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
“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
Creative said:
And odd bliss experience even as steam comes off my wet-blanket. Such turbation, volte run over and over; wonder if maybe the reins are too long for circumference’s capacity. Read, re-read, mindmap greek gods, old time philosophers, who was alive when? Run to see where I can use THAT word Xibalba with its darkness-packed meaning, hum Leonard Cohen tunes, wonder if it will be revealed that Mayan harmonics meet my daily ohm on the deck…and they knew they would back then, when who was alive was alive back then.
LikeLike
elainestirling said:
Eeks, Creative, I don’t recommend operating heavy equipment in your current spiraling state. 😉 But I’d say you’re onto something. If you take a look at the sestina spiral at Wikipedia, you’ll see that the old poets were attempting to replicate with word placement something pure and mathematical. I don’t know what state our brains are in now, compared to then…my guess is, we have some reconstructing to do.
You could, quite successfully, I’m sure, select six related end words from whatever is whirling in your mind and “sestina” your way through it. You WILL end up in a new place.
LikeLike
Russel said:
Just remember it is your voice and your images that are seeking expression__if u trust they are there and genuine u will hear them.
LikeLike
Pingback: Refunding Fire: A Septime | Oceantics
Pingback: Re-funding Fire III: Four Octaves | Oceantics
Russel said:
This is a sestina response to this first segment written a few days ago but delayed in posting due to lack of internet access. It is a bit of an off the cuff reply to the essence of yours with the lack of finesse and aplomb with which yours is delivered. (Particularly in light of your next two parts.) Here it is nonetheless.
The Exit from Heaven and Hell’s the Same: A Sestina
Most tales of the two will tell
there is no escape once the threshold
has been crossed unless you make a choice
before the great rift is opened wide
then will you always be in heaven
or spend an eternity in hell
that choice for many is the hell
as their stories well will tell
they have seen a bit of heaven
but then have made a choice
though some hard change have tried
seeking the opposite threshold
I am here to show there always is a choice
there is an exit from the hell
the gates can be opened wide
and if you listen close I’ll tell
how to pass the threshold
through the back gate of heaven
because you see the exit out of heaven
lies precisely in the non making of a choice
in learning that your mind creates the threshold
the front and back gate of your hell
the fence is the story that you tell
yourself to keep yourself locked wide
behind gates that are really open wide
if you quit believing there’s a heaven
somewhere else and realize it’s what you tell
yourself when you think you have to make a choice
and the alternative is someone else’s hell
and you make the windows and the threshold
you take the steps to see your own threshold
with not other’s but, your eyes open wide
there is an exit from all of hell
if you exit too from heaven
and realize it really is your choice
by the story to your self you tell.
Those willing to relinquish the threshold of heaven
will gain wisdom from that wide choice
and will have no hell to tell.
D. Russel Micnhimer 5-11-2013
LikeLike
elainestirling said:
I’m glad my piece inspired a sestina for you, Russel. The topic of heaven and hell, like any duality, can’t ever be resolved. Writing a poem or any creative solution is better than fretting over what each of us has a spark of, and its opposite.
LikeLike