Promethean Progression (a poem)

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

An extension of man—
the electric, the digital,
taped on warm glass,
scoring a fool,
just using my fingers.

Engines madden machines,
combustion drains the world.
Since the first spark,
we’ve flailed within our inferno.

Scorched earth.
Shock and awe.
Oil and gas—fuel and fire.
Manufacture, transport,
transcending space and time.

Brands in dry wood,
a thousand points of light,
a burning bush,
and a million lies—
sparked in a tinderbox
we never mastered.

Drunk on propellant:
the cap, the hammer, the aimer—
trigger, chamber, blast cap, igniter—
up and away, crossing rivers,
then oceans,
intercontinental.

From an acre burned,
to atoms split
over a city.
Or two.

Delete.
Delete.
Block.
Report.

Rant and rail,
puke out characters
into a string—
encoded onto a display,
a glow of text,
the written words:

I hate you.