OTI:two poems and notes:9/30/16

Open To Interpretation

All Dreaming

I know you are all dreaming
And wonder
Why you are all smiling.


Stir

So, so,
Herodotus,
Let me get the plot straight:
The Phoenicians took Io.
The Greeks took Europa.
And the Greeks took Medea.
Paris, the Trojan, took Helen.
"Now, as for the carrying off of women," you tell me,
Herodotus,
"It is the deed they say, of a rogue;
But to make a stir about such
That are carried off, argues a fool."
Oh, if you only knew,
Herodotus,
Automobiles run on fuel.

DolphinWords

Notes:  from the history studies, I have it that now and then a neo-classicists urge takes hold of popular culture, and buildings, and paintings, and writings, and laws, and all, go up in the fashion of Ancient Greece...late 18th early 19th centuries the last one in America...it would be nice, to have as a resource, the tales of the gods and goddesses, and by resource I mean an audience familiar with them...I'm sorta getting there...re-reading the opening of Herodotus' history, I go, 'oh, I know the tale of Medea now'...finished reading Euripides' Medea yesterday...the connection to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venus, at least partly, the scholars make, is that Medea was a stranger in a strange land, like Shylock, and to some extent the other characters, who all seem to be separated from a 'state' they want to be in...Antonio is sad, losing Bassanio, Bassanio is in love with Portia, but in a 'state' of poverty, and so on...Medea is over the top in anger over Jason taking up with another wife, Creon's daughter...and the back and forth goes from it's 'not a big deal', to Jason, to it's 'armageddon', to Medea...and includes the concern of where she will live afterwards, after murdering her children, and Creon's daughter, and incidentally, Creon too...there's an epic of Trojan War scope waiting to be written of Medea in exile...her witchcraft wiles are such, she fashions a 'golden parachute', by making Aegeus take an oath to protect her no matter what when she arrives in his country, a pursued criminal refugee...oh, wait, it's being done...Medea is Israel, Shylock is Israel...essh...how in the world did the old Greek playwrights, and Shakespeare, get so much right!...hmmph...it was very useful for historians like Herodotus to have the gods' and goddesses' tales as explanatory resource!...here's the article about the Greek playwrights influence on Shakespeare:

quote

http://www.academia.edu/5811542/More_Greek_than_Jonson_thought_Euripides_Medea_in_The_Merchant_of_Venice

Medea in

The Merchant of Venice

Zachary Hutchins and Amy Lofgreen

unquote

and to confuse things, there are many different versions of what happens to Medea after the events in Euripides' play...to quote wiki:

quote

Medea then returned to Colchis and, finding that Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother Perses, promptly killed her uncle and restored the kingdom to her father. Herodotus reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens on her flying chariot, to the Iranian plateau and lived among the Aryans, who then changed their name to the Medes.^[1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea

unquote

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/29/16

Open To Interpretation

Top Bunk

I've got the top bunk.
Maya, my dog, has the bottom.
She's hard to sleep beside.
I'm even harder.

Under The Pier's Lights

Oh
The fishermen entertain
Under the pier's lights,
Lovers hand in hand
Under Cupid's spell.


Arrival of the Northern Flight

Nemo stood on the Nautilus deck
With his binocs observing
The long slender craft return
To the Black Ship.
The crew had piled into the craft
In a hurry from the black sand beach,
As though fleeing some menace
In the Conifer Forest.
He studied closely,
But could no where see Dulcinea.
'How did they get here?' his thought.
'Oh,'  Kannon came into the binocs view.  'Kannon is with them.'
A commotion overhead made Nemo lower the binocs and look up.
The Ravens, Huginn and Muninn,
Were circling in the sky.
"Submerge!" He ordered his crew,
"Submerge quickly, they know we're here."

Far off shore of Nevermore,
The Northern Black Dragon Flight
Waited, spread wide,
Floating on the Black Ocean swells.
They waited for Nemo's return
And report his reconnoiter.
Onyx grew impatient,
As much time passed,
And more,
And no Nemo.
The faraway shore was only a pale streak on the horizon,
Volcano Never a tiny cone.
To pass the time,
The Dragon Flight
Dove for fish,
Gossiped with one another,
Napped.
Daylight waned,
'Nothing doing today,'
Onyx thought,
'Tonight the Flight will sleep upon the waves.'
In the glooming,
Onyx glimpsed the two Ravens,
Flying as though searching,
And nearing,
And perceiving the Dragon Flight on the waves.
Wheeling about, the Ravens flew straight away,
Back to Nevermore.
"The Black Ship is here!"
Onyx said.
"And Dulcinea!
Nemo has betrayed us!"

DolphinWords

Notes: Maya has a plywood board, I have a mattress...she has this maneuver where she stands on the board, the edge of the lower bunk, her paws on the top of the sideways plywood for the walls, which reach a little over the windowsills, so standing such, she turns her head backwards towards me...she can be very insistent!...safe in may aerie, I can give her scratches and pats...Under The Pier Lights...a souvenir of this weeks Wednesday night gathering of the OCPC...there were a lot of young couples sitting at the long tables...very nice...the open reading poets behind the microphone, several first timers, the 'fishermen'...and fisherwomen...fisher'person' is the way to include women I guess...but no music in it...maybe 'fisherwmen', or 'fishermwen'...at the laundry mat this afternoon, a kid got the top off of one of the low candy dispensers...colored candies all over the floor...he was grabbing them out with both hands...trying to think of another, what are they called?... the smiley face :), the 'lol'...brb...'emoticon'...so, KitC!, Kid in the Candy...along with ral, running around laughing, from the other kid running around opening all the lower dryers...a very prosaic vignette of the Black Ship tale...but, I've managed to get everyone in one place!...and the plot thickened!...KitC ral....next week at the Orange County Poetry Club is 'slam' night...100 dollar first prize...there's a scheduled reader too, who showed to do two poems last night...came late, jumped in to do his thing, and then left with friends...rude...made worse because he's a polished performer, has his work memorized, and delivers in rap fashion, just minus music...everyone pretty much is reading off their phones, and I'm finding my old objection of those unprepared with un-memorized work, is going by the wayside...that, as a condition, would act as a preventive algorithm...seeing algos in every bush of late!...so, am practicing holding the phone...bought another ten dollar book, poet not about, so no signature...ah, another soul lamenting their travails...Cosmic Taxi Driver Blues. by T.A. Greathouse...this week's perusal from my night table...maybe 'fishermw'...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/27/16

Open To Interpretation

Magic Mirrors

"Oh,
That we can be
One another's magic mirrors,
Our eyes in each our eyes reflect
The current states we reside
Inside beside
Teeth, throat, tongue,
Sinus,
Ears, eyebrows, eyelids,
Scalp,
Spit, snot, tears,
Spine,
And the rest in line
Down to our feet,
Our souls' pedestals.
By your singing,
Petra,
Your light inside me,
I vacation in delightful places
I had never thought to see."
Black Dragon Pet finished speaking,
Pulled back from being
Face to face with Petra,
Who stood, arms akimbo,
Looking up.
"Black Dragons are poets?" she asked.
Black Dragon Pet settled down,
Seated on the black sand.
The surf's eternal welter among the shore rocks.
Looming over all the slopes of Volcano Never.
"Not very good ones."
Pet answered.
Petra turned and spoke to the wind,
"And Ichi and I blinded you."
"Yes." Pet said
"But with you near I see."
"Our deal," Pet continued, and asked,
"Still?"
Petra turned,
Looked up at Volcano Never,
Turned back,
Eyes to eyes with Pet.
"Still." Petra said.

DolphinWords

Notes: ...in the OTI studies, when I first happened on Plutarch, I thought, 'Oh, this is where Shakespeare got some things...'...and not just things, but the very way he writes...and scholars have well documented this...as to Euripides and the Greek playwrights, there's some doubt if Shakespeare knew them...there were Latin translations about back then, and maybe so...one site has it that the Merchant of Venice has Euripides' Medea in it...haven't read the Merchant in a long while, and haven't gotten to Medea...for sometime...there seems to be a natural transition from writing poems to writing plays...plays are fun!...and you don't have to go on about settings, or interior emotions like novelists do...I'll write another play, if one happens along, and I want to be prepared...if I can bundle together a few of the old Greeks, that might work, and I was wondering which ones Shakespeare knew...hmmph...Magic Mirror...I was imagining these mirrors that showed you a reflection, like the Snow White Witch's, and that these mirrors, on request, would show you your reflection altered, kind of like when you make a toon in the video games, and these alterations would change you, for real...and that was the sentiment when I started out, but drifted, and drifted, and found myself in the Black Ship tale...but, you know, the sentiment is 'still' there, just as I imagined, but not as I could have foreseen!...update: change 'eternal restlessness' to 'eternal welter'...had to look welter up, took note of it re reading an old translation of the Illiad, and it fits!...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:eight poems and notes:9/26/16

Open To Interpretation

Captain Book

Book up
Book down
Book up
They read out
Book down
They explain what they read
It's all over our heads
But we know when
To say hallelujah!

Kite

Over the neighborhood
In this hot wind
My kite is aloft
Nearly crashing
In nose divings
The tissue paper
Shuttering loud,
The invisible string
Glimpsed
Silver flashing in sunlight,
Followed down
Reaches me,
Not a kite anymore,
An identification.

And What If

And what if
When strings break
Kites didn't fall
And dreams remain?

Monofilament

Oh!
The fish pole dips
And dances
A monofilament connection
Oh!
Broken off
Beneath the ocean's
Surface improvisation.

!

A star streak
Across the night
And a tremor
A meteor
Widely reported.

Space

Space can be so boring
Orbits so annoying
Cabin mates so cloying
Atmospheric immolation
So charring!

Line

Oh, the comedian
Throws out a line
A 'message in a bottle'
Floated
Let me see
Let me see
Let me see
The audience entreats
Opens the bottle
One by one by one
Reads reads reads
One by one by one
Secretly secretly secretly
'Made you look'
'Made you look'
'Made you look'.

&
I'm waiting...reading.

(hug)

                               A
                        like a string
                 between a bead
                         and a bead
                         and a bead.
 
DolphinWords

Notes:...as it turned out, in making the little play book, and trying to match the template places to insert things, I added a poem, and an author's note...and after the poem, DolphinWords, and after the note, :) DavidDavid...so, some of the look of the blog made it into the little book!...the note references the blog, and I spelled Door, Dorr...but, whose to tell!...I think that was the only miss spell, and that missing period...and the poem, Hand in Hand, is all in caps, as that formatted place was stuck in caps, or something...and on the back cover I added a quote from the beginning of Euripides' Hippolytus, (Aphrodite's opening), translated by E. P. Coleridge...I tried to find who E. P. Coleridge was...an English scholar circa late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is interesting, if his were the popular translations being read of the old Greek playwrights then...just came home from the library book store with Greek Tragedies Volume 1 by Grene and Lattimore...and they're awful...in Grene's hands the part I quoted doesn't sing at all...hmmph...I really must learn to read ancient Greek!... E.P. Coleridge's translation is on Gutenberg...Captain Book...reference kid game Captain May I?...reference 'exegesis'...and reference my own format of poems with notes, which is like, I notice, Robert Graves' format in his Greek Myths...I'd like to not do notes, and 'am mulling this over in the poems up...Kite...been thinking on 'lines' and 'threads' and such...last three in bold don't have titles...fooling around with punctuation marks...studying the Orange County Poetry Club books,  OCPC, just the two I have, Izadora's and Sanbud's, I came up against how words are connected in a poem...all the little connecting words...Sanbud's have a lot, some of Izadora's haven't any at all...and hers are very short, or a lot of short stanzas...I got sorta nervous about the whole thing, as connecting words have rhyme sounds...I often use them to begin lines...and I haven't been paying attention to the ones inside the lines much...I hear them...ones in the way I likely edit out, but I haven't really focused on them...so, I'm panicked self conscious now over every 'the'...I'm not one to throw them out entirely, like in a telegram...though the envoy to my one sestina, Subien, received that comment...'like a telegram'...one can do a lot by trimming connecting words...and one can do a lot by juxtaposing words, which Ginsberg did, and, in wiki's take, attributes to Cezanne's use of colors...some of them vibrate where they border one another...that's a trick...not fair!...Sanbud is using it, so is Izadora, but she not so much...tossing out connecting words makes this 'trick' really vivid...

quote

Light
On
Me

Light
On
You

Indigo blue

from
Never Mind Nevermind
Priceless Love Muse
by Izadora Pires Shin

quote

Always keep the notepad open to capture the butterflies disguised as goldfish

from
CC:ALL THE POETS P.S.
Murder Your Muse
Sanbud Tehrani

unquote

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/25/16

Open To Interpretation

Poems

Poems are like...
Well,
You have to grab them by the tail,
Or the scruff of the neck
If you don't want to get bit,
Quick,
Before they get away.

Book

Go book!
You're on your own
On that wide time river
Through the Amazon jungle.
A post card or two
Now and then
Sent back
With your adventure
Would be fine.

iPhone

Oh,
I left you all in the sun too long!
Overnight on the open window sill,
Cool,
But the morning sun roasted you!
Too hot to hold!
I better let you cool off...
Thank goodness,
Everyone still there!

DolphinWords

Notes: I hadn't noticed, but in the 'Proof Review' at Creative Space Publishing, one can just review a digital proof, click okay, and go with that, rather than wait for a hard copy proof in the mail...so, so, rather than wait this morning, as this morning I got the email saying 'my turn', I winged it, and went with the digital review....ok...and after going through all the other hoops...more and more I'm like a web circus dog...the little play is up...see link...Women Can Do No Wrong....my iPhone really got cooked sitting on the window sill...reached for it this morning, and thought, 'oh no!'...hats off to the apple engineers!...it is scary hot hereabout!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/24/16

Open To Interpretation

Missile

Oh,
Locked in
He sat in his silo
With his missile too
For a decade
Or two
Until one day
He got in the shower
Forgetting he still had his clothes on.
And they took him out,
Protesting,
"What about my missile, too?"
"Not to worry,"
They consoled,
"You still have the one in your pocket."

DolphinWords

Notes: Missile...a desultory effort!...the Proofs came!...and I spent all day correcting...I knew all along what needed doing, but needed to see the Proof...I have the same thing happen when I post...first in the editor, then I 'proof' by uploading, and seeing it on the web...I could try to do all the edits before that first upload, but it doesn't seem to work...I mean, it might take forever to get a post up without any edits needed!...I just noticed that back away I transposed some header dates, like 9/6/16 for 6/9/16...I'm a frustration...I'm amazed at how professional word processors get along!...anyway, I fixed things up in the little play, Women Can Do No Wrong...currently I can think of one period missing, and for some reason I can't center the book cover title...it's from Creative Space Publishing's template, and the text wraps right back to the left margin no matter if I space bar move it more towards center...it has to be more to center, as in the Proof, it is too close to the spine, and gets folded up in the bend...sigh...but it is all back in their court now, and when I can, I'll order more Proofs!...it's a back and forth...making a book made me think of sending up a rocket, hence 'Missile'...ral...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:five poems and notes:9/23/16

Open To Interpretation

Behind

Behind this microphone
Just see me as a skeletone,
Just think it's Halloscream,
That animated scene
With all those dancing skelomoans.

Buried

Oh, from that buried gang,
It's a constant harangue,
They're constant strum and drang,
We didn't boomerang!

Balloon

I write cartoonish,
What can fit
In buffoonish.

Lines and Words

I could stretch things out
Longer lines longer words
But then the kids would shout
We're not fucking nerds!


ID

To get in Bodie's yard
You only need
A one word ID card:
'Dead.'

DolphinWords

Notes:...more I think about it, more I'm leaning to getting even simpler...I'll leave the complexity to the 'notes'!...Behind...stemmed off from one I don't like...brb...

Behind

They all want to be priests
Behind a microphone
Behind a megaphone
And they all think their saints
Behind a badge
Behind a gun.
I got no time
For that religion
Behind a wall.
It never ends well.

...see?...that's getting complicated!...I got to thinking of being a skeleton behind the microphone, you know, stripped down of any affectations, and made a dance macabre, a term I learned looking up the old cartoon, Silly Symphony Skeleton Dance, and wiki's take on it...there's a couple old Roman mosaics been found of skeleton depictions...one is juxtaposed with food and drink, the sentiment being live and be merry, death is near...that's a common sentiment...it's the underpinning of every violent horror story...anyway, Halloween is coming up, and I fiddled with it...Buried...started with 'harangue'...of late, I feel I'm being harangued by just about everything...but I was getting no where, and so went to the rhyming dictionary, found strum and drang, and boomerang...hmmph...I should just hang out in the rhyming dictionary!...Balloon..a deprecation...Lines...a push back at Ginsebergians!...reference Ginsberg's 'long breath lines'...ID...reference ghost town Bodie...likely a replica...meaning somewhere somewhen something similar written...actually, there's a kind of hope in not being individual/original...that sentiment for sometime!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem, notes, four drawings:9/22/16

Open To Interpretation

Alien

They're loading their drums
And instruments
In
The trunk,
All their car's doors
Wide open.
I'm parked beside
In the parking garage
And see I'll have to wait a bit.
"You're a band!"
I find a perch
On the low cement wall.
They're beginning to crawl
In.
"Do you know the band
Shiny Toy Guns?"
"Never heard of them."
"Rock and roll band."
"We play jazz."
"Oh, you should hear them!"
They look at me
Like I'm from an alien race,
And they're from outer space.
I'm humming along
To Major Tom.

DolphinWords

Notes: Alien...as it happened...frustration level very high trying to think up a dragon...sometimes in reading a web page I land deep in the text from a search, and don't know my whereabouts...so, so, I'm reading, author is making the case that Pterodactyls were still about in historic times, and points to examples in old art...people were seeing Pteros, but, not having drawing skills, were depicting them poorly...was making a kind of sense, but then the author brings forward his notion that human beings coexisted with dinosaurs, and my hands fly off the keyboard and flap!...dinosaurs would have eaten all of us, in a day!...anyway, I sat down with a blank Bristol board pad page, and tried...Maya, my dog, looking on...to make a Black Dragon...there is a lot of discussion about dragons, every nuance and detail...one subject is how many legs...I just assumed two...but then in my searches, I realized four...never gave note to how many legs dragons have, and I've seen as many as everyone!...thinking on four, I realize nearly all the dragons portrayed aren't aerodynamic...a quibble...I'm not going to sit in the theater and shout out, 'that thing can't possibly fly!'....the 'willing suspension of disbelief'...anyway, I like the idea of Ptero Dragons...and having looked a lot at birds, I went with two legs...have to study bird legs and claws...long legs...realized as the drawing progressed, see below!, that I want the Black Dragons to have really long legs...big oversize claws, webbed somehow...a long crest that flares out when they're excited...a tail, not long, like the diamond shape of Pteros at the end...a kind of steering oar when they swim...a not too long neck, and small head...and feathered with big big wings...all black with dark red highlights on the crest and tail...and big...sketch has Petra on Pet's back...thinking on this, I realize the Black Ship tale is a manga...all along I've been 'seeing' it as panels in a comic book...now all I have to do is work at manga drawing for a couple years!...and I'll have it!...I don't know what I did with my Hokusai book...need to get another...his work is considered the early beginning of Manga...have to rethink the tail...why did Ptero's have a tail like that?...brb...

quote

Many, if not all, pterosaurs also had webbed feet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur

end quote

and they had something like feathers, 'pycnofibers'...I must have known that...ral..



:)

DavidDavid

OTI:six poems and notes:9/22/16

Open To Interpretation

Book Dog

Oh no,
No, no,
No books
From me,
I eschew.
It would be like you
Took home a book dog
From my book dog litter.
A book dog from me
Will poop and pee,
Wobble on your knee,
Chew right through
Everything you see!

Inevitable

It's inevitable
I'll leave you with a memory
I can't imagine
I don't want to imagine
Sigh
What it will be
Inevitably.

When

When your
Memory of me expires,
Comeback around,
I'll renew you're library card.

Concrete

Domesticated,
Most have concrete
Overlaid their wild things.
My friend
Bowls me over
Each time we greet.
She's friendly
With claws and teeth
For skins unsheathed.

Me In Charge

With me in charge
We'd all be crushed together
At the intersection.

Mail

I send myself mail.
I send myself you.
Mailbox is stuffed,
But nothing from you.

DolphinWords

Notes: Well, I rolled over to OCPC (Orange County Poetry Club) Wednesday night gathering later this time, and things were in progress--open reading, one after another... the place, the venue is perfect...two long rows of picnic benches together--somewhere to set one's stuff, write, take notes, set food and beer, which is served inside...the tables are outside, between two walls, sort of a narrow canyon, open to the night sky...overhead across, stage lights hanging from a girder that spans from one wall to the other...a microphone on stage...and the tables are long, so people way in the back are just folks with food and drink from the eatery inside...they listen or they don't...okay both ways...so there's this kind of fountain blend from inattention to attention right up to the microphone...I didn't scribble names down in my notebook...should have...next time...on the table are Creative Space Publishing books, all for ten dollars...seems to be thirteen authors and counting...master of ceremonies runs the show, and just how this has all come about a tale to learn...as some of the poems read were profane and edgy which usually businesses want no part of...venues are hard to find for poetry readings...I sat and listened, and time permitted more than were getting up, so of course I got asked, to fill the time, which I expected, and came prepared with one on paper, though on my iphone is everything!...and some were reading off their phones, some from their books, or another's book. and, of course, no one had anything memorized...I thought to escape though without reading mine, but was arm twisted kindly by the  few remaining towards the end...I had taken an iphone photo of the poem I wrote in Isa's book, as the book/Isa requests, see pic...I wanted to show her the pic...'see, I did my homework'...in fact I did, came prepared and thoughtful...so,so, I got up, tap tapped the microphone, 'hello hello', introduced the notion of writing of the poem in Isa's book, which won appreciation...they all seem to know one another...and read the poem...almost made it 'pop'...I could be real trouble with a microphone...and all of that is what I don't want to do...it was just four lines...in the pic one can seen my steel pen nib effort!...spent much of the afternoon studying manga dragons...want to illustrate the four lines...it's the Dragons Roar chorus...looking for caves, looking for dragons...the manga artists are so good at what they do...and they all seem to submerge in the manga look...much as Disney artists submerge in the Disney animation look...modern manga, I learn from wiki's take, began at the end of WW2, and Disney animation a big influence...easy to see!...manga artists work in groups...one group of Japanese girls born around about 1949 worked together...I was born in 1948...curios to see their effort...for sometime...poems up were written this afternoon--meditations on the evening peril!...oh, the proof copies of Women Can Do No Wrong, my little Greek play, from Creative, is 'shipped'...expectation of shipping was arrival next Thursday, but maybe it will come sooner...nine bucks, two copies...oh, I bought another OCPC published book, with author's signature...thought is to buy one a week, and give each a week of study...book has a grim title, Murder Your Muse by Sanbud Tehrani, but it's the usual poet sweetness inside, and Sanbud's scruffy appearance when he reads belies his command of words and their editing--neatness!...I assume he made the file to upload to Creative's template...I'm assuming everyone goes through what I did with my play...I'm listening to the poets, but studying how the books are made...time was I studied the poets!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:five poems and notes:9/20/16

Open To Interpretation

Nibs

Watching the steel nib masters
YouTube
I curl into a fetal
No
Not the calligraphers
The ones that draw
Manga
And tell those tales
Row on row
On the bookstores' shelves.
I scratch with my steel nib,
Make my runes
That no one can decipher.

Lines

I was relating another
Of my homely dilemmas
I have many
To have you maybe smile
To one of my story flirts
And
You went off
Adding lines
Sometimes thin
Sometimes wide
Sometime light
Sometimes heavy
Sometimes dark
Sometimes heavenly
Sometimes sharp
Sometimes soft
Sometimes straight
Sometimes curly
Embellishing my story
From sad to funny.
I'd relate what you said
But it's
Two lines crossed!

Human Being

Being a poet
Isn't like
Being a master calligrapher.
It's like,
Well,
It's just being
A human being.

Toe

I stubbed my toe
I want you to know.

Lazy

Making poems
You should be sitting at a desk
Not resting on your side.
You say.
Look at all those reclining Buddhas!
My answer!
That's just an excuse for being lazy.
You say.
Yes, I answer,
But a good one!

DolphinWords

Notes:  I'm exhausted...it took all day...I was going to let it go, but thought to look for a Word play template...there's lots...so fussed, and got it into the template...have changed the name of the little play from Zeus to Women Can Do No Wrong...and then found in my download file that Creative Space had sent me their template...so I figured out how to select all in Word, ctrl a, and ctr c copied ctr v pasted it from the Word play template into Creative's...it didn't fit of course...back and forth, back and forth, from 'interior review' to my word file...finally just deleted the character list, that text was over the margins...carry over format from the downloaded template...didn't really need it...ruins the play as story anyway...so, checked off 'interior', went back and got 'cover' checked off, and filled out the online federal tax thingy, that checked off...everything green!...so, now I wait...some real eyes will eyeball it, and, I think, ask if I want a proof copy sent...I think there is a small fee...so, I'm on my hands waiting...it was almost as tough to do as uploading from the discs, WOW, World of Warcraft, and getting the game to work!...have that task to do soon as I have funds for the new expansion!...but now I know how Creative Space Publishing goes, and I'll be in the swim at the OCPC gathering, where they all look to have one of these little self published books!...oh, I added too the dialog of Hippolytus and Phaedra from a month or so back...didn't change a word, so it is out of rhythm, but it has its own which kind of fits...H and P come across as real in contrast to the kind of mechanical, some literally, figures in the play...I put the dialogs just before Artemis enters...oh, I need to put the play in the blog now, all in one piece!...but I'll wait until I see the booklet's progress...I was going to work with the steel pen today, and take some pics of the effort, and the poems were for that...maybe I can do more tomorrow, and the pen too...I have to try a script...there's free download script templates too!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/19/16

Open To Interpretation

Neat

There are no traffic lights
In the air,
The birds fly everywhere.
We roll and skid
In the churning grid.

Organized?
Organized, me?
I can't imagine.

Recognition?
Recognition
Can happen
In a moment.
Change?
Change takes awhile.

I'm a mess?
I'm a mess,
You're right.
No way
I could ever win
A custom car trophy,
Even if our lives depended on it,
And they do.

Proficient?
Proficient
I'm not.
I can't
Balance
Precariously
For long.
With practice,
Maybe long enough.

I'm not the only one who's a mess,
And that's not an excuse,
Rather an observation.
Just look at the laundry mat I go to.
It's a mess in a messed up corner strip mall,
And the pool hall next door,
Where I practice pool while the clothes wash,
Is old, beat up, run down--a dive--
Perfect.
Someday, with my once a week practice,
I'll run the table,
Neatly,
Like I fold my cloths
Washed and dried.

You don't want to look inside my car,
Give me a chance.
I'll put the passenger seat back in,
There's still room for Maya, my dog,
In back with the back seats gone.

DolphinWords

Notes: Being observed you're not neat is a bit like being told you got some tummy flab...one wants to strike back, I'm not, I'm not...but there it is, there or there...and one never wears it, or it, well...and they're related, being overweight, not being neat...anyway, 'neat' covers a lot of things...I've been practicing writing with a speed ball metal nib pen, the small one...steel pens are like the old quill pens I imagine...my handwriting isn't very neat...neatness is 'fractal'...just how neat one is kind of permeates every thing one does...and it's a struggle to write out four lines of poetry with the steel pen and India ink...when I get one copy right, I'll post a pic...but the little pen's scratches are very pretty, each letter, each part of a letter, distinctive...with a ball point pen, or felt, or fine tip, there's a loss of the expression in the steel pen's writing...and, of course, typing, using the computer, there's none at all...I'm trying to figure out how to make an autograph, in both those senses I mentioned...one, an author's work in their own handwriting, and two, their signature...there's a real contrast between  handwritten books done with quill, steel pen, brush, and such, and mass produced mechanical printed books...and, I'm trying to make a Creative Press Publisher book...these are those books you make online through amazon...I'm using the play, Zeus, for it...I'm finding it very hard to do!...the biggest problem now is that the text I wrote it in, on the iphone, sent to Yahoo mail, copied to blogger, and copied from blogger to Creative's template, runs into the different text format problems...I almost got there, but it's like there are hidden 'artifacts' in blogger's text format, which I would think is just the old ASCII, and Creative's, which is Microsoft Word based...I didn't have Word, but I downloaded that last night, late...and copy/pasted Zeus into rich text Word, which I think, gets made into pdf format...from pdf,  Creative can make the books they make...thought here is, to have a 'pdf' word processor, and a pdf template all at Creative, and you just go to that and write and edit on line...but they don't let you write from scratch online...???...so, if I can get the rich text using word into good shape, they will accept it...the copy I sent up last night, got partially accepted...it just didn't get turned away like when I upload blogger's text format...but I'm waiting for full acceptance, and then I can maybe edit in their program...one can't do anything simply with computers...the evolution of word processing has been cobbled together...I haven't messed with Word for a long time...I get along fine with blogger's tools...but with Word, I can't even find line spacing...and the spacing is getting thrown off by the formatting by blogger...I think...even blogger's spacing goes awry when I post from editor to the blog!...no wonder I'm a mess, being surrounded by one!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:9/18/16

Open To Interpretation

Balls And Chains

Oh,
We drag around our
Balls and chains.
No,
It's not like you think,
Not our spouses and such,
Our eyes,
And our optic nerves.
We can't get enough
Of seeing you.
We're a sorry crowd
Rattling our chains,
Hobbling ghosts all
Wanting to be real
Too.

Dragons Roar
(Dragons In Our Caves)

Around the fire
In an encampment in the Conifer Forest,
Petra settled in with her
Black Ship Crew.
Pip, with his concertina,
Singing:

There's a dragon in my cave
You make me sing and roar
There's a dragon in my cave
That wants to be with yours
See our dragons wave
Together they'll sing and roar
There's dragons in our caves.

The crew joins in on the chorus:

There's dragons in our caves
Together we'll sing and roar!
There's dragons in our caves
Loud as the oceans' roar!

Black Dragon Pet
Sat disconsolate,
Black Dragons can't sing
But Pet was delighted to listen
And add her roar to each roar...
"Sing this please,
Petra,
Again,
At the Midnight Flowering!"
Pet's request.
The crew around the fire
We're in like a dome
Of hellish illumination,
The wide columns
Of the tall trees,
Their shaggy bark red against the blackness,
Encircled.
Between the trees,
Black shadows
In the forest's blackness
Began to appear--
Eyes fire lit glowing,
Gathering near.
Pip and the crew continued singing,
Closer to the fire moving,
Ned, Watteau, Madeline
Adding their verses to Pip's.


There's fire in the night
See our dragon's fight
There's thunder in the night
Hear our dragon's might!

chorus

There's a dragon in my cave
That likes to misbehave
There's a dragon in your cave
That wants to be my dragon's slave!

chorus

In Volcano Never
My dragon is dreaming
Snoring and steaming
In Volcano Never
Your dragon is dreaming
Rumbling and heating.

chorus

From Volcano Never
Black smoke the sky clouding
From Volcano Never
Red rivers o'er the earth snaking.

chorus

Over all of Nevermore
Black Dragons all dreaming
Over all of Nevermore
Black Dragons all snoring
Rumbling and steaming
Over all of Nevermore.

chorus

My dragon is waiting
For winter soon melting
Your dragon is waiting
For the Midnight Flowering.

chorus

Pet roared to one last chorus,
Then couldn't contain herself.
Pet Grabbed Petra in a claw
And hovered above
The startled crew around the fire.
"Follow us to Volcano Never!"
Petra said, as Pet flew off!
"But," Pip protested,
"There's more..."
"Grab your gear
Grab your instruments!"
Ishmael said.
The crew,
None to pleased,
And unnerved,
Took flaming sticks from the fire
To light their wending
Way through the
Dark menace of the Conifer Forest
Back to the Black Ship.

DolphinWords

Notes: from Black Dragon Lore: at the Equinox the Black Dragons of the Northern Reach celebrate the Midnight Ceremony...the retelling of the Spring and Summer events, and the memorial for those fallen...the Black Dragons of the Southern Reach celebrate the Midnight Flowering...this to say, when it is Fall in the North, and Spring in the South...when otherwise, things are reversed...ral...was looking for a 'handhold'...with 'Flowering' found it...changed 'Midnight Ceremony' to 'Midnight Flowering' in the first verse...and 'ocean waves' to 'oceans' roar' in the chorus...Pet wanted more roaring...updated Balls And Chains...'my' to 'we' and 'ours'...reads okay both ways...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:9/16/16

Open To Interpretation

Ready Or Not

When you see what I'm doing
You're going to say,
I want to do that!
Or,
I don't want to do that!
Or,
Nothing.
I'm ready for nothing
Or not.

Pindar

Best of all things is water; but gold, like a gleaming fire
by night, outshines all pride of wealth beside.

Oh,
What would Pindar
Say to me if I approached
For an autograph.
Have you an Olympian victory
For me to celebrate?
Oh,
I'd say,
You miss understand,
I just want your autograph.
You look impoverished,
My fees are high...
Please, an autograph.
Included will be a hero's tale,
A mirror embellishment of your success.
An autograph.
Oh, you've shaken my onward momentum,
I thought I was on the track. 
My apology. 
What is it you said?
Autograph. 
I'd like to have your autograph.
Which one?  They're expensive...
Just your signature please,
Here,
On a page in my book.
What a fine little book,
The substrate, so thin, what is it? 
And all these names...all unfamiliar...
Euripides, I see...and many pages to fill still...
I've only just begun...
Even for my signature, an expense...
I have a bottled water...
I am thirsty, it's warm...
Thank you, Pindar!
I'll sing of this success!
You sing too?...
What?...
Where did you go?...
This unholy place and its magic...hmmph...
And this water bottle...another marvel...

DolphinWords

Notes: Pindar quote is from here, his first Olympian Ode I think...I've yet to settle into reading them...the introductions have been the study so far!...apparently, Pindar had this notion that prizes won in competitions, while a vanity, were the one place humanity really shined...Greeks in general must have thought so too, as when a competition was in progress, the Olympics were just one of many sorts, wars and conflicts were set aside...there are two sorts of autographs, I find, one, the handwritten work of someone like Euripides...the Roman Pliny clan collected...all from ancient time's lost...and then there's  the autograph signature of the author by itself...I don't know if the ancients did that...there are no original works in anyone's handwriting, or singular signatures, left from Greek and Roman times...I don't know if signings on pottery and sculpture and such, count, when it's said there are no autographs left...a quibble...for sometime, why we collect, and hoard, stuff!

:)

DavidDavid









Best of all things is water; but gold, like a gleaming fire
by night, outshines all pride of wealth beside.

OTI:fifteen poems and notes:9/15/16

Open To Interpretation

Will O Wisp

She's a will o wisp.
At this dance,
Her card is always full.
I only rarely see her,
The room so crowded,
So loud,
We talk to one another's ears.
One dance,
I told her she was beautiful.
She wasn't sure,
I said "It's true",
She was so happy!
I was so happy telling her
Made her so happy!
I want to say that,
Over and over again.
It's part of my rehearsal now.
I rehearse everything,
Over and over,
Between each Friday,
Between each too rare dance!
You're beautiful,
And it's true.

Where We're Going

There's a crowd of poets
In my head,
Some living,
Most dead.
There's always a hubbub among them,
Like five pm traffic on the Boulevard.
I'm with them too,
Unnoticed,
That to be expected,
Crowd doesn't watch crowd,
We're watching where we're going.

Attention

I don't want attention
I don't want someone coming
Around
For an autograph
I don't want someone coming
Around
To punch me in the nose.

Blood

Poetry isn't brain surgery.
Poets don't worry about nicking an artery.
They're sloppy,
They get away with a lot of stuff.
But be careful with them,
They're all hemophiliacs.

Déjà Vu

I've been this way before,
I know that,
And it's maddening.
Déjà Vu co-opts my every move!

Wonders

I'm wondering how to support a harem,
And searching in my pocket
For enough change for a hamburger.

I'm wondering if I'll make it.
It's not Friday yet.
If I don't eat on Thursday
I can bring you flowers.

I'm wondering if I can do without it.
I once did.
Then, it didn't even exist!

I come in the door
And they wonder who I am.
I wonder when I'm with you
If you are always with them.
I wonder if I'm no one to you.
I know I'm no one to them,
I wouldn't have it otherwise.
I wonder if I'm no one to you.
They would have it so.
When I'm with you
They wonder who I am.
Me too.

I'm wondering
If I'm a wonder.
I know you are!

Room

There's not enough room
For everything on a tombstone.
In books there's too much!

Rub This Book

Here,
I've put myself safe in a book.
You can kick it all you want.
I'm not like a genie,
I'm not gonna jump out
When you rub the covers.
You're safe too!

Cuts

I can focus.
I can be like a laser.
I smell burnt flesh.
Oh!
I don't know how lasers work!
Sorry.
I just wanted to be impressive.
Here,
I can be your bandage,
I know this,
I patch up myself all the time.

ListList

I
Write
These
Logical
Illogical
Lists
Lists
Illogical
Logical
These
Write
I
Don't
Know
Why
Why
Know
Don't
I

Kitchen

I can jump in your kitchen,
Rearrange your pots and pans,
Show you temperatures to use.
You're in a foreign land
Trying to go native.
We're barbarians,
Be wary of meat dishes.

Camel

Oh,
I thought,
See a camel's head,
You know,
Right here beside my head.
A camels head,
Imagine it
When you give me that
Who are you? long stare.
You've seen camels,
All those long yellow snaggle teeth.
They spit.
They smell.
I can only benefit by compare,
And I need every benefit
When you stare.

Each Friday

Each Friday
Your friend smiles knowingly
So sweetly...
I could change my mind.

Familiars

Somewhere down South,
A car collided with a camel,
The news reports,
The windshield pictured crushed,
The road empty where the camel was.
I'm waiting for the movie coming out,
Colossal,
About a girl who has
A Forbidden Planet manifestation--
A Godzilla in Korea running amok.
I have a camel down South.
That girl in the POM
Pomegranate juice commercial
Has a gorgeous red transparent dragon.
You can even see its guts.
What's going on?
It's like Ghostbusters,
We all have familiars!?
I have a camel down South,
Maybe!

Dragons In Our Caves

Around the fire
In an encampment in the Conifer Forest,
Petra settled in with her
Black Ship Crew.
Pip, with his concertina,
Singing:

There's a dragon in my cave
You make me sing and roar
There's a dragon in my cave
That wants to be with yours
See our dragons wave
Together they'll sing and roar
There's dragons in our caves.

The crew joins in on the chorus:

There's dragons in our caves
Together we'll sing and roar!
There's dragons in our caves
Loud as the ocean waves!

Black Dragon Pet
Sat disconsolate,
Black Dragons can't sing
But Pet was delighted to listen
And add her roar to each roar...
"Sing this please,
Petra,
Again,
At the Midnight Ceremony!"
Pet's request.

DolphinWords

Notes:  Downtown Santa Ana has that old city grittiness...walking the streets...I parked a few blocks away, and when I arrived at the 4th Street Market for the Wednesday night Orange County Poetry Club gathering, nothing was doing...but just there are eateries, and a bar with tvs, the Angels on, so sat, braved one beer...picked up, but checked one more time...their banner is irresistible...a black sheet with a jolly roger...and wanted a closer look...thereabout, an attendant at a table with OCPC books...they're some kind of cross between self publishing and being published by a publisher...I bought one, ten bucks, and in the corner, as with each, the little jolly roger OCPC book's logo...I didn't know which one to buy, the table top covered, but the attendant pointed to one, said, 'She's the author...', the girl standing beside me...so I bought that one, and she offered to sign it, and we sat and talked a bit...she's an adventurer, been all over the world...being in one place all the while like I have a real contrast...we thought on that a bit...next week, I promised, I'll return...learned things don't get going at the event until later...Familiars...reference the POM red dragon commercial...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/14/16

Open To Interpretation

Zeus

continued...see two previous posts...
a play...

Olympus' Hall of Judgement
the chorus to one another


chorus
The Prosecutor is nameless...
Faceless...
The Defense is nameless...
Faceless...
Both covered head to toe!
They're automaton inventions...
Marvels of Hephaestus!
We must protest...
We're one short...
Now?
No, wait...
Something strange to these faceless adjudicators...
Only Zeus looks normal...
If that's what can be said
Of an incessantly weeping Lord of the Universe.
We can't address him...
We're mere mortals...
No... yes...wait...
Oh!

Ares enters the Hall

Ares
What in hades is going on here, Hades!

chorus
He's furious...
He's Ares!
Look how Hades looks down from the upper gallery!
Ares sees him...
Not us...

Ares
Don't you belong else ware!
And you Zeus, what are you blubbering about!?

chorus
Oh! see how Zeus takes a deep breath...
And composes himself in mid sob...
And dries his eyes immediately!

Zeus
It is only show for them.
I'm in control.

Ares
Control?

chorus
Ares grabs Zeus' chains...
He'll break them...
He's Ares!
Oh, the chains defy Ares!

Ares
These are adamantine,
Titan made. 
You are in a fix,
And what care you that Hades and his crowd
See you making crocodile tears?

Zeus
Oh, it's not for Hades and his lot I weep, but for them.

chorus
Zeus points to us...
Ares sees us...
This is no good...
There's no where to hide!

Ares
What the hell are they doing here?
Why ask...I slay them now...
Mortals can mingle with gods in hell, not here.

chorus
Ares draws his sword...
We're doomed...
Tears stream from our eyes now!


Prosecutor
Wait...

Ares
Why should I wait, you automaton piece of Hephaestus' junk...

Aphrodite enters the hall...

chorus
She IS beautiful!

Aphrodite
Yes, wait a moment, rash one,
It is my bequest that brought them here.
We immortals are not to be trusted to resolve this issue,
Those chains will only part by mortal's wisdom,
Such is the spell Artemis cast on them.

Ares
What wisdom have brief-life mortals?

chorus
to one another
We know war...
Yes...
Say it...
No you...
I'm terrified...
It might stay Ares' sword...
No, you...
We together then...
We stand...
And shout loud...
All of us...now!
We know war!

Ares
Then know this...

chorus
Ares rears back his sword high over his head!
Ares will lop our heads with one swoop!
Duck!
Too late!

Achilles
Wait!

chorus
That voice!
Sharp as the edges of Ares sword!
Achilles is standing!

Achilles
I vouch for them.

Ares
I know you.

Achilles
And I know you.

Ares
For half a god
I'll give them half quarter.

Ares slays two of the chorus

Aphrodite
Leave us brother,
Your ill  temper ill suits the subject at hand.

Ares
What subject?

Aphrodite
Love is in abeyance...

Ares
I hadn't noticed...hmmph...I can go frolic!

Ares leaves...

recess, the chorus together

chorus
I'm covered in sweat...
I wet myself...
I crapped...
Please...
We're all covered in blood...
Hephaestus servants attend to us...
Bath us...
New clothes...
Feed us...
Would that they could free us!
Oh, so many stars to see...
The air is cold and clear from this lofty perch...
Our town...
All dark now...
It's midnight...
Would we were sleeping, dreaming too...
Safe in our beds.

Prosecutor
Take your seats.

chorus
We're three short now.

Defense
Take your seats.

chorus
No, to be bold, no!
Our tradition requires twelve.
We stand on our traditions!

Zeus
And just so gods as well...
Hades, give them three...

Hades
It can't be done.

Zeus
We break that tradition this bit, and these chains break with it.

Hades
It can't be done, it would raise such a clamor!

Zeus
Hades, have you looked in your heart of late?

Hades
What do you mean?

Zeus
This pall...
Love's absence void...
In your heart,
Look for Persephone, as I looked for Hera....

chorus
Oh!
Hades is lost in thought!
His dark pupils shrink from fear!

Hades
Which three?

Zeus
Aphrodite's Achilles, to please her.
Artemis' Hippolytus, to please her.
And Phaedra, to please Hippolytus.

chorus
Look!
No longer dappled,
Achilles, Hippolytus, Phaedra,
Fleshed out,
And seated with us!

Prosecutor
We call our first witness, Hippolytus...
Hippolytus, tell us...

Artemis enters with Cupid's bow and arrows

Artemis
Enough of this, I was rash...whatever...
We must hurry, Ares prepares his chariot!

Prosecutor Defense together
Judge now, mortals!

chorus
Oh!
What to say!
We don't know!
We're mere mortals!

Zeus
Say any old thing...

chorus
The Earth is round.
Look!
The chains fall from Zeus!

on the road not far from the chorus' town

chorus
Do we know where we are?
I can't remember where we've been...
Nor I...
Yesterday, last night, seem just gone!
This morning is lovely,
The birds greet the sun.
That tall farmer with his plow,
Ask him...
Is this the road to town?

Achilles
It would be, I believe...

chorus
You look familiar...

Achilles
Maybe so,
I once knew fame and glory.

chorus
Pardon our hurry,
We're anxious to be home.
So long.

Achilles
So long.

Hippolytus and Phaedra enter on Pegasus

Hippolytus
How goes it, Achilles?

Achilles
It's new, but familiar,
I've planted men,
I can plant corn.
And you?

Hippolytus
Zeus has foresworn his dalliances on Earth,
But enjoys the mortal's gossip.
He returned Pegasus to me,
And on occasion now I make it to Olympus with the news.
See you...

Achilles
Yes, see you.

Pegasus flies up with Hippolytus and Phaedra.

DolphinWords

Notes: ...thank goodness for deus ex machina!

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/13/16

Open To Interpretation

Pan

How are you feeling Pan?
I can't find a revel
Anywhere
My flute moot.

It Rains On Mondays

Oh!
I have found a song,
An anthem
To make my own
About you and me,
Well,
Maybe just me.
From another's longing path,
A self similar pursuit
So recent
I can still hear
The lyrics and refrains
Echoing in the thunder and rain.

Zeus

(a play in the fashion of the Old Greeks...emphasis 'play' :)
continued from previous post...
scene: Olympus' Hall of Judgement,
the prosecution's and defense's exposition continues...

prosecution

Without Love
There's Hate
And Hate's not Chastity's ingrate
Chastity clothes Love,
As white Aphrodite's Dove,
So Love and Peace and Chastity's Virtue
Provide,
And deny
Hate and War and Unbridled Lust
Their tides.
Chaste Artemis ransoms Cupid,
Pursuing her jealousy,
Her thirst for victory
Dehydrates Aphrodite.
Now women contest everything,
Except Love,
Love has been defeated,
So no need.
Zeus' new law Artemis diverted,
Retreated all Love's advances.
We see in his own tears
All our fears.

defense

Artemis has her selfish way.
Is that not a woman's case?
Don't they all stomp their feet, 
"Only my way!" ?
Some imagined wrong
She nurtures
From her own sister:
So all this they say.
Not so.
Aphrodite has beguiled
Long enough,
Providing targets for Cupid
While Pan plays his pipes.
On Olympus
No one is safe from Zeus' advances
Allied with Aphrodite's lances.
And mortals even more so,
His disguises being such,
They suspect each swan's touch.
Look, in the gallery,
Poor Phaedra,
Struck by Cupid's surrogate dart
For Aphrodite's jealousy
Of Hippolytus' chaste love of Artemis...
Look, his body still not set
From being dragged beneath his chariot.
He sits in dignity beside Phaedra.
With one new law
Zeus thought to overturn all laws.
Bound as he is too,
Like all, mortal and immortal,
He saw a way out.
With half creation,
Women,
Unfettered with
'Women can do no wrong'
The other half would cry out,
Men,
Immortal and mortal,
With one voice,
"Zeus, rescind your choice!"
And Zeus, gladly, would
Sweep all laws into his hands.
But Artemis,
Before Men's outcry could mount
Grabbed out Cupid's arrows
From his quiver,
Snagged his bow,
And the worlds
Above and below went still,
Pan's pipes quiet.
Now she hides Love's
Stinging darts
With chaste concealment
And over all reigns,
Even over Zeus
Now in Chastity's chains.

recess, the chorus outside the Hall...

What time this is!
It is like the sea has no tides...
The shore no waves...
Sails no wind!
It's only been a week...
Relax!...
We'll remember this as a respite is all.
Zeus will return normalcy...
And make a holiday...
To commemorate Love's return.
You favor Zeus?
We were counseled neutrality...
Until all was heard...
Tattoos confided he preferred Hades...
Where is Tattoos?
He went to the can...
Look, far below...
On the high road's approach!
That crumpled figure...scorched.
Oh!
We're eleven then...
Six women...
And five men...
We shouldn't talk.
Did you see Hades' eyes?
Large and round...
Never blinking...
The pupils full black dilated...
And the iris yellow!
He looked right at me....
And me...
And me...
He perused all of us!
Looks from Hades
Are no flattery...
His visage is neither
Light nor dark...
Yes, like shadows
Beneath a wind blown tree...
That's why they are called shades...
They sit so quietly in the gallery.
Dusk falls on our town...
Far below hearth fires
Warmly glow in each home's windows...
One by one
Like the stars in the darkening sky...
I see no moon...
Is the moon too gone?

Take your seats...
One is empty?
We brought up twelve,
Plenty enough...
Take your seats.

We dare not speak...
We dare not move...
We dare not think...
Love's dilemmas were never like this...
Look, see how Zeus and Hades
Stare down one another...
Our suitors!

DolphinWords

Notes: Pan belongs in the play...when witnesses come forth...It Rains...reference again, Rainy Monday by Shiny Toy Guns...a lot of songs go on about Monday...listened on youtube to Monday Monday, an old favorite not heard in awhile...the violins seem quaint, the voices too...antique even!...Zeus...not to be confused with the previous poem, Zeus (the conflict with Typhon)...and I'm confused...I get lost in the back and forth between the prosecution and defense!...giving one's argument to the other!...it would take editing lawyers to keep it straight...reference Euripides' Hippolytus, that in previous post as well...you know, on the iphone, Google has done something wonderful...everything superfluous is gone...just the texts scroll...and there's a Tree In The Door listing that lists each OTI post with a snippet of lines...an index of poems first lines as it were...something I had wished for in my searches...the Poetry Foundation has this for poems they have transcribed, which leaves behind those still on jpeg pages of old issues and new...their command that one can't submit poems one has self published is stupid...poems purchased by another publisher I understand being off limits...I'll not, if I was pursuing such, I'm not, set aside poems to send to them, sit on my hands for response from them, for what?...up to six months!...there's a startup poetry reading group on Wednesday nights I've discovered on 4th street in downtown Santa Ana...all kids, from seeing the facebook page...and with youth's ambitions in youth's kitchen...if I attend, it will be a sneak...wish STG would re combine...same kind of dilemma...oh, we used to hear it...youth is everything everywhere...too...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:two poems and notes:9/12/16

Open To Interpretation

Sometimes

Sometimes
I leave the guided tour
Which I shouldn't do
There's safety in numbers
But on occasion
A glimpse of you reflected
In the museums' glass
Exhibit cases
Gives me pause
And I lag behind.

Zeus

chorus
Today,
We gaze from the overlook
On Mt. Olympus,
Our town distant below,
Muted brown and blue and grey,
Indistinct in this summer haze.
We could jump off
But the palace glass
Is between us and escape.
While our hands and feet are free,
Invisible bindings join us.
The gods have enjoined us,
Just the twelve of us
They trust
Rather than themselves
To sit in judgement
While they opinion Zeus.

What's your problem?
Zeus is always on trial...
And he always gets off...
He's  Zeus!

I hear we're to judge
Zeus' new law,
'Women can do no wrong.'
They need a law?
Ha... nothing changes.

Zeus in chains?
How can that be?
It's a physical impossibility.
Nothing physical about it,
Here there's no reality.

Six boys
Six girls
We'll be deadlocked
For eternity.

And Zeus is weeping
And making no defense
His sorrow in keeping
With his offense.

Do tell?
He did that?
Well,
If I was Zeus...
If you were Zeus
This would be hell.

Hades is coming to watch,
And all his gifts
Confiscated from us.

The gallery will be full,
Achilles and his entourage
Are coming too,
For this,
Shade will brave sunlight.

The dead are dead.
Their judgments written in stone.
We slender twelve alone
Alive will be read.

Time to return?
Pardon me while I linger,
Far below there,
Tiny to see,
My wife and family
On the road home.

Judge Zeus?
Zeus will judge us!
We'll be safe enough
They tell us,
"Just be careful."

Wave to them
From Olympus' heights,
Imagine what you will,
In this judgement hall
The doors close now,
We take out seats
And Truth's fate meet.

Fluffier!?
Yes,
I'd rather my crepes
Not resemble the plate.
I'll take fluffier anytime,
And this seat debilitates.

So proud...
Take your seat...
So what if next door
Are a tattoo parlor
And a donut shop.
Homer is on vellum
And donuts have holes.


prosecution
By Zeus' decree
Women have been set free
From judgement's fees,
No longer responsible
For anything possible
They can do what they wish,
And just so
Artemis stole
Cupid's arrows and bow
To Aphrodite's sorrow,
And Love is now hidden
From Zeus even!
The law gives Artemis denial,
Not Zeus.
His law,
His own flaw.
Aphrodite brings this trial.

defense
Truth has no bounds
You cannot untrue true,
Nor unlaw law.
Zeus endures this trial only
To make free again what
Artemis has hidden.
By his license,
Artemis' pretense,
She gives full reign to Chastity
And makes unlawful Love,
Not by Zeus' law
But by her jealousy
Of Aphrodite.
Innocent in your judgement,
Zeus will then demand
Cupid's arrows and bow
From Artemis' hands,
And returned to Cupid
There will be Love again
Above and below.

prosecution
Without retribution
Women now command
The starry heaven.
The humblest girl
Can give sitting
On Zeus' throne a whirl.
It was a silly law,
Zeus must have been
Drunk to think of it.
We all suffer now
The sober consequence.
No matter
That law once made
Can't be unmade.
So crimes once done
Can't be undone.
Done is done.
Move forward,
Punishment is the only course
And Zeus force
To regress...
Let Hades take his place
And Love restore...

to be continued

DolphinWords

Notes:...Sometimes...sometimes, I just go off...left off to go see a bit of the Rams and 49'rs...remarkable that one fellow has meme tagged everyone standing, seated, kneeling, hands raised, and such!...Mt. Olympus...reference the Ronald Reagan Federal Building, our local one...there's more than one!...it is architecturally gorgeous, and the view form the tenth floor a must sometime see...my last gathering in the high school gym, this was 1966, while everyone stood, one fellow sat...took note, it was a shrug...then...later they lay flat at Kent State...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/11/16

Open To Interpretation

Solomon Kane

Oh!
Solomon Kane,
Where did your avatar
Get those Black Glass Mirrors?

Regress

Mirrors mirrors
Face to face
Regressive race.

Labyrinth

Talking to himself Johnny:
Here I am
There I was
In this labyrinthian party.

DolphinWords

Notes: Solomon Kane...reference Robert E. Howard, pulp fiction author, creator of Conan The Barbarian...Howard had the contrary view that a barbaric world, as opposed to a civilized one, is the norm...hard to refute!...and hard to watch...hooked up to amazon video prime, free for a month, and clicked on the movie Solomon Kane...much mud, much rain, much blood...and there were these awful creatures that lived in standee mirrors that impressed...and set me off on a web search of mirrors and such in general...my conceit, I find, of 'black mirrors', the black glass surfaces of cell phones and lcd screens nowadays, was picked up and run with big time by...brb...Charlie Brooker who made a tv series called Black Mirror...which is on Netflix...I think I can snag a free month from Netflix, and maybe see some of these...episodes are touted as 'twilight zone like'...things come out of the black screens....which is what happens from the black mirrors in the movie Solomon Kane...don't know if they are in Howard's written stories...

quote

Charlie Brooker explained the series' title to The Guardian, noting: "If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The 'black mirror' of the title is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series

...I'm about generic as one can be, I mean, I'm going on about dragons, so it don't surprise me seeing my conceits here and there...Regress...and I thought of 'mirror mirror  on the wall, who's the fairest of them all'...that uses a 'double word'...before, I've gone on about double words...'DavidDavid'...when I sign a drawing or painting, I put the second 'David' below the first, a mirror image...I have this thing about mirrors!...'double words' are what happen when you double a word...any word...'touch touch' my favorite example...it's hard to explain, but I see like a noun verb, or verb noun, pairing...and it's recursive, like mirrors face to face...infinity mirrors they're called when mirrors are face to face...or Gabriel's Horn...which is kind of ominous!...and there is something odd about us...our left sides mirror our right sides, for the most part...two of everything...and then there's identical twins...and using the notion, 'what's above is what's below' , I leapfrog into thinking everything is done with mirrors!...somewhere, at the tiny level of things...and, for goodness sake, I find in studying wiki's take on 'mirror', for the 'black mirrors', it is just so!...brb...

quote

Microscopic mirrors are a core element of many of the largest high-definition televisions and video projectors. A common technology of this type is Texas Instruments' DLP. A DLP chip is a postage stamp-sized microchip whose surface is an array of millions of microscopic mirrors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror#Televisions_and_projectors

unquote

...I haven't looked for awhile, but I follow the progress of optical biophysics...I wonder if there is link...brb...

quote

 Birds have been shown to have imitative resonance behaviors and neurological evidence suggests the presence of some form of mirroring system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

hmmph...there's a lot...stumbled on 'mirror neuron'...got lost awhile in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles...Louis XIV...and the history of mirrors...I have about as much place in the journals of optical biophysics and such, as I do in the Sun King's house, and such...sometimes I break away from the guided tours...Labyrinth...and I got a bit lost in this reflective study of mirrors!...but it came to me, the recursive writing of the character in the movie The Shining, Jack Nicholson's...repeating is like mirroring...an endless loop is a kind of an 'infinity mirror'...I've only seen the movie, Stephan King authored the book...and I haven't seen it in awhile, but apparently, Johnny in the movie talks to the hotel in the hotel's mirrors...so, movie producer Stanley Kubrick is playing with the notion of mirrors, and something else...separate realities...and somehow in all this, I happen on something called the Mandela Effect...this happens when two people remember things differently, not because of being mistaken, but because things did happen differently...they each have a separate reality, a separate universe...hereabout, I looked up Mirror Mirror, an old Star Trek episode...it has this conceit...the transporter messed up and exchanges the Enterprise crew with another Enterprise crew in another universe...a mirror like duplicate with differences...not an identical twin!...that plot gets used a lot in science fiction...applying it to the everyday, as the Mandela Effect folk do, is fringe...from wiki's take on Labyrinth (not the movie), I learn that...brb...

quote

Labyrinth is a word of Pre-Greek (Minoan) origin, which the Greeks used for the palace of Knossos in Crete, and it is derived from the Lydian word labrys ("double-edged axe").^[9][10] This was a symbol of royal power, which suggests that the labyrinth was originally the royal Minoan palace in Crete and meant "palace of the double-axe" (the suffix -nth as in Korinth).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth

unquote

...well, a 'double ax' is one ax mirrored by another...

quote

The labyrinth is the referent in the familiar Greek patterns of the endlessly running meander, to give the "Greek key" its common modern name. In the 3rd century BC, coins from Knossos were still struck with the labyrinth symbol. The predominant labyrinth form during this period is the simple seven-circuit style known as the classical labyrinth.

same

unquote

...I look for the calendar in the old myths, and art...the double ax could represent the old and new year...which is just, in one sense, the simplest, days getting short and days getting longer, summer mirrors winter...represented graphically, this looks like the 'meander', or the double ax...and I imaging labyrinths expand on this...they have something to do with passing of the seasons...there's a mirror aspect to the double ax, and too, to the meander...and maybe too, to the labyrinth...bumping into myself a bit as in the carnival house of mirrors!...

:):(:

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/10/16

Open To Interpretation

Docents

So, so,
I have a seashell poems collection of my own,
Too,
And after I've softly dissolved,
As soft things do,
Maybe these poem accretions will be arrayed
On the big museum work table
For the docents to catalog and identify,
And maybe muse,
Where and when and how
Did this one come by?

Spell

The Mage had transformed into a Hermit Crab,
And the Demon frustrated in his search,
The tide pool crowded, stirring,
With turban shell snails,
Empty turban shells,
Turban shells with occupant hermit crabs.
The Demon picked through them,
Examining one by one.

Poems are like seashells,
The soft spell casting mollusk long gone...

The Demon thought to ask one of the Turban Snails
Which and where the Mage's hiding turban shell
And set a Turban Snail on a high barnacled rock.

Canned movies, canned spaghetti,
Impressed poems you watch and hear...

The Mage hurried to complete a spell
While the Demon interrogated the Turban Snail.

Covered books,
Printed poems you read...

The Demon waited for the soft
Turban Snail Mollusk to slowly
Extend its antenna
Eyes,
Emerge
From its Turban Shell...

Memory memorises
Turban poems you dream...

The Mage's spell took,
And the Demon joined the Barnacles.

Motion

Summer crowds gone
Time for rollovers to the ocean
A motion carried notion.

DolphinWords

Notes:...tried to make something with that line from yesterday...'poems are like seashells...'...reference all the hours playing WOW, World of Warcraft!...summer crowds gone...time for rollovers to the ocean...a motion carried notion...oh, as a docent, for too short awhile, I cataloged donated seashell collections at Bower's Museum...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:6/9/16

Open To Interpretation

The Shore Of Nevermore

No one wanted to go ashore,
The long slender craft's bow scrubbed up the shingle,
Secure against the coming and going waves.
Far to the east along the Rocky Shore,
The volcano Never,
And before them the tall trees of the Conifer Forest,
The black sand beach.
Ishmael looked them over,
"Well?" he asked them.
"It's Nevermore, Chief," Shaw said, "No one returns from Nevermore."
"Shhhh...be quiet..." Ishi said, "a Black Dragon comes..."
Ichi listened, and the crew scanned all the dark clouded sky.
Ichi grabbed his bow, and prepared an arrow...
"Oh, it is the same Dragon that took Dulcinea..."
The crew couldn't see a thing,
Their heads all turning about, craned upwards...
And then the Dragon came out of the low clouds,
But not attacking,
But rather making a slow leisurely approach...
Nonetheless, Ichi let loose an arrow when the Dragon was in range...
And to Ichi's amazement the Dragon dodged it easily,
And the Dragon followed the arrows flight as it went harmlessly by,
And as it lost momentum, and was falling to earth,
The Dragon flew beneath it...
Ichi smiled.
"Ichi, meet Ishi." said Dulcinea,
And Ichi graciously bowed,
And accepted his returned arrow from Ishi.  
Black Dragon Pet calmly sat on the black sand beach. 
The crew, not so calm, one by one jumped
Over the gunnels of the slender craft,
Waded through the surf,
And gathered before Dulcinea, Ishi, and Black Dragon Pet.

Dolphinwords


Notes:..hmmph....'Ichi meet Ishi'...irresistible...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/8/16

Open To Interpretation

Push
  !?

Behind every Hollywood
Black Glass Door
Charlie Sheen
Makes sense
Make no sense
Donald Trump
Charlie Sheen
Donald Trump
Wannabe
Charlie Sheen
Wannabe
Donald Trump
History has died
Donald Trump
It was all a lie
Charlie Sheen
Donate to me
Donald Trump
I'll donate to you
Charlie Sheen
Elephants float
Donald Trump
I emote
Charlie Sheen
Money here
Donald Trump
Money there
Charlie Sheen
Donald Trump
Charlie Sheen
Good look'n
Donald Trump
Good fook'n
My muth s fll
Charlie Sheen

  ?!
Back

DolphinWords

Notes: the Douris Cup with the image of Jason being vomited out by the Golden Fleece protecting dragon is in the museum collection of the Vatican...having noted that, I noted there is a traveling show of Vatican museum pieces currently at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library...I don't think the cup is in the show,  if so, it would be a must go!...and I was mulling over something I read in the study of Robert Creeley...he and Charles Olsen put there heads together and came up with something called 'process poetry'...brb...check that...'projective verse'...

quote

Composition by field opposes the traditional method of poetic composition based on received form and measure. Olson sees the challenge of the transference of poetic energy from source to poem to reader, and the way in which that energy shifts at each juncture, as particularly of concern to poets who engage in composition by field, because the poet is no longer relying on a received structure as a propulsive force.
see link
unquote

and I got the sense from that, that the actual writing of a poem was to be considered, and I thought, oh, they are talking about like casting a spell, and so I googled up 'magic'...writing at first, was spell casting...for sometime I need to study Arthur C. Clarke and his notion of 'magic'!...anyway, I got to thinking that the poems we see are just the left over 'husks' of some spell the poet was casting when writing a poem...a collection of poems somewhat like a book of seashells...poems are seashells, the soft spell casting mollusk long gone...hmmph...written poems have their own beauty, as do the Pindar Odes...but they're commemorative...anyway, I went to search 'magic poetry', and found a nice poem, Belief In Magic by Dean Young...and on reading it I went into a funk...that poem reads too easy, as mine do too...hmmph...and from that I noted in the google list, Charlie Sheen quotes...and went further into a funk...his quotes are pretty good, and have that 'projective verse' punch to them...clearly, he's been to the Eleusinian Mysteries, and has an advantage...I had a poem in mind the other day, and lost it...it was to be about the news, and how I could push back at it...on my notepad, I wrote, Push!? to try and remember something of it...and that went together with some doggerel I was doing after Charlie Sheen...I'd write a line or two, and add 'Charlie Sheen'...the lines were just any old thing that came to mind, the more sardonic and vulgar the better!...Charlie Sheen is a talented actor...and the 'winning' persona he projected, real or not, I say not, as he has family, charities, sympathies and such, took hold for awhile...much fun!...and as I was doing these Charlie Sheens, endless they can be like Burma Shaves...the moon is fun I love your bun Charlie Sheen...eeesh...anyway, as I was doing them, it came to me that Donald Trump is using Sheen's schtick, his act, his...crowd control, media manipulation...it's the same technique!...so I threw Trump into Push, and added a little Olsen typography with ?! and Back...and there you have it, Charlie Sheen...ral....oh, spell checking I find that 'stich' is a word for a line of poetry!...

:)

DavidDavid