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  1. Culture
  2. Poetry
15 July 2020

Sisyphus // Roger Ailes

A new poem by John Sibley Williams.

By John Sibley Williams

In this story the boulder hurts him less
pouring back down that steep hill.

It’s the village below that flattens;
mothers that look nothing like his

or the women he consumed flood
a Texas family detention facility;

their children learn how to settle
into cruelty, the crouch and crush

of anonymity; a whiplash of torches
casket an otherwise pleasant white

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anytown main street; an unquiet
border wall divides in- from exhale.

The smile Camus paints on his rock-
soft face refuses to surrender to gravity,

joyously. Halleluiah, inconsequential
aftermaths. Praise collateral damage.

That there is nothing apart from the push
some still call prayer. Heart. Heroism. 

That this aped anthem just keeps singing
itself hungry. That no matter how brutal

a king, the narrative the gods fashioned
for him from another’s human clay 

daggers its way into my father’s living
room every night. As we eat what someone

else killed. As he tries to tuck my children into
a myth that calcifies the louder he conjures it.

John Sibley Williams is the author of the collections “As One Fire Consumes Another” (winner of the Orison Poetry Prize) and “Skin Memory” (winner of the Backwaters Prize). He is the editor of the Inflectionist Review.

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This article appears in the 15 Jul 2020 issue of the New Statesman, Race for the vaccine

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
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