• About

Oceantics

~ because the waves and tumbles of life are only as serious as we make them.

Oceantics

Monthly Archives: May 2013

“Pride”, a live reading with Patient Male Duck in attendance

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry reading

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Elaine Stirling, first efforts, live poetry reading, video recording

This is my first attempt at coordinating camera and poetry reading. The hammering of house construction and the lighting indicate how much I have yet to learn, but the duck, little sweetheart, he stayed for the whole thing, and so I am encouraged. The poem has been posted before: I reprint it here, for people who like to read along.

Inspired by silence, the pride
moves on, quarrels depleted
the bones licked clean until
even the memory of flavour
turns in on itself, go away

there are ghosts at
the waterhole lapping
and laughing where no
one can drink and only
the wounds stay open
year-round and the
fallen take pride in
how low they
can sink
and survive

they malinger with
heads straddled lower
than shoulders thrust
into the sand like goal
posts, like stilts where
games they once
played with illegible
score cards and rules
made for two but only
one winner still hope
for a round of applause
or a drink, so they
scan the horizon
day after day
for some news

and the pride carries
on through the silence
attuned to new sounds
like the latch of a door
or the tapping of roots
at a dried ocean floor

while the fallen they
skulk in the shadows
their muttering, news
to the world of grief
and inequity sold
by the barrel
that pride leaves
behind as she walks
with her banners held
high to the gates that
await and the garden
beyond—and the Angel
of Life steps aside.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Advertisement

Two Short Pieces

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

arcana, Celtic mythology, Elaine Stirling, free verse, Law of Attraction, mediocrity, poetry, quantum entanglement, Selkie, sonnet, The Corporate Storyteller, vibrational reality

Selkie96

the husbanding of poems

around certain
poems communities
gather around certain
poets worlds

some verses promise
a soft place to land
others shock and stop
the heart and may
not start it up again

you’ll know
the nature of the
communal poet by
the imitation that
surrounds him
and the maker
of worlds by
his space

in every instant
that I hold back ink
command its flow
upon the page or in
the reader’s eye
I lose my rights to
claim the title poet
fall behind to join
the ranks of free
verse tyranny

~~~

Selkie’s Final Word

Do not bring your weather to me, do not
share your salt-spray summer days, your basking
slathered bellies on bare rock. What you’ve caught
with net and reel is for private screening.

I’ve cut the lines you wrapped around my throat;
their length, at length, you may require. Measure
doldrums while you lament your creaking boat,
catches strung, digested for your pleasure.

“To know a man,” says the poet, “is to
be that man*,” but what you did not know of
you became my albatross, a weighted two
that nearly drowned us both. That was not love!

We keep alive what we resist, so fade.
Through my embrace may come fresh winds of trade.

(*line excerpted from “The Sail of Ulysses” by Wallace Stevens)
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of Selkie, artist unknown, from
celticanamcara.blogspot.ca

Untold, Untelling, Untellable Tale: Other Half

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

attracting abundance, brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, Law of Attraction, light bodies, Live in the Momentum, manifestation, Merkabah, myths and stories of the Wheel, sacred geometry, star tetrahedron, The Corporate Storyteller, triple sestina, vibrational reality

merkaba-weltkugel

So, welcome now to other half of space
in time untellable, a few parts still untouched
these planes and curves of tetrahedral night
through journeys have no end, they are not mine
or yours, they are—and timed precise to follow
neuro-logic beats from zero, empty, slow,
to speedy seventeen, the time it takes upon
initial thought to grow a system beam
of argument, to feel connected or alone,
deprived, inspired; better, worse. We fell,
some say, to density but have never been apart
and all that glitters (why ever not?) is gold
we seek with more than measurable eye
when led by starry realms, we see ahead
to all that is, to which we may add words
of sweetness and soft cushioning. No king
could claim the finer—all the while, the girl
who leads this tale continues to be born.

Soon, she started noticing while traveling, apart
from increased speed, that others sought to follow
her approach of conflict-free. Some touched
her feet; others tried to write her words,
which seldom worked; for what I say is mine
and you, yours; all the meanings that you fell
and tripped on were inherited; and thus the night
of suffering appears to jaundiced eye
to never end. However, our intrepid girl
moves on, approaching ever closer to the king
she seeks whose edifice is just ahead,
so close you’ll see the filigree of gold
around his bed. He sleeps alone
and sports quite merrily by day. Born
to natural abundance, he’ll sometimes slow
for pleasure’s sake, no other, and the space
he claims and freely reigns upon
is infinite. He thinks in exponential beam.

All you thought of him before to space
dust has returned, and what befalls, befell
our heroine has vanished too. For Now is born
continuous, which means that all I claim is mine
by saying so. To argue for assent is slow,
exacerbating loneliness, when alone,
All One, imagining is fabulous! Our girl,
her fable of ever-weaving tabulae of gold
is lifting her to heights ne’er touched
by any but the ecstasies, exalted beam
of graces, cubed, quadrupled. Words
fall short, though if we carry on, the eye
can lead us through immensities, a part
beyond, including sacred and profane. Follow
where untroubled leads, and joyful night
encompasses the day. You might well sit upon
the carpet known by Al-lah-Din, ahead
he was of his own time & thus became a king.

Too much of same perpetuates the slow
in thought streams that are born
a-fresh in dreams. With all being mine
our monarch too forgets that light of eye
must be renewed in ways apart
above, beyond the flesh and thence to beam.
One day, a young gazelle began to follow
him, fearless, even while he hunted. The king,
perplexed, left grain for her one night
and when he woke she stood alone
in his encloséd garden whereupon
he thought he’d lay a trap and so fell
at her feet to offer charming words
that always brought him praise and gold.
The tawny creature stepped back a space,
wide-eyed, recoiled when he touched
her, and to his disappointment ran ahead
into the woods. Of course, she is the girl

who, running, left behind footprints of gold
that worlds material spent until they fell
and wars broke out and angry words
became the currency that holds apart
what never was unjoined. Had he touched
her prints or gathered them, to follow
would have been impossible. Through space,
through layers, twists & coils, he closed in upon
his object of renewing desire, and the girl,
confused, knew not why she fled. Mine
has been to journey here; by cruel night
and day, I’ve shaken off insipid eye
and feeble thought, have mastered born
and born again, yet now this kingly beam
disorients and I feel more than anything, alone.
If I should stop, consent to what the king
might say or do, if I should slow
myself to let him run ahead…

She backed into a quiet space
dissolving in a way that few except the girl
had learned. To think she was alone
would be inaccurate. Countless others fell
before her to this state, newly touched,
unable to discern from practiced eye
of history a remedy for overwhelming beam
that led her to this voice proclaiming, mine
you are, without the tinge of slavery. Slow
and cautious, she crept behind, apart,
surrounding her pursuer like a mist to follow
and know better the nature of this king
whose dreams through every reborn
state included her, and all the gold
she thought and left behind at night
appeared to be the same prosperity upon
which he constructed kingdoms. Ahead
he ran. Not seeing her, he turned to words.

To you, who are my life, I am your king.
To think that I had everything, apart
from you, I could not know. If all is mine
and you are not, then futile are my words.
By thinking that for you I have been born
opens a chasm of impossibility ahead
that no current measurements of human eye
can see as real, apportions me a space
that if I could, through mastery of night
unfear what talents this young girl
displays, I’d move beyond palatial gold.
But isn’t this how kings and nations fell
before my time? Meta-states pursued alone
with neither cause nor rhyme, of touchéd
mind they are a sign. That I must follow
if you choose to lead I swear upon
this puzzled head to do, and beam
me with an iron cauldron if lazily I slow.

Too much of rank suspicion had the king
consumed through envy and competing space.
That infinite might rearrange if born
within new thoughts impelled the girl
to creep into his room at night
and stroke his arms and hair. He fell
with each successive dream upon
new planes with greater destinies, a beam
of light became his bridge, untouched
by mere solidity which moved too slow.
Allowing symmetry and wholeness of alone,
he learned pure imagery to build and follow;
crusts of centuries of shame from eye
and ear dissolved, replaced by gold
the pure vibration humans seek to mine
in ways corruptible and fevered. Ahead
lies everything, no need to stand apart.
The simple thing now, to draw down words.

The wedding feast became a part
foundational of all the holy books: mine,
yours, and every metaphor of eye
and ear to pluck or lend, their role alone
to amplify. For when the king & girl first touched
in full desire of awareness, thereupon
the limitless becomes inheritance. No night
so dark, no lies of hopelessness, though born
will live to overthrow the fulfilled king
whose partner, spirited and free with words
cavorts in lively play behind, sometimes ahead
of him to bring back caravans of gold.
And should you decide, one day, to follow,
leaving behind the unworkable and slow,
to meet unseen the brightening beam,
your tale untellable of not who rose and fell
will reach the eardrums of a certain girl
who soars, a comet, through galaxies of space.

Though apart we’ll never be, illusions of space
of mine and yours will link us like the girl
whose fixéd eye ensured the one who fell
would never be alone. Believe the lighted beam
that’s touched you will accelerate, not slow
the dreams upon your pillow that you follow
every night flawlessly to earthly and divine gold.
For these you were born. All that lies ahead
is promised by the king of infinite words.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image from merkaba-weltkugel.jpg

Untold, Untelling, Untellable Tale: First Half

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

attracting abundance, brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, Law of Attraction, light bodies, Live in the Momentum, manifestation, Merkabah, myths and stories of the Wheel, sacred geometry, star tetrahedron, The Corporate Storyteller, triple sestina, vibrational reality

merkabamusic_bandcamp_com

0 If this were proper time and space
1 I’d tell the tale of a brown-skinned girl
2 who rose and rose and never fell
3 a comet cross the sky, a beam
4 of light with trail too slow
5 to guide, could only follow
6 while she sailed on ships of gold—
7 but now I rush ahead
8 frustrated by the plod of words
9 reminded too there is a king
10 in all of this to riches born
11 a sultanate convinced by day and night
12 he’s right to place both hands upon
13 whate’er his fancy takes, thus touched
14 to lock and claim, I own, alone,
15 no need have I of ears and eye
16 the power to ignore is mine
17 divine, and thus to break apart.

17 Trouble is, what runs ahead
16 in minds and hearts like mine
15 and yours, perhaps, are tales of gold
14 not lead, what soothes the lazy eye
13 is the predictable, who wants to follow
12 dread to see where it may lead? Alone
11 is not our favoured state, we’d rather slow
10 what flies, to press what we have touched
9 in wax, the past; no brightening beam
8 can reach my version of events, upon
7 which more of same-same, night
6 and day must replicate, so the girl
5 in only certain versions can be born
4 and like I said, this time and space
3 may not be right, ego is king
2 here, all else lives apart;
1 you don’t want to know what fell
0 and all I have to give are words.

You could pause now, slow
your thoughts and read the beam
of numbers and lines upward upon
this page to the top. No one will follow,
no one will stop you. If still untouched
the tale I can’t tell will carry on alone
and those beings like you who never fell
will still be worth their weight in gold;
but I am here to represent the girl,
to recall how she decided one night
to vacate drudge and dungeon space
in search of the all-seeing eye
who travels somewhere up ahead
in places where it’s said one’s born
and born again. She knew no words
except, obey because you’re mine.
A slave, her daily toil kept her apart
and thoughts she thought kept b-rea-king.

Meaningless or meaning more, all words
around her smelled the same, ahead
lay shapes and motion beautiful upon
which she would lay her head at night
and dream of ladders built of gold
and litters of a mighty race born
long before or still to be—they had a king,
this much she knew and vowed to follow
every rung, though it might tear apart
flesh, blood and bone; no more the slow,
the tedious—if choice and grace are mine,
misplaced, I’ll trace again the steps of beam-
me-down that wakes me to a disapproving eye,
a world that shrinks away when touched
a misbegotten place that, reproducing, fell
and seeks that I should feel and fear alone
so it can buy and sell. Ptooey! spat the girl,
I am uncreating this abominable space.

Well, the thunder! Furies rose ahead,
behind, within, without, basting and slow
roasting the poor girl who dared of king
to dream. You think you’re not alone?
I know I am! She shrank beneath the beam
of light interrogating: you were born
and you will die and never does the eye
depart from watching you by night
and day for you ARE mine to mine!
But if I die, I’m not much use, the girl
to pain accustomed said, so based upon
your law you’d be wise to give me space
so I can live a long, long time and follow
your great mightiness & kiss your untouched
whatevers, I can’t see your parts apart
from this bright light, and words
they don’t mean much to me, I fell
at birth, so everything I think turns to gold.

She’d said too much, the silly girl;
now her captors looked ahead,
behind, to see what she had touched
but they lived in a dreary space
persuaded by the lack of things. Gold
was dear and hard to reach; the words
of man had lost their weight, they fell
like empty beetle shells to land upon
indifferent shoulders. No matter. Alone
the girl saw differently & crept away at night
between thunderclaps to find her king
who, in his harem, loved to follow
arguments when to one concubine he’d beam
and not the others, pulling them apart.
When something landed in his eye,
he rubbed but gave small thought to it. Mine
is the kingdom of the endless glory, born
anew each day, though some days are too slow!

Drawn were her weary feet to a certain king
in a marshy realm who’d seen ahead
of her arrival 108 slender threads upon
which a strange tale was adhering. That night,
he told his vizier that someone should follow
her, for she thinks capaciously, too far apart
and may be some sort of spy, whose eye
lights swiftly and departs, accumulating words
with which our reputation she may beam
across markets for good or ill. The king touched
the 108 lines of untelling verse, turning to gold
as he watched. To think an unassuming girl
could fabricate such wealth, traveling alone—
he’d never seen the like. In his kingdom, slow
ruled: methodical, traditional, what’s mine
in ways of thought and act since I was born
has suited well, and now this wee thing who fell
without consent into my sacred space…

Bring her to me! Slaves with bamboo beam
constructed a special littered cage upon
which the startled traveler was thrown, space
enough to sit or stand and peer with slow
deliberation. To what place am I being born?
she asked. No one answered. Waiting alone
in a vast pillared chamber lined with gold
lions, she wondered what and who lay ahead.
Eventually, her cage was set before the king
who walked around the quite ordinary girl
as if she might reveal by sleight of eye
her method with the story thread. That night,
he watched her sleep while wizards fell
to snoring; by dawn, she knew he isn’t mine.
My numbered lines of 108, to him are words,
but I’m not finished yet. Though what I’ve touched
I’ll take with me, no one from this land will follow
until I’ve put together what has been pulled apart.

And so upon a fresher path our traveler was born
with nothing in the cage but droplets where the girl
had slept, and the sorrowing, empty-handed king
staggered along the Water Margin, hearing words
of a strange new language that lay ahead
of his current capacity for ear, tongue and eye
to grasp. I drew you to me, yes, for the gold
& now you’re gone, but can it be you’re still a part
of me? Questions from the king like petals fell
along the meshéd way, and though she was alone
she felt continuous and lustrously the beam
of guidance meant for her…and now…and now, upon
which she could firmly without effort tread, slow
or fast or in-between, it mattered not; to follow
means to trust and love, and trust and love are mine,
she knew with ease. While resting in the night,
she dreamed perfection; days were touched
with joy and beauty lent her space.

~~~

To be followed by “The Other Half”

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image from merkabamusic_bandcamp.com

Promising Land

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, free verse, inclusion, Law of Attraction, moving past cynicism, poetry, resistance, revisioning literal, The Corporate Storyteller, vibrational reality

Elora_gorge

I stare till my
words cross at
the slashing divide
between all I have
renounced and the higher
ground that waits, brightly
winks and beckons at
the other side of loving
what I’ve left behind

to denounce is
a half step, single foot
hovering, fig leaf that
covers arrhythmical
truths pushed as
literal by dealers
whose fault lines
are all I can see

to debunk locks
my Spirit, keeps
hostage alive like
pearls in a safe, like
butterflies pinned to
a board in an archive
defunded and closed
to the public for private
and lecherous eyes
and no other

what good my
partial nay? what
service to beauty
can I render when
instead of bedecking
unclothed what is me
with fumbling yet original
thought, I drag like an ox
a strongbox of lead that
holds the debunked, the
discredited pounding inside
with a heart fully loaded
and holstered and eager
to fire when the outermost
shows to my stuttering
visage all that’s
unwanted
within?

Do I care what
you’ve said, what
you’ve bled, what
you’ve read? Not
so much. Can I
stop when the flare
in my heart starts
to rise, and I fancy
a cause and the
fig leaf of shame
starts to flap and
the thought of my
loins being judged
in a public melee
sets a flame to
my tongue and I
ruin the game we
were playing
so well?

maybe

I look across
the great divide
with softer eyes
and start to lower
the foot now fatigued
to believe that I’m
seeing the only way
over to promising
land is to cast
every word to
the wind
except one

yes

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of Elora Gorge from
commons.wikimedia.org

The Triolets of Fata Morgana

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, Fata Morgana, form poetry, half-sister of Arthur, illusion, inferior mirage, legend as didactic device, Medieval French verse, metaphysics, Morgana Le Fay, superior mirage, The Corporate Storyteller, triolet

Fata Morgana_Wiki

In contiguous zones of la mer salée
a council is held whereupon it’s decided

by outlaws and agents of Morgana Le Fay
in contiguous zones of la mer salée

where darkness relents the last quarter of May
to reveal the illusion of humans divided

in contiguous zones of la mer salée
a council is held whereupon it’s decided

through spin drift of dreams who will master the wave
who will drown from the weight of derision and scorn

refracting the light and the true from the brave
through spin drift of dreams who will master the wave

to appearance of folly, who dies, who is saved,
the burden of proof is unequally borne

through spin drift of dreams who will master the wave
who will drown from the weight of derision and scorn

striated we vanish, compressed we appear
leaving anger to crash on the shoals of despair

while shimmers of hope, through mirage, come clear
striated they vanish, compressed they appear

we are all well-equipped by love and by fear
to approach the horizon, to lay down our care

striated we vanish, compressed we appear
leaving anger to crash on the shoals of despair

~~~

Details of the medieval French form can be found here.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Fata Morgana (superior mirage) from Wikipedia

Re-funding Fire III: Four Octaves

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, inspiration, Law of Attraction, medieval verse, octaves, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spanish copla, The Corporate Storyteller, the power of thought, vibrational reality, wordplay

fireworks

“It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things…If in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature; the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”

(The first two installments of the 3-part narrative poem, “Refunding Fire” can be found here and here.)

~~~

So you think you know the secrets of desire,
mastered all the words & moves designed to capture;
or perhaps you’ve given up, made way for rapture
of a lesser kind: I’ll eat and buy, no new fire
awaits, so what’s the point? From passion I retire,
yet even so you check the horoscopes, in case
the Universe has spared a crumb or two, inquire
through proper channels, might you find for me a place?

Expand your range! Each day, toss out the rhyme schemes of
yesterday, and spring anew. The funds to fire all
you dream and hope, they come by seeing first. Recall
what’s yours, not others’. Be the object of great love
by sweet Creation. Disregard below. Above
is where the fun of life begins, begins again.
Three things I’ve learned: that push does not rely on shove;
there’s no such thing as wrong & goodness never ends.

Renewing fire from the fund that never dries
like drug-free magic carpet rides will help you soar,
will guide you through Prometheus’s door.
From both ends of the telescope you may apprise
by feeling thoughts of joy, you’ll entertain surprise.
But surely none of this excessive pep is new!
You brought it with you on the day you came, bright eyes,
and through these octaves, you’ll remember what to do.

Begin by disaccommodating thoughts of lack,
replace them in this moment with the possible—
a teeny crack, to gods is fully plausible.
Tend every tiny evidence that you’re on track
as if the Universe now had (it does!) your back.
A forethought of the good is mightier than gold;
give favour to abundancy and watch it stack.
You ARE the star, the greatest story ever told!

~~~

The octave is an eight-line stanza with rhyme scheme that’s lived in written form since troubadour times, and probably hails from oral pre-history. French, Italian, English all have their versions. I selected the Spanish “copla de arte mayor”, with 12 syllables per line and a traditional rhyme scheme of abbaacac. “Copla” can mean stanza or popular folk song. You’re meant to sing and dance to them!

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of fireworks from
mama-knows.com

Refunding Fire II: A Septime

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Magical Realism

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, humour, metaphysics, narrative poem, parody, Ralph Waldo Emerson, septime, The Corporate Storyteller, the Power of Three, tonal realities, vibrational reality

Pythagorean comma

“For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear under different names in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which we will call here the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”

(The first installment of the 3-part narrative poem, “Refunding Fire: A Sestina” can be found here.)

~~~

The tone read, you have reached the end
of conversation. Greater Diesis now says
you may proceed. With what, wha, wh…? Even
echo was giving up in my spiraling effort
to return fire to the Customer Service
nether gods with no hind end in sight
to guide me, I could only grope and hope.

Welcome to twenty-three degrees. We hope
you have enjoyed the fright. The effort
to speak without speech, to view sans sight,
I don’t care what anybody says—
the jar of fire surged—here resides the end
of lies! Don’t try that again, mortal. Disservice
the gods, what, you think you can get even?

The place was neither hot nor cold. Effort
to think sucked away out the bitter/sweet end
of where I used to have fingers and toes. Hope,
Pandora, last thing in the box, in dreary service
to hubby, Epimethius, fun-killer, myth says,
but do we listen? If none of us can even
fathom truth, what’s the diff, hind or foresight?

Sightless, imagination had come to my service.
Three surrounded me, only numbers uneven
seemed to rule in these chambers. No effort
conjured a macaw with man’s face; the sight
of Diotima, Socrates’s teacher, gave me hope;
the third, unsmiling old man, set of keys, says,
Call me Rock. How’s it feel to reach the end?

Pyth had warned me of the trap. Whoever says
the stupid earthly things, keep in your sight.
I nudged the urn forward. We’ve come to the end
of uses for this fire. We cook with microwave, hope
that eating raw will slow down time, even
though we must know better. Can you service

my request? Three pinwheels spun, a sight
that made my ears pop. Too few carry hope
for mankind; this once mighty fire can’t service
like it used to. Fire power, huh! You can’t even
imagine—I shut my no-mouth in an effort
to remember, this is a place of forgetting, End
of all ends, who cares what a paltry human says?

The guy named Rock jangles his keys. Even
Macaw Man rattles at that noise. Service,
by custom, requires exchange, calmly says
the priestess Diotima. To meet your end
you must give up the means. This no-sight
of humans creates and sustains no hope,
though to your credit, you are surrendering effort.

To hope or pray I can convey the sight
of fire’s service vanishing is beyond my effort
though goddess says, firmly, there is no end.

~~~

Please stay tuned, if you are enjoying this,
for the conclusion of “Refunding Fire”.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Pythagorean comma can
be found at breakfornews.com

A Note on Form: The septime is a poetry form of my own devising. It consists of seven, seven-line stanzas with a concluding three-line envoi, 52 lines in total. As with its medieval predecessor, the sestina, a selection of end words (that don’t have to rhyme) repeat in differing order. While the sestina creates a spiraling pattern, the septime offers an experience of randomness, disorder—even, depending on your theme, chaos.

To create the pattern grid, number your first stanza end-word choices as 1234567. Subsequent stanzas appear as:
2nd: 7462153
3rd: 4175236
4th: 5346721
5th: 2617345
6th: 6753412
7th: 3521674
Final 3-line envoi:
1st line: 76
2nd line: 543
3rd line: 21

Refunding Fire: A Sestina

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Narrative poetry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

brave new business leadership, discord, dissonance, Elaine Stirling, Epimetheus, foresight, form poetry, hindsight, humor, integration, narrative poetry, parody, Prometheus, Pythagorean comma, sacred geometry, sestina, The Corporate Storyteller, the unresolved

Diesisogpythagoreancomma

“For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch-bearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted and at two or three removes, when we know least about it.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay, “The Poet”

Volte-face: This being a labyrinthine fragment of a convoluted map, while true to form, lies, by necessity, three removes from the title’s premise and cannot, therefore, guarantee reprieve or escape from situations that exist or may have existed prior to the reader approaching this work. Re-reading may or may not be of further assistance.

My task began, as many do, with meaning well;
some learn by sight, others by repetition of sound,
I, of latter bent, having been for so long blanketed
had not heard the Titan who stole fire has a twin,
dull-witted thunk, Epimetheus, who goes about
unsetting fires, never quite managing but bad enough

that a magus named Pythagoras saw fit enough
to ask for volunteers none too bright who might, well,
consent to go to hell, and since I’d had about
enough of people’s whines & mockery, the sound
of someplace deeper held appeal. Have you a twin?
Pyth asked, before I signed. Nope, just me! Blanketed

thus with solitude and ignorance of how wet-blanketed
our species had agreed to be, I brought enough
of twinéd rope and kit to wend my way along twin
spirals that descend to nether studios so well
entrained in resonance—this is hell?—that no sound
can be heard and no thing can be talked about.

You’d think in such a place—Xibalba, Hades—about
which we are warned from infancy, still blanketed,
there’d be no sights, no complementary sound
apart from souls on fire, crying out, “Enough!”
This home to deviants where not quite perfect d…well
were monochord in their deploring of the hindsight twin,

brother of Prometheus. What comes before twin
thinking, Foresight, matters most, yet you fuss about
the done and did, as if the world had darned well
better know how miffed you are! Now you’re blanketed
in afterthought, fires erupting everywhere, enough
to make you think there is, or that you’re in, Hell! Sound

familiar? They were looking straight at me, their sound
of perfect fifth, just major third, while a trepidatious twin
inside my head was twanging. I do not know enough
of theory musical, although I paused when talk about
harmonic ratios to Mayan myth conjoined. Fire blanketed
creates the Smoking Mirror, Pythagoras knows this well.

Their harmonies were sounding off, as if cacophony that lay about
Prometheus’s twin multi-hatched with them. Already over-blanketed
with enough—no, too much data, I could not see things faring well.

~~~

The volte-face, about face, disclaimer, recant that began this sestina I wrote last, so it looks, in Epimetheal hindsight, like two more episodes will follow—not necessarily in sestina format. I hope something happens; I’ve never tried refunding fire before. Nonetheless, while this narrative awaits further unfolding, there are many embedded clues for the adventurous traveler who may have embarked on his/her own explorations.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Pythagorean comma from
Overtone Music Network

Pride

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

alignment, brave new business leadership, circle of life, Elaine Stirling, innocence, Law of Attraction, nagual, poetry, pride goeth before a fall, return to the Garden, revisiting metaphors, telling a new story, The Corporate Storyteller, the power of silence

banner

Inspired by silence, the pride
moves on, quarrels depleted
the bones licked clean until
even the memory of flavour
turns in on itself, go away

there are ghosts at
the waterhole lapping
and laughing where no
one can drink and only
the wounds stay open
year-round and the
fallen take pride in
how low they
can sink
and survive

they malinger with
heads straddled lower
than shoulders thrust
into the sand like goal
posts, like stilts where
games they once
played with illegible
score cards and rules
made for two but only
one winner still hope
for a round of applause
or a drink, so they
scan the horizon
day after day
for some news

and the pride carries
on through the silence
attuned to new sounds
like the latch of a door
or the tapping of roots
at a dried ocean floor

while the fallen they
skulk in the shadows
their muttering, news
to the world of grief
and inequity sold
by the barrel
that pride leaves
behind as she walks
with her banners held
high to the gates that
await and the garden
beyond—and the Angel
of Life steps aside.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of white flag from
tommyboland.com

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • We are family, Dytiscidae…
  • The Boy Who Played with ABZs
  • Distancing
  • To Begin, Begin
  • I Cross the Street When I See You Coming

Archives

  • November 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • April 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogroll

  • Discuss
  • Get Inspired
  • Get Polling
  • Get Support
  • Learn WordPress.com
  • Theme Showcase
  • WordPress Planet
  • WordPress.com News

Blog Stats

  • 40,628 hits

What I’m Tweeting these days

  • I just submitted "H.A.G." to @fadeinawards via FilmFreeway.com! - 4 months ago
  • Delighted that my animated musical feature TOAST has made the quarterfinals! twitter.com/screencrafting… 5 months ago
  • @SimuLiu I'm halfway through the prologue and already in tears. So, so happy for you! 7 months ago
  • RT @SimuLiu: Guys I think I made finally made her proud https://t.co/EnC4mvyfiV 7 months ago
  • In this uncertain Holiday Season, wishing all of you Peace, Joy, and Patience. And a splendid 2022! 1 year ago

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,344 other subscribers

Top Posts & Pages

  • Lament of "La Pantera Negra"

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Oceantics
    • Join 1,152 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Oceantics
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...