i. Ατλας / Atlas
[Gk., “Not Enduring”]
It was Pangæan bliss until
our continental parents split
into fractured worlds, lovers smacked
out of pairing, paradise ripped from their lips
A kiss for lack of words
not that your milk was bitter
but that my lips tasted love unheard
thought I met you in a fantasy
A fame for ignoring the world
not that its wealth was unfit
for my waste, nor its crowds too thick
but that my heart could not hold
All of your storms when I returned
not that I did, nor that I would, but if
earth called and I emerged, its churning birth
burns all to know that by a kiss silence reunites us
ii. Ικαρος / Icarus
[Gk., “Follower”]
I am the chosen one
and so is everyone else
everyone unacquainted
with the universe that is the self
I forgive myself every mistake
except just one, that I have not been
something more of a tempest tearing
through madness to calm men who hate
Every thing contingent
on my belief, and my creed
has been a waste; a way takes
need and replaces it with passion
Every flame of mine’s happened
and I need; I need still, to matter
to return through the ether to the gravity
holding down my pattern; I seek abandon
iii. Προμηθευς / Prometheus
[Gk., “Foresight, Forethought”]
And find it in the words turning
my orbit into a caption; a life to outlive
its own quotation takes in yearning
and turning me, turned into a captive
And a prince, all at once, my universe
burning itself down to its substance; something
running from its reign soon dries and, ink-like, flakes
into springs, dirtying streams of centuries with worse
Circumstances than I can conjure
unaware of how far my words will saunter
the universe weeps, knowing I am its creator
but that I will never be their father
It was all circumstance, I said; uncertain
if erasing what once fed fire, what I had imagined
could make up for our heated racing from one
another, if it paid to be a liar, to carry this burden
