A PERSONIFIED NOTION

photo credit:  http://www.native-science.net/Ship.Mythical.htm

MYTHIC CONTOURS

DEEP―the waters, the milk vessel, she
starlit air & spinning sea
lookalike of earth on high
mirror of the sky

©2014 Mythic Contours stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj vessel/lookalike #mythopoetics


notes

1. What might a psyche-driven life look like? What is its lookalike, its mirror image or image-soul?
2. The feminine principle manifest in both light and darkness, what is the earliest image that constellates anima not just as a personified notion but as guide?

 

THE ATHANATOI

Poets have said the female principle was originally personified in darkness
and in light, in the depths of the water as well as in the heights of the sky.
( see footnote 2)

 STONE SOUP

is like goulash in a bowl of hippokampoi
an abrasax stone where higher gods unplug



©2014 Stone Soup stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #mythopoetics #distich

notes

1. Of Aarne-Thompson tale type 1548, "Stone Soup" is a rendering in cooperation among members of a community and those outside this community particularly during a time of scarcity.

2. "The Great Mother, the female principle, was originally personified both in darkness and in light in the depths of the water and in the heights of the sky." - Adrienne Rich   see Rev Matthew Fox & "Meister Eckhart : A Mystic Warrior of Our Times" http://ow.ly/xlN2g

3. For more on the Abrasax, a word wielding the power of abracadabra  see https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Abraxas.html 

ODDLY HIGH JOURNEY #OHJ

HIGH GODS

ODDLY HIGH ―
TREASURE A NEGLIGIBLE OBSERVATION

©2014 HIGH GODS stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #sixwords #distich #mythopoetics poetry

PLATOMIC LOVE

LOVE WITH A TWIST
For Ric Scow Williams

down in the belly of story
the goat's great escape is told
shaping with milk language
O-pressed & pocked lowingly
beast breast
blood to milk the flow
i know

a story of a goat who fed
divinity in a cave like this
till she was all gone
vanquished into skin like O
and then

of the entheagen she was...is

this is how she escapes the story
gets outside the notions of divine absolute
formations―even more fleshed
returning dressed in skin like that

urban language, the language of
pop culture or dirty honey
when it comes to platonic love
calls the great escape goat at the gate
getting back in by another name
platomic
atomic up against the loss of something
platonic at work together
en to em body

love itself is a kind of magical thinking
how it all will reach out suddenly
grabbing you by your ass cadavera

2014 Love with a Twist stephaniepope mythopoetry.com


notes

1. For the story of the SHE-goat that nurses Zeus see http://www.theoi.com/Ther/AixAmaltheia.html

2. Inspiration for the poem came first through a response poem by Ric Scow Williams after seeing the video-gone-viral story of the friendship formed between the goat and the donkey on Good Morning America.  

MERMAID-SINGING

Emissary of Olodumare
Ayaba omi o ~Yemaya-Olokun Yemoja, Iemanja, Queen of Water (Yorùbá)

 

WATERMAIDEN
For The Deborahs

in judge of honey
to the edge of the emissary come
to the watermaiden give account
who makes the uncountable count
going into the five

©2014 WATERMAIDEN stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj micropoetry emissary, judge #fivelines


notes

1. Scattered on the floor of the ocean lies the abundance, (the abundance of Olokun) Draw upon the abundance. From abundance, abundance; Let abundance re-main. It is said that where the watermaiden draws upon the abundance of Olokun, as an emissary of Olodumare, this abundance she shares with her sister –waters whose colors are yellow and gold and whose number is five. For more on the watermaidens and other emissaries of Olodumare see http://www.orishanet.org/ocha.html

2.  Mermaid-singing ― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

WRITING TOWARDS EMBODIMENT

M. C. Escher, “Drawing Hands,” 1948

THE NURSEMAID'S CAVE

platomic love
an ecdemic impulse
where platonic
meets atomic
& a quiver runs through it


©2014 THE NURSEMAID'S CAVE stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj micropoetry ecdemic, impulse, #fivelines


notes

ON WRITING TOWARDS EMBODIMENT SEE
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2011/07/barthess-sollers.html  

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VIRGIN'S ROBE

LEFT: Workshop of Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528 'The Virgin and Child  (“The Madonna with the Iris”)', about 1500–10. Oil on lime, 149.2 x 117.2 cm RIGHT: cartoon/Marisa Acocella Marchetto

LEFT: Workshop of Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528 'The Virgin and Child 
(“The Madonna with the Iris”)', about 1500–10. Oil on lime, 149.2 x 117.2 cm
RIGHT: cartoon/Marisa Acocella Marchetto

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VIRGIN'S ROBE

the blood of kermes bled
the kermes grain seamless and red
the worm of the tree fed
the cloth wed

in the making of Hermes lyre
is bloodshed

©2014 stephaniepope mythopoetry.com #ohj grain


notes

1. The red dye forming the pigment used to paint the shadows of the virgin’s robe in the painting are derived from kermesic acid or kermes. Kermes is a scale insect living on the bark of certain species of European Oak.

2. “The insects were scratched from the twigs with the fingernails and produced a powerful permanent scarlet dye believed to be that obtained from the Phoenicians by the Hebrews to dye the curtains of their tabernacle.” See the website “Pigments Through the Ages”. http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/carmine.html  which points out how the kermes pigment forms the shadow of the virgin’s robe in the painting.

3. Although an insect, the scale-critter was called the worm of the tree (from Sanskrit krmija- = (red dye) produced by a worm; krmi = worm ) and also “grain” because it was at first thought the red dye came from seed. The red dye is made from the female bodies of the insect remains forming the carmine lakes of which kermes is one. (The other carmine lake from which red pigments are formed for dyes are the cochineal lakes)
4. There is a kind of #nepotism implied here. Operating in the making is a new Adam in the flesh and the song of life.  A living depth is experienced more embodied than man is in his flesh; how like the story of the lyre of Hermes, the life in the flesh of the turtle taken (and whose life isn’t!) to fulfill something larger than sheer life. Or so the song goes. And so, the song goes on: New Adam is Red Adam, how life is, in the blood, blood pouring from the inexhaustible realm of the material imagination.

5.  cloud hours
      shaken into soul―Red Adam!
©2013 monsters and bugs poetry series stephaniepope mythopoetry.com

YOUR FRIEND, HENRY

Arnold Böcklin Self-Portrait of Death Playing The Violin, 1872
http://www.germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1321 

YOUR FRIEND, HENRY

in youth, let death talk to him improperly tuned
of the body he became folded
of the fold shaping him, wings
like a limb-loosening chisel
that delves and swings

in youth, let death talk to you improperly tuned
in cadences low; cadences
of folded life making wings
of earth that sings

©2014 stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj fold, delve


notes

1. “Friend Henry”, Freund Hein, a literary figure from medieval German art, is a personification of Death. Letting Death talk to you is seeing life from Death’s point of view of life. One must “strike a different chord” so to speak (in psychology:  see C.G. Jung and in conspectu mortis to further amplify this notion)

2. “improperly tuned”, inspired by the Arnold Böcklin Self-Portrait of Death Playing The Violin, 1872, is Gustave Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G Major. The second movement is a scherzo that features a part for a solo violin whose strings are tuned a tone higher than usual.

3.  [QUOTE] “By the time of his death, Böcklin was being hailed as one of the most original and creative German artists of the fin de siècle(END TIMES); and, in retrospect, it can be said that his interest in imaginary scenes, liberated from traditional forms and motifs, prepared the ground for Expressionism. That Böcklin “struck a different sort of chord” can be interpreted both figuratively and literally: according to Gustav Mahler’s widow Alma, the scherzo movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G Major (1900) was inspired by the image of Death playing the fiddle in this self-portrait. In keeping with the spirit of the canvas, Mahler had the violin soloist play on an improperly tuned violin.” [scordatura]
see http://www.germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1321

4.  In music and North American mythology see Charlie Daniels Band "Devil Went Down To Georgia."

KING HERLA & THE GHOSTRIDERS

The Wild Hunt: Aasgaardreien, 1872 , oil on canvas, Peter Nicolai Arbo 

Herla burly harlequin
a dog he has but then
so vast the earth o'er which they sped
so dark the night and dog that lead
so wild the huntsman Hellequin
Old Herla gave they up for dead
Old Herla and his men

©2014 GhostRiders, stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #earth #harlequinn




notes


1. One of the origins postulated for the modern harlequin is Hellequin, a stock character in French passion plays or commedia dell'art (see http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/comm/hd_comm.htm). Hellequin, a black-faced emissary of the devil, is said to have roamed the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell. This is also the origin of the Dutch "Zwarte Piet". The physical appearance of Hellequin offers an explanation for the traditional colours of Harlequin's mask (red and black)

2. For the myth of King Herla see http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/huntsman.html#henderson

3. For The North American myth of The Ghost Riders see http://esoterx.com/2012/12/09/ghost-riders-in-the-sky-the-wild-hunt-and-the-eternal-stampede/.  The following image of the wild hunt in the North American monomyth of the cowboy, "cowboy-as-poet" that is, was memorialized in song. Originally sung by Burl Ives in the 1940's, the song, "Ghostriders In the Sky" entered pop culture prominently displayed in various versions of the song. Here is one version sung by country western's, The Highwaymen. followed  by a rendition sung by Johnny Cash alone. 





4.  The cowboy & horse motif morphs to the motorcycle rider thanks to Marvel comics and film. Here is a movie short displaying the transformation.

IMMANENT IMMORTALITY

The image is from a photo taken at St. Laurentii, Suderender, Föhr
& featured in the blog, “SLEEPING GARDENS” FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2011
http://sleepinggardens.blogspot.com/2011/07/fridays-funerary-symbols-beehives.html 

TELLING THE BE
     For The Deborahs

Newer than the feathers of the moon
the stars
the Old Argument's Living Garment

expatiates in Z the Bee
no danger in
meadowing at the world's end
Elysian

©2014 STEPHANIEPOPE MYTHOPOETRY.COM
TELLING THE BE, #OHJ June 4 expatiate, danger 

notes

Regarding mythic imagination for the notion of how (feminine) repetition of sound (as in zzzzz) transforms sound into a new order (of word and meaning) see Pandora's Senses, Vered Lev Kenaan, Wisconson: U of Wisconson Press, 2008.


photo credit
http://sleepinggardens.blogspot.com/2011/07/fridays-funerary-symbols-beehives.html )

ODDLY HUMBLE JOURNEY

http://www.adamgallery.com/artists/whitty/pallet-47-(the-blue-tree)/?gallery=LondonAdd caption

Oddly, Humble

canvas the sky
a blue tree
a thousand tiny moments
a stigma of stars


©2014 Oddly Humble, stephaniepope mythopoetry.com

notes

#OHJ micropoetry, June 3, 2014 canvas, stigma

June Poetry

IN MEMORY OF MEADOWS

   For The Deborahs

Nary a sound; inscribed
a basin in hasty draught
drink, and away winged thought!


©2014 mythopoetry.com stephaniepope
“In Memory Of Meadows”#ohj #nary #basin June 2nd