Inside: Greek mythology poems to inspire your next storyline.
We all wish we could be God’s at heart, that’s what make the Greek mythology stories feel so true to form at times.
Here are some of my favorite poems rounded up to share how these fables and poetry about Greek God’s have inspired me over the years. From Medusa to Zeus theirs something for everyone.
1. Pelios
Born from the union of Life and the Moon
His very first cries sang out as a tune
Tearful and painful, his sorrow rang out
And the very next moment, a screaming shout
The young god grew older, and his power developed
In anger and sadness, the world was enveloped
The regal gods began to feel their hearts stirring
and despised him when their judgement was blurring
When Pelios was melancholy, all the people stooped
When Pelios was lonely, all the people grouped
When Pelios was fearful, every god would cower
When Pelios was disgusted, every god would glower
When Pelios was vengeful, all the people fought
When Pelios was thoughtful, all the people thought
When Pelios was content, every god would rest
When Pelios was grateful, every god was blessed
Unable to resist his fluttering emotions
The god began to believe the hateful notions
Loathing himself, off cowered the young boy
And the world forgot that he first brought us joy.
-Unknown
2. Oh To What is True(Continue Here)
Oh to be like Echo,
Always calling out but never heard.
To be like Midas,
Always reaching out but never touched.
To be like Medusa,
Always seeing but never seen.
To be like Prometheus,
Always beneath the sun but never warm.
Oh to be like Isis,
Always seeking but never finding.
To be like Ra,
Always to travel and never to rest.
To be like Thoth,
Always learning but never knowing.
To be like Bastet,
Always protecting but never protected.
Oh to be like Fenrir,
Always bound and never freed.
To be like Huldra,
Always to love but never to be loved.
To be like Bragi,
Always to play but never to listen.
To be like Ymir,
Always to create life but never to live.
-Cassidy Munro
The water roars and the earth shakes,
The wind blows harsh and the thunder crackles across the sky.
We are okay, we have nothing for them to break,
Says the mother and the father as their young begin to cry.
They are still here,
The gods will not die.
Unlike you,
Unlike I.
Poseidon angrily stirs up the ocean,
His trident standing tall.
Zeus strikes down mighty skyscrapers
Like they are nothing at all.
The gods rain down with their resentment,
Oh, if only mankind had not been so foolish.
If only they had simply given a compliment,
They wouldn’t be stuck in their wrath.
Oh, they wish.
-Alyzabethnelle
4. Complaint of Archilles Heel
Everyone’s so quick to blame my
tenderness. My wound opening like a mouth
to kiss an arrow’s steel beak.
A beautiful man, now, plants his face
in Trojan sand while I tell
the secrets of his body—
make the ground red with truth.
Red with the death of Achilles, felled
by an arrow’s bite when nothing—
nothing—could puncture his Kevlar skin.
Everyone skips ahead to the moral: don’t
be a heel. For just one day I felt
sun where the chafing bonds of sandal
should have been. Without me, he’d be
just more fodder for the cannon.
I made him a hero, Troy’s poster
boy. Everyone forgets I was part of him,
I needed him—that even as he died,
I tasted each pulse—
that I could not hold back its rush of red
birds or the season to which they flew.
–Charles Jenson
5. Orpheus
Orpheus can never look back at the real woman trailing behind him out of hell, the woman that anybody could see with ordinary eyes. Orpheus must keep his eyes firmly fixed on the imaginal Eurydice before him, towards whom he has struggled all his life. She is not imaginary, not at all, but realer than any mere apparency, than any momentary act of seeing. He must move always towards that perfect image of his wife, and so sustain himself and his song. If ever he turns back, that is, regresses into seeing his wife as an ordinary woman, she is lost. And he is lost.
-Robert Kelly
6. Orion
Greek mythology
Orion the hunting one
Second brightest star
-Susan Mills
As the rest of the crew had been lost,
I, alone, was afloat on the sea;
I believed it was thanks to the Fates,
and the thread of my life* – I was free.
-Jack Horne
8. Cereberus
Dread dog
Shadowy flame of death
Guardian,protector of the ancient doors
Where in lies the underworlds breath
So beware the craggy shores of hell
Where sleeps the hound of Hades
-Thomas Laufey
9. Dionysus
Deity of Greek myths
Descendent of Great Zeus
Demeter birthed this son
Dwelled on Mount Olympus
Divined as god of wine
Devoted to vino
Drama enthusiast
-Jenna Logan
10. Echo
embalmed in the roots
beneath the methuselah
muffled her still cry
-Carmael William
clew
a thread
unraveled
it pulls me back
away from the scene
where I had done battle
other heroes are god-touched
their fathers’ powers aiding them
sore and wounded … I retrace my steps
the heartstring of my love will pull me through
-J-Mag Guthrie
12. Godlier
Gorgeously graceful God!
Governor of the Sun!
Glowing with poesy!
Grand music symphony!
Glorious guild of arts!
Gallant global healer!
Greek grandeur, Apollo…!
-Christuraj Alex
13. Ares
Thundering down Olympus
Treads Ares
The battle master
Ashen
Piceous clad
Against midnights cloak
Returning human spirit
To the heavens
For upon drowning
Within his crimson gaze
Do we understand
That in faith
Lies divinity
– Charles Fuller
14. APHRODITE
As the most beautiful
Goddess, Aphrodite,
the ancient Greek Goddess
of love, beauty, passion
had powers: love, desire.
Her lover, Adonis
died in her loving arms.
-Marilene Evans
Famous poetry about greek myths
15. Orpheus
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
-William Shakespear
16. Tithonus
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
-Lord Tennyson
17. PROMETHEUS
I feel the wings of the eagle
Stretch wide the lips of my liver;
I feel its talons,
I feel its iron beak,
I feel the enormity of its hunger for life, Its thirst for flight
With me in its talons.
And I fly.
Whoever said I was chained?
–MARIN SORESCU
Medusa & Other Greek Mythology Poems
18. Medusa
Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea’s incoherences,
You house your unnerving head—God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel’s shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of
departure,
-Sylvia Plath
19. To Asgard!
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
Odin is the ruler here,
he strokes his beard, he shakes his spear,
he keeps a pair of wolves as pets
and flies a horse who eight legs.
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
Frigg is queen, and she can see
what every person’s fate will be,
and whether it will turn out well
or badly, though she’ll never tell.
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
The strongest of them all is Thor
whose hammer causes thunderstorms.
He crushes mountains, likes to flirt,
has two goats pull his cart to work
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
Freya’s husband roams the worlds,
so she cries tears of solid gold.
In feathered cloak, boar at her side,
she goes to seek him far wide.
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
Loki is the trickster god:
he causes trouble, then he’s off,
and even Odin cannot make
this wily wicked god behave.
Come across the rainbow bridge
to Asgard, where the Norse gods live!
Their world is full of beasts and swords,
serpents, giants, magic wars.
They feast and fight and feast again
but even Asgard has to end…
So while there’s still a rainbow bridge:
to Asgard! where the Norse gods live…
-Rachel Piercey
20. Charmides
He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy’s despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.
Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor’west gale, and all day long
Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ time with measured song.
-Oscar Wilde
22. Water Mirror
Uranus has always been full of vanity
He adores looking himself
Thus he ordered Gaia to accumulate his tears
Millennia of sobbing
Millennia of days and nights being rubbed by Uranus′s wind hands All of it made Gaia able to be the homeland of living things
Now Uranus involves his lover and be proud of their creation
Watching us
For their own recreation
-Lizédar Baptista
23. Bright eyes, Troubled heart
Aphrodite, Aphrodite let down your walls
Aphrodite, Aphrodite help I may fall
Aphrodite I gave you my all, why can’t you reveal yourself to me as you did to all
Aphrodite, show me your eyes from that of the sky
Aphrodite, unveil your secrets from birth “till nigh
Aphrodite give me your hand the hand for mine
Show me your apple the apple of gold won from Paris the god you stole
I don’t want a sliver, a slice, a speck but all
I don’t want the title, the picture, the poster who shan’t fall
I want the Aphrodite enclosed by these walls, the one questioning, wondering when how and will she lose it all
The one running from the true sun and the real moon, Until she finds the deceptive light and masking night
The one cowering, fearing from her own might Her deepest insecurities burning bright
Aphrodite, lend me your ears and hear me speak for you were once at the bottom but now you have reached your peak
Aphrodite you don’t need to be a radiant ray, just true to what you say
Oh, Aphrodite do forget your plight and let’s dance till twilight
As you mysteriously rose from the foamy depths of the sea and took our sky, you gently breathed through these pages and took my heart for a ride.
–M.A Wells
Bacchus, let me drink no more! Wild are seas that want a shore! When our drinking has no stint, There is no one pleasure in’t.
I have drank up for to please Thee, that great cup, Hercules. Urge no more; and there shall be Daffadils giv’n up to thee.
–ROBERT HERRICK
25. Daphne
Why do you follow me?— Any moment I can be Nothing but a laurel-tree.
Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.
Yet if over hill and hollow Still it is your will to follow, I am off;—to heel, Apollo!
–EDNA ST. VINCENT MALLAY
26. Penelope
In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock; Brew my tea, and snip my thread; Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.
–DOROTHY PARKER
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lies beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied—no past is mine, no future: look at me!
–ROBERT BROWNING
