Comments on: Apocalypse 1492

By: Dick

Dick — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:24:13 +0000

Wonderfully evocative of time, place and occasion. Puts me in mind of the aborigine’s speeches that intersect the scenes in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play ‘Our Country’s Good’.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:19:09 +0000

Well, it really helps if there’s a bit of wind.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:13:34 +0000

Well, I thought the boat image was probably the most evocative. As for the tree? I know about seashells. Now I must go out and lend an ear to that huge Sweetgum in my backyard. I am rather afraid of what it might say.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:50:21 +0000

Nathan, Joan, thanks for the comments. Glad you liked. I'm not sure how well the moving seal paw image works, but maybe I get an A for effort? Most readers probably won't catch the irony that the Carribean monk seal is also now extinct, along with the Carribean Indians, Carib and Taino alike. And it seems my closing image might be a little obscure, as well. I was talking about the sounds a large tree makes if you press an ear against the trunk. I could definitely stand to make that a little clearer, I think.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:37:18 +0000

Geesh! Are all the comment people waiting for Columbus Day? Great poem, Dave. Always a double edged sword to perhaps see ourselves as others see us,( Provided of course we identify with “lousy” Columbus.)

I love this! :” a strange new island shaped
like a moving hand, fingers
webbed like the claws of a seal.”

and this:

“The sun flashes off their bodies
as if they brought their own seas
with them.”

Ah Heck! I like the whole thing.. Beat’s the heck out of “In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two; Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”

Right now, however, most all of us are just trying to stay afloat. The cannibals have already gotten the economy.

One question. What is that ‘deep and slow’ sound. I’m thinking cannons..since it was perhaps an age before foghorns..but as you may have gathered, I studied art, not history. Now to sit back and see where I got this all wrong.

By: Nathan First

Nathan First — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:30:45 +0000

“garish and silent as vipers … lousy with men.”

Thanks as always, Dave. What would happen if the Caribs stumbled on that wire brush of yours?