Poem of the Month

Prometheus: Behind the Music

Prometheus loved the afternoon
and took his drink with goat meat then.
And shook the rawness of his hands
on his big thighs and wiped them clean.

The giant man held conference
with intangible or tiny things.
Once a woman stayed the night,
He scared her with his offerings.

Prometheus watched television,
two channels from a long dead wire.
One of heaven, one of hell
Both claimed to fear his fire.

What say you, said the billy goat,
Rumor, said the ancient man
Of my liver’s destiny
has gotten out of hand.

Foolishness or fascism
imagines horrors blindly.
But he also said beneath his breath,
You’d think they’d try to find me.

He supped at evening languidly,
The raw meat of sheep and elk.
He drank fermented honey
And slept on arid silk.

His hands smelled of animals,
His land smelled of blood,
And though he was immortal,
He was often sick and cold.

At night he hung his hut
With every kind of fur
Prometheus had seen no gods
Since he invented fire.

He never saw an eagle,
His liver never quivered,
No horror ever chained him by
A rock or cliff or river.

He simply went away,
From fame and flames and heat
to sup at quiet mountains
a cold and bloody meat.

-Nina Alvarez

This poem uses slant rhyme.  Can you find it?