Promethean Poems | Examples

Excavation

I press my hands into the ruins of you,
fingertips cut in the quiet rot of ancient wounds
that have never quite been touched.
Beneath splintered ribs, 
your earth is sulfurous in suffering—
your volcanic pulse muffled under sediment,
heart-rages arrested in amber.

I carve through your marrow-deep dusks,
knuckles bloodied on the bedrock of guilt,
digging past rusted veins and forgotten altars,
until my hands unearth something 
promethean and glinting—
not relic, not wreckage—
but soft golds of you, 
burning like a mantra
like a last prayer.


3.8.24

To All the Poets Near and Far

To all the poets near and far
Alive and well or beyond the stars,
I bid you peace, I bid you rest,
I bid you all the very best.

Life and death may er’ contain
All the fruits of love and rain, 
Showered down upon you all:
Promethean poets, great and small.

Long before we learned to write 
But felt inside that burning light, 
To share all thoughts, hopes, sadness, dreams
Propitious poets bear it all it seems.

From long ago and far away 
And right up through this very day,
Countless came and left their mark
And we too, shall make a lasting spark.
 
Perhaps a mere morsel, a line or two
That lands upon a mind imbued,
With someone who like you or me
Finds sublimity in words like these.

Though words are not real things we touch 
Like rivers, rocks, seashells and such,
But point the way back deep inside 
Where memories last and love abides.    

But I for one am smaller yet 
Then everyone I’ve ever met,
Who picked up paper, pen or quill
And found their calling in the still 

Of quiet nights and early morns 
Waiting for ideas unborn,
From spirits sweet and dewdrops soft
I bid you all good thoughts aloft.    


© Terrell Martin, 02/21/2025

Algorithmic Rhythm

The marooned muse floats
with waned creative craving
in the emotive stream of impeded passion,
faces the monotonous stodgy scenario
over the tedious span of time
in the bleary plateau of poet’s blasé block.

That’s when it seeks for 
AI’s algorithmic rhythm of ideas and style
within the cauldron of coherent fecundity, 
but is downright dismayed 
by the lack of  Promethean depth,
devoid of the nuance of imagination impulse.

The chord of heart’s violin doesn’t resonate
with the unique personal touch,
for the melody of lyrical longing 
remains unreplicated in the artificial sonata.

I'm a Great Warrior

 Shielding Darkness with Virilities of Light
 One with the Sword of the Most High,
 Promethean by the Thunder, Supreme by Rain
 Forever Rising on this Quest Uncaged,
 I AM the Blazing One, Soul Glowing like I'm Galilean
 Marble Forged, Spirit Gleaming Herculean
 Swinging Boons like Viking Maces I ride for the Great North
 Tramping the Heroic Course,
 Purged through the furnace of the Eternal Awe
 I Rise Upward above the Dross,
 I Am a Great Warrior, Solar Rexus by name
 Set Ablaze, I'm a Bonfire of the Sacred Flame
 With the Blade of Thy Will, Thy Kingdom Come
 ZIN URU by the Might,   I'm the Blazing Sun

I Am The Sun

 Ever-Upwards, I AM The Sun
 I Am the Sum of One,
 I Am the Total of the Light Force, Ever-So Bright
 Ever So High, I Blaze in Kundalini Fire
 Illuminating Ethers of Life Within
 I Am Eternal, I Am Infinite
 I Am Promethean, Fire Born is the motto
 I wield Boons from the Astros,
 Ever-Luminous, I Am Octillion Mega Hertz of pure energy
 Vibing on these Holy Melodies,
 Ever-Solar, I'm a Cosmo Soldier
 Dropping Jewels out the Winepress, Ever-Forward
 Blazing Hymns of Salvation, I Am Glorious
 I Am Victorious,
 One with the Stars I Illumine the Abyss
 Dazzling in shades of Gold and Bliss,
 Untethered, I Breach realms of Eternal Life
 I Am The Sun, I Am the Sun So High

But Reflection Is

Never in secluded pools they dwell,
I speak of ornate  waterfalls,
they rise and fall majestically,
near docks, wharves and piers,
sparkle, gleam, smooth flow trickle,
eye balm whirl fantastic perk on tap,
stickybeak on podium rapids,
instigator signage when our trek seems dull,
but reflection is a gem warp cataract,
kinetic rebound  ocean wave backbeat,
which in fact an upfront blissful target,
hardly ever missing opal bulls-eye,
environmental bubbles that somehow never burst,
indulge outlandish fare Promethean,
spurt  on vermillion lanyards pendant sweep,
dream paint sunrise clementine tincture,
daub acrylic spree through pale moon orb,
squeeze tube lambent hue past frail mandala,
eternal sepia a light touch pristine shroud,
that loiters over urban life force ripple,
flaunt your image rich abundant fire

meh, said God -

he stood …

atop another world
another …
promethean creation
ineffable beauty and innovation spread at his
feet like a glorious carpet of progress
a macrocosm of concept and imagination
that surprised even HIM
he had, again, exceeded his own
undefinable ingenuity and prospect
and the result took his breath
but are gods truly thus if
they’re unpredictable
stochastic, even -
if they’re capable of astonishment?!?
he must have expected this
deep-down …
what’s the point of genesis
if it’s not to improve
or at least applaud?
he spread his arms and gaze
swept it all in with a breath
such incredible accomplishment
such grace and grandeur
yet …
now must come the little creatures
to behold it all
to adulate and worship
to extoll what was to him but a
waggle of his finger
poor little things
he pitied them, really
(though he thought THEM marvels … once)
to be so … insignificant -
so lamentable and small and … well …
limited …
but they DID serve an objective
for without their rather pathetic existence
he’d be left with a question
unanswerable
only one …

why??






Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 18, 2023

Critics Beware

Critics Beware!

Poets are vulnerable no less than anyone,
when fallen victim to outrageous critics.
As Shelley wrote,  critics' darts struck Keats,
who blindly,  cruelly, mocked 'Endymion.'

Lethal no less the heady potion  fame.
Some drowned, took poison, died paupers or insane. 

Yet poet-baiters must themselves take warning,
wrote Heine in his 'Winter Fairy Tale.'
Eternal lines, if barbed, outdo Hell's fierce burning.
 'Time shall not heal when poets wield the flail.'

 Our foes, wrote Paul, are not of flesh and blood
but powers of evil inhabiting high places.
 Promethean fire consumes the evil and the good,
Iniquities have many masks and faces.

Alone the Word that spares the infant's life
 to wrong proves mightier  than every art of strife.

Copius Abandon

Sunrise, sunset in adjacent systems blends behind 
a calm waterfall wake, the hollow unknown man only
minds his altruistic poems of prism alchemy--cleverly
arranging perfect crystal aurora petals against a
color coded ancient star Genesis, forming opulent
halos of Zen emptiness processions--guiding
bright shiny angel wings, keys to soaring paragons of
pellucid, avid, unborn, illusory gray imaginations, like
the savvy, siren Mermaids of Ursa Minora--giving way to
all en-viable spirits on the 4 winds of sagacity as the 
4 Horsemen on shadowy compunction ride, reign free
unchecked, under looming celestial cloud layer realms. 
Sitting on the high hills of home
feverishly flanked near open valleys of conscious
convergences, he softly speaks to a Promethean blank 
bliss, encountering morning light memories, open temporal
templates offering glowing, discarnate, latent, 
ascetic desires of a lasting, formless, empty existence.

The Golden Flame of Faith

A holy, amaranthine light, 
Surely guides the world aright, 
Lo! To distant nations yon, 
The golden flame of faith, 
Carries eastward on! 

Promethean, the fire shines 
And has shone, since olden times:- 
Evangelists in days bygone, 
Stole the sterling flame, 
From Hyperion! 

The flame the lamp-like Pharos bore, 
Lit the ancient Grecian shore, 
But, behold the valiant sight:- 
The golden flame of faith, 
Immortal, stays alight

Promethean Gifts

Inca Indians cultivated potatoes
 thousands of years before Christ.
 Other indigenous domesticated tomatoes
 and maize and they gave it to us.
 
Many centuries of artificial selection
 by the indigenous people of the Americas
 resulted in the development of corn plants
 for the benefit of all mankind.
 
The Olmecs staple crop –
 Promethean gifts given to us
 in brotherly trust.
 And we locked them in artificial Reservations.

Fire Flies

If you were born in city:
Their luminous enamor is inexorable;
You never capture them at night; mind empty,
And ensnared by their mysterious un-effable

That that dismal night wistful,
That that glow distance stars solace,
That that expert called complex chemically obscenful,
Because they never infrared, nor ultraviolet frequence

Oh, you older than race, and electricity,
I called you my reticent little light,
Can enemy of infrastructure be in your identity?
Suburb me in the city now, can't see you at night, 

Why can't you wait for our children, children;
To know promethean nature once light dark night;
Before the travested beauty of electrical exaltation,
Where they struggle to name, and classified your might,

They name you Polyphaga, 
They fame you in Coleoptera,
You radiate amongst Arthropoda,
And they added you in Elateroida.

The Human Seasons: Elements At War and Peace, Part Iv

4.

Each dawn, the cold steps back a pace,
In the lengthening light the cold steps back
As the lands rise fresh and free from deathlike sleep again,
To play the full young mother dressed in life itself,
Strolling through the warming, waxing sun.

Growth and generation give the lie
To the empty time, short before
Everything renewed proclaims exoneration from stasis
Breauty runs riot, freed from its long waiting
To declare its immortality again.

For he and she love grows anew
In  hopes reborn spring's thaw
The heart's slow healing gathers force with the blooming 
As they pull the threads of their lives back together,
Sewing them closer with trust and forgiveness,
Going on again in the thousand-odd ways
That make a single life of two.

Love trumpets again in smug triumph
Through the wakening world,
For it too is one of the old, strong forces,
The one that holds together what would fain break itself apart
To its own rack and ruin;
The ultimate surgeon,
Healing with slow steely cuts 
Cauterizing the strangely sweet wells of pain
With unquenchable fire
That burns,
Promethean.

Inspiring Love

Love ennobles the soul
                    Exciting a tender sympathy 
                          Truly Promethean fire

Sirens' Serenade

The scent of ancient seas converts the breeze 
As burst of amber dawn comes breaking through. 
Gulls wend and wind the thermal streams with ease 
While sunshine warms their bellies blue-grey hue. 

The Sirens' sing of sailing journeys still 
To serenade majestic ships with song.
And sailors swear they hear the lilting trill 
Of singing voices sea-winds pass along. 

The sea-waves wrap and slap the sandy shore
As urchin's scatter hoisting sea-shell homes. 
A stroke of genius by the Master for 
Protective borrowed shelters under domes! 

Below, in fathoms deep with mystery, 
Promethean creativeness still hides, 
Protecting ancient secrets born of sea, 
Some wrought in heaven others rot inside. 

I turn to walk inside my own abode, 
In awe of blessings life gives lovingly, 
And pray the day I face my dying mode 
I hear those Sirens' serenading me.

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