compelled each day to plod that beach
her dazzlings - quite beyond my reach
those eyes like jade and deep as death
that whispered “come” in witching breath
soft-danced, those briny bullions rolled
bright cresting swells with coins of gold
that she claimed hers to snatch and save
such wealth, that girl beneath the waves …
that wealth now gilds … her lovers’ graves.
Copyright © 2025 Gregory Richard Barden
My mind has become a hoarder’s paradise
As I have gotten older, fat and lazy.
All that I gather collects
Along the halls, across table tops
On every available surface.
Eventually only narrow pathways remain
Through the labyrinth,
Pathways I traverse daily
As I shuffle back and forth
On my habitual ways.
This is the anatomy of a mind calcifying,
Layers and layers of thought and memory
Cemented accretions which then erode
Into the walls of my labyrinth.
Somewhere at the center
I know there is a garden still untouched
By the clutter of this life,
Complete with eye bright centaur
Chiron on his grassy knoll.
Knowing it’s always there
Is all the solace I need.
(9/7/25)
The wind is blowing softly like words spoken
in ancient temples built of stone, sharply hewn
from quarries dug in highland hills made barren
by creatures come to claim the woodland cedars,
for sacrifice and beauty they were chosen
to entrance us in the tapestry of weavers,
the goddesses of destiny and devotion
to the patterns of the silken threads, attuned~
the Fates decree, and who are we to question?
Listen to the wind as it swirls around decayed
headstones, hear it laughing like a ghost of yore,
or is it stirring trouble like a goblin crazed,
come to torment those awaiting somber tidings
of life once colored joyful, but now unglazed
by pale spectors and surly death's grim reapers,
and so the seasons tumble onward through decades,
dumb to pleasure, love or laughter, ever after
in a place where hopeless drudgery remains~
Listen to the wind now wailing winter's warning.
They’re intense and mysterious
Their presence makes you delirious
Pluto’s warriors just won’t stand by
They keep their secrets until they die
The tension’s magnetic and sexy
But jealousy makes them messy
They know how to hold a grudge
Ten years later they still won’t budge
If they love you they might be obsessed
It’s not something they’ll ever confess
They’ll treat you like a doll they possess
But with any luck you’ll never guess
Most days they’re dominant
They don’t care if it’s prominent
They probably have tattoos
Just know nothing is taboo
The realest people on the planet
Don’t ever take them for granted
If they need you to know one thing
It’s that scorpions know how to sting
cheese
the cheese is wet
covered in wet
i am wet
i am cheese
melt
i ,am steve...
The Furies in all their rage hath not the vengeance in his soul
Which boils like the maelstrom and spills upon the shore
The tide rising higher and higher
til it fills the lowland of their bitter malcontent
If righteous indignation had the power heaven holds
The sea now wormwood should turn crimson in this night
But darkness has this stake alone which knoweth not the Good
And darkness that comes with the noon blots out the strongest light
Til the sun surrenders all the good that comes upon the day
And nothing grows save inky stain where hatred rules the play
If discipline be righteous let me stray but for a while
And beg the Fates indulgence on the morrow
For surely cruel as fate can be
There's kindness in the breast for he that
Strays in ways gods envy and admire
If heaven smile the while you dally
Lost in that space none dared precede
It can't but wonder how creation
Dwelling under heaven's folly
Follows on the path you have created
Hearts together beating as two within one breast
Facing love with nothing in between
One casting from the mold the gods broke on request
The fate not resting til it wrest from Chronos
Moments precious lost in time now found
Lives entwined as flames no quenching thirst can hold
So bright the night can hold no purchase on the soul
Hearts aflight would light now holding fast against the darkness
Which would swallow and consume that light most richly blest
Whose purchase can outshine all heavens gold
Seldom misses
Life then blisses
The untamed waters
Bridled by the dragon's pearls
In the Empress's hand
Tides recede at her command
Her foe's ships were trapped in sand
Swallowed by the seas
Then the waves flicker
Once thirteen hundred years pass
Buried tales emerge
Ships surrounded Sunc'hon's Fort
To crush an invading force
A war raged at Choson's shores
Ancient echoes din
Oceans drew back, and recalled
Old tales etched in seas
Once again, a fleet was trapped
Where wind and waves take the ground
Who can deny victory?
Staring at her reflection in
ocular mirrors, learning my
last blessings, creeping past
poltergeists during marauder
inspections while I transcribe
her flesh on caesura, pleading
with the Pleiades for soprano
notes to stay on his alto clefs,
hanging gardens in her image
Obambulate mistress, with
Black Narcissus as my witness
Extravagant solivagant born
from river spirits, lascivious
nymphs want to hear their
voice echo in mountain cliffs
carried by arid winds to the
place the gods’ garments
ripped, convicting her Prince
Oh Echo why, did she beguile.
Queen Hera with loquacity.
Thou mountain nymph whose winsome smile
Did mask Zeus from complicity
With sylvan nymphs, his sole desire.
Those dalliances once revealed
Set jealous Hera's heart on fire.
Echo was blamed, her fate now sealed
To never speak, till others spoke.
And only then, those last words said.
Then bite her tongue, or she would choke.
This punishments inside her head.
A woodland hiding place she found
In solitude and loneliness.
One day she heard a youthful sound.
His voice her lips, it did caress.
Then " do not hide " Echo replied.
This paragon of many charms,
Bemused he said " please do no hide "
When Echo ran towards his arms,
Narcissus cast her to the ground,
Extolling death, to her embrace
As from her lips, his words resound.
She disappeared without a trace.
To wander evermore alone.
Those mountain caves were her domain.
Soon blessed death, turned bones to stone.
Her voice was all that did remain.
8 / 16 / 2025
A return to Normalcy
As night comes, all are at ease
We return to slumber
In the electric comfort
Of artificiality that is our lives
We revel in the false sense of our own
Modern conveniences
We forget the thin veil between
Our electric life, truth of nature’s brutality
Of our existence, we believe we are
Immune to the real world, harsher realities
Till only a loss of electric life or death, finite
Our comfort zone is rot, lost, and won
Something jars us back to reality
Of the world so frail
So it goes for everything n anyone
We are wrapped in ourselves
We are ignorant of the truth, in flesh
We hid in the comfort of our arrogance
We whitewash our history
We tell ourselves one thing
We miss direct our attention
With glamour, illusions, n media broadcasts
Peel back the thin layer of civility
See the bones of mortality
The flesh of humanity
The blood of our souls, vanity
We are primal and dangerous
Everything foretold, lost
We are comforted by our excesses
We fear what we cannot hold
And believe all we are sold
As we turn in for a much-needed reprieve
A needed night's rest, we are in our woolen
Wilds and slumber in our hypocrisy.
Electric Line's sway,
spider webs of industry
along a rocky lane under
a hot southern sun, cicada…
cry high, into the crystal blue sky
We are a ghost nation
of Man’s hypocrisy
crossing shadows under a hard
noonday sky.
The empty road under the leaning
Electric crosses of civilization
Shadows fall, carving silhouettes into
Upon hitting noonday ground
Humanity lost all reason
Along a rocky, dusty road
As day bleeds into a hot
Southern night
Crickets cry high
As the moon rides the
White galleons of cloudscapes
As star falls in infernal southern sky
Frogs sing the song of endless rain
As electric crosses lean
Under the halogen of streetlights
Crosses stand, lean to and fro
Like graves of the day
Souls drift and sway
As a nation is lost along the way
Bought and sold
While electric crosses align
A forgotten road
Of a Nowhere nation, undone…
Watching all fold…!
Ghosts that haunt empty spaces
Like objects in cabinets
that drift on window pains
As light out places the things
left in the corners of
attics and In-between
the walls and hidden faces,
memories like objects
that linger as bookmarks
to someone's history,
yellowing pages,
trinkets and toys,
old books and broken vases
sit like old photos faded,
memories of something
best left untouched or forgotten,
never stated, between the moments of memory
Like things left in shadows last and fated,
ghosts linger here and there,
pale movements in the Either,
objects of history,
a fall of light, a twist of shadow,
objects that haunt
like old souls in empty spaces…
lost to my sight
In a world of noise, we move
In endless plains, shadows lie
Footfall echoes n dies
Sounds travel past my night
A void endless inside
Walking trail of broken stars
Cast in darkness deep n beyond
Beautiful n terrifying
A walking void of oblivion’s
Objects defining all as it was
The light cascades, heavenly charade
A void of sight, entering endless days
Thoughts, so lost, cast away
My dire soul, a void, a vacant empire
Walking the path cryptic
Into warm summer rains
Lingers a ghost of myself
Refrain…
A walking void, between
Beyond n bound to nowhere
Nothing clear, a void vivid
Lingers my endless days.
Specific Types of Mythology Poems
Definition | What is Mythology in Poetry?
Poems Related to Mythology
lore, belief, tradition, legend, conviction, mythos, myths, stories, folk tales, mythicism,