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