Greetings to both, and to both wishes for a worthy day.

First off, thanks to both of you for the time spent in reading/replying to the poem.

About the 'paralax'...

I seldom use titles, because, however used in a poem by way of content, structure, or various other things that bind a poem with wings, titles set boundries and requirements that the poem may not be able, need, or want to use - poem about an oak tree cannot make its wherewithals dispose towards the rose, could I guess, but...

In this case I deliberately chose the title because it allowed the experience that caused the poem into place to attach itself to a known perspective that was more telling than could have been obtained by using another concept-word, say, 'between', or the more wallowousness of 'distinction', etc. To quote MA: "the apparent distinction or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object". - followed carefully, that definition should erase the notion that the second stanza has anything at all to do with smoking (took me a bit of sorting to see how this conslusion were possible) Consider: one object in question, that being the orange flowers, named to exclusion of any other object stated or by way of reasonable inplication; this one object is what is within the semantic grasp of the title; the orange flowers are seen at a distance, 'yard's edge' which becomes the second point of perspective concerning the one object; had the second stanza intended the introduction of a cigarette, then the title would not have worked because of the present of a second object. This is how the title fell into use regarding my experience of seeing the flowers at 'yard's edge' and seeing them again at 'arm's length' - same one object, two very different physical and aesthetic distances. In the first distance, the flowers looked nearly musical, in the closer distance, the flowers showed a rumpledness that was not all that musical, and the blooms had odd blurts of black ('living ash') that had the pattern of patternlessness. It really was that simple and linear to me when the poem jumpted into the whole the moment. The 'direction' between the first and second view is that of what the poem attempted by way of a dualized perspective. Maby not as well as it could have, but it did try.

Again, thanks to both. Hope I have dofffed the notional cigarette: such is not mentioned, and beggers, in my mind at least, any inclusion. Poems be treacherous thangs, eh? Hope to see you guys on tuesday.

Carpe Verve

Doug

Bratsche, I'm glad you cleared that up. BBBs read the second stanza as being about smoking, and when I got to the thread, I following BBBs' take like a lemming.

The next day, I said, "Hey, this poem might not be about smoking after all," but I never got around to writing a second take.

My lazy bad.

PS
MaryAnne is a different Slate poster from me (MaryAnn).

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about that parallax thing..........

titles set boundries and requirements

Titles also free the mind.

To think anew.

To think beyond

To think also.

To think why not.

To think for fun.

To think seriously.

A title can be a sign in front of a very large maze

of bushes

That a person is about to enter

And with two words does begin with

‘This Way’.

Please help me stop….lol

Sometimes the title in front of a work of art

was the only reason I was able understand the work of art………lol

p.s. I enjoyed very much being wrong about your poem by the way………….lol

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Gerolamo Frigimelica designed the Maze of Villa Pisani in 1720, and nowadays it is one of the most famous and best preserved in Europe.

Its nine concentric circles originally of hornbeam hedges and now of box hedges, were a place of entertainment and love plays during vacations.

The destination of a long and complex path is the turret.

Two small spiral staircases twining the turret lead to the top, where the statue of Minerva, goddess of wisdom and patron goddess of all arts welcomes the visitor at the end of his "effort".

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10. The maze at Villa Pisani, in the Veneto region of Italy, was created in the early 1700s, and is said to be once of the world’s most complicated.

Located in the town of Stra, the maze is made up of layers of pathways in 12 concentric rings with high hedges leading to a central tower.

Famously, because Napoleon had once been lost in the maze, when Hitler and Mussolini met for a chin wag there, neither of them were willing to venture into the maze in case they too got lost. Imagine the path of history then.

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Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Hellenizing Romans from the second century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena.

She was the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, and the inventor of music.

She is often depicted with an owl, her sacred creature and, through this connection, a symbol of wisdom.

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