Poetry Month So Far (II)

[radiantfracture]

(April 3-4)

Well, if not love, then
love -- a giant pacific octopus
twelve feet long
can slip through the ring
of your thumb and forefinger
like a skein of silk, shifting
even its shining mind
to siphon through. Heart,
be like that.

You and I will live
only by changing shape again
and again.

Take the form offered you
and escape.

Contract and expand.

Touch everything at once
in eight directions.



NOTES

1. I am probably exaggerating slightly about the octopus, unless you have pianists' hands.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Oh I love this.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

[ursula]

I like this!

[radiantfracture]

Cheers!

[moon_custafer]

Not sure you are exaggerating the octopus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3N0i_KM8cI

[radiantfracture]

I love that you researched this.

[moon_custafer]

More just “remembered seeing a video a few months ago.”

[asakiyume]

"A 600 pound octopus can fit through a hole the size of a quarter"

If anything, your thumb and forefinger are roomy!

[radiantfracture]

!

Well now I wish I'd been brave and made it twenty feet long.

[asakiyume]

That is intense and marvelous.

[radiantfracture]

They are pretty amazing beasts.

[oracne]

THIS IS AWESOME.

Are you submitting it anywhere?

[radiantfracture]

I hadn't thought about it -- thanks for the idea. I wonder where that would be.

[oracne]

gwynnega might know?

[asakiyume]

Maybe Not One of Us, the down side to that being that they don't have an online version that lets you share with folks online--but they precisely look for an alien take on stuff, like this.

[radiantfracture]

That's a cool idea -- I just found out about Not One of Us, and I love the idea.

I wonder if the poem is odd enough to suit.

I suppose there's a way to find out.

[skygiants]

This is lovely, and I'm very willing to suspend my disbelief about the octopus. :D

[radiantfracture]

moon_custafer's independent research supports my claims...

[intertext]

That is so great.

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! I love your icon -- is it from a book cover?

[intertext]

Thanks! Yes - it's from Robin McKinley's Deerskin, one of my favourite books.

[larryhammer]

Nice one.

It is not an exaggeration.

[radiantfracture]

I wasn't sure how big the beak was...

[asakiyume]

Oh gosh, this is beautiful. "shifting / ever its shining mind /to siphon through"

I love that.

It reminds me slightly of poems of metamorphosis where the beloved says they'll change shape to this or that, and the lover says they'll take a form appropriate for pursuit (I've seen this as a motif in love songs, but also in stories like the one where the mother rabbit pursues the baby rabbit) until at last the beloved accepts the lover. But I like your idea better because it's not pursuit, and it's both parties changing. And it's octopuses.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

I really like your connection to transformative pursuits / battles (Merlin and Madame Mim also come to mind).

"Shining mind" is an echo of Anne Carson's Sappho translations:

Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind
chilf of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains
oh lady, my heart

[asakiyume]

That's gorgeous, the Sappho

[radiantfracture]

Sooo gorgeous. If you don't know it already, I highly recommend Anne Carson's collection of Sappho translations, If Not, Winter.

[boxofdelights]

That's lovely. May I record it? No offense taken if you'd prefer not.

[radiantfracture]

This is a very interesting idea! Can you tell me more about what you intend? I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't be a splendid compliment.

[boxofdelights]

I used to record poems in April, and post them on Soundcloud and link to them from my journal. Here's an example:

https://soundcloud.com/boxofdelights/the-excrement-poem-by-maxine

I think you can find all the recordings I still have up there at https://soundcloud.com/boxofdelights/tracks. I put podfic there too, and often had to delete things to make room for other things.

Like podfic, it is definitely intended as a compliment. I wouldn't want to record something unless I really liked it. But you're not required to like everything anyone wants to give you, even when they mean well. Even if you like my voice, I'm not going to read it exactly how you hear it in your head, and that can be unpleasant.

[radiantfracture]

Very good thoughts. I like how you read!

Well, then, after due consideration, I think it would be neat. Thank you! Please go ahead.