OTI:four poems and notes:10/22/16

Open To Interpretation

Sand

Oh
We arrive unknown
And leave soon forgotten
No matter what sensation
Between tides
We drew in the soft sand.

Petals

Oh
We live close to the ground
Like flowers
When our petals wilt
It's a short drop
Not likely we can
Build your palace
Or moated castle
But when you decorate
Only our songs
Can echo through your halls
Only our freedom speak
Through your walls.

Trap

The Golden Fleece was a trap,
Helen of Troy too,
And Penelope at her loom
Waiting for Odysseus to come home.
A trap for every school boy
On a summer afternoon.
Soon enough each will grow to see
Glory Beauty Family
How illusory they can be.

Traps

The Homeridae beneath the Dodona Oaks one afternoon...

Twain
Well, it is a trap, Jason and Orpheus,
On the Black Ship Argo,
Chasing after the Fleece again.
Poe
Don't forget Glauce.
Emily
Of course, there's always a girl.
Melville
What fishing line doesn't have a hook?
Dana
We can never be entirely free,
But to oppression,
We can be entirely opposed.
Poe
We consider imprisonments?
Verne
Of myriad sorts below and above the wide sea. 
What does Nemo want with a Black Ship? 
He has Calypso back.
Poe
Yes, how did that sleight of hand happen?
Emily
A lost fragment.
Petra found her searching
The Humankind villages of Nevermore,
Returned Calypso to Nemo.
Cervantes
Today it is so hot, not a breath of wind. 
We share the shade under the Oaks
With the dry wing chatter of grasshoppers;
An afternoon lassitude over these storied hills:
Windmills still,
Dragons napping.
Poe
A confinement
With the door open,
What sweeter torture?
Dana
Well,
Perhaps an earthquake;
It's that kind of weather
I knew in the West.
Twain
Just so, I too.
This round globe
Has its ways
To rattle our cage.
Euripides
Let me turn the page...
Jason and Medea rage.

DolphinWords

Notes:  I get interrogated...it just happens...a casual conversation about the baseball game with another peddler on the stationary bikes at the gym inevitably, inevitably, turns to employments...backed into that corner, I have my ways to get out...today I tried Cicero!...on facebook there was a post up pointing out the deceitfulness of a candidate, imagine or real, I dunno, and in the comment scroll was a quote from the old Roman orator, Cicero...now, as it happens, on the nightstand is Laurel Masterpieces of World Literature, Classical Age, and I've been in and out of it...hadn't read Cicero yet, but he's in there, so I looked him up...read the introduction, browsed a bit, and happened on this...

quote

Now there are many at present, and there have been many in the past, who in the pursuit of this peace of mind I have been talking about have withdrawn from the affairs of state and fled to the refuge of retirement, among them the best known and by far the most distinguished philosophers and numbers of men of high seriousness who have not been able to stand the conduct either of the people or of princes, and have lived in the country enjoying their estate.  Their aim was like that of kings: to lack nothing, and obey no one, to live independently, the essence of independence to live as you please.
... ... ...
(Cicero goes back and forth comparing those who take up the political life, with all it's vicissitudes, with these close to the earth philosophers, and comes to this...)

This is easier for the philosophers, since there are fewer things in their lives open to the blows of fortune, since their needs are less, and since if misfortune befalls them, their fall cannot be so heavy.

Moral Courage: The Retired Life
The Duty of Public Service
Cicero
Laurel Masterpieces of World Literature, Classical Age
pp485-6
paperback

end quote

Nearly everyone of the author introductions in this book goes on about how difficult it is to translate the classical authors.   And it may be why my eyes glaze over so often!  Cicero can really go on and on, and must have been Shakespeare's model for Polonius...brb...there's a bunch of side by sides...

quote

Cicero's advice on practical philosophy in this volume make his the most likely role model for Shakespeare's Polonius. 

from the comment reviews

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10862190-selections-from-the-writings-of-cicero

endquote


where was I...oh, so I'm going on about Cicero at the gym...trying not to be pigeon holed as a wastrel and a vagrant...and the conversation went back to baseball...Cubs!...Sand...these old poets often wrote just commonplace conceits...maybe they weren't commonplace back then...maybe they still aren't...Petals...'close to the ground'...'short drop...reference Cicero's 'their fall cannot be so heavy'...took a bit to get to this note!...Traps...now and then a resort to the 'authors in eternity' for the Black Ship Tale...I cant remember if it was Arthur C. Clarke, or Ray Bradbury, who had on Mars a community of deceased writers, spirits that would continue so long as someone was reading their writings...now maybe 'Sand' is not so commonplace!...oh...I'll look again...brb...

quote

The crew of a rocket ship headed for the planet Mars is dying and plagued by nightmarish visions and dreams. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Mars – supernaturalist authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Ambrose Bierce — are also dying, fading from existence as the people of Earth burn the last of their books, outlawed a century ago for their superstitious themes. Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare are there too, although Dickens bitterly resents his "ghettoization" among genre writers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exiles_(Bradbury_story)

hmmph...time was 'Beyond The Pillars Of Hercules' was like Mars when it had 'canals'...and Edgar Rice Burroughs!...reference 'authors in eternity'
"I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary; the authors are in Eternity." William Blake (I've had that as a refrain in my head for like forever, this link is to a gigantic blog all about Blake!...2004 intro)...update Sand...changed 'from your walls' to 'through your walls'...now it's interesting!...and...and I change it back to 'from'...I need to knuckle down on this one and get it right!...'knuckle down'?...where's that from, marbles?...brb...yep...I was very good at marbles...

:)

DavidDavid