POETRY MONTH #poetrymonth #ohj #mpy

MARCHING PAPERS

Eros harrows my heart: wild gales sweeping …    ~Sappho, Fragment 42, Michael Burch, trans.

April’s cruelty snatched from me
lines of poetry

no subterfuge, windblown homophone;
no empty wrappers journey alone


©2016 April Is The Cruelest Month stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#poetrymonth #ohj #mpy

ODDLY, NO HOLLYWOOD JOURNEY IS THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL IN NO CHAOTIC ORBIT

for "Blackstar" see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw 

GOOD-BYE MAJOR TOM
He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar, I'm not a gangstar)
I can't answer why (I'm a blackstar)
Just go with me (I'm not a filmstar)  -David Bowie, "Blackstar"

The fallen chaos hero’s
boon like a comet’s rise; a
short period, earth-crossing orbit
flux amass; the dark constemation
stardust riddled Ziggy lit
a secret phrase in the throes.


©2016 No Chaotic Obit stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #mpy


notes

1. A blackstar is both a type of cancer lesion and thought to be a transitional phase between a star and a singularity.  The mythic image as a poetic figure in literary forms personifies  death.

2. The song, “Blackstar” mentions “the villa of Ormen”. Ormen is a Norwegian word meaning serpent. The Villa of Ormen means the town of the serpent.

3. First usage of the word, constemation in literary narrative is by George Brennan, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois. Appearing in a 1926 article, Prohibition Law Injured Temperance Cause  in "The Montague Observer."  Brennan states,

The men who subscribed to the immortal document of 150 years ago were men of broad and liberal principles. Imagine the surprise of these men if they could return to our country today. Imagine what they would think and say when they saw the nation overrun by an army of spies paid by the government. Fancy their constemation when they were told that these spies had shot down citizens who had resented their intrusion and their officiousness. Picture their surprise if, gathering as they were accustomed to for a social hour, their meeting place would be invaded by these spies and they should be herded off to jails as lawbreakers.


For the entire newspaper article see the cached page accessed January, 2016

4. SEE “Blackstar”

 

HOW TO FACE YOUR KAPPA

Takagi Toranosuke/ "Capturing a kappa
underwater in the Tamura River"
Image courtesy Wiki Commons

WHEN A MUDDY SEA FACING

Bow deeply; feed your
kappa cucumber;
harvest goodwill


©2015 Kappa Fable: A Mythopoetic Turning
stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#OHJ Daily words: cucumber and goodwill


notes

For the mythic image of the kappa in Japanese, Buddhist and Shinto tradition and how to gain the water spirit's good will, see http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kappa.shtml 

For the mythic image on developing attentiveness or psychic awareness see The Buddhist Tale of The Monkey King and the Kappa or Water Spirit or Water Demon http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/bt1_22.htm

For more folklore on encounters with kappa see http://horrorpedia.com/2014/06/08/kappa-folklore/

For the Javanese tale of "The Golden Cucumber" (Timun Emas) visit  https://vimeo.com/17880115

HARK! THE HERALD, PHEME

PHEME
Queen Victoria Memorial, Liverpool

THE SPECTACULAR PHONE

O, The Spectacular Phone
Winged Ossa Pheme
leading spirited voices on high
great tidings & low rumor

©2015 HARK! The Herald stephaniepope mythopoetry.com #ohj #mpy

POSEIDON IN WINTER : DISTINCTIVELY DRESSED IN END TIMES #OHJ #6WORDS #3LINES

A PRIMITIVE DISTINCTION

Achilles:  If you sailed any slower the war would be over
Odysseus: I'll miss the start as long as I'm here at the end.

Odysseus: If they ever tell my story let them say that I walked with giants.

                            -Homer, The Iliad

novembering oddly
anciently hungry
farrier guide


©2015 Things To Remember When Crossing An Underworld Water Barrier
stephaniepope mythopoetry.com #3lines #6words #ohj 

FEBRUARY HOODOO: "HARDY" AND "HEARTY" Oddly Heart-felt Journey #ohj

"...DESCENT INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE ARTICLE...SENSING THE CRUCIALITY AND THE MYSTERY OF THE INFERENTIAL 'AS'." - David L. Miller, Hells, p. 98

TO THY SANDAL'S LAUGHTER

I Sing! Your sly Hermes winged far-away boot
bring now in travels thy luck & thy loot

©2015 Shoe-Do  stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #mp #mpy #2lines #vss

FROM THE CUPBOARD OF HESTIA, THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

YESTERDAY I SPENT IN THE KITCHEN BAKING FOR
CHRISTMAS. PICTURED ARE THREE VARIATIONS ON
KIFLE, AN HEIRLOOM COOKIE RECIPE TAUGHT ME.
THE RECIPE, LIKE THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS ITSELF,
HANDED ON AND LEARNED BY HEART. AS I PULLED
TRAY AFTER TRAY OF COOKIES FROM THE OVEN, I
BEGAN TO THINK ABOUT THE FIRE OF HESTIA...

LAST NIGHT I BAKED ANCESTRAL KIFLE

a feast, King Wenceslas pulled in titular
reach, oven door breached
gathering winter's fuel

©2014 Heirloom Poetics stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj #ohjDailWords #3lines #micropoetry #mythopoetics


notes

WAKING ECHOES

The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives. -Pericles

AN ODDLY HAIR-RAISING JOURNEY

in mausoleum, sole
one's bottom chatter


©2014 The Wonder of Mausolos stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj chatter, mausoleum #micropoetry, #mythopoetics, #vss
#sixwords, #twolines


notes

1.  Etmyology of mausoleum
mausoleum (n.)  “magnificent tomb” [1540’s] from Latin mausoleum, from Greek Mausoleion, name of the massive marble tomb built 353 B.C.E. at Halicarnassus (Greek city in Asia Minor) for Mausolos, Persian satrap [governors of  large, Persian provinces or satrapies are called satraps] who made himself king of Caria. It was built by his wife (and sister), Artemisia. Counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, it was destroyed by an earthquake in the Middle Ages. General sense of "any stately burial-place" is from c.1600.  [See etmonline.com]

2. The Mausoleum was approximately 45 m (148 ft) in height, and the four sides were adorned with sculptural reliefs, each created by one of four Greek sculptors—Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus. The finished structure of the mausoleum was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th to the 15th century. [See wiki]


3. Pausanias adds that the Romans considered the Mausoleum one of the great wonders of the world and it was for that reason that they called all their magnificent tombs mausolea, after it.[see  Fergusson, James (1862) Mausoleum at Halicarnassus: Recently Discovered Remains London: John Murray p. 10.

4. List of “The Seven Wonders of the World” of which the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is one.

RIP : : PIR

CALYPSO'S ISLE, 1897 Herbert Draper

NOT FAR FROM CALYPSO'S EPIC ISLE

LAY WRETCHED ROCKS & WRATHFUL WAVES
AE CALYPSO, AE EEEE I A

SING CALYPSO, OF ROBIN IN PASSING
PASSING IN ROBIN'S AEAEA BREEZE

MUSE, CALYPSO, OF WE, THE PEOPLE
SPARED BY OUR WARS AND THE WAILING SEA

GIFTED THAT GRIN IN A STEM OF HE'S
A BREAST-BURNT STEM ON A ROBIN TREE

SING CALYPSO PASSING IN ROBIN
SING OF THE MANY-TURNED MAN


©2014 CALYPSO REQVIESCAT stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj for July 1, 2014 epic, calypso



notes

1.  AEAEA is the Greek name for Circe's Isle. Circe's Isle lay along the way to Persephone's gate leading to the underworld. AEAEA is also another name for Calypso, which means "hider" or
"hide-away".

2.  Regarding the mythic imagination and image of the robin in folklore, you will find a bit of interesting ideas that cluster around the image in the blog, "From Bedroom To Study" see Monday, 10 December, 2012, http://from-bedroom-to-study.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-fabled-folklore-of-robin-redbreast.html 

3. Wiki also provides the following cultural depictions of the European robin with christic gloss, Robin Redbreast and the iconic, Norse image of robin as a storm-cloud bird:

The robin features prominently in British folklore, and that of northwestern France, but much less so in other parts of Europe.^[30] It was held to be a storm-cloud bird and sacred to Thor, the god of thunder, in Norse mythology.^[31] Robins also feature in the traditional children's tale, Babes in the Wood; the birds cover the dead bodies of the children.^[32] More recently, the robin has become strongly associated with Christmas, taking a starring role on many Christmas cards since the mid 19th century.^[32] The robin has also appeared on many Christmas postage stamps. An old British folk taleseeks to explain the robin's distinctive breast. Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the robin's breast, and thereafter all robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them.^[31][33] An alternative legend has it that its breast was scorched fetching water for souls in Purgatory.^[32] The association with Christmas, however, more probably arises from the fact that postmen in Victorian Britain wore red jackets and were nicknamed "Robins"; the robin featured on the Christmas card is an emblem of the postman delivering the card.^[34]

In the 1960s, in a vote publicised by The Times newspaper, the robin was adopted as the unofficial national bird of the UK.^[35] The robin was then used as a symbol of a Bird Protection Society.<sup>[36]


4. For the literary archetypal image of the hanged man see W. H. Auden's lines

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
& let our illusions die.</sup>

ORIGINAL HIDE ~NICE? ABSOLUTELY!

SCIENCE MAKES A NICE DISTINCTION

a nice distinction undoes it
nicely absolute is absolutely nice

©2014 ABSOLUTE VALUE stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj nice, absolutely #mythopoetics #tenwords #distich


notes

the collage is made from images taken from the following learning-math sites: http://tedfelix.com/TedChain/avalue.htm

http://www.mathfunny.com/absolute-value-positive-negative-8-bars/

http://www.onlinemath4all.com/absolute_value_function.html

http://www.linkstolearning.com/links/integers_opposites_absolute_value.htm

WRITING TOWARD THE BLOOM IN THE GENOME

photo credit House of Doves

FACING THE UNRESTRAINED

Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened: until the gigantic call lifted them off the ground
                     ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies/First Elegy


Pretty Pretender, thy artisan, soul-making
neither fails nor achieves in the same way
as this world of facts

©2014 IMAGINAL EGOS stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj artisan, fact #mythopoetics #tristich #micropoetry

notes 

We conceptualize self in terms of dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I positions in an imaginal landscape.  The I has the possibility to move, as in a space, from one position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time.  The I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions.  The I has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established.  The voices function like interacting characters in a story.  --Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, "The Dialogical Self"   

THE UNIFIED POETIC TRADITION OF EPIC

image credit: Muse Kalliope (Calliope) Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; 5^th C. Attic Red Figure Pyxis,
Hesiod Painter ca 460 - 450 BC 

EPOS

…the conspicuous differences between the poems of Hesiod and between Hesiod and Homer existed in tension with the unified poetic tradition of epos… ~Ralph Rosen, University of Pennsylvania 

odyssey driven by wrath and weaves
Hesiod Homer and nepenthes

©2014 Calliope's Lyre stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj wrath, odyssey #mythopoetics #distich #tenwords #micropoetry

THE ODDLY HOMERIC JOURNEY

photo credit:  Mt Parnassus, Raphael,  A fresco from the interior
walls of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace.
For more on the fresco see U of Michigan on line

BEYOND PARNASSUS

shapes oddly Homeric journey & battle;
like a shipwreck in human shadows in a
cast of sunlight; how yonder a
banquet of mythic residue echoes still


©2014 DELPHIC SPACE stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj shipwreck, banquet #mythopoetics #4lines #micropoetry

OF STONES, WOMB AND TOMB

AJAX CARRYING THE DEAD BODY OF ACHILLES

PRAY DEATH HAS A MOUTH AND TALKS

for fig-high Odysseus
underneath a small rock
lay a big mouth

between oak and rock
for Achilles
lay none


©2014 Thanátou and Tou Thanátou stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj rock, Achilles

CHARYBDIS

Ulysses hanging from the branch of a fig tree, looking
down in terror at the whirlpool Charybdis, Scylla as a
sea monster writhing around rocks at left; after a watercolour
by Fuseli (Schiff 1362), illustration to Pope's translation of
 Homer's 'Odyssey'; proof before letters. 1806 Engraving and
 etching © The Trustees of the British Museum no.1853,1210.557

photocredit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_
online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.
aspx?assetId=164619&objectId=1652214&partId=1

SHE TAKES ONE GULP

her horrible whirlpool gulping the sea-surge down, down
but when she spewed it up—like a cauldron over a raging fire—
all her churning depths would seethe 
               ~Charybdis, Odyssey Book 12, Robert Fagels trans.

thirsting eros tempts soul
a whirlpool near grabs &
pulls with more force, aflame
like a cauldron seethes
pushing toward art

©2014 HER SWALLOW BELCHES FROM A GROUNDLESS STATE
stephaniepope mythopoetry.com #ohj whirlpool, tempts

SIREN & HUBRIS IN HOMER

Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891
John William Waterhouse
[image file in public domain]

AT FIRST WHEN APPLYING SIREN ABILITY 

know thyself
nothing else

the hybrid monster
the hybris narrative

©2014 What Does A Siren Say stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj siren, hubris  #10words #mythopoetics #4lines


notes

1. In myth, sirens are feminine hybrid monsters (aka psychic facts) and like the outdoor sirens that sound out natural woes now, when a siren sounds you better hunker down and listen up.
2. In myth, siren abilities are the unconscious abilities able to take over and control narratives.
3. Hybris is a variant spelling for the word hubris, pride or ego inflation.

THE RHYTHM OF EPIC

Homeric Musing  /Flaxman Design, 1899
see Homer, Iliad, Samuel Butler translation
http://www.ganino.com/the_iliad_by_homer_6

HIS WYRD

strict yet
flexible fate
Homer's dactyl

©2014 Holy Daughters stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj dactyl, fate



notes

1. see Rodney Merrill, Translating The Odyssey
http://home.earthlink.net/~merrill_odyssey/id5.html

KNOT LANGUAGE

photo credit: Orange Street Press /
http://sparks.eserver.org/books/odyssey.pdf

RELEASE

Bright Ithaca, furthest to the west lay low
yet thundered overhead where O
tricky old bow-handler strung the bow

do you feel it
tensions prove a line precisely strung
touching once where absence hung

do you hear it
going about its own release
Bright Ithaca, at peace


2014 Unknot stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj, bow, Ithaca

MANY-TURNED MAN

Odysseus Slays The Suitors, Attic red-figure skyphos
c. 440 BC, from Tarquinia, by the Penelope Painter

THE PHARMAKOS RITE

...Ulysses tore off his rags and sprang on to the broad pavement with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the ground at his feet and said, "The mighty contest is at an end. I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit.        
            ~Odyssey, Book XXII, The Death of Suitors, Samuel Butler translation
oddly, Apollo
faithful Odysseus

©2014 Apollon stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj faithful, Apollo

THE PHARMAKOS RITE

Odysseus and the suitors [The Odyssey Books 21-22]

GUSHING WAVE AND MARROW



Enchanted stem
Homeric speech
Lotus arrow

©2014 Pharmakon stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj lotus, arrow




notes

1. The arrow of Odysseus, tipped with toxikkon, is to the suitors as the lotus is to lotus-eaters. Likewise is Homeric language enchanted stem tipped in the musing marrow of alien pharmakos and pharmakon.

2. Odyssey, Book IX, Samuel Butler translation

Odysseus tells how adverse north winds blew him and his men off course as they were rounding Cape Malea, the southernmost tip of the Peloponnesus, headed westwards for Ithaca... 

"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of 9 days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars."

3. Odyssey, Book XXII, The Death of Suitors, Samuel Butler translation

...Ulysses tore off his rags, and sprang on to the broad pavement with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the ground at his feet and said, "The mighty contest is at an end. I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit."

4. Pharmakos/Pharmakon wiki

Walter Burkert and René Girard have written influential modern interpretations of the pharmakos rite. Burkert shows that humans were sacrificed or expelled after being fed well, and, according to some sources, their ashes were scattered to the ocean. This was a purification ritual, a form of societal catharsis.^[1]

Pharmakos is also used as a vital term in Derridian deconstruction. In his essay "Plato's Pharmacy",^[2] Derrida deconstructs several texts by Plato, such as Phaedrus, and reveals the inter-connection between the word chain pharmakeia-pharmakon-pharmakeus and the notably absent word pharmakos. In doing so, he attacks the boundary between inside and outside, declaring that the outside (pharmakos, never uttered by Plato) is always-already present right behind the inside (pharmakeia-pharmakon-pharmakeus). As a concept, Pharmakos can be said to be related to other Derridian terms such as "trace".

Some scholars have connected the practice of ostracism, in which a prominent politician was exiled from Athens after a vote using pottery pieces, with the pharmakos custom. However, the ostracism exile was only for a fixed time, as opposed to the finality of the pharmakos execution or expulsion.

The term "pharmakos" later became the term "pharmakeus" which refers to "a drug, spell-giving potion, druggist, poisoner, by extension a magician or a sorcerer."^[3] A variation of this term is "pharmakon" (φάρμακον) a complex term meaning sacrament, remedy, poison, talisman, cosmetic, perfume or intoxicant.^[4] From this, the modern term "pharmacology" emerged.^[5]