eight limbed pussy in limbo
dances at the shipwrecking seas
on-set of adventure by tiptoe
in the hold; to reccy the car
goings on of the lost
and foundering depart
meant for deliverance
Pearls for eyes* and tooth
some-rsaulting grin, a velvet prod
noses the in-betweens of star and port
beam of murky light; nemesis in braille for
pining the waste of want octopus counts
up its chainlink of token anchors
away in the straddled lair.
*nod to Arial as Shakespeare & Eliot
Venturing into enjambment @dversepoets whereby the end may-be the start of the next line or the word is hyphenated in-to two!
OH! I LOVE what you did with: “some-rsaulting grin” and that “velvet prod” is so descriptive!
And goodness, you had me at that title. 😉
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glad I did not read your remarkable enjambment til after the ‘octopus jamboree’ else I would still be straddling the first lines!
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By the way, my sweet 5-year-old nephew has a teddybear named Octopus Car-Car Stickers. 😉 This made me think of him.
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Try straddling that in verse! 🙂
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Oct
-oh pus
Car-Car
Stick
-hers. 😉
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check-
mated in fo(u)r
mation
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This reads like a limbo dance ~ I specially like: some-rsaulting grin !!!
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thank you Grace – with all those limbs I’m guessing octopi somersault
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It really does “read like a limbo dance”! Love-ly!
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I like your lithesome comment – many thanks
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😀 Not very original but Grace said it so well!
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I like the various images, but I can’t follow the poem. I wanted to, it seemed cool.
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glad you asked – simply put the octopus reconnoitres wrecks – reaching through and under ships’ beams like a limbo dancer – a light-hearted play on words and using the slippage of words from one line to the next – e..g
shipwrecking seas
on-set of adventure
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and amazing to see thru what a tiny hole they can escape to return to the sea.
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indeed Diane – limbo capacities! See these ones who gather coconut shells to secrete themselves in?
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Great stuff, Laura. This is also new to me – enjambment. Intriguing.
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I knew its rollover effect Tish without knowing the name (French for straddling) or the extremes of word splitting into words – as a writer you might be interested to read De Jackson’s explanation
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Love the creativity here 🙂 you did a superb job!
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struggled to take form in this novel way so appreciate you words Sanaa
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Really liked your word play…especially “some-rsaulting grin” too….but the whole thing was fun to read.
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this playing with words is such fun isn’t it Mary – the way the meanings suddenly switch or summer salt!
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i am
capt
u
red
by the
eight leg
cat and
or pussy
at the be
g
inning..:)
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thank
you for
your wit
ty res
ponse
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dit
to//o..;)
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There is such musicality in this aquatic dance.. the wonder of the creature of the deep… love it.
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am glad you heard some music Bjorn as I had not paid so much attention to this element but would need to with a limbo dance
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I started smiling at the title and smiled right through to the end!
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so glad 🙂 the light-hearted approach worked me through this first challenge and s m i l i n g is something I do not do enough of with my versifiying
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I like your playful title and the beginning lines described the octopus “tip-toe”ing and of course love the “some-rsaulting grin.”
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thank you Bodhirose (lovely avatar name) never realised octopodes had so much fun til I wrote this – though there is a shadowy side of shipwrecks
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Thank you, Laura…I like that name too. :~) I’ve seen some documentaries on octopi (is that correct?) and how intelligent they are, truly amazing. I would imagine that the shadowy side might be because of people who lay claim to the goods on those shipwrecks? I’m curious now…
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apparently octopuses or octopodes (Greek) but I too thought octopi like cacti with suckers for prickles!
– and also laying claim to the wrecks – homes for fish shoals, hidey holes for predators and as for the drowned…
“When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; “
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Oh yes, can’t forget the drowned…poor souls. Thanks for the info, Laura.
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I think we’ve
all gone a
little du-
lally.
This prompt has brought out the be(a)st in us.
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a veri table an(im)al farm 🙂
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Laura this was marvelous fun as I slipped and “slided” along through your words and lines like an octopus would in the murky waters and then counting the anchors of my conquests back to my lair….so very creative!
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slip-sliding describes enjambment to a tee – so the octopus turned out to be a good metaphor – thank you for your observations Donna
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