Wednesday, May 11, 2016

OTI: one poem and notes: 5/10/16

Open To Interpretation

Radial Way

A too long song
The limping vagabond
In the crosswalk crossing
Green yellow red green yellow red green...
From the in the round seating,
The reluctant patient
Watch, listen,
Then accelerate away
On their radial way.

DolphinWords

Notes:  I'm finding like a dozen different ways to write this one!  The sentiment was a tall slender African American who could barely walk, had a limp, crossing Harbor Bl at the intersection, the one I view from Denny's.  Someone might write a song, I thought, and it would be like that...presented as it were to a captive audience, who took no interest, but waited it out, then left.  And I kept messing with it, getting different takes, and scratched my head, "You don't write puzzle puzzle poems, DavidDavid!"...and I thought to note in the notes here just that, but had no idea how, and, and, lo and behold, tonight's episode of Person of Interest provided a 'sorta like'...Radial Way is sort of an Emily Dickenson poem...in the episode The Machine gives Harold a cryptic 0's and 1's code covering an 8x11 sheet of paper, and Root figures it out...it's a poem encoded...the story only shows a few beginning lines...clearly, an encouraging clue to viewers to google it!...Person of Interest sometimes seems to break through the fourth wall!...anyway, I googled it:

quote

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!

An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know!
 
Emily Dickenson 
 
unquote
 
I'd link the blog I snagged it from, it has a back and forth about 'surrogate'...Dickenson can be obscure, and followers have made a school of obscurity!...but I won't link...curious to see if the sites with this poem get traffic from the PoI audience!...but Dickenson likely arrived at 'surrogate' finding the rhyme for 'interrogate', or visa versa...trick with finding rhymes it to keep the sentiment of the poem intact...here are two of drafts of Radial Way...
 
A too long song
The limping vagabond
In the crosswalk crossing
Green yellow red green yellow red green...
The reluctant patient
Watch listen
Then excel their way
On the radial radio.


 

Oh!  A too long song
The limping vagabond
In the crosswalk crossing
Green yellow red green yellow red green...
From the in the round seating
The reluctant patient
Watch listen
Then excel their way
On their radial radio.

There are many drafts to any poem, single words, phrases, sentences, and such, all done in one's head...with the iphone note pad, I send home to my email drafts I write out...the above third version I like the best, a radial symmetry cropped up in the writing, and I went with it, repeating words, and I even looked up the definition of 'radial' (finding a rhyme for excel got me to radial!) to see if its sense fit the sentiment, and it did...the dictionary even had a 'radial radio' example!...but 'radio' is a stretch to express Town's street grid that may not be working...too 'Emily Dickenson', so I trimmed...poems are never finished!...the notion that we listen to radios, and are ourselves now radios too, while in our cars, cropped up too!...that's another poem!

 
The butterfly cocoon sentiment has a lot of room for interpretation!...lemmesee if someone nailed down 'surrogate'...brb...not much luck, but studied the blog back and forth...perhaps we are all surrogates, in the 'substitute' sense...that sense has to be there...that's the strong synonym for surrogate...but surrogate is in quotes, and capital S, and the back and forth brings up the lesser definition of 'ecclesiastic judge'...apparently The Machine identifies with the poem!...updates to follow...oh...'excel' is a problem...thought it was short for accelerate...oh, wait!...accelerate works!...came up with 'autoers', trying to think of word for 'those who drive cars'...that was to go where 'patient' is...being a bit clumsy with words has its uses!
 
:)
 
DavidDavid

 
 


 

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