Tantalus stands eternally
Up to his neck in a pool
Of the freshest, purest, clearest water ever
His head shrouded in branches
Weighed down by the most luscious, delicious fruit imaginable
He hungers and thirsts
But whenever he tries to quench it
The waters recede
And the branches bend out of his reach
The things he most needs and desires
Forever inches from his face
Yet just beyond his grasp
Sisyphus sweats and struggles
Expending all his strength and energy
To get an enormous boulder
To the top of a hellishly steep hill
Only for it to roll back down again
Sometimes on top of him
He was once a mighty king
Renowned for his cleverness
Once he cheated Death
And briefly brought the gods to their knees
He knows it is a meaningless and impossible task
But the gods insist
He must get the boulder to the hilltop
So eternally he struggles
And little by little
More of him is worn away
The Danaids are tasked
With fetching enough water
To fill a great basin
The way to the stream is long and hard
And the jugs they use heavy
But the jugs all have holes in the bottom
So that no matter how hard they try
They never get ahead
Ixion is strapped to a wheel of fire
That spins eternally
With each rotation
The flames burn his skin
The blood rushes to and from his head
The vomit to his throat
With each rotation’s beginning
He prays for change
With each rotation’s end
He despairs
For he ends exactly where he began
