A Jewel Blue Eye: 2014 Poetry Project

It’s our second to last day of the Pantone® Poetry Project, Writerly Friends. What overlaps do you see in today’s jewel-toned verse?

Our Day 27 colors are:

Day 27 Peacock Green
Pantone ®  16-5431

Day 27 Blue Jewel
Pantone ®  18-4535

F0r more information about what we've been up to during the Pantone Poetry Project, visit thispost.

Several pieces of response writing today mention dreams, religion and myth, and Ancient Greece. Let’s start with a haiku by Linda Baie of TeacherDance.

the peacock’s tail

flashes iridescent green

like a night parade of fireflies

Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved

Those lovely eye-feathers invite comparison to other images: eyes, lights, stars, fireflies.

Read about structural coloration at Wikipedia.

Margaret Simon (Reflections on the Teche) gathered so much information and pre-writing for her poem, she decided to use a poetic form. Sometimes big poems need a container to give them shape, which Margaret does to great effect here.

Jewel

By Margaret Simon

            a ghazal in the style of Robert Bly (http://www.robertbly.com/r_p_dawn.html)

Memories of our days together form

Teardrops upon this promise ring.

The gem reflects the color of our baby’s eyes.

Dreams rock the child gently on the Aegean Sea

Awakening to the sound of rushing waves,

This guardian of beauty, her eyes.

Focused on the dimming of imperfections,

Outshined by inspiration’s glorious sky,

Gold can purify in fire, turning ashes to eyes.

The jewel carries immortality and value,

Sees her for who she really is, momento mori

Written on her brow above her eyes.

We weep for we know we die, again and again.

When we can’t find heaven, there are always peacocks

Fanning regal feathers topped with resurrection eyes.

Your gift, dear Margaret, is in the gentle alto tone,

A voice raised to praise on Sunday mornings,

Mother’s requiem in your golden brown eyes.

I learned today that peacocks are associated with both the resurrection of Jesus, but also with resurrection in the form of the mythological Phoenix. My poem today was almost titled "Phoenix on Earth."

Where did I pick up this info? I found an informative site (The Art of Mourning) that touched on the peacock’s symbolism in mythology, alchemy, and Jungian psychology. Whew – that was a lot of information. My brain kept wanting to escape and write about something less high-brow, but the poem I ended up with surprised me. When I revise, I may follow  Margaret's example and try a poetic form to contain these ideas.

Bird Alchemy

by Laura Shovan

Alchemists named

the moment of transmutation

Eye of the Peacock—

when lead begins to understand

its golden nature.

But I’ve been reading

too much myth today.

Jung’s symbols have me so

addled that Australian penguins

from this morning’s news

swim close, scatter peafowl

as if their tails were not made

of shimmering feathers,

but of oily pools. These penguins

must be washed of oil and dried.

Then they need wooly sweaters

to keep their bodies warm.

I want to knit them jumpers

with whorls of peacock green,

sapphire blue—penguins covered

with the hundred eyes of Argus,

each eye watching for the moment

of our understanding.

It's real and you can find
the pattern right here.

I have to admit, I read Patricia’s poem for today before I wrote mine. She must have talked me into committing mythological allusions without a license.

Peacock Green

By Patricia VanAmburg

On a green sward beside the ruins

peacocks are screaming at Knossos

just as they screamed long ago

when the blue jewel Aegean

swallowed the ancestors of Zeus.

Patricia adds, “The Prince of Lilies fresco from Knossos has peacock feathers--though I could not find a very good image--and the restoration has been very controversial.”

Let’s end today with a mysterious poem (Jung would approve) by Diane Mayr of Random Noodling.

Speaking for the Peafowl of Princes

by Diane Mayr

You complain

when your sleep

is interrupted

by our calls.

You complain

of our many eyes

that find their way

into your dreams.

You brought us

here where we

do not belong.

I say, you get what

you deserve.

I must say readers -- and especially writers -- for a set of poems about color, this month has been a feast.

What will you bring to the table on Friday, when we celebrate the end of our month-long Pantone® Poetry Project with the color below? Whether you've got something sweet, savory, or spicy -- leave it in the comments and I'll include your poem in Friday's post.

Day 28 Tandori Spice
Pantone ®  18-1444

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.