As unpredictable as a football
He bounced into and out of my life
A storm cloud entering sunshine
Injecting fear and desire
Into every breath
His electricity raised goose bumps
His inhalations stopped oxygen
His eyes whipped the heart
Into a racehorse lather
His absence left a vacuum
That weighed tons
And hunger filled it
Gnawing the hole ever bigger
Who was he when he returned
New each time
Another man
SMT 06/11/07
SAND - WELL DONE! Had to GOOGLE - to refresh my grey cells. For your other readers edification, w/copy + paste this, from WICKIPEDIA.COM
"Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III in the play Henry VI, Part Three, the prequel to his play Richard III. In Act III, Scene ii, Richard (not yet the king), boasts:
"I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down."
In 1807 William Wordsworth finished his sonnet on the theme of a modernity deadened to Nature, which opens "The world is too much with us", with a sense of nostalgia for the lost richness of a world numinous with deities:
...I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. [2]
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathŹd horn.
In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung defined the mythological figure of Proteus as a personification of the unconscious, who, because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius.
[edit]"Proteus" in modern fiction
In James Joyce's Ulysses, Chapter 3 uses Protean transformations of matter in time for self exploration.
The term "Proteus" and "vombis" also were used in a James Blish short story about a race of alien beings who could change shape at will, but were not as malevolent as The Thing written about by John W. Campbell.
In the film Fantastic Voyage , Proteus is the apt name for the experimental submarine which is shrunk to sub-cellular size, and injected into a dying scientist to save his life.
In the animated TV series "Gargoyles," Proteus is the shape-shifting menace and arch-enemy of the city of New Olympus in the episode titled "The New Olypians."
In the role-playing games Vampire: the Masquerade and Vampire: the Requiem, vampires of the Gangrel clan may possess a discipline named Protean that allows them to transform into bats, wolves, mist and such.
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano revolves around the actions of Paul Proteus, a manager of a machine works in New York. Paul's life mirrors Proteus in that he must change his "shape" (character) to find his place in a machine-controlled society with which he is out of sympathy.
In the Film "Lost in Space", "Proteus" is the name of the space ship that is sent to look for the Robinson Family in an alternate time. The ship is subsequently destroyed.
In another Film, "Demon Seed", the evil supercomputer is named "Proteus IV"
In Craig Thomas' novel Sea Leopard, the British submarine is named HMS Proteus.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Protean Charm is a complex spell used by Hermione Granger to enchant coins so that changing the serial number on one affected the others as well. She used it to communicate the times of secret meetings. It was also used by Voldemort to communicate with his Death Eaters.
In the Marvel Comics series X-men, Proteus is the villain identity of reality-changing mutant Kevin MacTaggart, son of Moira MacTaggart on Muir Isle Mutant Research Facility.
In Rick Wakeman's song "The Battle/The Journey" Proteus is described as a giant pre-historic man who herds mastadons in the center of the Earth (itself an image from Jules Verne's Journey to the center of the Earth).
PROTEUS... SHAPE-SHIFTER... Tom.
Reviewed by Robert Harrison (Reader)
Reviewed on July 2, 2007
Again your style of poetry has given the subject life.
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"Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III in the play Henry VI, Part Three, the prequel to his play Richard III. In Act III, Scene ii, Richard (not yet the king), boasts:
"I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down."
In 1807 William Wordsworth finished his sonnet on the theme of a modernity deadened to Nature, which opens "The world is too much with us", with a sense of nostalgia for the lost richness of a world numinous with deities:
...I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. [2]
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathŹd horn.
In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung defined the mythological figure of Proteus as a personification of the unconscious, who, because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius.
[edit]"Proteus" in modern fiction
In James Joyce's Ulysses, Chapter 3 uses Protean transformations of matter in time for self exploration.
The term "Proteus" and "vombis" also were used in a James Blish short story about a race of alien beings who could change shape at will, but were not as malevolent as The Thing written about by John W. Campbell.
In the film Fantastic Voyage , Proteus is the apt name for the experimental submarine which is shrunk to sub-cellular size, and injected into a dying scientist to save his life.
In the animated TV series "Gargoyles," Proteus is the shape-shifting menace and arch-enemy of the city of New Olympus in the episode titled "The New Olypians."
In the role-playing games Vampire: the Masquerade and Vampire: the Requiem, vampires of the Gangrel clan may possess a discipline named Protean that allows them to transform into bats, wolves, mist and such.
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano revolves around the actions of Paul Proteus, a manager of a machine works in New York. Paul's life mirrors Proteus in that he must change his "shape" (character) to find his place in a machine-controlled society with which he is out of sympathy.
In the Film "Lost in Space", "Proteus" is the name of the space ship that is sent to look for the Robinson Family in an alternate time. The ship is subsequently destroyed.
In another Film, "Demon Seed", the evil supercomputer is named "Proteus IV"
In Craig Thomas' novel Sea Leopard, the British submarine is named HMS Proteus.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Protean Charm is a complex spell used by Hermione Granger to enchant coins so that changing the serial number on one affected the others as well. She used it to communicate the times of secret meetings. It was also used by Voldemort to communicate with his Death Eaters.
In the Marvel Comics series X-men, Proteus is the villain identity of reality-changing mutant Kevin MacTaggart, son of Moira MacTaggart on Muir Isle Mutant Research Facility.
In Rick Wakeman's song "The Battle/The Journey" Proteus is described as a giant pre-historic man who herds mastadons in the center of the Earth (itself an image from Jules Verne's Journey to the center of the Earth).
PROTEUS... SHAPE-SHIFTER... Tom.
Robert