Tuesday, June 28, 2016

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

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