OTI:three pics, two poems, notes:9/30/17

Open To Interpretation

 

 

 

Pied Piper

 

I ain't no pied piper

To be want'n' followers,

No saintly martyr

To be bedecked with flowers.

This world's enough

To know my footprints

Wave smoothed from rough;

She laughs away my tints.

Game

Hercules' lion skin was old,

War torn and worn,

Unrecognizable,

Now no more than

A mendicants hooded garb,

And he looked an

Impoverished fool

Running about the battlefield

Shouting something

Incomprehensible to hear

To the soldiers entrenched

On either side.

Theseus' Greeks,

And Minos' Cretans,

Had taken a break,

Too exhausted to retrieve their dead.

Giddy to be alive,

They found amusement in

Watching Hercules chase after a dog,

So far out in the field,

To distant to determine size,

Or who--

The warriors met surprise

When Hercules and Cerberus

In their career

Drew near one side or the other.

Then the warriors fell silent.

Tall Hercules they knew,

The three headed dog they knew of.

Hercules leaned on his knees

To recover his breath,

Said to the hiding,

"I don't suppose you could help

And wrestle down my hound."

No one spoke.

Hercules over them,

Cerberus over Hercules and them;

Cerberus seated, tongues lolling,

Awaiting the game's continuance.

Hercules rose up impatient,

Said,

"I suppose not."

And leaned forward

Reaching to grab Cerberus by the scruff.

"Damn!"

Hercules said,

And pulled back his hand in pain,

His palm red, bloodied by bites.

Each singular hair

Of Cerberus' coat

Ended in a snake's head.

One warrior,
A bolder sort,

With temerity,

Grabbed up a nearby severed limb

And pitched it far out in the

Corpse strewn field.

Cerberus barked a high pitch

That hammers ears,

And bounded after the arm.

"Damn."

Hercules said,

Slapping the timorous bold

About the head,

Making his eyes red.

"Off we go again!"

Cerberus high barks

Called her litter

And they came running across the field.

Club wielding Hercules

Dispatched the mounted Shades

Back to Hell,

Grateful for something

Straight forward familiar to do.

And the three headed Hounds

Settled in about the field

Like so many
Three headed Ravens.

Three whistles pierced the gloom,

And Cerberus ran to

Orpheus,

Arrived with Hermes,

Dragons Cadmus and Hermione.

Gingerly, Cadmus and Hermione

Hovered above Cerberus

And fastened the adamantine collars.

"A handy tune to have,"

Said Hercules to Orpheus,

"Best I learn it."

And Hercules took the leash

From Orpheus.

"This best I hold."

Hercules said.

DolphinWords

 

Notes: posted the # stradaeasel pics...top pic is the extras, and third, last pic, is the thirtieth...got to where Magnolia Street starts to cross PCH, and thought a war had started!...airshow along Huntington Beach...unexpected...Blue Angels I think...made my last contest plein air a painting of the jets...sorta...:)...Zora, my grand nieces cat, took an interest in my Cerberus sketch...thought myself it looked more like a three headed cat than a dog!

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/29/17

Open To Interpretation

 

Collars And Leash

 

Oh,

Beside the creek

On a pleasant afternoon

Some of the crew,

Madeline and Pip,

Watteau and Ned,

Composing new songs,

Challenging the newcomer,

Blue Sky,

Who sat beside Petra.

Petra,

Laughing at their banter,

Said,

"You've met your match,

Cerulean."

"Just so." said Blue Sky.

Orpheus, SunCloud,

Stood by and smiled.

Then from nowhere,

Thunder rolled

And the earth shook

And a crack in stone ground

Opened

And Orpheus fell into it,

Like a man's shadow

Down a cliff's face,

And gone from the day.

Orpheus wandered among the Shades,

Inquiring,

And came up before

One who might know.

"What brings me here,

I thought I had your dispensation,

Hades?"

Said Orpheus.

"Don't get your flute in an uproar,"

Said Hades.

"That still stands.

I have a problem,

Cerberus is loose,

Hercules has given chase,

But headstrong as Hercules is,

He left behind Cerberus' adamantine

Collars and leash.

Cerberus ignores my whistles

But maybe your warbling tweets

She'll answer to."

"I thought Cerberus was male?"

Said Orpheus.

"You thought dead was dead."

Said Hades,

"Take the leash and collars,

Find Hercules."

Orpheus looked overhead,

Up the crack he fell through,

The opening in the dark

Like a distant tiny star.

"How do I get back?"

Said Orpheus.

"Your lyric has a refrain."

Said Hades,

"Call down your Dragons,

Cadmus and Hermione.

Hermes is on his way.

Oh, and they're getting out too."

Added Hades.

"They?"

Asked Orpheus.

"Cerberus had a litter;

The dead are bounding

Heavenward astride

Three headed hounds."

Orpheus thought long

While he waited among

The somewhat jealous

Incorporeal twittering Shades

Gathered around him

Listening to him sing,

Absentmindedly,

Long forgotten tunes.

"We barely fit

That long chimney.

Wings folded up we dropped."

Said Dragon Cadmus with

Dragon Hermione

Arriving.

"I have become thin."

Said Orpheus.

"If this is to become habit,"

Said Hermes,

"I'll have Hephaestus

Fashion winged shoes

For all your feet.

Oh,"

Added Hermes,

"Another thing, Orpheus,

Hades said.  You'll need to

Whistle thrice."

"Hmmph,"

Said Orpheus,

"Next he'll tell me how to sing.

Enough 'ohs'...

There!...up we go!"

Orpheus hung on

To the adamantine

Collars and leash.

 

 DolphinWords

Notes: fussed with the Black Deck Crew in the wee hours...then slept until past 4pm, with an up and down to feed Maya, my dog...didn't eat myself...and so rolled out to Huntington Beach kinda late, like almost five...not going to be much time for the hashtag stradaeasel plein air painting, so on the way thinking how to do a sunset...lay down the oranges and yellows, let them dry, then the blues in the sky...blues over wet oranges are a problem...they turn green...so, nearing the beach, I find the horizon all fog...fog even drizzling...well, this'll be easy and quick, I thought, greys, some greens for the ocean, a few waves...and done before the light is gone...it's a long slog across the beach, and with my head down contemplating, didn't know the sky cleared in a band along the horizon...the fog was lifting...not really fog...a low overcast...and the band was going through permutations of orange and yellow...and then the sun a silver coin, becoming golden...by the time it reached the horizon, the sky was clear as a bell...a half moon high overhead...made the painting of what I saw first...just the band...and it's okay...but there were all kinds of other paintings in the sky as the sun set...such is plein air!...tomorrow is last day of contest...we post a pic of all the 30 paintings, and I'll post that here tomorrow...have more than thirty, as I did extras with the extra paint on the pallet to start...then just got in the habit of doing two or more...Picasso is said to often have done two of the same, one for himself, one to sell...tonight only time for one...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/27/17

Open To Interpretation

 

Grin

Oh, how do I stop their machinations?

So? Why bother? Their news doesn't arrive

At your doorstep like the Daily Nation

Newspaper tossed, a rattlesnake alive.

My fears my tears render the clouds' downpour.

You think the sky sympathetically

Hesitates?  Pausing the torn shorn winds for

Everyone their practicality?

I wear their visage, I bare their burden.

White crosses at sunset beside a road.

They shade against a glaring horizon.

Crowded the roads home, another day sold.

Who the hell poisonous you think you are?

Oh, with their grin, I dare to come this far.
 

 

Plait

Where become after words alone empty

You can find me, a refrain, an echo,

Or something made nothing then something be

Like a spider web a night surprise 'Oh!'.

Then was our moment, now is all I have

This my memory album, songs sang we.

Begrudge me nothing?  Nothing I dearly save.

This is all my serenade, Destiny, 

What could I know when nothing is to know?

There we were once, and from then gone to when.

This world everyday an old new show.

Maybe is someday come around again.

I didn't plait, my outward look stated,

But from where that then I your night mated.
 

 

Afternoon

Ishmael and Dana

Watched the Butterflies and Ducks

While Blue Sky was moored

Beside Petra

Like a Black Ship

Tied to the first buoy

In Harbor's bay.

The creek babbled

And the waterfall roared

While the Ravens

Worried Hawk.

Bobcat hopped up on the

Twin fallen Cedars,

Gave everyone a long look,

And walked across,

Disappearing into the bracken ferns.

DolphinWords

Notes: thought to start out with 'Clothing', previous post, to sorta begin another 'sonnet' sequence with just the three four line stanzas and the envoy...no set rhyme or meter...it's not easier that way, especially now having done a few rhymed meter sonnets, I'm always suspicious there is more 'around the bend' if I reach for the rhymes and meters...the conceits usually are there however things are laid out...so, dunno...anyway, early early morning these two rolled out...and a wonder what to do with the Black Deck crew...doing the hashtag stradaeasel thing really is diverting...the thirty day challenge to do a plein air painting each day...kinda pushes poems back away in line...I've stuck to acrylics, and moved from colors to just black and white...and realize I can do what I do with charcoal on newsprint on canvas with black and white acrylics...there is a whole range of things that happen mixing acrylics with water because they dry so fast...everything from very thin wash to a glob of unmixed paint...and the nap of the canvas, the texture, comes into play too...I did one painting on hardboard, and that was different...so along with the paint on the brush drying so fast, the surface being painted on is important too...today, by mischance, I painted over an area where I had experimented with nu pastel, a blue stick, on the canvas...had thought to do pastels on canvas, as stretched canvases are a much stronger and durable ground than mi tientes papers I use when wanting to do archival pastel...my titanium white didn't quite cover the blue splotch on the canvas, and an interesting effect showed through...in the sky it looks like rain, in foreground reflection of rain...this an ocean scene...and very subtle...what else could I do with pastel, or pastel dust!...can I blow, airbrush pastel, powdered paint, though a straw, a tube, like the ancient cave artists?...get blends and fountains mixing paint dust into the black and white acrylics?...an experiment, and report to come!...oh, OCPC is taking a 'hiatus' until next year...hmmph...Izzy filled in last year, but is off about the world somewhere...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem and notes:9/21/17

Open To Interpretation

Clothing

To play the game

You needed to become

A game piece

A toon

A lovely visual fantasy

Of all your favorite vanities

Tailored clothed

Tailored unclothed

Tailored dance

To your own musicology

Of everything you fancy

Beyond your biology.

Oh, you come away

Still in costume

To walk a sidewalk mile

And make me smile

To see you determined

To make the buildings

Lean and sway

The automobiles

Become saddled fast toon turtles

In a carnival's ride traffic jam whirl.

Oh, that long stare you give me

Like a pursed lip kiss

On some poor cursed frog,

Reminding me how plainly I'm me.

You model your magic for us to draw from,

And we haven't your wand, just what we came with.

 

DolphinWords

 

Notes: rolled over Tuesday evening to The Gypsy Den...this after sitting a bit at Magnolia Street Beach doing up my daily plein air for the hashtag stradaeasel contest...last few have been just black and white...Russell, the Western painter, painted and drew in black and white for years...charcoal on newsprint drawing is my favorite...and surprisingly, after resorting to black and white because of the frustrations of manipulating acrylic paint, I find that it has many of the properties of drawing with charcoal on newsprint...anyway, at the Den readout 'Salem' and 'Heart'...

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

OTI:three poems and notes:9/19/17

Open To Interpretation

 

Big Show

 

Oh, a grim fate,

To be called up from the throng

To dance awhile on stage with you

To snorts and guffaws,

And then the worst--

Kind applause

As I'm mosh pit style

Thrown back to the throng.

A show remembered,

A show forgotten.

I stand at the dock

Watching your Black Ship

Sail off to another Town,

Mine never to be the same.

Such are Pirate raids.

And you would've thought

So many hands

Wouldn't drop a pop fly.

 

Eavesdrop
 

Parmesan cheese on black spaghetti:

Her profanities flavor her tirade--

Purse in one hand, phone in the other.

Sunglasses cover both their eyes--

But she's standing,

And he's down leaned up

Against an abandoned store wall,

Oblivious as a homeless napping.

But on the cement

Their travel luggage--long handles,

Tiny wheels.

Car Radio on, I'm waiting for

The laundry drying done,

So don't quite hear her what about,

My eavesdropping this time

Taken aback--

I talk too much.

But geezus,

What a bitch,

What a bastard.
 

Heart

 

Black stretch pants,

Short short sleeves

Grey T,

Grey T for him too

Of the slender hips

And dark jeans.

They walk out.

The guitarists'

Open mic nite done.

The host plays one last tune

And I'm out the door too

While the applause tapers...

"Wait!"

I want to tell them,

"Maybe you could pose for a photo,

Seeing you look like models.

Here, sit cross legged

Indian style,

On this wide round flower planter's

Colorful tile bench,

Pow wow face to face.

Rest the very top of your

Foreheads one to another,

And pretend in each of your hands

Music manuscripts,

The top edges just touching.

Seen side on you should make then

An upsidedown silhouette heart."

Oh, I haven't my cameras,

And you are strangers too far ahead,

One with her curving meander,

One with his straight and narrow,

Some how making Town's

Night streets a dance floor

For twenty somethings.

 

DolphinWords

 

Notes: rolled over to Gypsy Den thinking it was OCPC's nite, but no, open mic nite for the guitarists...half a tuna melt with adobe stew...was going  to take home some of the stew, very good, but forgot it and hurried out...the lovely couple looked familiar, but no, someone else, though still familiar somehow...I could have had a viral clip at the laundry mat...she just went on and on in the hot sun looking on on his indifference...Big Show in baseball parlance refers to the major leagues...more than a few untold forgottens bounce up from the minors and bounce right back down, but happily pixie dusted...

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

 

 

OTI:one poem and notes:9/17/17

Open To Interpretation

Tie

"Once a second comes in

For a first,

A third must follow,

A second of the second,

And a fourth follows the third,

A second of the second of the second,

And then a fifth follows the fourth,

A second of the second of the second of the second.

This sequence of five begins over in the event of a tie."

Said Nemo.

"Worms in their burrows,"

Said Petra,

"What are you babbling about, Nemo?"

"Citing the rule book."

Said Nemo.

"The sun behind a cloud,"

Said Petra,

"Orpheus is done then."

"Just so," said Nemo.

"Unless there is a tie.

Then he would come to stage

In the third inning of the second innings."

"We're ahead 4 to 2,"

Said Dana,

"If we win the fourth inning it will be 6 to 2. 

We will be assured a tie

Even if the Hexagons win inning 5,

And their home advantage inning 6.

True?"

"True."  Said Nemo.

"The ledge's edge, "

Said Petra,

"Are the innings after a tie, sudden death?

Whoever wins an inning wins?"

"They're something," said Nemo,

"But not sudden.

In the event of a tie, the innings don't end. 

Score is kept, but no one wins, and no one loses."

"What use a round arrow?"

Said Petra,

"And I suppose I remain Judge."

"The whole purpose of the contest,"

Said Nemo, taking a deep breath,

"Is to arrive at a tie.

Then the poets have a nursery,

A back and forth between

Tried and true

Pentagon and Hexagon champions

Making poems

Nurtured by a truer than true Judge."

"Hands on hips!"

Said Petra

"How long has Blue Sky been champion?"

"Since the trade, since you last saw him."

Said Nemo.

"All that while a tie?"

Petra asked.

"No," said Nemo, "he has defeated

All the Pentagon's challengers.

There have been no ties

Over all that long time."

Petra looked across the theater,

Seeing Blue Sky prepared, standing,

Ready to take the stage.
"We will defeat the Hexagons."
Said Petra,
"We have poets.
Poe will be next.
Then, Black Dragon Pet."
At this, Nemo's eyebrows rose.
"What else happens, Nemo,"

Petra continued,

"Besides our being able to go home,

If we win?"

"Blue Sky is ours, his life to do with as we will."

Said Nemo.

"And our champions free too?"
Asked Petra.

"Normally, no," said Nemo,
"But I've arranged a trade for such a contingency,
And William and his players have agreed to it. 
The Pentagons are eager to have him. 
In fact,
The Hexagons are delirious at the prospect--
I've brought them Euripides. 
They've had quite enough of Blue Sky."

"Gordian's knot re-knotted!"

Said Petra.

"And who was the sorry fool

Truer than true Judge all this long while?"

Nemo looked down, said,

"Me."

"Just so," said Petra.

"And how so not so now...?"

"Oh,"

Said Nemo,

"Judges are free to stand down

Anytime,
The contest at their whim."

"But you said..."

Said Petra,

"Deus machina!

Never mind."

Petra went to the stage,

Took her seat,

Announced,

"The contest is over!"

And ran to Blue Sky,

Hugged him and said,

"You're with us,

We have a Town."

Nemo laughed to see,

And gathered the crew

Aboard BlackSpace Ship Wonder,

Homeward bound,

Minus Euripides,

William and his players,

And too Nemo for a bit

While he presided over

A Hexagons Pentagons contest

Sure to begin in a tie.

DolphinWords

Note: Nemo had snagged William Shakespeare and his players from Indie Ship Red Dragon off the shores of Sierra Leone...Verne brought along Euripides aboard the Nautilus awhile back...ral...

:)

DavidDavid

 

OTI:Ten poems and notes:9/14/17

Open To Interpretation

Flimsy

Dana was feeling a bit flimsy,

Fidgeting with the performance mask

Held in his lowered hands.

"Here," said Ishmael,

"Give the mask to me,

I'll have a go...

Poems are just funny sorta harpoons."

Petra

There were Black Dragons all over the sky,

You no where to be found, answer our calls,

Dulcinea, Lenore, looking low and high

Over our embattled Black Ship's red brawls.

To Nevermore and Volcano Never

We sailed, found you astride your new Pet,

Black Dragon Ametrine.  Petra to her,

Your new names changeless changing ever net.

Then Pet returned one day wounded full sore

Brought down by harpoon wheeling clumsy Greeks.

Without solace we stood as one before

The Land Of Nevermore when no one speaks.

From Dragon Pet, you fell to the Ocean.

We flew, sailed, seeking without notion.

Sixes

Petra sat in her high backed judge's seat,

Thought long, and said,

"'Did I Doubt?", I score a six.

'Petra', I score a six.

After Two

"So," Nemo announced,

"After two innings,

The score is tied.

Hexagons 2,

Pentagons 2."

WTH
 

Petra rejoined her crew.

"What the hell?" asked Ishmael.

"'Petra' had but one line of merit."

Said Petra.

"And what of mine?" asked Dana,

"Did you score it true?"

"I was taken,

It stands as it stands."
Said Petra,

"I had no notion of the rules."

"Just so,"

Said Nemo,

"The Hexagons discerned, and have a card to play, arguably,

If a cheat can be construed as naivety."

"What to do?"

"They have a poet!"
Said Dana.

"Send Orpheus into the list."

Said Jason.

"Just so." said Ariadne.

 Inning Three

Songbird

 

Songsingingbird, you made the Dragons fold their wings,

Nightingale, leave off from all they had stolen,

Troubadour, only to find you and I sold things,

Serenader, traded away from now to then,

Roundalay, and so forever no Town nothings.

Destiny, these poets' chains my untold reignings.

 

Pale

Orpheus could manage some corporeality, and carried the performance mask with him up onto the stage.  But when he put it to his face, it fell through him down to the floor.  The seated Hexagons turned pale.  Their spokesman protested.

"A champion is a champion,

Alive or dead."

Said Blue Sky,

"Let him continue."

The spokesman thought long,

And took his seat.

Stop

Incorporeal my lyre can sing

And brought  'round the dead, stopped from shuffling.

To Hades dismay, his pet underling,

Cerberus, thrice barking too joined my ring,

Howled the chorus shaking Hell's ceiling.

Fallen leaves shook, beside the Styx rustling,

Waves and waves rocked the ferryman's boating;

Hades shocked no new forlorn arriving.

"A funny kind of lyric you're singing

To make my macabres slow dirge waltzing

Stop.  Take your girl without backward glancing,

Join blue sky, leave fated to their reeling."

Who's to say among the Worlds' glancings

Mine was the one to return Hell's dancings?

Fives

Petra judged

Blue Sky five

Orpheus five.

The Hexagon spokesman rose up in protest,

""Stop' has too many lines."
He said.

"Leave it be," said Blue Sky,

"Least Orpheus whistle up Cerberus."

And at that the Hexagon spokesman sat.

Inning Three

"Inning three:

Hexagons 2

Pentagons 4."

Said Nemo.

DolphinWords

Notes:...rolled out Tuesday to OCPC at Gypsy Den and read out 'Turtle Island'...proofs of Elizabethans came in mail from CreativeSpace...so I had that, my own chap book, to read my poem from...can't begin to say what a roundabout circuitous way it has been to arrive straight up with my own self published book in hand...

:)

DavidDavid