PB Shelley interprets Prometheus, who was bound by Zeus to the rock atop a cliff for stealing fire from Olympus to bring it to humanity, as a hero in his famous poem Prometheus Unbound. Shelley inspires this poem, with due apologies to him and the Titan


I, Like Prometheus Bound

I, like Prometheus, bound
To the cold and craggy rock
Of the miseries of life,
Have risen above the pain,
Which like all chronic ailments,
Has lost all its edges,
Sharp and frayed,
And has become
Blunt and staid
With the passage of
Ever healing time...

I face life with love,
Compassion and passion,
And no longer try
To alleviate and fight
The pain that has become
My destiny, my plight;
I absorb it within me
And let it circulate
With blood through my bones
To sublimate and enrich
My heart and my soul,
So that I become
More attuned, more responsive,
To the misery of others
Less fortunate, less lucky,
With a pain more potent,
More poignant
Than my agony...

I don't know
What my Zeus
Has in store for me?
While I carry on
Come pain or agony,
And make the most of
My destiny...

Author: Zoya Zaidi
Copyright©: Zoya Zaidi
Aligarh (UP), India




Poetry by Zoya Zaidi
Read 2489 times
Written on 2005-10-19 at 02:18

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Marie
"While I carry on
Come pain or agony,
And make the most of
My destiny..."

Making the best of a bad situation, tis the smart thing to do. A thought-provoking write! :)
2006-01-29


Black Knight
I've stolen for people a fire of art.
Who has sent an eagle, to torment my heart?
2005-10-26



Finding a way to relate to such an inevitable aspect as pain is surely a central thing in our life. Especially, I guess, being in a profession where you constantly meet pain in other people. A well-expressed reflection!
2005-10-20


AmonTheDark
this was a greta poem i like how you were demanding in the end
2005-10-19


chasingtheday The PoetBay support member heart!
the first part here, it was a comment to sofiul not you zoya.
2005-10-19


chasingtheday The PoetBay support member heart!
in ref: to sofiul here, you mention silence and assume weakness etc yet i know for a fact that people here have sent you ims asking you questions to which you have never replied to, yet here you are quick to speak to someone saying no answer when you fail to answer yourself. just an observation.

to the poem now: shelley, a great poet, i have some of his work here. didn't he - prometheus have his heart eaten each day, i am rusty on such things, for angering zeus.
2005-10-19


penfold18
This is excellent, once again you have triumphed with true spirit, the association and compassion towards pain, to rise above it and to absorb it until it becomes an instrument to help others i find inspirational.
2005-10-19


Zoya Zaidi
Sofiul Azam,It is not me who has changed, but your perception of me has changed. And please, I would request you to keep personal comments for the message box; This page is for comments on poems and not a space given to you for charecter assasination!
I would appreciate, if you leave me alone, you are beging to tax my patience!!
Don't mistake my silence for meekness!!! Don't take advantage of my goodness!!!! I did not commit any mistake & I certainly am not ashamed!!!!!
I am keeping quiet because I don't consider you worth bothering with!!!!!!
I think this should help!
Hoping not to hear from you any more!Zoya
2005-10-19


Sofiul Azam
Certainly this is a nice poem, nicely crafted as well. You are kind of spiritually positive throughout the poem; and there are stunning lines telling that you have a positive frame of mind to your credit, and that frame "normal" people can touch, even if they go without that spiritual "positiveness." There are fantastic lines, specially lines like:

"I face life with love,
Compassion and passion,"

"So that I become
More attuned, more responsive,
To the misery of others"

which not only harp on the strings of my heart from where music turns up as from other hearts, but which are startling and puzzling as well, because just one week back, I said you had no "modesty" to answer to the "Why" of one unnecessarily misunderstood by you nor compassion required of a physian's approach to other human beings. I think you have changed in a week! I hope it's not the change most vivid on the printed page or on the computer screen.

So, it's true we all do mistakes, not excluding you; and silence can't always be the right answer and souldn't ever be. Don't you think that "in speech alone is man purified" is true for human beings including you and me as for other people too at Poetbay?
2005-10-19


John Ashleigh
At the start of this poem you can really see humanity climbing further up and up the moutain. Brilliant. You're also a talented writer ;)
2005-10-19


Teala
Beautiful and thought-provoking. I am a big fan of mythology...lovely write!!
2005-10-19