The Auchinleck Prometheus

By well-wisher

Wed, 22 Jun 2011
  • 1608 reads
7 comments
 

Imagine a cave and, in it, a spark
becoming a gas flame that breaches the dark;
illuming a young boy’s intelligent gaze;
spreading his shadow across red rockface.

Outside, a millstone is gradually grinding;
the blackbird and songthrush are praising the dawn;
bellowing, Bello stream’s busily flowing;
inside him, visions of gaslight are born.

Meter, metaphor, image and rhyme;
two lenses rotating from left to right
and back; a dream-engine, spanning time,
reaches the works of Boulton & Watt.

Birmingham; March, Eighteen hundred and two;
now you see what that first bright flame grew into;
the light of two thousand, six hundred gas flames;
brightening a factory; igniting his fame.

William Murdoch; gaslight* of the world!
Let his name be remembered by young boys and girls
and his legend, of passion and gaslight and steam,
drive the pistons, of their young hearts, towards their dreams.

*reference to JOHN 8:12 = "I am the light
of the world".

Certificate U
Poem
Poems
Historical Fiction

Comments

Submitted by Highhat on
You even got the rhyming right. Clever well-wisher

Submitted by well-wisher on
Thanks, Pia. I'm not sure if I did get the rhyming right but its reassuring that you think so. I really was focussing on getting the rhythm right because I wanted to have a kind of train/machine rhythm to the poem that moved the reader forward because you see, not only did William Murdoch invent gas lighting, he also built the first working prototype of a steam engine as part of the Boulton-Watt team.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by Highhat on
The rhythm is very good WW. I learnt something new today from your poem. I think it was very cleverly structured.

Submitted by maggyvaneijk on
Very clever, I love how you almost take the reader's hand my asking them to imagine in the first stanza

 

Submitted by celticman on
I like the idea of a dream engine. I want one...

 

Submitted by well-wisher on
We all have a dream engine, celtic man. You just have to use your imagination.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on
Thankyou, maggyvaneijk. The poem is partly about 'the power of dreams' and so the reader is an important component in the poem. Meter, metaphor, image and rhyme; two lenses rotating from left to right and back; a dream-engine, spanning time, reaches the works of Boulton & Watt. ^ the two lenses, as you probably guessed, are the eyes of the reader and the 'dream engine' is the poem. I wanted to show the cogs and workings inside the poem that's why I wrote the line, 'Meter, metaphor, image and rhyme'.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn