyphus felt his heart pause
and then thunder
batter through his chest
his back stiffen
head feeling weighty again
neck muscles pulling against
the natural inclination to look up
to gaze into a woman's eyes

hot alcoholic breath from a night spent drinking
she said his eyes were possessed
he said food hadn't passed his lips
for forty hours like forty days

As church bells rang...

Mother of two deceased

She asked him to make love to her
"I would have your baby if love permits"
"I have food" she said

He lit a candle for Charlotte today

Sisyphus mounted on her palm a kiss
and arch hand naked

As church bells rang...

"We'll pay for this someday"  he said
She shook him through to the place that was home
there sleeping in the dream of love making
in the palace of her that was home.
two vertual strangers

"I want to die alone inside you" one of them said

As church bells rang...