#greekmyth
Compensated in words
paid in adoration
caged by inspiration
bound by chains of release
To be a muse is a full-time job
to be a poet is a curse.
Whisper the secret
show me how to remain
kissing the corners of your mouth
To be a muse is the labor of the gods
to stay a poet is a drought.
You think to breathe
you breathe to write
you write to make some sense
you hope that it will please her
When your demise is an appetite
the cure is to hunger.
2d ago
Jun 2, 2026 at 10:23 PM UTC
the storm rolls on
cows dance their hooves across the sand;
In the grey-dark shadow of thunder
you horns gleam silver as the crescent moon
Whisk me away before the wind.
With nothing gained for nothing to lose
It is not a man come save me
but a bull
Mar 19
Mar 19, 2026 at 10:11 AM UTC
(empty rooms)
empty halls
the labyrinth has no end but one beginning
empty rooms
empty halls
a winding, layered prison.
hear the celebrations outside,
no sunlight is enough
When you find the way out,
who took you there? he brings
death upon you who tries to escape —
"Means to an end"
rest alone forever
in the wake of Theseus
the hero
Mar 14
Mar 14, 2026 at 10:24 AM UTC
Must I still bear the shame of lesser men?
Odysseus, adrift upon the seas.
You, Penelope, more faithful again,
Than Calypso with her most tempting breeze.
I must have struck Poseidon’s vengeful face,
While under the spell of someone I knew.
I destroyed your heart, and I took your grace.
I broke his curse; I’m coming home to you.
Only months left on this decaying ship,
And you will have me forever, my dear.
If I could see you now, I’d face the whip.
I dream, Penelope, to hold you near—
My dearest wife, keep your suitors at bay,
And never again from you shall I stray.
Nov 8, 2025
Nov 8, 2025 at 2:55 PM UTC
i will hold a gun to my throat myself,
yet somehow,
it is less violent
than the casual words of a god.
mad girls don't cry wolf;
they die. they disappear,
like cobwebs in a darkened corner.
in the shadows, watch me dangle
with a slip knot of fuchsias.
in the shadows,
watch me dig this body up,
until there is a layer of skin
and black lips and lithium quartz
and clichéd promises
you haven't touched.
after all, archaeology is
just an excuse
to look straight at my remains.
in the shadows,
let my skin cave in;
i will take everything down —
every misery, every deception,
every corruption, and every light.
i will ***** out the ******* sun
if it kills me,
leaves me cold as bygone walls.
yet somehow,
it is less violent
than to be loved by a god, until he doesn't.
to be loved by a god, but it isn't.
to be loved by a god: a euphemism, at best
to be loved by a god
is the curse.
May 15, 2021
May 15, 2021 at 2:04 AM UTC
I remember the days when
a broken glass was just a broken glass,
a poem was just a poem,
a wrist was just a wrist —
and not a headstone for
sunlights, melting;
flowers, wilting;
mirrors, breaking.
Now, it shows half summer smiles,
half dead and sunken cheeks —
an oddity that is Persephone, unhinged
and descending into darkness
and maybe one day,
I'll feel the haunted murmurs beneath my feet
and not in my head —
not in the poems
I cannot write again,
Now, the mirror shows
my aching — it shows my waiting
for death to show up at the doorstep
as though it was an estranged husband
finally coming home.
Slip your grief into Demeter's hands —
lithe. Graceful, and drenched in sunlight.
I remember back when this was an abduction
and not a quiet, slow dance with death.
Slip your sighs, carefully now,
into Demeter's forsaken hands —
I remember how breaths
ended in mine.
// "Maybe Persephone chased her death."
Dec 24, 2020
Dec 24, 2020 at 2:18 AM UTC
We meet again in
the last hour of dawn
deathbed creaking;
ravens croaking;
I said:
not yet, not yet!
my candle flickers -
not yet, not yet!
free your words-
You said:
it’s the eleventh hour;
your pen will bleed-
tear and anger;
your melody will be-
forgotten in the rain;
your scent will linger-
six feet under;
your wisdom will be-
trapped in the quicksand-
of your dear Sisyphus;
your beauty will be-
fed to scavenging worms;
you could have been
a phenomenal maiden.
it’s the eleventh hour
deathbed creaking;
ravens croaking;
too late, too late.
Nov 13, 2020
Nov 13, 2020 at 12:22 AM UTC
did You dream of the war when We were young?
when the war was a far away nightmare
days were peaceful and no song was unsung
and doom was coming, with Us unaware
You were doomed to fight and be a Hero
and I, was a mere follower of You
yet You love me like there's no tomorrow
our love were something no one could undo
the Fates said no Hero could be happy
Gods and Goddesses were also unjust
so You defied them, tried so hard to be
as lovers and soldiers, We would attest
home was somewhere in our warmth and our eyes
alas war was cruel, it's gone as I died
Oct 22, 2020
Oct 22, 2020 at 8:56 AM UTC
calypso withers away in a lonely island —
a blunder away from crumbling
at the sight of seaspray and empty towns.
sweet one, this isle is too small
for heartbreaks too big and soon enough,
gods and grecian men
and sad, sad, dead-eyed boys
will be greeted by a mayhem of sobs,
like flies dispersing off a dead body
held together by skin —
pale,
porcelain,
dead —
skin, stretched across these bones,
like the sea stretches across all of its sadness —
and ogygia, a lost isle,
disappears —
a speck of black in a shade of teal;
a pity your heart is not big enough for these sorrows
and not small enough to vanish.
and perhaps, betrayals do not come from
temporary lovers but from your skin
stretching, growing,
making room for years of blunders
until y o u are
n o
m o r e
but a name baptized in the wrong side of the war
and caught in a blunder
thousands of years too late.
it's been a long while;
the sun remembers your smile in his death bed, sweet one.
Jul 8, 2020
Jul 8, 2020 at 10:38 AM UTC
The soul has as its sextant the ribs opened wide,
The heart its compass in fluid circuitous diatribe,
When each to zone the geometry of Greek sky
With its powdery fabulism of centaurs and jars
From Aesop’s wine of words, the untimeliness
Of sundials to Charybdis’s bloom of giant watery eyes.
To know oceans by the dry riverbed of my pulse,
To scale only as high as the sparrow’s tomb of my heart.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 5:05 PM UTC
somewhere in manhattan,
atlas carries the weight of his heart —
a suitcase of battle scars and cigarettes
that strayed too far from his lips.
each vein, a thread
for all these sorry poems
that cannot write themselves.
each valve,
a compartment for spent lights
and all these fallen dandelion clocks —
all centuries' worth
and his body, it longs to rest
like a mass of dahlias and complexities,
coming undone in the arms
of a funeral song.
i remember someone telling me it's easier to talk about yourself in third person.
and yet, how do you depersonalize and say that
in there,
sadness has lovingly grown its flesh —
like wild grass spreading free in abandoned lawns,
albeit carefully contained,
carefully covered by these patches of skin
so as to not flood —
to not spill at every sigh
and yet, there can never be enough
breaths taken,
breaths given away
to keep it all intact,
to fend off all the
pecking,
the gnawing at the skin from its forgotten corners,
now a feast to a flight of vultures.
i now know why it's easier to talk about yourself in third person.
somewhere in manhattan,
atlas shakes, crumbles, collapses.
the flesh gives in;
the arms cave in under all this mass:
this weight of a heart,
this weight of the skies — they just slip right off your hands
and words don't see the difference.
Feb 6, 2020
Feb 6, 2020 at 10:06 AM UTC
i am no longer a girl;
my body has played host
to the fourth of the Fates,
and this is the twilight, unfolding.
the midday has seen clotho, spinning the thread
has seen lachesis measuring it, atropos cutting it.
and here i sit, a figure in the sunset —
a silhouette of a weaver in tattered dress
my heartbeat, a substandard thread,
a mess in my pockets
getting shorter and shorter
with each wound sewn shut
and yet,
a seagull's flap,
a poke of a stick,
and all these stitches come undone.
a cautious breath,
a loosened thread,
and the sunsets learn a new shade of red.
Jan 14, 2020
Jan 14, 2020 at 4:38 AM UTC
i will pick you a bunch of sunflowers;
each one is icarus,
reborn from falling,
from trying to fly too close to the sun,
each one,
still facing its direction;
maybe it's a sunstruck shade of love, darling.
or maybe it's just a bad case of morning lunacy —
see, each one still has wilted,
each one still has withered,
each one is still a tale
of icarus falling to the earth.
and darling, maybe flying and falling for you
are still habits i'm yet to break.
— to the boy made of sunbeams
Dec 8, 2019
Dec 8, 2019 at 7:03 AM UTC
.
Kalypso sports within the waves
luring sailors to watery graves
but if they make it to her isle
there they may tarry for a while.
Food and wine are given a'plenty,
they are rocked into lust so gently,
Nymph, Maidens, Bacchanalian revelry
lead the sailors into darkest devilry.
*** and sin are openly displayed,
a salacious procession, ***** parade,
And all men their vices expressed
seek the comfort of Kalypso's breast,
her hospitality soothes, allays their fears
as she slowly steals away their years.
© Pagan Paul (05/12/18)
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 6:58 AM UTC
i hear my love,
young,
loud,
faint to judge.
i hear the young man’s heart through my ears
it is me.
and his mouth is pouring but i hear hers
it wrenches me
i am bitter
angry.
i lose my breath.
my death,
the puzzle of puzzles,
which we call being.
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 12:03 PM UTC
patroclus.
remember me?
listen.
i no longer have all the things
i am proud of anymore.
the golds i have are gone
when i refused finishing a war.
the empire i brag about are gone
when i stopped fighting
the trusts people gave me are gone
when i didn't **** a man.
i am no one.
i have nothing left now.
but why all that
doesn't a lot matter to me?
i lost everything,
but i was not lost.
i was lost
when you laid in my arm
for the last time.
i promised i would protect you.
but i didn't.
i let him aimed you.
the stain of your blood
never disappeared.
the last scent of your body
haunted me.
the tone of your voice
became an alarm to my ears. .
i wasn't dead
when an arrow hit my heel.
because maybe,
my real weakness is you.
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 10:41 AM UTC
Don't say it
Oh, don't say it
Saying it changes everything
It's in your hands
The royal flush of my blush skin
You've got the cards to tear all I am from within
May your lust consume from March to June year after year
Before it's much too late for your sick guilt to disappear
All that's said in bed, young nymph lessons, life's not dead
Echo out those ancient stories in my head
Just how I won't say it first
Narcissus can't find the words
Lips so soft and silent
Actions not unspoken
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 11:29 AM UTC
Can a man reach the height of his dreams?
The true mechanic of righteous action
Outstretched grip of the ripping seams
Tumble down from its holy retraction
And realize everything is for naught
And everything you have ever sought
Lies in his graces dazzling bright palace
Lies of my own form the cracked floors of solace
Filled with the bloated, pallid, and free of ambitions
Tangled hair and deepening wound of my intention
A ****** pond greets you with its callous retention
Stowed beneath, dark images taunt these last mentions
As they all remember this will be their
home
As they lay down and look to god's cryptic
dome
And they all search
He is not one but alone with the
masses
Stolen from him, he finds his future passes
From teary grip
I guess it will never rain in these fields
because it is pouring
God has closed this asylum, to contain shades from Elysium
For you see a sudden sight, multiplied by their unending night
Lead hauntings to stare through their own shapeless eyes,
In the fields of mourning
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 5:49 PM UTC
Grove of Hekatonchires;
is reaching heavenly high,
wooden bodies columnar
stretching out in season and
grasping at the azured,
an assuring curling grip on sky…
Fantailed limbs descend,
into their cragged lines,
frozen elfin hands now dropping,
arms, palms and fingers
are all encased in rime.
Briareus, Cottus, Gyges;
weather, earth and deep seas.
Yet still you hold her tightly,
a comfort from the fright
softly swaddled; oh cloudy night!
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 10:02 PM UTC
One day you will meet someone
And you will understand why Icarus flew too close to the sun.
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 3:22 AM UTC
September's ploughed earth
sows the rains
it is something like D.H Lawrence's
' The Rainbow',
that you love
the Polish cleaning lady so
my Soul's countryman,
dear poet of the North
for now, Persephone still
walks the earth
fair Kore, soon to descend
to the underworld
back to an aged God in love
were I thus loved by a man
as to become his queen
as to be kidnapped by him
instead, all I have is you,
a woman's love unrequited
for a boy & growing stale
as far off winter calls
like a theatre scene
too much rehearsed
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 9:24 PM UTC