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| In poetry... |
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 The soul is splattered against the silver screen...
Anything qualifies as poetry these days and my style of verse is eclectic. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder and each voice must find its own audience, ultimately poetry is art. And in my opinion, regardless of form and style, art is good if it makes you feel...subtly. As they say in California, did you feel that?
New pieces are posted here periodically. Comments on poems below? Click HERE to contact me or email PrometheusPromise@Yahoo.com.
Image of ancient Greek pottery painting courtesy of www.Theoi.com |
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| Thermopylae
Four-eighty years ere first millennium,
three hundred faced quarter of a million.
No one had passed this gorge while we stood here,
till betrayed by one whose name means "nightmare."
Fate holds true to Delphi Oracle's chant,
a king must die to spoil another's cant.
Athenians left their marble Parthenon,
finer structure exists this world bar none;
such empires like Persian's come and gone,
neither would prevail our creed the eons.
Time eternal our tale will be retold
in words by fellow countryman of old:
"Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
here according to their law we lie."
Footnote: This is the story of the three hundred Spartans who died to save all of Greece in 480 BC. The Oracle of Delphi had prophesized that a Spartan king must die to spoil the plans of a Persian king. King Leonidas did die with his men and King Xerxes never conquered Greece as he had planned. The Spartans held off the Persians at the narrow pass of Thermopylae until Ephialtes, a fellow Greek, betrayed them. Over time, Ephialtes had come to mean "nightmare" in the Greek language. The last two lines are quoted from a translation of an ancient Greek poem.
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| Eyes Wide Shut in a Dentist's Chair
 The work goes on;
only half my mouth is numb,
sound of monotonous drill,
posters on the ceiling,
oculus retreating.
My dental hygienist said,
"Did you hear, Superman's dead?"
Replied detracted dentist,
"Told you, there is no Superman."
Succinctly put, Fred.
The indestructible's fallen from his horse,
which is not to say he's fallen on his sword,
no more, no mores.
A perfectly blunt sentiment -
There is no Superman.
What instrument of accident
befell Mark Antony then,
stale tears did Octavian shed?
He had fallen on his sword…
from his horse.
Fling scrutiny upon the comparison.
First of the millennium had gone,
a year like clockwork, still orange,
but Reeve, Kubrick and Ritter,
the harmless comic fritter,
men with God-given talent,
they're just not anywhere here.
I miss gurgling and spitting
that spared me this grainy feeling
(they don't rinse me anymore),
and milk by the door in glass jars
filled with wholesome percentage yaw,
when caped crusaders only feared
Kryptonite of fictive planet far.
My dentist bores his craft, bored.
In his chair, I'll never get a word.
Can you read my mind?
The world goes on;
only half my heart is numb.
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| Measured Lives 
Oh what unsavory bargain we conducted
on a shake with the hands of time
that forever chained us to watches in our pockets,
our lives disciplined by the governess
who tallies her locks in sixty finite increments,
our motion dictated not only by where
but when our forms are to be expected?
The unholy mistress devil-dogs
our every waking moment…and rules our sleep,
rips us from the natural and gentler guidance
of the sun and moon who illuminated for us
day and night, to bed and rise.
Instead, we hang ourselves in the
confined movements of her pendulum
swinging ever methodically between
now and then, in every now and then,
our wrists shackled to bracelets baring our ills
even when we’re able to escape her fixtures,
committing us to her precise appointments.
And what servant of abstract rigor
concocted this master of make-believe,
whose seed was sawn when we learned to count
with bony fingers, to add and subdivide?
Our own ghastly creation in the name of
glorious, gory progress,
she marches relentlessly in her closed circle
clock-wise…to nowhere,
announcing opportunities missed,
humanities lost and the approaching lines
of death...
measured in minute minutes and upon us
serving seconds of seconds,
tick tock, tick tock...
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| Skipping Rain
 I went dancing in the field
in the rain,
skipping between droplets teal
and the pain.
They fell like needles and spikes,
each supposing to pierce the night
and ruin what is real.
But as they hit unsuspecting ground,
as mighty as they intended to pound,
the earth eagerly quenched
her thirst;
she simply smiled and opened her arms.
And I, like the mother who forgave,
learned to feel.
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| Wings of Prayer
 A butterfly lands on my window screen.
A little worn, she takes a needed rest.
Within my house that's tinted forest green,
I pause to stare, behold my feathered guest.
Wings in prayer over her silhouette
as I ponder from under her belly,
no power of flight she cares to suggest,
just a slender twig with legs of folly.
But then her pinions flashed ever slowly,
stretching muscles for her continued quest.
Hades' forbidden dream, the angels sing
on revelation of her mirrored dress.
It's she who's moved; I hadn't changed my view.
In her fold are ends eternally true. Back to Contents
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Brunette By Land, Blonde If By Sea
An acquired taste in four acts
 Acte Une: Blond for blondes...
Corked on the corner
of Johannesburg riesling
wheezing - frauline
Gewurztraminer, to me
couldn't have been any meaner,
though we flambéed
and shared her strudel.
A litany in Italy
with the gypsy Chianti
of wild Tuscany esprit,
we bottled each other billet-doux
till her red-white checkered past
caught up. In our last séance
I bid her adieu.
 Acte Deux: By way of France...
For a while I was attaché
to Mademoiselle Chardonnay,
the fiancée of her fiancé, who
had with me a tête-à-tête
and told me to stay
the hell away!
Ah, but Chablis,
mon chéri le chic!
Still mon ami,
we were never more
than laissez-faire, for I
preferred more body than
she had bouquet to give.
Poured from the same
vintage Blanc, twins,
Chenin the debutante,
Fume the femme fatale,
with them I saw double
entendre and no way out
of endless déjà vu.
 Acte Trois: Brunettes, deep into red...
Pinot Noir, fated black,
she had that certain
je ne sais quoi
and my rendez-vous
with her was bête noire,
just as our affair was meant
to fade into nuit.
Madam Bordeaux of Burgundy
held many a soirée
to honor me, yet with her
it was tiring, hard to say
the mot juste
without committing
my share of faux pas.
Always à la mode
was Merlot,
we spent our days bon vivant
in avant-garde
matinée film noir,
until her critique eked
me out of her genre.
Frequently à la carte,
Zinfandel
was often infidel.
Could have stayed with her
I suppose, if I had
willingly blanched
my amour-propre.
Le gamine fruitier
Petite Sirah,
she was much too risqué
for her age.
"Voulez vous," she said to me
everyday. I was only her chauffeur
till she drove me dryer.
Cabernet Sauvignon of
sweet savoir-faire,
our pas de deux
vis-à-vis the others
would have been more blasé
if she hadn't dealt me
her coup de grâce.
 Le Finale: C'est la vie...
Now, Gamay Beaujolais -
sweet sorbet marmalade!
She with her peau de soie
I loved par excellence - if only
less nonchalant. Rear mirage in
her chateau cheval glace showed,
I should've stayed in her cellar and chilled.
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| Sanctuary
 It's always there -
when light falls
and the crooked cricket
croaks for my crutch,
without which I lean so much
away from the fanning torch
that is the remaining world,
when thoughts have sought
their sleep
and only the sound of dying
flame speaks,
down on one knee,
I wear my shadow like a cape
furled.
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| Champion
You would have cowered in my shadow.
For it was my visage, arched bow-like and flexed with discus,
from which was fashioned the bronze Myron,
 that muscles millenniums hence, though embedded
in marble, yet burst with vibe that incensed-
ocean odysseys had covetously imbibed.
It's with that very fiber, life's juices and iron-oak
oars my mates and I plowed the unyielding billows.
In the naked sun, even a stadium thronged
must shun my glorious conformation as I faced
worthy foes nude in the games afoot the Kronion Hills
of Peloponesse. Yet not by all mighty Zeus
and his frantic dominions on Mount Olympus
a divine gift my frame was so righteously endowed,
but ten years of lucid carnage in the unholy war
that returned Menelaus' Helen from Trojan shores.
We were callow then, before fear could sprout its olive,
the games we boys played and our children, their
children's children in which shall relish and toil.
No, winning isn't everything - it never was,
but it was merely that by which we judged our being.
It's not if you win or lose, but will you among the living,
or shall your likeness and name be cast, ever forsaken
for taking second - and the prize oblivion?
On spectator shoulders and hero's chariot, oiled
and scented, I did drink the blood of consecrated goats
and wear the crown. But in the trials' setting sun,
his brilliance run, I learned a valuable lesson:
with all my victories and accolades, still
I shall walk these plains but forty years until,
all my ambitions, I too go the way of past champions.
That which we leave behind, would those who follow
with equal vigor comprehend…"the games" is but a game?
Footnote: Myron's original bronze statue of the Discus Thrower did not survive time. Roman marble copies did. The Kronion Hills are adjacent to Olympia. "Unholy war" refers to Agamemnon, Menelaus' brother, sacraficing his daughter to the gods to gain favorable winds for his fleet's assault on Troy. In ancient Greece, the life expectancy at birth was 20! I've doubled the time our warrior-athlete could walk his plains.
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| Moon To Her Lover  You never noticed I was yours;
I always believed you were mine,
two points apart a link endured,
one chain across the sea of time.
You spin the marble, icy blue;
I follow pock-marked, barren fool.
You orbit your love burning true
as I forever orbit you.
Back to Contents Image provided by NASA. This site is not endorsed by NASA or NSSDC.
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| Leaving Paradise
I came by iron eagle,
on Pacific golden plover trails,
to the crescendo of extinguished volcano
of minstrel palms of island girls
and laid back palms waving gentle.
And from this crest, a tiny outpost
of hula skirts and paniolos,
their sweat burning red -
Pele's required dress,
the Christmas wreaths upon their heads,
I spread - and touched my soul.
She caressed me
with morning, evening breeze,
the salt air that I breathed.
She calmly snuck me the key
that unlocked - the chest
I brought with me.
And through wild ginger groves,
birds of paradise and coconut droves,
I gazed past where the sea's fallen
and saw new, lost horizons.
She's the drunken, savory maid,
of whom you can't shed the taste.
Her scent forever ferments -
showers of flowers. The seed of blue,
Havaii, I will miss you.
Original photo by Prometheus Promise
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| Overdue
 Hardcover or paperback?
Would it matter? Heaven knows.
Been tossed on unknown tables,
my loose binding fading black,
skin scarred upon a rack.
Pages long gone missing, torn
and buried in strangers’ trash,
of slimy pulp I was born
from creek side mill by the corn,
brainchild of impulses rash.
Book of fiction, strange as life,
I’m a story of strides and strife,
of dispatched characters flat,
the usual fair, common slat,
and the careless typos rife.
Somewhere in back of my folds,
a vanilla envelope holds
stamped account of travels old,
tabs of my random journeys
in khaki backpacks and gurneys,
Someday I’ll be home again,
passing through the redeye scan,
a record of who, where and when,
verified by time and date,
told by the librarian - I’m late.
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| Around the Day in Eight Worlds
 Po,
daystar thaws into his fluid bed
as hula skirts brush sandy flames,
milling over buried dinner in salt air.
Night,
roos roost ‘round rusty Rock,
a late snack, neatly stacked three-layer cake
sliced in half by her fall.
Yiea,
moonlit child snuffs out the pyre
in his dragon-head paper lamp,
wishing upon himself in her Shanghai.
Notte,
sailor-tailored boatman ushers in
his last fare, engaged travelers,
in his Venetian gondola.
Nacht,
music is played in minuet,
closing stanza of Black Forest finale,
to echoing applause on Salzburg’s banks.
Nuit,
erects the Eiffel in luminescence
under slippery beret on artist’s easel
with each homesick tug of accordion.
Noche,
cascading rosa petals from
flamenco dancer pluck solitary guitar
as senora spirals to warm her dress.
Oiche,
tallies Druid’s telling annulus
the light of another day in an
almanac of timeless moments.
And she speeds, across the Atlantic
over sunken Atlantis,
forever a step behind,
chasing his wake.
Note: Each stanza except the last begins with the local word for "Night."
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