Mantinades

“A Cretan does not say in plain words what he feels,
With mantinades he weeps or with laughter he peals!”

From couplets sent by SMS from Yorgos Vittoros, Mayor of Kparissi

Whose  garden are you blossom to, to whom do you belong?

Whose velvet down, whose feather are you, whose rejoicing song?

By Manolis Pasparakis (blind rhymester)

My heart, it doesn’t fool me, even with the games it plays:

All my nights are dark, but that’s the same with all my days.

From Yannis Pavlakis’s Cretan folk poetry collection

Take a look around you when the trees are all in bloom,

And wonder why you’ve chosen that old desiccated broom.

*

The everything of the world is zero, the life of the world is naught;

It is from nothing to nothing that eternity is wrought.

*

When they open wide the church doors to bear his body hither,

I’ll drag forth such a savage cry the wild greens will whither.

*

I want my darling filthy—it’s the dirty girl I trust—

To keep her to myself and make the rest flee in disgust.

From the bard of Sitia, Crete, Yanni Dermitzaki

Lower your branches, little one. This favor’s all I seek,

Because when lightning strikes, my, dear, it always finds the peak.

(Translated from Greek)

Upon reading these poems after seeing He’s Just Not That Into You at the dollar theater at Restaurant Row

I have a band with my fellow classmate, Emily. We write songs about Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hamlet, and other works of genius. We write rhyming songs, usually in the couplet style, and we pride ourselves on cleverness and wit. Witty titties—that is what we are. We twitter and text each other our rhymes and compose songs based on these rhyming triggers.

So, sitting at the bus stop (my location 80% of the time), I read these and read these again and then read these one more time because they accomplish in two lines what I often cannot. I was in awe of their skill and cleverness and skill. The couplets deal with large, universal matters—big stuff, so to speak. It’s ironic that these poems, two lines long and about fourteen to fifteen syllables at most, manage to accomplish the task of tearing the universe apart and then building it together again.

Obsessed with these poems as I was, I looked them up online to find more information.

I found some technical stuff about the couplets, called mantinades. The mantinades are in fifteen-syllable lines, an iambic “fifteener.” Fifteener is the meter that the Erotokritos, a founding document of demotic poetry for modern poets, uses. It’s also the rhythm that drives Greek rap music (fifteeners on speed) as well as protest slogans (fifteeners on steroids). The translators mention that they often took liberties with the fifteen syllables, partially because they wanted to recreate the wit and wordplay of the poems and partially because English tends to prefer ending in “da-Dum” not “da-Dum-da.”

Much in the way that Americans have “rap offs,” Greek rhymadoros have couplet-offs. Particularly skilled rhymadoros even perform at weddings, baptisms, funerals, and inaugurations. Poetry slams are called mantinadomachos. Like Emily and I, often times teens text message couplets to each other. It’s as much a part of their modern culture as facebook statuses are to us. I love that.

A typical example of a rhyming coupleteer is Andreas Papyrakis, in his sixties, black waxed mustache, black riding boots, illiterate but with a deep knowledge of musical traditions, a lyre player and always of good cheer. He says good couplets come to him only when there is a strong “opposition” in the house. If he bumps into another coupleteer or speaks to one on the telephone, there is a rapid exchange of rhyming volleys before they get to their first hello.

Often the rhymadore repeats the first line to build suspense and then releases the second like an axe, earning applause if it is truly complex or surprising: implying the whole from the detail, breaking up and rejoining the universe in two lines. For the rhymester, the couplet is an obsession, a livelihood, a talent, a war, a proof of life.

Here’s my attempt:

By Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur, modern rhymester

I spoke aloud what I thought, in the future, should happen to me.

But then I was eaten by a giant monster from the sea.

*

Jealousy creates a dark hole that no one can ever fill,

No matter how hard you browse their Facebook, and with passion will.

*

Between us lies mountains, oceans, border guards, and streams.

But we still speak secrets with letters, Skype, smoke signals, and dreams.

Quickie

This is a poem I found in my old Moleskine just now, and I had to share it. I can’t decide if I like it or not.

(click for bigger picture)

Today

is

actually

tomorrow

(today)

And

it’s

four o’ clock (morning)

I’m awake still the day

never ended it went on

forever and I have an

empty stomach break

fast time was dinner

time was sleeping was

awake time.

My watch says 4:43 am.

Shall

I

just

wait

for

the

sun?

Rendez-vous

with

the

moon?

Dance

in

my

pants?

Stare

at

the

stars?

Laugh

at

life?

Have

sex

with

Death?

Make

love

to

peace?

Make

friends

with

the

bends?

or shall I just go to sleep.

(Edit: DAMN WORDPRESS! I had it all indented this special way and it RUINED IT! I’ll have to scan it in.)

Life

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” –Kahlil Gibran

bursting, red, graypink purple

tiny hairs, big eyes, open mouth screaming

from under earth and unity there has come life

from days before last and weeks before those

you’ve arisen to tomorrow, not so much up but out

and the world has accepted you as a friend

a brother a sister a mother a father

a lover–we’re all one

now you bend your back so far it cracks

you work your hands so they bleed

you die a little bit everyday, not so much losing life

as just misplacing it

you are not an owner’s slave

they can’t

steal you away from yourself

know that they can’t

even come close

to taking away your freedom

and know that if you have your freedom

you can always find Life

A little sweet Thursday anarchy

Maybe I should have remembered to pack up my brain from my locker.

Maybe I should have started on my homework earlier.

Maybe I should stop listening to my old post-punk cheese music that’s been haunting me lately.

Maybe I should recall it’s Thursday.

Maybe I should remember tomorrow is Friday.

Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.

Maybe I should be doing a) matrices b) French subjunctive conjugations c) Huck Fin reading

Maybe I should.

or…

i saw you roll in your uncapitalized grave, e.e. cummings.

“if you can extract my sterilized ink

please do so and i will assist with my

tongue in your cheek,” said you to me.

IN VA SI ON IN VA SI ON inoninoninon me

that needle, that vinyl, that physical salvation–

my army is dropping your bombs on…

you

all we do is talk. static static. switch screens.

leave the light on. leave it ON it leave,

You live/you learn

 

 

 

maybe tonight

when i go

to

bed

 

 

i will dream of

blue light

hiding

me

 

 

and i’ll be all

alone and

i’ll be

the

 

 

only person

in the

forest green

with blue

 

 

eyes and a river

to travel by.

i’ll say

mahalo.

 

 

 

“Mahalo”, said she.

 

and later, “let’s do the Backstroke”.

you can swallow a pint of blood before you throw up

cold, hardened shrimp
for dinner
pealing away the shell and the legs
as the screen flashes
eyes glass over
so easily they break in my fingers
one by one, the juice
falling onto my red lips
drip drip till i’m finished
a pile of broken exoskeletons

i see my fridge full of
condiments,
my closet filled with
close knit cotton,
polyester, and
silk embroidered jeans
that i think i own
but that actually
own me

now i spend my time
browsing online
looking for the
scented candle
that best describes
my
personality
it takes up all my time

and my fingers still
smell like the
broken
bodies, miniature in their
composure compared
to me
i’ll have to wash myself
off before i’ve
shaken free the
rotting seaweed smell, fishy
to the core
using my oil free
epidermis scrub ($20),
of course

BeyondPassion (a rough draft)

passions to be
remembered, not just
forgotten in the rat
race, this one big face
of society
don’t play with me
don’t hate me
fake me
sexually harass me
cause I am you and you
are
me
there are no boundaries

when you raped me
did you remember
you have a mother who birthed
me
did you remember where
you came from
hearing the drum
of adrenaline
fight it, friend
cause I am you and you
are
me
when you hurt
me
you
hurt your
sanity

did you pay for me?
paid for the minutes
of ecstasy
in between me
dollar bills don’t
fulfill me
but I can’t leave this
it will follow me
and all I have left
are wasted passions
stained white on the
newest fashions
emptiness
inside
cause I am you and you
are me
when you pay for me
you bring hatred to the he
and cheapen the sacred she

I’ve joined the cult of
domesticity
swearing on chastity
before you marry me
cleaning the pantry
before you have sex
with me
raising the children
becoming the anti villain
becoming what you dream for
when you’re work-bored
what you cheat on when your
passion’s bored
feeling these binds on my hands
when I’m stuck at home and
I can’t vote
I can only hope
we don’t have a voice
we don’t have a choice
but speak, sister speak
cause I am you and
you are me
and you have made
my history

we volunteer to stop the violence
hone the campaigns
of more than abstinence
giving voice to the
silence
binding ourselves in an
alliance
of humanity
of men-and-women affinity
leaving behind golden vanity
sexist racist
profanity
and battling anti-organity
holding to truth,
love, and integrity
finding peace above the piles of grimy
blood soaked history
cause I am you and you
are
me
there are no boundaries

The stanzas are different points of view of women and their experiences. None of them are mine directly, but they are from stories that I’ve heard from friends and family. Some of them are historical, like the stanza about the Cult of Domesticity. They were inspired by books I’m reading about women’s suffrage. I haven’t been raped or sexually abused or entered into prostitution. But these things exists, and if I feel compelled to write about them, both to spread awareness, and to express pent up sadness and frustration, then that’s my choice.

This is just a rough draft. I wanted to try out the slam poetry style. I’m probably going to come back and hack away/change a whole bunch of stuff. It’s me tonight wanting to speak up about some things I’ve been thinking about. I originally recorded a podcast telling the story of the women in my family, but it got too personal and I didn’t want to publish private business of people other than myself.

So, allegorically yours,
Lindsea

Thirty Essentials- Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

existential crisis.

Who are we anyways living this life?
Who cares if leaders are being elected.
Who cares if we all die tomorrow from
some rare disease,
pumped into us
from vaccines,
from modified beans,
from wi-fi streams,
tv beams,
down low means.
Who are you to say THIS IS HOW IT IS
to say, THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE.
Not you, I say.
I can’t see the other side,
the other side of the world.
My life hasn’t been unfurled
even uncurled
from corners of this stratosphere.
Filled with hate and fear,
bloated suits pollute atmospheres.
Who cares.
What’s changed, what’s different
from the misprint,
typo-static charging foot prints
to nowhere.
It’s confused because it’s confusing.
We’re not naked because we’re scared.
Pleasure seekers,
philosophy creepers,
day dreamers,
fake believers,
we are all making it up.
It is all made up.
So who cares.