Poseidon's Pantone Adventures: 2014 Poetry Project

It is Day 21 of the Pantone ®  Poetry Project, Writerly Friends, and we are visiting with the god of the ocean himself, Poseidon.

Day 21 Poseidon
Pantone ®  19-4033

His mood swings are taking us from destructive Tornado...

Day 21 Tornado
Pantone ®  18-3907

to a gentle Aqua Splash.

Day 21 Aqua Splash
Pantone ®  14-4812

Tidal

By Laura Shovan

For a god with such

a fiery temper

Poseidon is cool

as blue night.

He’d like his

tidal waves colored

lava red, his anger

lit up, consuming

shores. Instead,

we humans learn

to fear the aqua splash,

watch for a rise

in the ocean’s skin,

sign of his underwater

thrust. We never know

when Poseidon’s blow

will fall blue upon us.

Let’s meet another side of Poseidon – the history of this god’s myth – from poet Patricia VanAmburg.

Gender Identity
by Patricia VanAmburg

I

Poseidon tornadoes the
surface in an aqua splash.
Wait. That is so Disney.

II

Poseidon mirrors his niece
Athena—she the mini-Zeus
dressed in drag—he the true
vestige of Mother God.
Athena of the harness—
Poseidon the horse—
riding sea waves—
mane billowing serpents—
Scylla—Charybdis—
then plunging into
the briny female deep.

by American Artist Walter Crane

We’re still in the dangerous deep -- from the safe distance of memory -- with Margaret Simon’s poem.

The Poseidon Adventure

By Margaret Simon

My brother saw The Poseidon Adventure twelve times.
A dozen times, the huge ship capsized

sending a woman screaming into the skylight.

Again and again, Shelly Winters swam to her death,

a physical sacrifice at each viewing.

This movie ignited a teenage boy’s imagination,

played over and over in his mind.

I could hear through the walls his director calls,

the score repeated on the 45 record player.

Then in ’75, he became Tommy,

The Pinball Wizard.  He must have seen that one

17 times and played the record many more.

The refusal to rest content, creativity

led him to obsession.  Obsession to passion,

passion to adventures—over and over again.

Margaret’s poem takes us into the realm of ocean and memory. Not surprisingly, for several of today’s contributors, Poseidon is symbolic of men who were giants in our lives.

Stephanie Lemghari first published this elegy for her father in Little Patuxent Review. She is remembering her father on his birthday, 2/26.

Tide
by Stephanie Lemghari

When I was a child, I stumbled on pebbles while playing
on the beach and fell into salty water. The sea raced
to steal my breath, but my father fished me up like Poseidon,
his trident arms carrying me safely to land.

Now his body betrays his mortality after all,
as, pebble by pebble, the tide pulls him from shore.
I call to him to stay, to close his ears to siren song,
to trace a different ending in the sand.

Temple of Poseidon Statue

From the sounds and tactile images of Stephanie’s poem, we move to a different sense (or – a different sense moves us) in Linda Baie’s memory poem.

Olfactory Push

By Linda Baie

My husband chose not to wear a perfumed aftershave,

rejected his father’s Old Spice, one small wave

of rebellion. Yesterday my visit to a nursing home

brought a childhood aroma, whispering from the past.

It was my father’s aftershave, a liberal splashing.

After the war, he liked to be clean, always looked so dashing.

From my little girl’s perspective, he was my favorite knight

And that Aqua (Velva) splash made everything all right.

Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved

Some of the color names we’ve discovered have been out there. Remember Tarmac? What about Turbulence? Diane Mayr wonders what’s up with the Pantone ®  marketing department in her poem. (For high school and up only, readers!)

On Discovering a Color Called Tornado 
by Diane Mayr

You have to wonder 
what the marketers 
at the paint factory 
were high on--fumes? 
It's gotta be something. 
Think of a tornado... 

What comes to mind? 
Gunmetal gray? Bile 
yellow? White? Maybe... 
A shade of eggplant? 
Not likely. Anyone would 
say they're smokin' dope.

Tomorrow, I’ll post the Pantone ®  Poetry Project Week Three wrap-up. (Read more about the project here.) I know you’re itching like sand’s in your pants to see the last set of colors. 

Here are our last seven color prompts:

Day 22 (Tomorrow): Quicksilver, Ballerina

Day 22 Quicksilver
Pantone ®  17-3907

Day 22 Ballerina
Pantone ®  13-2807

Dust off those tutus and toe shoes, everyone.

Day 23: Solar Power, Gulf Stream, Nimbus Cloud

Day 24: Sweet Pea, Orange Ochre

Day 25: Plein Air, Syrah

Day 26: Stormy Weather, Porcelain Blue, Daybreak

Day 27: Peacock Green, Blue Jewel

Day 28: Tandori [sic] Spice

Blue Jewel.
Why don't they just call it Sapphire?
From Navneet Gems.