OTI:three poems and notes:6/30/16

Open To Interpretation

Sure

Sure
You say
Get back on the horse
Get over your fear
Sure
Saddle stirrups
For a leg up
Bridal for pace
And this away and that away.
But, but,
This is bareback
Hang on to my mane
Pegasus!

Above The Aleian Plain

Muses,
I hang on to Pegasus,
Your winged horse.
I'm no Bellerophon,
And in your sky
I dare go no higher.
We're hovering here like a Kite,
So nearer.
I plead Euripides' case.
He was no Epicurean
To argue your non existence,
Nor I.

Bridal

I have no golden bridal,
Pegasus stamps the ground:
I can't hurry along a Tortoise
Or even divert an Ant.

DolphinWords

Notes: Sure...references Pegasus...I happened on the fragmentary play of Euripides about Bellerophon, Bellerophon having the earlier tales with Pegasus before Perseus...so so, I hung on with Above The Aleian Plain, and hopped off with Bridal...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:6/29/16

Open To Interpretation

Photog

Oh, I guess it's wrong,
You know?
But it's what photogs do.
We gear up, hike a trail,
See what's to see,
Tourist or pro,
Where ever we go
Never a part of the fauna and flora
Always apart
Observing, recording.
So so
Even empty handed
My gear sets up in my head
And I'll persuade you to pose
Until taken
We chase about like happy squirrels,
The gear unattended,
Still clicking.

Picasso's Wives

Picasso's wives and girlfriends
We're his models.
To his wives and girlfriends
What was Picasso?

DolphinWords

Notes: well, I'm puzzled myself by Photog...photog is slang/short for photographer...so tried to imagine some more poems thereabout, but just got as far as Picasso...Picasso often imagined the motif of artist and model...it's a common motif!...but I  googled 'Picasso's wives' and found this site:

quote

His graphic work also chronicles his life, particularly his relationships with his wives and other loves and, in his final years, his imagined relationships.

http://www.sapergalleries.com/Picasso.html

unquote

Looking at this site, I wondered over Picasso's famous abstraction, it's not that abstract, each piece always has the sense of the subject centered as in any frame in a comic strip, and his composition is absolutely conventional--go figure!...oh...I'd forgotten Picasso wrote poems...publisher New Directions, I think, had a series of little books of poets...looking about I can't find it...there's sites that go on about his poems...there's sites going on about everything of the A-list's famous!...

quote

Picasso did not take the craft seriously until 1935 when at the age of fifty-three he began writing poems almost every day until the summer of 1959. Picasso started writing at a moment of crisis when he claimed he had given up painting after his wife Olga Khokhlova had left him and a messy divorce seemed imminent.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/picassos_poetry

unquote



:)

DavidDavid

OTI:sixteen poems and notes:6/28/16

Open To Interpretation

We Haven't Any Names

We haven't any names
Too many to keep track
In spite of when we're near
For handshake hug
Introduction.
Maybe familiar faces,
Those who frequent each night
In the crowds' front row,
You recall,
Take our numbers
For your decorative fish bowl.

On The Sloping Bank

On the sloping bank
The cement river graffitied:
"I'm leaving!"
Like that's even possible!

Fish

On the cement river side
Vagabonds beside their tents
Waiting for fish to walk by.

Everywhere

Everywhere
We are surrounded by these
Dumb critters
Who have been here
For millions of years.
And over there
Are intelligent sorts
With a clock saying
They have less than a few minutes to go.


Yeah

Yeah
I'm hurt
And shoring up defenses,
It's okay, I say
Or
I don't want you to think that way
Because of me
Or
It's all my fault
Or
Look, see, I feel bad too
Or
That's good you feel bad
You made me feel bad...
Oh, wait! I shouldn't have said that!


Boojum Forest

Oh, I'm another boojum tree
In the boojum forest,
Curios for the passing tourist.

Cast

I keep trying to make a clean cast
You know?
Get my line far out.
I spend all my time
Untangling snarls.

Sappho's Girls

Sappho's girls
Dancing barefoot
On moonlit hilltop
Flowery meadows.
Your high heels
Clack the Black Deck
Like castanets--
I try to keep my composure.

Brer Rabbit

Brer Rabbit
Had a happier place
Deep within a thorny thicket.
Yours I can hop into most any time
Unscathed...
It's on leaving I count the scratches.

I Could Learn

I could learn Ancient Greek,
Maybe learn what happened
To one of Sappho's poems
Translated six different ways.

Fragments

I'd rather we were fragments,
Like Sappho's writings,
Parts preserved,
Most hidden by
Time in rose petal clouds.


Even If I Learned

Oh, even if I learned Ancient Greek
I wouldn't know Greek
Least wise not like I know
This devils' work English.

At Least

At least
For one time among all the times
There were girls
Sappho wrote poems for...

Keats' Urn

How else can I be for you
Than a black and red painting
On Keats' urn,
Or an embossment on Achilles' shield?
Clouds won't answer to me.

I Know You Are There

I know you are there
Here
Beside you
I hold your hand
With mine that writes so much
That can't be shared.

We Are All Crazy

We are all crazy
Hardly knowing one another
From one another.
I can sit in your cage,
Or you in mine,
But never together.

DolphinWords

Notes: We Haven't Any Names...well, we do have names, just in too many places to be named!...On The Sloping Bank...now and then, someone announces on facebook they are leaving, and to much commensuration... should do the 'bookend':...'like or I'll 'unlike' you...Fish...a pun on 'fish', as one who is easily panhandled, oft used...Everywhere...a goof on the Atomic Scientists and their bulletin Doomsday Clock...likely a replica...Yeah...line 'I don't want you to think that way' may be lifted from the song 'Somebody I used to Know' by Gotye...brb...no, mine, but wish I had that "And I don't wanna  live that way, Reading into every word you say"...'I and You' dialog songs I find intriguing!...Sheryl Crow's "All I wanna do" (have some fun) was on the radio...thought she must have sat down beside Bukowski!...there's another of these, a favorite...brb..."I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, That much is true..."  "Don't You Want Me" by Human League...Boojum Forest...forgot, when writing, that 'boojum' was coined by Lewis Carol!...and yes, I've seen them in Baja...La Catavina...Cast...a goof, and true, a 'cast'...I'm always casting!...Sappho's Girls...Sappho has been the ongoing study of the week...I'd read, and had, Mary Bernard's translation...now, with the web, I see the others...it's a muddle...but Sappho was all about the 'I and You' dialog, and, and, hmmm, it's tempting to snag her sentiments, and replicate!...which may be a more honest way to translate...thought Shelly's translation maybe best, but he looks to have taken the sentiments and romanticized them in his era's terms, as everyone else has!...Brer Rabbit...a goof...Maya's, my dog's, porch!, a side by side...I Could Learn...like I was saying about the muddle...Fragments...there's not only a crowd off stage, but on stage too...too many too long...Even If I Learned...to be blunt, English is Christianized, Biblicised...At Least...continues the sentiment...Keats' Urn...for a moment thought it was Shelly's...likely a replica...I Know You Are There...a side by side, one side being an alz caregiver...We Are All Crazy...kind of the same sentiment...but wobbles...OTI!..."Spill The Wine" Eric Burdon and War...Burdon seems to know my happy place too!...and Crow's antecedent for her replica...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/27/16

Open To Interpretation

Above The Black Ship

Above the Black Ship, Black Dragons soared,
While below they swam,
Battling the Cephalopods and Nautilus.
Around the Black Ship the Black Ocean crenelated,
Lightning streaked,
The Black Ship calling on the powers of the black waves,
The charged air,
The dark lowering clouds...
Any Dragon that dared to descend in the gloom
Was struck by corposants shooting out from the mastheads,
And destroyed in a lightning burst.
Many Dragons tried, and all failed,
Littering the Black Ocean, joining Dragons torn asunder
By the Cephalopods and Nautilus beneath.
The Black Ship floated in carnage,
The sea reddened, glinting in the lightning flashes.
With a great roar, the Black Dragon Flight assembled,
And descended as one on the Black Ship.
Each of the crew, stationed, readied,
Waited patient,
And at Ishmael's command,
Flung all their harpoons.
The Dragons reeled,
The air itself guided and hurried on each harpoon to its mark,
Not a single Dragon reached the Black Ship,
And a sudden, the Dragons left off,
What remained gathered, and retreated North whence they came.
"That was too easy,' sardonically smiled Ishmael, 'something is afoot, what are the Dragons up to?  Oh, Dulcinea..."
"One Dragon heads South!" the masthead lookout calls out.
Ishmael looks to the Ravens, "Go see!" he implores.

DolphinWords


Notes:...I left out having them breath fire...Dragons always breath fire!...for later...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:eight poems and notes:6/26/16

Open To Interpretation

Distraught

Quixote looked distraught beyond distraught.
"Have you found her?"
Ishmael asks.
"Everywhere I've looked, she's not aboard."
"Here, take the Red Wheel.
It's suspicious, Ichi is missing too."
Overlooking the pearlescent wake
From the Black Ship's stern,
Ishmael finds Ichi's slender craft gone.
"Dulcinea!" sighs Quixote.

Crowd

I don't crowd
Like most of this crowd
What you say I obey
So so
Please please
Don't say no when you mean yes
And turn me to stone.

Then Again

Then again,
If no it is to be
And I a statuary,
My stoic gaze
Will look on all eternity.

Tissiack

Her stone wrought tears:
Your tender kiss
Allays my fears.

Too Dry

Everywhere is too dry,
And we want to find water
On the Moon and Mars.
How will we get it from
There to here?

Fayum

From the desert sands of the Fayum,
Poems and epics,
Used to linen wrap the ancient dead,
Uncovered, read once by the wind,
And so made blown away dust
From the scattered naked bones.

Years

How long do you think this will go on?
Oh! Years, easy!
If not, let me beneath the earth
Know what happened,
Will you?

Ticklish

Are you ticklish?
A hypersensitive funny bone?
Oh, I must find this!!!

DolphinWords

Notes:...Distraught...well, the 'Black Ship' has gone from notions to a narrative...Crowd...Disney had a term...sticktoitivity...brb...seems a few others too!...all about the same theme...

quote

Now, the boats were kinda leaky, started to sail
Came a hurricane, a furious gale
Waves were a-lashin', future looked black
Sailors started yellin', "Chris, turn back!"
On that eventful day, what did Columbus say?

COLUMBUS: Why, I said, "Stick-to-it-ivity
If you've got that stuff called Stick-to-it-ivity...

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/soundtracks/sodeartomyheart.shtml 

unquote

...Then Again...continues the sentiment...Tissiack...continued the sentiment, it was 'My' tears...changed that to 'Her' tears, and being so familiar with the Valley and Half Dome (Tissiack), this one soars, for me anyway...the 'tears' on Half Dome, the dark streaks, are from Lichen...in the Spring, snow melting from the top makes them very dark...the Tissiack legend has it that Tissiack's husband was cruel to her, why Tissiack is weeping...and her husband for his cruelty was transformed into North Dome, which I've yet to clamber up!...Too Dry...ah, now I see how the Nasrudin Sufi tales are done...a good trick!...Fayum...for awhile here, the Egyptians wrapped their mummies like with discarded papyrus books, which included old Greek poems and epics...I have this odd fascination with Crocodilopolis, the Greek name for the Fayum...there was a large prehistoric lake thereabout, fed by the overflowing Nile...as things dried, the ancient Egyptians dug a canal to it...this I think still exists, and the lake much shrunk and salty now...at one very ancient time, the Mediterranean was dry, the Straights of Gibraltar shut by tectonics...the Nile Delta was like a five thousand foot waterfall!...Years...another play with the Nasrudin Sufi trick...Ticklish...a goof...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/25/16

Open To Interpretation

Shorts

I'm down to my shorts,
And only a card or two left to play...
And you,
You have all your cards in full array!
Oh, I lay these last cards down, check mated,
I capitulate, game over.
I've related everywhere I've been,
Everything I've done.
Only a tale or two left to tell.
I'll have to redress and begin all over!
Just tell me where to go,
What to do,
How to begin again,
And so interest you.

DolphinWords

Notes:  I suppose I could add a note to this, but that's been the dilemma all along, how to proceed without notation!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem with notes:6/24/16

Open To Interpretation

Kidnapped

Quasimodo could not have done it better,
Ichi, with Dulcinea under one arm,
Slid down the rope,
The towing tether to his slender craft
Still behind the Black Ship.
Dulcinea quiet, under an enchantment.
Ichi gently laid her below the gunnel, sleeping.
With the oars, Ichi stroked the black waves, now even blacker
From the Cephalopods' released inks beneath.
Cephalopods and Nautilus battling Black Dragons submerged,
The black waves turning red with blood.

DolphinWords

Notes:...hmmph...a kidnapping...not sure what Ichi is up to!...reference checked the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo...wiki's take...a curio is that Hugo wrote the book as a defense of the Cathedral, and medieval architecture...Hugo had it that the invention of the printing press was the ruination of architecture...stories that had been told in stone, now were in books...and everyone learning to read words made stained glass windows pointless...who came first?...Dulcinea or Esmeralda?...Quasimodo or Ichi???...Hugo's Notre Dame, or Melville's Moby Dick????...and, and, my Pirate Queen, Dulcinea, had, I learn, from googling 'pirate queen', a real life antecedent!...Grace O'Malley of Ireland, who, apparently, James Joyce snagged for the opening chapter of Finnegan's Wake...brb...insomuch as it's a legend, I can I guess copypaste...:)

quote

Grace O'Malley, is an important figure in Irish legend but was in fact a larger-than-life figure from 16th century Irish history.   One of the most enduring legends about her dates from this period and concerns Howth Castle, which still stands some ten miles from Dublin City. Returning from a voyage, she put in to the port of Howth for provisions. Granuaile duly went to see the local lord, St Lawrence, to seek his hospitality, as was the Gaelic custom. She found the castle gates locked and was told by the servants that his lordship was at dinner and would not be disturbed. Heading back to her ship she came upon St Lawrence’s young grandson playing in the grounds, kidnapped him and took him back to Clew as her hostage. Convinced the ransom would be high, Howth opened negotiations for the boys’ return. Gráinne contemptuously dismissed his offers of gold and silver. Her price, she declared, was that the gates of Howth Castle must never again be locked and that an extra setting must evermore be laid at the dinner table, lest an unexpected guest should happen to stop by. Relieved at the simplicity of the demand, St Lawrence agreed and returned to Howth with his grandson, where he faithfully kept his side of the arrangement and where, even today, the castle gates are always open and an extra place laid at the dinner table in commemoration of the family’s legendary encounter with the Pirate Queen  James Joyce used the legend of Grace O'Malley ("her grace o'malice") and the Earl of Howth in chapter 1 of Finnegans Wake, but added the kidnapping of another fictional son, Hilary, to match his Shem and Shaun theme. Christopher/Tristopher is turned into a Luderman (happy Lutheran) and Hilary into a Tristian (sad Christian).

http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1/grace.htm

unquote

As a youngster, her father wouldn't let here go sailing, her long hair might snarl in the rigging...she cut it short!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:6/23/16

Open To Interpretation

Nether Side

Below the Black Deck
The crew is entranced.
On the low ceiling,
The Black Deck's
Nether side as it were,
A painting is taking shape
From brushstrokes of one of the crew.
Nearby, another crew artist
With the more popular effort.
No ordinary brushes they use,
The bristles like chameleons,
And at each soft point's touch
The Black Deck responds
And depicts a tale.
Ishmael comes below to see
What's about.
Taken with admiration,
He councils the crew,
"Work needs your eyes too,
Don't make a habit of viewing these tales when work's to do."
"Who might they be?" he questions the crew.
"French!"
"Oh, from the Nautilus...
You two, what might your names be?"
"Delacroix, one word, three syllables, rhymes with Ha!"
"And you who can barely reach?"
"Fragonard, one word..."
"From the North, the Black Dragon
Flight!!",
From above, the masthead lookout's warning...
"All hands on the Black Deck!"
Ishmael commands.
The crew all reach above their heads,
And where their hands touch,
The Black Deck pearlesces,
Assigning each their combat orders,
The Black Ship's battle design.


Foraging

Along the night boulevard,
I sight a fellow with his knapsack
And his new black puppy on a leash,
The puppy sniffing, foraging for scents everywhere--
The sidewalk cement, the curb.
Arrived from the night main streets, home,
I open the fridge for the food, half can remaining,
Emptied atop the dry kibble,
Maya's, my dog's, late dinner
In the silver bowl she polishes and rings.

DolphinWords

Notes: Well, I wanted to get Delacroix aboard, and, why not, Fragonard too...the word 'stilted' keeps coming to mind!...but not everything can be poem formed 'on'...Whittier's 'Snowbound' is...the meter never failing, nor the rhymes, and both so smooth as to be unobtrusive...I read it at 'prose' pace...which is what's above too...hmmph...there's like some scale to this...the longer a poem is the more prose like it becomes...short poems often don't 'catch' the first time through, like not getting a joke...more readings are needed...Snowbound, Coleridge's the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, they trundle right along...I haven't looked at the Rhyme in a long while...brb...

quote

from The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?

 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43997

 

unquote

 

There's a bit from Snowbound I wanted to quote...brb...

 

quote

 

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
 In trainëd thought and lore of book.

Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s bloody trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made murder pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;

The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

 

from Snow-bound, A Winter Idyl 

John Greenleaf Whittier

 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45490

 

unquote

 

Electricity was new to everyone then, and it's interesting to see how it appears in these old poems...Coleridge is beyond!

...three syllables, rhymes with bard...

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

 

 

OTI:one poem and notes:6/22/16

Open To Interpretation

On The Longest Day

On the longest day of a summer sea,
An orange full moon just rising,
The lookout from the masthead,
Swaying above the Black Ship peaceful,
Sights the Black Dragon Flight,
Dark pack from the dark northern horizon
Incoming.

DolphinWords

Notes: well, OTI has been an inchworm's progress!...I must needs go back over all of it often to find the next handhold!...

quote

One warm summer day, when there were only animal people in the world, two little bear cubs ran away from their home to go swimming. Scrambling out of the water, they lay down upon a warm rock to dry. The sun, and their swim, made them drowsy, and they soon fell fast asleep. While they were sleeping, the rock upon which they lay began to grow. It grew and grew, until it towered up into the very clouds, with the little bear cubs still asleep on its top.

Legend of Tu-tok-a-na
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/lights_and_shadows/tutokana.html

unquote

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/21/16

Open To Interpretation

The Cephalopods

Two long tentacles
From the Giant Black Squid
Beneath the black waves
Waved about the masthead, and Ned,
Leaning over the Black Ocean
From the Black Ship listing,
Heavily laden.
The black ocean surface
Roiled and swarmed
With lesser black and red
Enormous squids and octopus.
From the masthead,
Ned had been distracted from sighting ice flows and bergs
By the Cephalopods' approach
And forewarned the crew.
Beneath battened hatches,
The crew now waited
As the Cephalopods commanded the Black Deck.
For hours the stand off continued,
Suction cupped arms searching each gap and crevice.
And it was cold, light rain-slush snow falling,
A breeze making the frozen sails knock,
Icicles extending longer and longer from the rigging.
Ned's hands numb and painful...
'Enough of this!"
And he reaches for a rope, swings from the masthead to the Black Deck,
Avoiding the surprised tentacles.
Ice and snow clatter onto the Black Deck,
The Cephalopods scatter,
As Ned crashes through the rigging,
Lands upright and grabs a harpoon.
The Cephalopods pause, consider,
And one by one retreat
Over the sides to the black waves.
Snow begins to fall heavily,
The Black Ship returns to upright
Even keeled.
Ned pounds on a hatch,
"Come on up,
What are you, moles!"
Chagrined, the crew gather about Ned in the snow,
And all, all a sudden,
Stagger to keep their balance
As the Black Ship lists once more
With the Giant Black Squid draped over one side.
Arms surround, about to embrace the crew, stoic, silent.
Nothing said
But everything read
And a mutual salute.
The Giant Black Squid
Slipped softly
Back into the Black Sea.

DolphinWords

Notes: just thought to write up something with snow to beat the heat!...a fine thing for that is John Greenleaf Whittier's 'Snowbound'...I have a wonder if its anthology format was snagged by Edgar Lee Masters for his 'Spoonriver'...on facebook there was an odd poster post...a church's outside announcement board saying something funny...forget what...but the church was a new age sort...something something of the many deities...and had a curio logo...a black octopus...'oh, I can use that!' my thought...and went to google images of black octopus and squids...I think it is in Florida now, the giant squid battle scene/set for Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...it was here in Anaheim when I was a kid...always a must see...casting about, I happened on Akkorokamui, a revered mythological giant red octopus in Japan...depicted, stunningly as usual, in Japanese colored woodblock prints...hmmph...google's blogger editing program after every edit is making a new draft...after they fix this, I have to go back and carefully delete a lot of drafts...occasionally too, the boxes get a check...have to check to uncheck them, least a delete delete them!...looked to link the squid fight, but everyone's seen it...but maybe not the Sunset Squid Fight...I hadn't!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/20/16

Open To Interpretation

Menu

Even from the masthead
The lookout can hear
Queequeg and three of the crew,
Usual sorts, shirtless,
Laughing and joking,
Sharing Queequeg's pipe,
Sharing body art,
Some of which come by natural like,
Acquired in scrapes with creatures of the sea.
Ishmael standing nearby, smiling,
As the one with a wide grin,
And a missing front tooth, relates a tale.
"I thought you'd all been eaten."
Ishmael says.
"Mermaids rescued us, Chief!
Now we're on Queequeg's menu!"
Queequeg smiles--pearlescent teeth.

DolphinWords

Notes: Menu...reference the movie, Moby Dick, Q's smile...the masthead...reference the movie 'Jaws', the Indianapolis scene, and the Sharing scars scene (all one scene, but separated youtubes...)...don't know, but I like very much the notion of 'mermaid rescue'!...update: regarding 'filed teeth'...Queequeg didn't have 'filed teeth' (kept for the pun)...thought maybe it was a cannibal thing...but doesn't seem so...it is a 'thing',  part of body modification art, and in checking, happened on story of Ota Benga...an aside, and very sad tale...:(....update update: 'pearlescent teeth'...much better, and kept the notion of 'filed' pun with the overlap notions of the Decks pearlescing!...ral...a fine drift too!...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/19/16

Open To Interpretation

From The Mast Head

From the mast head
The lookout sights a craft,
Long, slender,
Once many oared
But now adrift
With a solitary oarsman
Under the shade of a bamboo and paper umbrella.
The Black Ship warps aside.
The umbrella lowers,
And an inquisitive friendly face
With eyes squinting off into space--
Blind.
"Ichi!" Dulcinea exclaims.
Brought aboard,
Ichi is invited to Dulcinea's cabin.
"Ichi! Your craft?" Ishmael inquires,
"Oh!  It will find its own way to Hawaii!" Ichi smiles.

From the masthead
The lookout sights
A bulge in the ocean's surface
From something submerged
Rapidly approaching.
And a second bulge not far behind
Chasing.
With a roar from under the Black Ship's bow
A Black Dragon surfaces,
Takes wing,
And in a moment gone.
The pursuer nowhere to be seen.
"Lower the sails." Ichi suggests.
For thirty days and nights
The Black Ship drifts
As Ichi listens to some strange creature
Beneath the Black Ship's keel.
"Ready yourselves!" Ichi calls out.
A tarnished bronze craft with rows of rusted iron scales and horns, and two bulging 'eyes'
Surfaces aside the Black Ship.
The crew at the railings in wonderment.
"I know the craft" Ned Land speaks up, "having been aboard her of late.  The dead and the wounded you pulled from the blood slick sea my shipmates, part of her crew. 
Nautilus she's known by,
Nemo's craft. 
Mobiles n mobili."

From the masthead
The lookout watched
The wounded of the Nautilus crew,
Now recovered, return.
"Wait!"  Ishmael calls to the last to depart, "we're shorthanded,
And you have the look of one who has traveled much. 
What be you name?"
"Dana, Richard Henry Dana."
Ismael says,
"You're with us."

From the masthead
The lookout can't make out
What Queequeg is about
Guarding a lump under a
Tarpaulin on the Black Deck
With his harpoon.
"Give it a poke, Queequeg." Ishmael suggests.
"Hey!" A tall bookish looking fellow jumps out from under the tarpaulin.
"I was reading..."
The Black Deck pearlescing where
The tarp shaded it, fading in the sunlight.
"And who might you be called?" Ishmael asks.
"Melville, Herman Melville."
Queequeg sets the tip of his harpoon
Against Melville's cheek.
Ishmael smiles,
"A tattoo for Herman, a small one,
A whale. 
He can read the Black Deck tales."

DolphinWords

Notes: "you have the look of one who has traveled much" is stolen from the Mists of Pandaria in World of Warcraft...dragons that both swim and fly too, from wow...Ichi stolen from the Japanese samurai movies...his craft from Hokusai The Great Wave...a curio...out of all the fictional characters available, only a few seem to fit on the Black Ship...and no real today sorts at all!...I need to find out if 'pearlescing' is a word...brb...yep...a kind of glaze for glassware and such...success!...I got to ref six big kids games (prep varsity) in summer tournament...this like after over twenty years of wonderment!...there wasn't even a court in the Valley, so the effort was sidetracked, begun as it were doing middle school and kid games when I lived in Rainbow/Temecula...effort picked up again three falls back when I came back to Town...two of the games were really big kids, like state champions level...someone likely having some fun with me to put me on the floor with such, but I got through it...when one coach finally went off on me for my no calls...I'm notorious for no calls...I put an arm around him and let him rave...and had to do the same to the other coach, who objected to my not calling a technical foul on the first...with arm around him, I explained we, the refs, had been advised not to T coaches, and so keep peace in the tournament...I'm actually very good at talking coaches down...which is a good thing to have, as I'm very good at getting them excited about my no calls!...the 'from the mast head' intros to each of these reminds me of inbounding the basketball...kind of neat trick I'll add to my bag of tricks!...oh, the 'bulge' in the water isn't from, but so closely coincided with it may as well be, the hippopotamus chasing a boat in an iphone add...hippo surfaces...'taken with an iphone' or some such...I can find that...brb....iphone 'shot on an iphone campaign'...another way to inbound the ball!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:6/17/16

Open To Interpretation

Lateral Lines

A rare day, not often
The fog lifts, rifted apart
By sunshine on a
Blue blue ocean.
The Black Ship
Like an obsidian spear point
On horizon to horizon
Lapizlazuli silver glittered.
Pip is playing his concertina,
Ned his guitar,
Watteau his violin,
Madeline her cello.
Lateral lines below
Swirl and shoal.
The crew about Queequeg
Exchanging black cards...
Ishmael at the Red Wheel
With Dulcinea.
"A fine day, Captain!"
She smiles.
Ishmael considers,
"And as you say, 'Never trust
A blue sky day.'"
"Yes," says Dulcinea,
"Never ever."

Drift

So, so,
I drift in
And sip a coke
With bottled water chaser...
What the hell happened
To beer and pretzels!!!

DolphinWords

Notes: Watteau's violin and Madeline's cello references earlier post, OTI:5/30/16 Electric Dreams Minuet in G post...and it's the goldfish in the bowl in the clip in the movie Electric Dreams when the duet is playing that makes the lines, Lateral lines below Swirl and shoal...which takes over the whole poem, as the goldfish in the bowl steals the show in the clip!...at least for me, but then that may be because I know from my marine biology studies that the gold fish was 'listening' with its lateral line...lateral line in fish, sharks, amphibians, is a line down either side, one can see this next time one sees a fish!, and it has a name, neuromast, which I may borrow for the Black Ship's mast, or masts...sometimes the Black Ship has one mast, sometimes three...a drift...thinking that drifted me right into Drift!...ral...I have to wonder if the lateral line sense is a mammal sense too, though all the explanations say it's unique to aquatic creatures...nothing is lost from our earliest evolutionary days...things just morph...drifting about, the Black Ship is one by one acquiring a crew...Ishmael, Dulcinea, Ned Land, Queequeg, Pip, Watteau, Quixote, Madeline (a copyright ? doubt), the siblings, the parrots, the ravens and gulls, the ebony dolphins...the gathering of a crew is how all adventures begin!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:five poems and notes:6/16/16

Open To Interpretation

Me me Meme

A Black Deck card
Pearlesces
A remote finger writes
In Black Script
'Meme meme tekel upharsin'
Oh, wait, that's been awhile around...

Black Tops

Black Battle Tops
Stylus armed
Wound wound wound
Unleashed!

A

Pearlescent
Mother of Pearl
Hawthorne's Girl

Below Decks

In my house are many mansions
Perceptive perceptions
Seeing you seeing me seeing you!

DolphinWords

Notes:  Me me Meme...I wrote out the first four lines, got as far as script, and what I was about was a side by side with how I one finger write on my iphone notepad, and how one finger wrote on the wall in Bible story of Daniel 'mene mene terkel upsharin' or some such...seems some varieties in these words...and I thought to just write mene mene etc. after 'script' and that devious spell checker inside iphone changed, just as I wrote, 'mene mene' into 'meme meme'...and, and, I ral (ran around laughing)...I was just fooling around, extending the conceit of the 'Black Deck' (a black deck of cards with the three fates as king queen jack--see earlier poem)...the iphone (when I refer to iphone I mean the look and operation of all the cell phones) IS like a card, a black card when it is off, and when it comes on the screen is white, which I have transformed into 'pearlescent'...'pearlescent' in my conceits came from the white caps on the black ocean, which I made phosphorescent too...wish I had an animation program...picture a black sea with phosphorescent 'white' caps...and what this 'blackness' of the sea is, is all iphones that are off, 'black', and the white caps are the ones that are 'on'...a marvelous vision if I do say myself!...so, in my hand my iphone had gone from black to pearlescent, and my finger poking the keypad was writing the 'black script'...it hasn't come yet, but I imagine soon we wont have to 'send' anymore, but will write simultaneously from one black screen to another...'the moving finger writes'...the iphone screen and computer sceens, tv screens, are all 'black decks'...the entire web the 'Black Deck' of the 'Black Ship'...and now I've gone and added the 'Black Boulevard!'...oh...where where was I...well it is a 'black boulevard' that 'pearlesces' when we go on line...or a 'Black Scroll' as I just refered to facebook being in previous post...wait wait wait...I've drifted...but that's what happened with the spell checker...it drifted!...years ago, I miss-interpreted 'mene mene terkel upshairn'...I thought it said 'number number all is number', rather than 'number number weighed measured'...Daniel interpreted it (OTI!) to mean the evil King would die soon, which he did, and Daniel and his people rescued...sorta...my drift with 'number number all is number' was that I had stuck in, 'spell checked',  Pythagoras' famous line 'all is number'...which actually makes the writing on Daniel's wall more interesting!...and it may have nothing to do at all with the evil King...my OTI!...ral...the writing may have been saying, as we all now know, everything can be transliterated into the 0's and 1's of computer code...I gotta stop running around and sit down!...lol...Black Tops continues the conceit...what I have in mind, is the old wooden tops we played with...they have like a nail spike for a point to spin on, and we'd wind them with string, one end around a finger, and fling them backhand at the ground, pulling back the string fast, which imparts the spin...oh, everyone has played tops!...battling tops was when we'd try to hit one another's tops...since, I find in searches, a board game called 'battle tops'...a drift!...A...all, including the title, crossword puzzle clues!...such clues depend on 'drift'...one drifts all over the black sea, our imaginations, our dreamy house, until picked up by what the clue alluded too!...ral...English words are full of drifts...see 'wither' in yesterday's post, and today another find: 'wound'...Below Decks...the web as a 'house' with 'mansions'...mansions being us, the 'house' being this invisible dome of information, Kubla's maybe!, the 'black light sea', or our dream home for each of us...imagination's imagined...oh...

Perception

Dream Homes
For each of us,
Imagination's imagined.

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:twelve poems and notes:6/15/16

Open To Interpretaion

Flowers

Flowers open to the sun
Seed
Recede
Wither oblivion.

Coda

Warriors train,
Learn their weapon's laughing refrain,
And coda,
Blood soaked earth
Without mirth.

Stars

Learn all the stars
Millions billions trillions:
Try as you will eons.

Dog Cat

One dog
One cat
One pat
One claw.

Moon Sun

An ocean turned over:
The sun moon's lover.

Museum Exhibit

If someone can make a museum artifact of me
And make a buck,
That's fine.
My expectation is
Poof!
Done and gone.
I never thought
My own exhibit for profit.

Bookends

From my neighborhood
I arrive at the main streets
To catch the bus,
Thereabout a vagabond
Hidden curled under a blanket
Beside his shopping cart.
At the stop a stranger relates
He's taking a rest from his walkabout
Around my neighborhood's streets
And I learn we're neighborhood neighbors,
Same age about,
Most all life long,
And we share some old time collectables, a fine talkabout!
His walk continues, my bus arrives
For a night journey attempt along the Boulevard,
To reach the beach and touch a wave,
And for that a second bus reach,
So hop off and await a transfer,
And thereabout another vagabond
Hidden curled beneath his blanket
Beside his shopping cart.
The transfer slow to arrive.
Slower than my uptake!
And I retreat the way I came
Walking back the Boulevard, then
Jogging a bit as the busses run slow at night,
A strange sight I on the Boulevard!
But a jog on the beach was all I had been about.
Winded, I take a seat at a stop.
Return bus so slow, another fellow
And I look out, sing out,
Here it comes!
But fooled,
One comes by 'out of service',
A bedraggled vagabond joins us
And he has a piece of red and orange climbing rope for a shoulder strap to his gear--
What's that about?
We all stand and watch
The oncoming headlights,
From the schedule I announced it was time about,
Arrived, on board, on our ways,
Finally,
From the main streets I leave off
To my neighborhood's
And thereabout
The vagabond
Hidden curled under his blanket
By his shopping cart
Still at home dreaming.

Home

Our dreams
Our homes?
Here,
Everyone's house?

Nevereverland

I'll ever
Never ever see you
Again?
So,
This is
Nevereverland.

Leaps

I'm a poet,
And know to make words leap,
Or be still.
And where your heart leaps
Is for you to fulfill.

Age

You remind me
How I ran over the hill to see her.
I see you and think of her,
I think of her and see you.
Another hill still between,
But they no longer chase,
And I no longer run.

Dervishes

Gods goddesses jesus lord
You must all be so bored
To read these spinnings!

DolphinWords

Notes: Flowers...a contemplation of 'wither'...Coda...maybe too cute, but there is it...Stars, Dog Cat, Moon Sun...just some fun...Museum...I revisit this sentiment often...thought to work 'curator' into it, as I'm not a curator of myself or anyone, and yet...:(...skip Bookends a sec...oh...and Nevereverland too...they take long notations!...Age, Leaps...what they are...Dervishes...driedal to teetotum to dervishes, and still haven't got it...maybe just 'spnnings'...yep, go with that!...Now, Bookends...in return for a favor, my relatives have gifted me with an extravagance!...a year pass to Disney...now, now, to pursue a Harbor Bl poem set, I needed somehow to include the Magic Kingdom...the Boulevard is remarkable in that at one end is Disney, and the other Balboa, and a lot Inbetween (I miss the Inbetween!)...I could do Disney parts from memory, having worked there seven years, and many visits...but that way back...so, instead of declining the gift, as I should...it's an extravagance best used elseware...I've latched on to it...I haven't gone yet to the ticket booth to sign up for the pass...it presented a dilemma...if I roll over and park the Jeep, it's like, heck, it's like I remember admission prices!...so I thought to just walk yesterday evening, then thought, take the bus, then thought, get a bus pass, just 22 bucks, about what it is to park at the park!...so, so, I roll over to get a thirty day pass, and just as I do, Hawk lands right in front of the Old House...and I had the D10 and got a clip!...looks to be Cooper's Hawk...gun metal back feathers with a touch of orange in the chest feathers...very cool...and auspicious for the superstitious such as I...so I rolled over to the liquor store by Subway on Chapman, and got the bus pass...cashier smiled when I showed id for senior discount, 'you look 45'...'oh, don't I think for that I could pass'...she smiled, 'yes, for us that time is past'...so I rolled back home, parked in the drive, and walked right out through the neighborhood to the bus stop...all the while during Bookend, I was trying to transfer into words, and no luck at all, word making on the fly not easy!...but I didn't sleep, and around 4am gave it a go...Bookend is so long, and if this is how Boulevard poems go, I'll be 'wordy' to excess, as here in this note!...now, Nevereverland...never land, never never land...all peter pan lands!...so I looked up...check references like I spell check...and surprised to find Never Land may be taken from an Australian Poem written way back, like 1908!

quote

The Never Never is the name of a vast, remote area of the Australian Outback,^[1][2][3] as described in Barcroft Boake's poem "Where the Dead Men Lie":

Out on the wastes of the Never Never -

That's where the dead men lie!

There where the heat-waves dance forever -

That's where the dead men lie!^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Never_(Australian_outback

unquote

On seeing that I had to see that poem...an Australian Graveyard Poet!...and low and behold, look what I found:

quote

“Moneygrub” as he sips his claret
  Looks with complacent eye
Down at his watch-chain, eighteen-carat,
  There in his club hard by:
Recks not that every link is stamped with
Names of the men whose limbs are cramped with
Too long lying in grave-mould, camped with
  Death where the dead men lie.

http://www.boake.net/deadmen.html

unquote

that's just the last stanza...and. and, it's a rap poem!...very easily made into a knockdown rap song!...and look at 'stamped with, cramped with, camped with!!!...that's the same trick I used in Bow Wow!

self quote

I wanna be with you now
Make up this slack of you now
Be strong not weak for you now
Not some wtf to you now
I wanna be your Bow Wow Wow!

unquote

rhymes are being put inside lines that all have the same word ending...neat trick...I knew it not a new discovery, but in  Bow Wow my first use of it!...since, messing around, I just do this trick in my head for fun!...ral!..these old aussies another whole yard to study!...just the 'never never' double word find in such an old poem, way cool!

Update: got the pass, comes with parking! :)

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:six poems and notes:6/13/16

Open To Interpretaion

Haunted

Below the Black Deck
There's always a clatter,
A speculative chatter,
From the bones in the
Catacombs' alcoves
As the Black Ship
Rocks and Rolls.

Tour Guide

Along the Boulevard,
One passes these Black Glass Doors:
OTI: Open To Interpretation:
A not to be missed location
For seeking solitude's inspirations.

Graveyard Poet

What Graveyard Poet
Would be for the task
To sing again among these Black Tombstones?
Oh, Master's* could read these ossuaries' bones
And weave them shrouds.
*Edgar Lee Masters

Tombstone

Tombstone!
A 'once upon a time' Town!
A nickname too
For my Town.

Bodie

One has had to see
Bodie's Boot Hill,
Her ornate high wheeled Black Hearse,
Heard the Black Piano that always plays,
And the wind moaning tumbleweed streets
Coyote walks, sings
Ahhwoooooooo!
To understand.

Here

Here, above the pearlescent wake,
By the fantail rail,
Take my hand.
We can see where we have been.
The view from the Black Ship's bow?
Too scary.

DolphinWords

Notes: might be something to the Graveyard Poets!...Edgar Lee Masters I haven't read since grammar school...on facebook's 'black scroll' was a pic of Kilmer in the movie Tombstone..."I'll be your huckleberry..."...I get notions from everywhere...catacomb alcoves I think have a name...might insert that when I find it...didn't think 'boulevard' was poem 'fitable'...and of course it fits wonderfully in Don't Stop Believing along Journey's Journey...

Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard

Their shadows searching in the night

 

 



 

:)

 

DavidDavid

OTI:five poems and notes:6/12/16

Open To Interpretation

Inch

Imaginations' fictions
Are only an inch away
From reality's plays.

Jealous

How can I be jealous?
They are all ghosts like me,
Shades of what we can be,
My entreat.

Blood Slick

In the fog shrouded morning,
The lookout spots a blood slick
On the Black Sea.
The Black Ship maneuvers close,
Torn carcasses and moaning wounded--Dragons' work.
"Tend to the wounded,
Tend to the dead with our prayers,
We sail on."
"Aye, Captain!" the crew as one responds.

Destiny

The card you receive
From Queequeg's Black Deck
Is yours for keeps,
As soon enough
Queequeg will have you neat.

Ned, Ned Land

Hmmph,
Overboard again from the fantail,
Treading in the black water reddened...
Oh, a survivor nearby!
'What be your name?'
'Ned, Ned Land.'
'Odd name for a fellow afloat...call me Ishmael...might you be able to toss a harpoon?'
'You might say that, I'm infamous among the Squids.'
'This watery treadmill exercise won't be long,
The Black Ship will turnabout soon, pick us up,
They can't get far without me,
And can use you.
Welcome.'

DolphinWords

Notes: gosh, there are so many Dragon stories...Dragon Riders of Pern a favorite...Death Wing's birth lair in Deepholm in World of Warcraft an awesome place...what fun to hang on to Death Wing's back!...I have my own Netherwing Drake after a long grind...others as well...all ephemeral as chasing through smoke rings!...Dragons?...there's good and bad for 'al' a that'...I've gathered some from Melville's pursuit...and Verne's...

:(

DavidDavid

OTI:twelve poems and notes:6/11/16

Open To Interpretation

Seaside

By faraway Seaside
I still hear the foghorn.
Along the not so distant rails
I hear the train's horn through my town.
No more melancholy a sound
Than their sounds.

Shiny Coins

Some wishing well this,
Our conversations thrown in,
Our wistful thoughts,
Our deepest thoughts,
On the bottom of the fountain's shallow pool
Along with everyone's shiny coins.

Ubiquities

Sure,
I have ubiquities,
Who doesn't?

Black Tombstone

No sooner I write this
Than I'm beneath a
Black tombstone
Engraved.

Ghosts

From the Black Tombs
You can find their writings
And recorded selves.
On illuminated stages,
Surrounded by darkness,
You can see them
Seemingly alive,
As buried too, I.

Imagination

Buried alive
The panicked scratch and claw
The Black Tombs' walls.
It's dark in them beyond compare.
A small candle is all they need
To find the door still open.

New Development

Piled in heaps,
Black tombstones
Removed for development:
Such the demand for new real estate.

Internet AI

With the flip of a switch
Someone, I should think,
Can turn it off.
Maybe not...
Then were all stuck!

Black Soil

Here, I'm not much good at this,
But I've planted carrots and radishes
In this rich black soil.
I hope you find them delicious.

Black Crickets

Black crickets in the black light night
Finish singing in the daylight--
Click off
Click off
Click off.

Night

Daytime
Isn't fireworks' show time.

Like Ishmael

Like Ishmael,
I perch atop the Black Ship's mast,
Far below,
The black deck black light lit,
The neon sails and rigging
Glimmering like the Northern Lights,
Lightning graced filigree sunders
The dark clouds lowering,
Foreboding,
White caps on the black ocean
Pearlescent,
The crew below singing,
Siblings all dancing,
The Parrots all raucous:
Cold wind driven
The Black Ship galloping forward.
I hold steadfast to the rocking mast
And your hand.

DolphinWords

Notes: Seaside...a reminisce...Shiny Coins...Shiny Toy Guns band comes to mind!...an aside...see their official Major Tom music video on youtube...a favorite on my playlist...Ubiquities...thinking how I'm going on about black this, black that...'black' is an old conceit for mystery, the unknown, imagination's scary realm...see Coleridge's Kubla Khan 'caverns measureless to man'...'sunless sea' could be my 'black ocean'...Ghosts...see Shelly's Ozymandias!...Imagination, New Development, Internet AI, Black Soil, Black Crickets, Night, all play off the same conceit...'black light' is a couple things, at least...one, black light: ultraviolet infrared...and my own, black light: the internet messaging light coursing through phone lines, fiber optic cables, air, and such, from 'black' space floating satellites...white light black light...the ravens and seagulls on the Black Ship's neon rigging...things get too complicated when one has to make one's own skeleton key to one's own conceits!...'neon': neon gas in lamps 'courses' with colors...back a ways in post is my garden effort on side of Old House...'black soil' is very good conceit for what the net provides!...as noted before, electricity hasn't turned off since Tesla at Niagara Falls (spell checking, I never knew that second 'a
was there!) threw the switch (Walt Whitman, 'I Sing The Body Electric', pops in here too...he's still on!)...so now the nets on...one wonders, with trepidation, what else will come on!...oh!...the Black Dragon awaits the Black Ship!...call me Ishmael...Herman Melville's Moby Dick...beautiful passage where Ishmael takes his watch in the crows nest...think there might be a passage like this too in Henry David Thoreau's Two Year's Before The Mast...

quote

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!

Moby Dick Chapter 35

unquote

oh!...here, Dana and Melville were pals!...The Man Before The Mast by Elias Altman...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/11/16

Open To Interpretation

Maybe Telepathy

The head banging rock song
In the donut shop
Drives me out
From coffee and a quiet thought-talk
With you.
So to Silver, my jeep, I go,
With a Snapple and a roll song,
To my quiet mobile solitary cell
From where I can thought-call.

DolphinWords

Notes:  somewhere I just heard or read that famous comment by Robert Frost that writing poems in free verse is 'like playing tennis without a net'...which is one of those quips that looked at closely falls apart...first, poems aren't a game...anyway, I'm uncertain what free verse is my own self...and thought to consider...I've been thinking a lot of Keats' poem 'To Psyche'...I'd read in a comment that while in the other odes that that one is a part of, Keats kept to a rhyme/meter scheme, in Psyche he is freer...not all the rules are obeyed for a formal rhyme and meter poem...maybe it is the first 'free verse' poem...passages in Shakespeare's play aren't structured, so maybe there too free verse...brb...well, I looked at wiki's take, and maybe earliest examples are the Psalms in the Bible...anyway, I was trying to think of a take on my own poems!...and thought 'free rhymes'...the rhymes aren't ordered...heck...Maya's barking...check to see if Possum again!...brb...don't know what, closed her up on the porch...bk...and thought to google, and surprised to find 'free rhymes' is another term for 'free verse'...I'm writing free verse...I had thought free verse didn't have meter, or rhymes...you know, verse free of any constraints...my constraint using rhyme and alliteration is to make poems musical...there's a lot of other things I'm using too, that 100 list of rules and guide lines...it's not a big deal now, so many poem form varieties are pursued, and it is like music...there are all kinds of music...as songs are to speech, poems are to prose writing...the anxiety of critics of free verse is that it is prose...you can't sing prose...maybe in an opera...if a poem 'sings' it's likely a poem!...anyway, this came up googling 'free rhyme poems'...

quote

Emily Dickinson is famous as the mother of American English free verse. This poem does not have consistent metrical patterns, musical patterns or rhyme. Rather, following the rhythm of a natural speech, it gives an artistic expression to the ideas it contains.

Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars—alights,
And is lost in balms!

Emily Dickinson

http://literarydevices.net/free-verse/

I'm finding as I write OTI, the first word of each line is often one syllable, and often a word beginning with a vowel...thought to go back through OTI and find examples, but Maybe Telepathy will do...all the lines begin with one syllable...here in Eden, just two lines begin with two syllable words, 'bashful' and 'reaching'...it's important to not just look at the end of a line for rhymes, they can be anywhere in a free rhyme poem...and there are other 'rhymes' in the phrasing and such...here Bashful and Reaching 'rhyme'...free rhyme poems have too this about them...one is not conscious of all that is going on in them...rhymes find rhymes, one thing leads to another...I've set myself the pleasant task of reading all of Dickinson's poems...there's maybe like a thousand, but most all short...often times, I want to quote one here beside one of mine, just to say, 'see, see what I'm doing, it's like this!'...I write Free Rhyme poems...no fences...

:)

DavidDavid

MidnightMovies: Warcraft

Late this afternoon, I had this tug to go to the movies...thought, why not, I'd like to see Alice in Wonderland...checked movie times...oh!...World of Warcraft movie is playing...that explained the tug!

It's very good...myself, having played the game, and read the first few game novels, which movie is based on, I could follow along...it wasn't dumbed down for folk that have no familiarity for the narrative...only disappointment was so few in the theater!...don't get that...maybe word of mouth will give it the attention it deserves...and gosh, with the passing out of free subscriptions, game will be full of noobs awhile!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:eleven poems and notes/6/9/16

Open To Interpretation

Haiku

If you see
Just a few of me,
Even only a haiku of me,
That's fine.
I never thought to send
You reading all of me
From beginning to end.

Smart

I bet you hadn't thought
To have to be so smart
To read your part,
But where would effort I took go?
So, don't fail yours
And close my play,
And lose effort's effortless day.

What?

What?
Do I dissemble?
Return to my case?
Donate all to charity?
I want to be generous,
Give all I have to you.
Is that selfishness?

Dust

I'm dust on the road
Kicked up by the passage of your sedan.
What potter's spinning wheel can raise me up
That you can note
I princely sparkle in the sun?

Interim

Once a week the street sweeper sweeps
Machinely rumbling by
One way,
The other way.
Would it could allay
These interim days of despair.

Icon

What do you have there?
Cradled tenderly in your hands?
Some bees' black waxed encaustic
Hand held holy icon?
Lemme see...
Oh, it's me!

Too

What do you see in me?
I in you?
You too.

Cannons

We got no heavy cannons,
We left them ashore.
On this black ocean we sail
We need to be light.

Octopus

Camouflaged,
I know you're there,
Somewhere.
Over the tide pool I stare and stare,
The surrounding colors
Bewilder
Like the swirl of the incoming  surf
While I look and look...
Oh!
Now  I can report your movements
While I was here!

Dumb

It's all I can manage,
A whisper of sound,
A glimmer of light,
A simmer of heat,
What could be dumber!

Nap

I sit on the bed edge
And un-bridal.
Keys, wallet, goggles,
Set on the night table.
Time for a nap.

DolphinWords

Notes: I ought not to have to apologize for replica coincidence...as happened in Smart with 'effort's effortless'...there's a whole religion that taots that...coincidence!...I really really like Haiku...it's like it's not even mine, or anyone's, more like from the Earth....What?...beginning notion was of a musical instrument being taken apart and put away in its case and given away to charity...I don't know what happened!...Dust...anything with a 'potter's wheel' is Sufi stuff...Interim...Thursday is street sweeper day hereabout...and machinely should be a word...or at least not need red underline!...Icon...there is a name for small religious icon paintings, but couldn't find it...iphone icons have icons!...best I can find...Too...I really really really like this one!...Cannons...of the Black Ship conceit...kind of a goof, kind of dead on....Octopus...too many self congratulatory superlatives already...it brings a tear...Dumb...and needed to self depreciate deflate a bit...Nap...and take some down time for the day!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/8/16

Open To Interpretation

70s

So so
I thought to set me aside
And be like you
Learn things you like and do
Orienteering
Did that
Scuba diving
Did that
Sky diving
Nope
Flamenco guitar
Tried
Pogo
I go go
Handcuffs
Been there
A smoke shared in the dark
Sure
While you played Boston
Nope.
Don't listen to Boston?
So, so, back to me!

DolphinWords

Notes: damn, if I don't now realize OTI is another effort to 'be like her', to 'sky dive'!...it's that damn 'fence'!...now with age it's extended so tall as to be even more insurmountable!...

I got no chance now
I'm like a dog behind the fence now

I was so happy doing Bow Wow, the rhymes were pulling the leash, and I just followed along...when I got to

They took away my bark now
No bow wow now

I thought how cute 'bow wow'...even too cute, and thought to omit, but then it showed up in at the last

I wanna get back our bow wow wow

that was even cuter, and having been original all the way through, I thought, what a fine little marvel you've fashioned, DavidDavid!...and then gloom set in, as I realized 'bow wow' had to have been used before, in fact I could hear in my head that refrain. 'bow wow wow something something...'sung by low low voices in a chorus...so so, having tracked out 'bow wow' in the notes to Bow Wow the rap singer, and Bow Wow Wow the band (see recent posts), I thought today to find that bow wow wow chorus...took a bit, and had to go through Snoop Dogg to get to it!...it's George Clinton's Atomic Dog...bow wow wow yippy yo yippie yay...I've always thought it a 'turn it up' song when it comes on the radio, but have had no critical understanding of its making, or even who sang it, or even that Snoop Dogg snagged it!...anyway, for me this is a good entry into the musicology of rap and hip hop, I might even catch up to what's current and reach the ground standing!...anyway, there's a knockdown little clip on youtube where Clinton is holding court, and is asked how he came to make Atomic Dog...it just 'tumbled' out for him...he came into the studio, and his band was playing, and he was miffed that they were playing without him, and he sat down to the microphone, and the band must have stopped, but in his headset, a recorded rhythm was playing. and still miffed, he just started speaking out, and the song tumbled out!...his band came in, and the 'rest is history'...oh...see the clip...very cool, and the music video of Atomic Dog too!...'atomic dog, please explain that song...'

more Possum:...so this morning before dawn, I hear Maya, my dog, high pitched barking...she barks in a high pitch when she's a little scared of something, like with a new chew toy I give her at first...I half asleep, as usual, thought, oh heck, the Possum again...and trundled outside to where I had dropped Possum into high grass just by the fence outside the backyard...I thought Possum had left, but no, had dug in right there...in fact, maybe there had a burrow...and Maya was barking, and Possum was growling, so I tried to grab Possum by the tail, but Possum, growling at me now, scrabbled into the burrow right through to the other side and the backyard and Maya...everything went quiet...heck...so I trundled around through the house, through the porch, out in the backyard, flashlight in hand, and Maya went to playing keep away with Possum...'here here here'...a handful of left over fish and chips distracted her, and in a five gallon home base bucket Possum went...and of course Possum looked more than half dead...that's what Possums do!...so for recovery, I took Possum to my room, until 'scrabble scrabble' I heard Possum move...I would of took a pic, and clip, but I'm wanting to be wordy...Possum was covered in slobber, little big ears trembling...watched long enough to see all four little handy feet worked, and out to the backyard jungle I took Possum to that new fence fenced off section from Maya behind the garage...Possum looked okay under the spreading ivy, those leaves are shady from the arriving morning sun...and I'm all the while thinking 'fences', as in 'who let the dogs out' romantic senses!...some metaphor messages in all of this?...that would be me being like me trying to be like you!...oh...hey!...that's a start of a tumble!

That would be me
Being like me
Trying to be like you.

update: so so, this afternoon, I close up Maya on porch, and myself back to the new fence fenced jungle behind the garage, to check on Possum...Possum gone, back as it were...success...look up and grapefruits ripe on the small grapefruit tree...pull a few off, shaking the tree, and Morning Dove flies up from her nest where all the branches meet...

Cucu cu

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:eight poems and notes:6/7/16

Open To Interpretation

Bears Ashore

Ashore we ride Bears
Aromp aromp aromp,
At gallop on any course
Faster than any horse.

Hip And Square

Between being hip
And being square
The violation of the self evident:
Peoples are peoples everywhere.


Brag

Don't brag down
What humility raised up.

Homeridae

The blind can tell the tale
Not having seen there
With the seeing's cares.

Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius

He was a poet in exile
And filed poems to the State
Seeking a tasked return.

Brain Powder

The miracle pill
That'll get the itches in there
Outa there!

Actually

Actually,
None of us seem to like
Rude crude nudity,
Polite refined modesty
Much preferred.
But what's actually got to do with it?

Remarkable

Oh, remarkable,
Maya my dog caught a possum:
'I thought possum was gone too, Maya!'

DolphinWords

Notes: Bears Ashore...just a goof...though in world of warcraft my favorite mount is my Darkmoon Faire Bear...Hip and Square...thought to list a lot of opposites, like pretty and ugly...sentiment is prejudice isn't just a racial thing...Brag...John Wooden 'esque'...Homeridae...an ongoing study...Publilius...a couple things, one, the computer like code look of these pattern/concrete poems, and 'poet in exile'...what poet isn't?...Brain Powder...another goof...Actually...reference Tina Turner 'What's Love Got To Do With It?' ...Remarkable...Maya mouthed Possum like a bird dog...and though very bedraggled, Possum looks to have survived after I put Possum outside the fence...gone when I went to check...and, wth, TS Eliot was nicknamed 'old possum'...so I looked for that...oh...Homeridae is a 'replica', meaning somewhere I read something like this...lot of 'replicas' in OTI...went on a long search this morning, googled 'patter matter', words in previous posted poem, to see where I may have lifted, and made a 'replica'...I think the source was the comments to a youtube rap song where the commentators were going back and forth about the word 'patter' being used as I am using it, y'know,  a fellow's pick up lines when flirting...if I ever find that back and forth again, I'll reference it...'replicas' are a problem (scratching head)...

quote

And Stephen Spender summarizes: "Religiously, poetically and intellectually, this very private man kept open house.... Yet in spite of all this, he was sly, ironic, a bit cagey, a bit calculating perhaps, the Eliot whom Ezra Pound called 'old Possum.'"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/t-s-eliot

unquote

aptly nicknamed...

oh. it really doesn't matter, from the Pirates of Penzance...another 'matter patter' search...now, I did hear that a long long while ago!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/6/16

This post rated P for Profanity

Open To Interpretation

Bow Wow

I can't pick up after you
I got no patter
The girls all scatter
See you later
Loser
Next batter
It don't matter
If their fatter
If their badder
They all call me hater
Liar
Disloyal mother
Fucker
Just another taker
Trying to make her
I got no chance now
I'm like a dog behind the fence now
What did you say to them
To put all that hate in them?
There ain't no ray of hope now
Not a hell of a lot of room now
I'm a dog on a short chain now
Choke collar electric collar now
They took away my bark now
No bow wow now
I got no patter
These girls all scatter
It don't matter
I wanna be with you now
Make up this slack of you now
Be strong not weak for you now
Not some wtf to you now
I wanna get back our bow wow wow.

DolphinWords

Notes:  left off last night watching a youtube rap critics take on the 9 Worst Rap Songs of 2015...a delve to understand...someday, song and literature history anthologies will have to include the era 'rap', much as they do now the era of the beat poets...beat poets weren't shy about using profanities, kind of their vanity!...rappers too the same...the rhymes become a game...and there's only so many four letter words and sorts, so there's a kind of replica composite look to any one rap/song...the rhymes, the sentiments, commonly shared...one of the nine was about a fellow who lost his skills, his attractiveness, and I think I may have plagiarized...I could check..brb...
see Number Six of 9 Worst Rap Songs of 2015 by the Rap Critic...don't know but by happy happenstance I happened on the Rap Critic!...surely in Bow Wow, much is derivative, which is very much how songs are made...they have no hesitation to gather in hackneyed phrases and old chestnut sentiments!...Bow Wow took off with 'no patter'...rhymes and sentiment just tumbled out...I could 'rap' it up a notch, just by changing one word, which gives a hilarious sentiment to second 'scatter'...but then this post would be rated triple P!...I post it in deference to those out their listening to and making rap...having done one, I may well tumble into more...it's hard to stop them once they start!...and I'll add the Rap Critic to my MidnightMovies!...I wonder if Bow Wow for a rapper name is taken...brb...yep, and a successful one too!...my apologies to Maya, my dog!

oh, it needs a refrain...
I wanna get back our bow wow wow
I wanna get out and bow wow wow

and some drums and horns!

and of course, there's a group called Bow Wow Wow...
ral

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/5/16

Open To Interpretation

Tunes

They sang hymns,
And that was all,
All together
With their congregations.
Oft my passengers,
One morning I turned the key
And my rock and roll
Came loud radio blaring
From the night before.
I toned it down,
Thought,
Then turned it off.
We rode in song less silence a lot.
And where I had been taken
In suit and tie to sing their tunes,
I never offered flowers for their hair,
Or a ride to Scarborough Fair.

DolphinWords

Notes: old friend posted up a lyric from a rap song...curious, I listened to the rap song...I'd reference it, I really should, not for it's merit, but to acknowledge my friends liking for it...oh, the title is 'I Need A Doctor'...of late, I've been trying to make heads or tails of rap...even expressed this, 'I'm listening to the lyrics...', and laughingly being told I wasn't missing anything...I suppose...but I saw the shock to the system rock and roll was...and since, wave after of wave of new 'shocking' music styles have come along...I imagine even hymns at one time were profane...curiously, Emily Dickinson used the ballad and hymn forms a lot for her poems, and insomuch as she declared often independence from the Christian orthodoxy of her time, she was a bit shocking, which may explain why she wasn't published until after her death!...there's a progression...songs move from popular, to weddings, to funerals...rap has a way to go, and already dated...and what's current now, I don't know!...if I look at rap lyrics, and have the accompaniment pounding in my head, it's hard to look at my own poems, and everyone's going back to Homer, and not think them pale!...shouting and profanity and anger has that effect!...a small in the round theater was once in Town just up the road/Harbor...Melodyland...even worked there a bit changing scenery for plays...Pirates of Penzance/Mary Ann Mobley...and, and, I went to Simon and Garfunkel, Mama and Papas double bill concert thereabout...now, now I can study the history and lyrics of Scarborough Fair at wiki, and it predates even the old hymns, and has about it that pre Christian Celtic/Druid world Robert Graves goes on and on about...from reading, I have it that Graves could sing nice, often singing country tunes as he puttered...I should sing, but my voice range cracks, unless I have a cold, then I sound just like Rod Stewart...how easy it would be if I could just keep this cold!, my thought...apparently, Mick Jagger got his voice after recovering form biting his tongue playing basketball...the high water mark of it all was Stewart's Every Picture Tells A Story album...

Scarbourough Fair

Flowers in your hair

Interview with Robert Graves (he, at this time, was in the early stages of alz....very brave!...and sings a snatch of the Old Gray Mare...:)



:)

DavidDavid

OTI:eight poems and notes:6/5/16

Open To Interpretation

Dons

There's too many Dons
Poking about the Sierra
And not enough windmills.
Come on down the hill, Bros,
There's a dragon hereabout
Big enough to take on all of us!

 Superfluous

The editorial staff is worried
And pounding the glass,
Having been made superfluous
By posters without a clue.
They need a task.
Already in place,
They can censor the buried alive.

Bears

The Valley is self correcting,
The Bears will tell you.
Bears have a fine bash
When you don't empty the trash.

Me

I brought along what you need,
And, you know,
What makes you giggle,
Incidentally too,
Me,
That makes you smile.

The Black Window

Through the barred window
I could see a sail boat on a lake.
Eyes closed,
I'd see you.

Times

Looking at the walls
Of the million dollars beach homes
In the real estate section
Los Angeles Times
Haven't read in years
Thought to revisit
With two dollars and tax
At the Seven Eleven rack.
Along the coast,
For awhile my eyes ride,
I, parked in the drive.
No, I won't subscribe,
And in the trash it all goes.
Oh, walking away
A crumpled receipt still in my hand,
Yours?
No, theirs,
And under the lid it goes too.

Jig Saw Puzzle Edges

Finished, the four edges.
Places sometimes pull apart
While looking to find
I bump the table.
When Maya, my dog, gets in,
There's no edges at all!

Merganser

The sailboat is in the garage,
Awaiting funds to launch,
And your christening.

DolphinWords

Notes: Dons...references the proliferation of Don Quixotes, and  photogs, bucket list completionists, vagabonds, and such, clogging Sierra trails!...Valley, Yosemite Valley...report from thereabout of not enough concessionaire effort to pick up the trash...not enough employees...been there done that! (see mast to right, Raccoon)...think I wrote Bears then about too!...Me...bit disturbing of how little importance 'me' can be!...The Black Window...a reference in Alastair Reid's poem Cat-Faith (see previous post)...Times...I haven't picked up a Sunday Times on Sunday in a long while...paw is cute, and thought of claw...don't know which, hand doesn't fit...but, heck, hand it is...Edges...another Maya puzzle poem...Merganser...funds have taken awhile, 21 years ago, brought home from auction, and stored in the  garage...ral...I am lazy...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:five poems and notes:6/4/16

Open To Interpretation

Fog

In the day is grey gloom eternal,
The Black Ship pales,
A faded ghost in the great fog
Over all the ocean.
From the shore,
The constant roar,
Workaday waves
Again again again.
The neon sails and rigging sag,
Dimmed, dripping cold dew.
The Ravens and Gulls
Indistinguishable.
Colorless, the Parrots'
Visits quiet quiet too.
Last night, where were you?

Saxophone

Oh! A surprise!
Your bejeweled
Black glass saxophone
With gems from many lands
And keys to many doors
Your jazz hands open.

Conceit

It's not just my conceit I sail on,
Who do you think all these black mirrors are for!?

Cloy

This sucks,
You can see me,
But I can't see you
Least I cloy too close.
Well, what doctor's exam
Has ever been equal!
Continue!

This

It ain't like I got nothing
And pushing a shopping cart,
You know?
Look,
I got this
And this
And this!
Three thisis!!!
What?
Oh, we're still in the store.

Notes: Oh, I made a discovery...I let slip that I scribble, write poems, to a new friend, and we exchanged favorite poets...me among my offerings!...but it is Robert Graves and Laura Riding I think much of...and new friend offered Pablo Neruda, who I have read some, and thought to read some more, and too to revisit Riding and Graves, trying to see what comes up browsing such...oh, I'd just lamented not having met anyone of late to share literate talkabouts...so, that too...a discovery!...but the discovery I made has to do with the progress of Open To Interpretation...from the first, I've been adding things to added things, building up things that I've wanted to point to in the notes, but didn't have the word...brb...

quote

Her poems “are highly compressed, intellectual, disciplined, and possess a number of other virtues no longer much in evidence. . . . At their best, they have some of the concentration of language so memorable in Emily Dickinson, while the syntactic difficulty and elaborate conceits [T. S.] Eliot did so much to revive have been practiced in her poems with remarkable effect,” remarked James Atlas in Poetry magazine.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/laura-riding-Jackson

end quote

Conceit was the word I was looking for!!!...In Fog are all these conceits, that are being made up in OTI and built and added to...gotten so I can't look at a computer/cell phone screen without thinking how clever I've been!...conceited!...what a great word!...conceit conceit!!...and to my new friend, Graves and Riding are new, so I wondered if maybe Graves knew Neruda, so there a common interest...so googled Robert Graves  Pablo Neruda, and the search brought up Alastair Reid, a poet new to me...he was Neruda's translator, a fine poet in his own right, and friend and rival to Graves in Majorca!...a connecting one of those small world things...anyway, back to the discovery...keep in mind the 'black' in the conceits of OTI...brb...

quote

Cat-Faith


As a cat, caught by the door opening,
on the perilous top shelf, red-jawed and raspberry clawed,
lets itself fall floorward without looking,
sure by cat-instinct it will find the ground,
where innocence is; and falls
anyhow, in a furball, so fast that the eye
misses the twist and trust
that come only from having fallen before,
and only notices cat silking away,
crime inconceivable in so meek a walk:


so do we let ourselves fall morningward
through shelves of dream.  When, libertine at dark,
we let the visions in, and the black window
grotesques us back, our world unbalances.
Many-faced monsters of our own devising
jostle on the verge of sleep, as the room
loses its edges and grows hazed and haunted
by words murmured or by woes remembered,
till, sleep-dissolved, we fall, the known world leaves us,
and room and dream and self and safety melt
into a final madness, where any landscape
may easily curdle, and the dead cry out...


but ultimately, it ebbs.  Voices recede.
The pale square of the window glows and stays.
Slowly the room arrives and dawns, and we
arrive in our selves.  Last night, last week, the past
leak back, awake.  As light solidifies,
dream dims.  Outside, the washed hush of the garden
waits patiently and, newcomers from death,
how gratefully we draw its breath!
Yet to endure that unknown night by night,
must we not be sure, with cat-insight,
we can afford its terrors, and that full day
will find us at the desk, sane, unafraid --
cheeks shaven, letters written, bills paid?


--Alastair Reid
from Inside Out:  Selected Poetry and Translations.  (c) Alastair Reid, 2008.  Polygon Press.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/corey-morgan-turner/national-poetry-month-cat-faith/10154061303050603/

unquote

A fine poem! (at least the first stanza!), but look what he did!

so do we let ourselves fall morningward
through shelves of dream.  When, libertine at dark,
we let the visions in, and the black window
grotesques us back, our world unbalances.

He has the Black Window!!!...and I must credit, as he was ahead of me with his conceit, I hadn't gotten that far with mine, yet, and will now incorporate his...RAL!...a fine discovery!...oh...Saxophone where Textophone...the price of being clever...Saxophone is better!...heck...blued text!

:)

DavidDavid