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George Anthony Mar 2017
with the weight of the world on my shoulders,
hands scrabbling at my back,
i wonder when i stopped being icarus
and took on the role of atlas
and if it was foolish of me to wear wings of wax
and expect them not to melt

i miss that flying freedom.
feeling on top of the world, soaring through a blue sky
with you, my apollo, a guiding light;
an enveloping warmth,
it felt like nothing could touch me
even on the coldest nights

i knew enough of science and mythology
to know i'd fall hard,
that candles drip and melt
and when they melt, your skin burns;
i knew that looking into the sun
would surely make me blind

it didn't feel like such a hazard at the time
i've never had 20:20 eyesight.
the blindest man is the one that refuses to see
and why see when i could feel?
throw caution to the wind, take flight...
i flew and i fell and i loved so i drowned
N Dec 2016
Blue
mixed with black;
bloodshot eyes and aching back.
Nobody notices that 
Atlas is now
a twenty-year-old girl
carrying a less than mediocre
world.
---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o5isfwqZdI
---
What thought
could have wrought
all this despair?
Yielding aught;
toxifying the air
suffocating adolescents,
atop their chairs.
Now they feel time
intertwining with their fears,
and I feel their tears sear into my mind
So now I hope to find;
a way to make all of their burdens
mine.
First post in awhile criticism is appreciated but be gentle lol
krst Apr 2016
I am a man with a simple dream
To be a good husband to my half
Build a home full of life and love
And carry a child of my own.

I know I will come to that point
When? And how will it be?
Will it be change into darkness?
I feel like my time is up.

I'm now lifting a world at my back
Like Atlas, but I'm too weak for that
I am too young to be here
Experiencing this whole nightmare.

She has another man in her life
Her behalf is now sick to death
Their child is too young to understand
While I'm a half human and a half
Artificial.

Rip my body and tear it into
A big pieces, part by part
Sell my sinful soul to the King
Then buy a child a dress to wear
For the day of my memorial.

I have my one and only will
Bury my heart under a plant
So I will help the plant to grow
To have their child something to eat.
Ira Desmond Jan 2016
You and me, sweetheart,
we need to stop thinking of ourselves
as *****-ups,

and I need to stop thinking
that writing poems for a loved one
is for *****-ups.

I need to smell your hair
in the morning,
to press against you

in the cold of the night
and not have that anvil of guilt,
that Herculean weight in the room,

crushing me, crushing you,
cracking the foundations
of what we are, and have become, and will become.

Atlas may have carried
the weight of the world

on his shoulders,
but Atlas wanted no part in it.

Let us set the weight of the world down.
Let us seek folly where we may,
and live.

Let us find
our golden apples.

Let us find them
together.

Let us find them where we may.
for Lisa
Em Glass Nov 2015
A theorem:

any map of the world
contained on a plane
of contiguous regions

needs only four colors
to prevent the bleeding
of borders.

No matter the shape,
nor how many times
a nation state

splits itself up
with all the fight
of man splitting the atom,

nor how many splinter
groups stick themselves
into the skin

of the innocent. Any four
colors, take blue for the oceans
or black for the bruise,

it’s not the borders bleeding
but the insides,
you seeking refuge

in worlds that blame you
for the men that hold the atoms
that split you.

Odds are you’ve never
seen an atlas of only four colors
because Atlas picks more,

how else to contain it all,
to keep from shouting fine
and letting the whole globe

fall.

Oh, poor atlas.

Salaam, shalom,
what we want
is all the same,
but paix,
it sounds so different.
pray for paris, but also everywhere. what is happening to us. what have we done
aar505n Feb 2015
In my nightmare, I was standing in the dark.
The wind bellowing around me, like somone screaming.
I was told to lift the mountain with my bare hands and not leave until I did so.
My insides lit up like a little sun was there, threatening to burn me up.
Sour claws of nausea rip my innards, as if they were teeth gnawing on my raw flesh, being burnt by the sun within.
Ignore it.
It will pass if I focus on the task.
That was my first mistake.
Still, dug my fingers in the ground and began to lift.
Hands began to burn and scream, sweat turned to smoke and muscle strained.
Teeth gritted, I pushed passed the pain, focused on the mountain and I.
Smoke mixed with the wind and the darkness and the screaming, bellowing through the nightmare.
The Sun burns hotter.
Mustered up every ounce of strength I could.
And I lifted.
Heaved the heavy mountain up to the Heavens.
The pain shook through my body until.
Finally the mountain and earth separated and the void between is quickly filled with air.
The weight pass from my hands to my shoulder.
I had done it.
At last almost Atlas-like.
Standing there, mountain remaining on shoulder.
But now what?
The sun still burned, hotter than ever, that blasted furnace.
And in the moment, my attention did lapsed and my body slacked, prelude to the collapse.
What was I thinking?
The wind screamed around me and I began to shake in the dark.
A fake Atlas, with the weight on his shoulder unbearable.
The pressure was too much, too heavy, and too late to do anything.
And the sun burns on.
I want to run to the nearest pier and jump, to disappear beneath the waves.
Stop the burning, end the atrophy of my muscles.
I’ve done unhappy deeds and now I want the most human of needs.
The end to my pain.  
That’s the truth.
I yearn for it.
The sun burns still
I let go of the weight and allow gravity to do its job.
Flattened as the mountain was reunited with the earth.
Thought I could carry the world on my shoulder, but I am no Atlas.
I can't even carry a mountain.
I tried and look where I am now.
I am shattered.
Brittle bones becomes broken and turn to dust.
I have given all I got, thrown in the lot.
Soon my skin will rust and rot away.
Soon there will be nothing left to sustain such a fire but the sole desire for rest.
The sun within continues to burn me.
Until I am nothing but smoke, bellowing in the wind.
This is the combination of three poems that I had that i notice were dealing with the same theme and i thought they went well together.
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