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