Introduction page to the book {Promehteus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

            "A Town Called Turin" was inspired by my sixteen days of backpacking in the Loess Hills of Western Iowa, one of the most beautiful places in the world. The funny thing about those hills, are that the people who live there do not realize the beauty and grandeur that surrounds them on a daily basis. They view those hills as an impediment to their farm machinery, and a factor that impoverishes their lives, but all that is changing.

            I camped three miles out of town and walked the dusty road in search of sustenance. The Turin Café is a place that I ate in for several days. I sought relief from the heat and dust and the ladies that ran the restaurant fed me so well.

           One of the waitresses read her horoscope aloud," a great philosopher will come to you today and you will feed him."  "Well I don't think that's likely to happen around here", she said with a laugh to the other waitresses.

Introduction page to the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Introduction page to {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

              "Mark Twains Ghost" and "Who Colored the Water Red" are irreverent tales about the Mississippi River, it's people and environment. These tales were formulated and written as I journeyed down the great river in 1989 alone in a red sea kayak from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico at the age of twenty two. For your interest and entertainment entries from my river diaries have been put in this book.
               A trip I took for nature that now has become my teacher, the river is my school.

Introduction page to the Book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry to the book {Prometheus Lives} by Troy Richard Thomas

                           The river is life
                 It is a constant flowing vein
                  It has a name, it has a soul
                      It is teacher to us all.

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Troy Richard Thomas

Trail to Harney Peak by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Trail to Mt. Harney, the highest point in South Dakota. Black Hills, Custer State Park. Trail started at Sylvan Lake.

Introduction page to {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

           Prometheus son of Iapetus created man from clay and gave him the power of fire to control his fate. Zeus was so angered that he caused Prometheus to be chained to Mount Caucaucus. A vulture came every day to tear and gnaw at his liver, and every night the liver grew back. For centuries Prometheus suffered this agony, until Hercules took pity on him and killed the vulture with an arrow. Then he broke the chains that bound Prometheus, and set him free.


Introduction page to the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

           I'm supposed to support the system

I'm supposed to go to school like some tinker toy soldier

               I refuse to be buried like that

What am I supposed to do, dance like a marionette on strings

           Is that all these people believe in

A nation of tv set faces who are standing on their thin dreams.

Poetry from the book {PrometheusLives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

The mechanism of society is not based upon kindness

           It is based on evolutionary zeal

 We are the rats within the cage of madness

    Where we perceive ourselves to be great.

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

 

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

            They say they can give you Jesus
            But I thought they had killed him
            They say they can give you God
              But God does not want them.

                  Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

   Coming in over "LA" I knew I was in trouble

It instantly hits you, the streets strewn with garbage, tumbleweed grocery bags, in the fake plastic land of milk and honey and broken dreams

"LA" is full of fifteen million fakers on the make

   Those who don't work, bleed but don't freeze

      It's like being in India with a bad hairdo

Actors are just another dog jumping through a hoop

You could end up being a waiter for a lifetime

How do they stay the course with nothing but bread crumbs for hope

There's nothing else to believe in (that's how the Artist does it).

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy richard Thomas

                        Out on Venice Beach

                 Here are the real meat eaters

               And homicide trick or treaters

          This is where the chicanos take over

The palm reader tells me I have a bright future ahead of me

He predicts a bad future if you don't lay your money down

A guy sitting in his own feces burns predictions into driftwood shaped like a monkeys ear lobe

The fellows show off their muscles while I walk around with my knobby white knees

You can't help but watch the pussy, it's so exuberant

It's a fashion show on wheels with hardly anything on at all

The women are putting themselves up for sale and acting like they don't know it

      They drink water here like it was wine

          And you know why, because it is.

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Upper Iowa River by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

          Upper Iowa River near Bluffton, Iowa

Prairie Purple cones Black eyed Susans by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Woods and prairie in Newton, Iowa that my brother and I played in every day.

Candy Canes and Vaseline Photogram by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Mississippi River by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

    Mississippi River, Grand Rapids Minnesota

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Maple Tree by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Toro by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Untitled Abstract by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Poetry fropm the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

The life of a human being is one of survival, and a search for happiness

This search for happiness can bring you joy or damnation, fate has a way of toying with you

Human beings can take great lengths of suffering and yet still they want to live on, and shine upon this golden sphere

As all animals do, we feel the primal urge to be fruitful, and multiply just as the bacterium that we came from long ago

Compared to other living things in the geological time frame man is but a young beast, and is in the infant stage of his evolutionary path

If man proves to be nothing but folly time will replace us

Before we are to discard this spaceship earth, we must figure out why we are here.

Poetry from the book {Prometheus Lives} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

Pattern by Artist Troy Richard Thomas