"promethean" poems
The all seeing iris imperial city
The swiftest of stylus this side of the ‘sippi
The trippiest spittin’ Promethean hippy
Conspiracy theorist of eeriest verse
The despotic hypnotic black flag bearin’ Hearst
Still immersing myself in a poverty trap
As I grapple with lack of fact check cashing crap
Cryogenically frozen emotion vibes flowin’
From out my funk bunker boombox
Overthrowin’
Your global dominion opinion with ease
Shootin’ breezes with Tirailleurs Senegalese
I’m the kid wicked picket sign paintin’ Tom Sawyer
The ill eagle Taino privilege enjoyer
Still swoopin’ in mean on each **** I make clean
Pick the bones dry of serpentine oil green dreams
Then I bury what’s left of your money machines
With the pharaohs of old’s latest pyramid schemes
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 12:10 PM UTC
In age of old, in time that pass like tides,
When Prometheus lived and Lo! He strived,
As thirsting for Heaven, he climbed its hills, and trees,
Clenching at the Sun, its spark he seize.
The leaves, they warmed, turn bright and evergreen,
As Prometheus, he to fierce fire wean,
Swell lips sip lightning, of the nascent noon,
And divine heat from his hand duly shone,
To Roses, who sing, uprise and sweet rebel,
In bloom to conquer, vanquish concrete hell.
A wish for fire, fulfilled, angered Zeus,
He thought the fire be given, not to choose,
That excellence with fire, laurel his,
"A crime against the Gods Prometheus did."
For glory of the light from Heaven sent,
The hour of his favour now gone, spent.
Smite down the hero, tear ambition down,
Old Zeus, but young ambition wears your crown,
For daring, striving why not badge of God?
The Promethean vision all time hath applaud,
It art of upper world, belong in sky,
Praise Prometheus as fire goes roving by.
Mind gilded by the golden, whirling thread,
You seize from Heaven, through the Earth now spread,
Bringing hope to hearts, life to the dead,
As for forgiveness of the Gods you plead,
For an uncriminal act and sublime deed,
The arrogance of Zeus? Need not to feed.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 3:14 AM UTC
Against the saturated
Horizon of dawn,
Loitering in the dark timbre
Of emerging consciousness -
Dissipating somnolence
And preemptive despair,
Tacitly adumbrate the
Yawning abyss.
Chastened by the cunning and
Lubricious nihilism,
Igniting fermented provocations,
Silent subterfuge; death,
By mirth - the inane;
Lament of the mundane.
Fallow paradigms, accretions of
The last gasp -
Evaporating empty liturgies
Of suspicion;
Charity and equanimity -
Lost in confinement,
Triumphant avarice bearing
Descendants
Of intransigence;
Wielding imperious
Schemes of orthodoxy.
Pollard fragments of
Silken tapestry,
Miasma draped depression
Abridging;
Conversely,
Permuted flurries of anxiety
Dislodge
The vestiges of meaning
That abide
In brazen equivocation.
Tributaries of dogma reach
Their confluence,
Watershed moment,
Numinous effusion
Streams naked epiphany,
The precarious vision -
A gesture of providence,
Certainty and contingency;
Gratuitously derivative, life
Equals choice.
Verdant branches of intention;
And opportunity the vine,
Live forward -
The pen, my voice,
Piquant conduit pouring,
Exuberant wine.
Footprints found in givenness
Underline,
Penumbrae of my soul;
Mirrored silhouettes,
Thoughts and words engender;
And in verse adorn
Fecund soil, Line after line,
The cosmos altered,
Continuum of permanence -
Artist’s art articulating
Essence of my imagination,
I proliferate, I design
Phrases unique,
Participation mystique.
Words creating world,
The apparatus of infinity
Heidegger, ontologically precise,
Language -
The house of Being,
Ineffable, Promethean
Literary devise -
Envisioning possibility,
And abundance to allow,
I occur
Inhabit
Manifest
Future phenomena
Experienced as now.
©2008 & ©2011 W.S. Warner
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 2:02 PM UTC
The hammer and anvil,
My tools of Creation,
Have yet to serve their full potential.
Every day, I wield them.
From the depths of my heart and soul,
I muster the strength to forge.
The strength is abundant,
But such strength is thunder
Without proper restraint.
The fault is not my loyal tools –
Certainly not –
It is my own.
It is my hands –
My frail, limp hands –
Hands that can hold a gentle rose
Or caress a snow-white cheek.
Strength is unneeded there.
I am safe among the fields,
Comforted by the embrace of the flowers.
Every evening, I took a tulip
And by the stem, plucked it.
O, the beauty!
The beauty I held in my hands!
The same hands of Promethean might
Could too hold a budding flower.
But Master scowled at me.
He punished me for my hands –
My weak, pathetic hands.
“You must be stronger,” he barks,
“Lift the hammer above your head,
And bring it down with might!
Stoke the fire! Keep it burning!
You must be stronger! Keep working!”
My hands would burn, but still I worked;
Master’s words rang in my skull.
And how they would redden and swell!
With every blow, I yearned for the embrace again
As my gears clicked together
And the machine slammed the anvil.
One evening prior, I fled to the fields
And tried to hide from Master.
While among the tulips, I plucked just one,
And the stem broke in two,
Graying and withering.
Now a corpse in my hand –
Hand of iron and lead –
It is without purpose.
I searched for others to place in its stead,
But all wilted in the iron grasp.
Nov 11, 2011
Nov 11, 2011 at 11:42 PM UTC
PROMETHEUS!
Prometheus. You,
Were favored among man.
PROMETHEUS!
Prometheus. You
Stole fire from the gods.
I was fire and
lightening
at the creation of Earth.
Feet dance like,
Shiva.
Hips sway,
Calypso
Hair flung wild like
Yangtze and Ganges
I was energy and passion
until you loved me
to Olympus rock.
Greedy bird, you are never full.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM UTC
I saw....
Two black crystal *****
Rimmed with white
Reflecting an indefinable emotion
Glowing with some intense passion
Riveting
Entrancing!
Two eyes of oceanic depths
Relaying the most intimate message
“I love you” (?)
So piercing were those eyes
That I couldn’t stand their electric glare
From those eyes, rose the Promethean fire
Glistening like molten gold
At once sending out
The light of a hundred galaxies
From the fire bursting through those eyes
My body was turned into a conflagration
And my soul rippled like fermented wine
An ocean was stirring within
Whose whirls could never again be tamed
In those flooding pools
Let me cast my fishing net!
Feb 14, 2017
Feb 14, 2017 at 4:55 AM UTC
‘Allowed Rockies, I understand the empyrean choice
for Olympus—why Jove barred all mortals from knowing the wondrous
high atop a peak—the clear air—thin crisp, ever present
breeze that cuts through the body.
Heracles—transcender from human
to god; immortal fire setting his mortal flesh to ash
to scatter into the dirt so he may sit high upon
deathless Olympus—above man and woman. As the Rockies
stand above the new world—unlike Olympus, the Rockies stand
indiff’rent to the affairs of men and women.
Heracles—
who in wake of Asia’s venture to the cave where the protean
spawn of Jove’s lust upon Thetis befell to veil—unbinds
humanity’s one true immortal patron: Prometheus—
whose only want, and whose only single fault: bestow upon
humanity immortal fire—the spark to enlighten
mental parity with gods.
Embers that burst to flame in the
heart and mind of such a fiery thinker as Zarathustra:
who taught to go over not under—over humanity,
transcend the status quo—climb! Rise above—where the
crisp clean air can whisk away the smog of congestion—congestion
of thought—congestion in all form. Zarathustra who showed
us the bellows to fuel our Promethean gift.
For the
Rockies are not ephemeral; they will stand tall long after
humans are gone; fire will raze their trees without human prevention;
like Heracles, the flames will only burn mortal evergreen
flesh to ash, and the mountains will endure immortal—from that
ash, that darkness life will arise as it always has for millennia.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 12:50 AM UTC
What is this pulse I feel?
Stark, ever-present, the tumor with which
life is sustained.
The sky today is remarkably dismal
raindrops along the sidewalks
which I cling to:
not out of reliance --
but out of need.
The world is a bleak gunmetal grey
The Promethean fire of our reluctantly naked sun
cannot even bear to expose itself today.
So, it hides.
It hides like we all do.
What is this pulse I feel?
It hides like an introvert at a party
who escapes himself
into the blare and blur of a horrid
solidarity of bottles and children
and the illegal activities with which
they so complacently cling to.
Hides like a man in a pin-striped suit
who is concealed under white teeth and
leather lounge chairs and contemporary
architecture.
Hidden like child at a shopping mall
whose mother is almost attentive
as the child hides in a clothing rack
and screams:
"You'll never find me!
You'll never find me!"
And the mother realizes that her
child is gone
And the mother finds her child.
And the child never realizes
that he will never escape the eyes
of those whom he doesn't want to see.
The child may want a mask but masks never conceal effectively --
and if they do they're uncomfortable
and press against your face and suffocate your skin.
And it's easier just to let everyone see you
than to be an isolated mask amongst the ranks
of autonomy-hungry deoxyribonucleic acid.
What is this pulse I feel?
The child dies in a car accident several years later.
Oh, well.
And so, I am here --
the world is sullen and steel
as the raindrops fall upon the sidewalk.
It's as if the world is a graveyard
no one dares exit their shelters to
let the cold Truth gently fall upon their faces.
What is this pulse I feel?
The water falling from the Sun's shelter
answers my question:
"You are a raindrop, you fall from the sky
and land, cold, onto these concrete streets.
You may distinguish yourself amongst the other molecules
but you are all Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Your identity is nothing.
You are but an off-key baritone singing in a chorus.
The chorus is an ocean;
the aggregation of all human water molecules.
What's one drop to do?"
This pulse I feel?
It is one of billions, and it is indistinguishable.
I cling to the sidewalk as I step further --
hands in my pockets, stepping further.
Step.
I hear the abyss calling.
It takes the form of falling rain.
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 3:29 PM UTC
when i am king
you will be strange
and my better angels will laugh
at me, but i will behead
the little piggies.
too gorgeous
to be besmirched
i will unearth your drama
and disown you.
i'll throw flying carpets
at mundane rugs
and shrug an Atlus
at Promethean
worlds
where
i have disfigured
the swan and the mallard
but not the lake.
taking care
to give you nothing
but the very best nothing
my Karma
can mock
and a dime for
your trouble
and be
gone.
for a price.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 9:52 AM UTC
.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
The promethean draw of winter stars
new leaves bathed in twinkling lights
hung by the low-slung Moon
sweet, love-sick pearl
called by the Sea and unable to answer--
You roll the clouds in waves across the sky
cloaking yourself when it is too painful
for him to see
what he cannot hold.
Oct 19, 2021
Oct 19, 2021 at 10:57 PM UTC
My thoughts are like gamma rays addicted to *******
Fiending for absolute Truth
Or a new use for Head Space
They come in a swarm that bitch-slaps any bats in my belfry
And rational thoughts flash mob
My cherished illusions
Daily.
I'm on the front line
Of a Psychic War with the Brain-Dead !
My Kung-fu is Confused
By Hatred as an Argument -
Racist Beliefs as a platform to start with...
Asinine articles of faith
As arcane Armaments
Immune to subtlety ...Q.E.D. ~
or any proof of concept !
They've kept the Rubicon
Uncrossed by the Curious
Held stock in kerosene
To burn books too luminous
for
Fearful Men, Unaccustomed to Promethean Gifts
And the Unquenchable Flame of Paradigm Shifts
Mortified by any Noble Pursuit
That diminished the Lie
To magnify the Truth.
Sep 26, 2011
Sep 26, 2011 at 12:37 PM UTC
Whatever are you doing to me?
Writer-woman, epitome of Venus,
Stoking embers of my Promethean fire,
Until the coals in my heart glow,
Waxing lyrical, making love flow.
The moon, seemingly caught in the trees,
Reveals tears rolling down my face,
Sitting here, a back-garden-king,
Alone and shivering in the cold,
Hugging the warmth inside, cuddling,
With just the dark of night for company,
Comforted, for I love you, it’s true,
And never deny it; you love me too.
Only, it’s all we have, please try and see,
Nothing else matters in our own reality,
I nurse the ache, such pain, jeez,
Hear me Muse, just hear me, please,
Take all you can, I know it’s not much,
But I offer it to you, my digital feelings.
My words, sculpting a view of heaven,
Prose dancing amongst distant starlight,
Shining in your eyes: are they also tears?
Perhaps, observed by an impassive moon,
Now beyond the clutches of leafy limbs,
As you are beyond my embracing arms.
Edges of passing clouds, illuminated,
Are you glowing, my Muse, are you?
Do my lonely words of love stir you?
Stoke hidden smouldering passions?
Do you ever think, maybe wonder,
As we tap keys on the sub-ether,
Whatever are you doing to me?
©Paul Chafer 2014
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 6:55 AM UTC
You have gone - like the cool breeze in more temperate times.
I thirst with the depth of a desert,
wide and exposed to the sun a thousand years.
Parched, barren, with no flower of love, no water of life.
My hunger gnaws at the ribs of my soul as I contemplate a life
devoid of your kiss,
The taste of you on my lips, like nectar,
To bless a feast for the gods themselves.
Promethean curse, chained to this desire by day
Life plucked from my bones by the desolation of my soul!
At night to burn for your touch, your caress, your life-giving love;
My flesh restored by the dream only to be pierced by the dawn's light
as I hear the harpy's cry.
But still, I have hope,
That the one truth we hold dear even life's only hope,
May collect our souls and our love thrive.
Charon's dark curse be broken, and,
In passion fueled by hearts that as one buoy us up, ever up!
To that pinnacle so sweet until over we fall
into each other's arms - fast asleep!
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
Freelance astronaut
With a ponytail
On the late-night shift
Took this rocket many times before
No nightmare grivets
Still something creeps inside
As I watch the metal birds fly
Like the wind before a tornado
Mister Rogers with a red glass eye
And I dream of forts and storm shelters
Paper crackers and magazines
But they're only crops in my head
Ding-dong the witch is dead
Got my coupons
Got my waivers
Better get on board
Blink an eye
Past the borderline
Trace the silver biblical chord
But what's this terror
What's this sensation
I'm alone and bound and tied
Promethean sacrifice
See the cavity craters
In my peripheral eye
Reading rainbow I can't read you
All I see is a misty circle
Butchered ogdoad for a baker's dozen
But three isn't what you'd expect
These ropes want to be untied
Menstrual men and cosmic spies
Feel them all from below
Hear them all from above
Like dead wind chimes
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 10:01 PM UTC
Snatching at the words,
Mumbling incoherently,
Such things, such imagery,
Haunting me, taunting me,
Fighting on the cusp of sleep,
Denying me semblance of reason,
For these words I want, no, need,
Their beauty, strings of literary pearls,
Flow sinuously through my mind,
Then begin to dissipate, please no,
Cunningly vanishing at equal speed,
With which I try to recall them,
Smoke thinning, drifting on the wind,
Mocking me as I rouse, knowing,
Deep inside, how good the words felt,
What they would mean, such wonder,
Now gone, but perhaps, perhaps,
They were never as good as I thought,
Maybe such things never are, maybe,
Maybe the real beauty is hidden pleasure,
A delight in the process itself, hmm,
The imagining, I - no, we, for I mean, us poets -
Love that creative part; want to hold it forever,
That heady feeling, that Promethean power,
How we cherish this treasure, and share it,
Sharing is the best, hmm, and the keeping,
Yes, never neglect the keeping, coveting,
The unmatched sense of achievement,
Something known only to poets,
Alas, those forgotten words,
Edging the cusp of sleep, perhaps,
Well, they do not travel so well, still,
We console ourselves with knowing,
Knowing they were there, truly existing,
Trying to escape on a whimsical notion,
When in reality, if we are patient,
They do come home, words to roost,
Appearing, here, there, everywhere,
In various forms, so all is not lost, still,
On the edge of dreams, we fail to avoid,
Snatching at the words.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 7:56 AM UTC
*I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.*
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 4:29 PM UTC
.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 6:48 PM UTC
Born of Gaia's womb
an Olympus beholder
Forsaken by Zeus
fatherless, growing older
Promethean flame
of mortality colder
Like Atlas I've carried
the world on each shoulder
Condemned to the weight
of my Sisyphus boulder
A Minotaur slaying
Medusa's gaze holder
Lion amongst men
an Achilles heel soldier
For argonaut strive
makes my fleece all the golder
As Icarus pride
razes my wings to smolder
Beneath Helios
I will shine all the bolder
Releasing my mind
from Pandora's enclosure
And Tartarus pits
of my Hades exposure
No shears of Fates sever
my heartstrings' disclosure
Andromeda bound
by the promise I told her
In fields of Elysian
once more I shall hold her
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
Often I feel all I really am is a pile of embers
Pieces of burn paper collected
And swept into a pile
Awaiting the shovel
Awaiting the trashcan
But I was once a flame
I held the afterglow of something powerful
Something that only man has ever touched
A promethean myth of promise so
Potent its future begs to be clutched
And as much
As I could love to be that flame again
My role as the after math is just as important
The pile of rumble that before a bomb was a building
Can be seen as material for something new
And the lot of something as raw as me
Can stand for hope, rebuilding for remaking
Things only exist from piles of ember and of rumble
And from me I can build an army
My fortune has not yet been set
My goals have certainly not yet been met
But I show promise
Now please tell me how will you make me?
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 12:50 PM UTC
the crust on the bread we break
chafes the palm homely
as we twist the loaf of our repast
releasing the heat of hot embers
growling in the brick womb
of our rustic ovens...
crumbling aglow, after the dough
has risen like a Christ
to a crisp.
long after the yeast has spat hollows
in the flesh of our sour toast.
it burns unburdened
beneath a barren grill, inconsolable.
croaking smoke and ash.
pitching cinders up the plume
Promethean.
it is the morning.
so our wolves will have
their rabbits
as our pendulums,
our mortality.
but the feast is not our bread...
it's the crumbs.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 7:57 AM UTC
I am nothing but footprints in the sand
to him.
Odious, he who left me to fight the tides,
promised me forever.
How long is forever?
Three years, two months,
Eleven days, an hour
and twenty-three seconds.
Now he’s back,
expecting a norm so chimerical.
But, disconsolate as I am,
sleeping ‘til body withered--
crying ‘til eyes dusted--
Yet he’s obdurate to this, my Odious.
No amount of imprecations
can succor this heartbreak.
My armored skin,
antiquated from battles long and harsh--
turned to mere paper against his words.
He has me by the corner,
above the red, red flame
and wants to act like I am not burning.
Such a silver tongue, my Odious,
he can fabricate like no other.
My dear Odious,
Leave me to fight the tides,
as I hope your Promethean fever
leaves you as cold
and as alone
as your true heart.
Yours always,
Detritus
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 10:27 AM UTC