Octotrope
Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 11:28 amThis morning the non-real word “octotrope” came to my mind. I suppose an octotrope would be something that turns towards eight, whatever that might mean. As a surrealist game, I decided to brainstorm eight meanings for what “octotrope” might be or might lead to. I got these:
1) A crystal ball wrapped in a dirty white sheet.
2) The smell of lemon trees in spring.
3) The aviator’s aquatic wound (he will die of another).
4) A stag with an unborn child in a glowing caul balanced between his antlers.
5) A vicious battle between candelabras and daggers.
6) A well with a large silver fish living at the bottom: he’s a subtle and challenging teacher.
7) A row of medals, each fancier than the last.
8 ) A hawk with clipped wings. She has learned to sing, but would rather fly.
Second 8, because I couldn’t stop:
1) Under the table, a glass chamberpot waiting to be discovered!
2) In total, seven pink ribbons and one lavender (because there was no more pink) tied on the horns of the sacrificial bull.
3) Owls at night, flying backward to the North Pole.
4) The Fibonacci spiral of an unfurling leaf, explained to a child.
5) The boring existence of two crossed hairs.
6) Nails that one must hammer into a piece of wood: the xylophone music of this.
7) A seaside boarding house for retired medusae.
8 ) Their ritual of exchanging poems rolled up in china cups.
I had fun with this and thought that if anyone else has definitions of or responses to “octotrope” it might be cool to make a table of them, and maybe we could publish it somewhere (and here if all else fails). Be as free and zany or deep or pretty or ugly and concrete or abstract as you like. Languages other than English are welcome.
Please send any contributions by email to octotrope@kjbishop.net
Edit - please send all further contributions by email, since if we’re going for publication it’s best not to have too much online.
August 18th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
An octopus searching for his legs. He lost them in a game of poker and needs them back to impress a girl who sits on a rock, singing for him.
A troupe of eight circus performers who cannot spell very well.
August 19th, 2007 at 4:14 am
1) The leftward spiral of a hummingbird on a springtime mission of mercy.
2) Ask the Giraffe juggling oranges.
3) The balance between east and a thousand tiny candles in a nebbish’s demesne.
4) The laughter of a small child while sitting upon an immense silvered floating lollipop.
5) The color green strangely wafting in the middle of a soulful melody.
6) Satan once had three of these, but he gave one to an oratory mongoose.
7) The key to the seventh door of the seventh house on the eighth isle of paradise.
8 ) The tastelessness of delicious things.
August 19th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Alankria - I want to know the whole story of the octopus now!
Dave - you have the soul of a poet (I know, I know, you keep it in a box full of itchy leaves under your throne)
August 19th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
there was this delightfully awful game I had for the Sega Saturn? I think the Saturn. When you died a random piece of creapy dialog played. One I’ve kept was
I have the heart of a vegetarian… for breakfast every morning.
August 19th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Haha, oh Dave, that’s awesome. It is now my favourite vegetarian-related quote. (Now the second-favourite: I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian.)
And now I am going to have to write the octopus’ tale sometimes. I will let you know when I do. In the meantime, you might be a amused by a short tale I wrote to fit within a larger short story:
Once I carried a world in the pack I wear on my back. Moons hung in side pockets, tugging its waters this way and that like children fighting over a favourite toy. There was no sun, or at least none of the moons would admit that their light was more than a reflection.
My pack – Oort cloud – was very special to me then.
I negotiated daily with the world. In return for the saucepans growing on its trees, the dried meats and rice it buried under a carefully-drawn X, the clothes that rippled in the wind like lakes, I fed it children to populate its towns.
Of course, I could not stay in one place for long.
Princes came from the grasslands and forests to claim back the children from the world in my pack. Their swords made good fuel – and oh, how they gaped to see their precious weapons turned to firewood! They ran from me then, as I turned first their feet, then their legs to wood, and I laughed as they tripped and fell. The forest thanked me for the way they mulched its plants.
Eventually the world grew old and cranky, and would only have a certain kind of child – fair-skinned with russet hair, the colour of a fox. The moons whispered bets to each other – Only a week now or No, there’s a fortnight in it yet. Finally, as I failed to find enough children with the correct colour hair, the world grew cold in my pack. It surrendered its saucepans, its dried meats and rice, its clothes. In that last instant, the moons proved loyal. When the world fell from my pack, a dark grey stone ribboned with lighter lines marking where the seas and rivers had run, five pebbles fell with it.
I was sad to see them go, though I knew it would be easier to travel without carrying a world.
Fox-haired children taste of paprika and bark, I later learnt. I understood why the world had enjoyed them so much.
(I love my brain sometimes.)
August 20th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Dave - it does sound delightfully awful. (The things I’ve missed from swearing off video games…)
Alankria - I love your brain too! That’s wonderful - another one of your pieces that I’d want to publish if I were an editor. Is the larger story finished?
August 20th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
There are nine purple stars and nine mysteries but only eight keys.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Thank you! The larger story is still in progress. I’m trying to be focused and finish my novella first, and then I’ll work on this story. It will probably be novelette length — a fine length for difficult selling! The little story comes from one of the pieces of paper in the main female character’s hair, papers that also allow her to control the wind. The larger story, which I’m going to call “A Man and a Woman in Retyelnen”, is about as close as I come to writing a love story: not much love in sight, really, except his obsession with her. =D I’d love to see it published as a standalone chapbook, but I don’t know how likely that is.
Focused child that I am, I’ve started writing the octopus’ story. Except it wants to be a poem. So far I have:
Eight legs he had, once,
and long and fine they were
in shades of red and brown
like a space rack,
knobbed with proud suckers.
He cooked, of course—
what finer use could so many legs
be put to? For chopping, slicing,
shaking pans like disobedient crabs,
seasoning and presentation,
all at once. No finer legs
had he ever owned.
In the ocean
things come and go
with the roll of the tide
or a rather abysmal turn.
Eight legs he had, once,
until the nine of jacks
stared up at him and
the catfish laid down two nines.
“Your legs, my friend, as bet,”
and off they came with a sound
like a blowfish popping.
(I, uh, should probably get back to work now… If only they gave me enough stuff to do, then I wouldn’t write while here!)
August 20th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
It occurs to me that I need a different card hand, as it’s unlikely he’d bet his legs on something weaker than three of a kind. Maybe the catfish has a full house, which if I’m remembering correctly would knock out a straight.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Part zwei of the poem!
II. Girl, singing
He bobbed, shining red buoy,
along currents etched in blue,
limned in the white of wind-teased surf.
Cooking was a fever-dream.
The horizon, he learnt,
is a difficult beast,
always teasing, yet
like all beasts it has its treasures:
a girl, singing, on a short black rock.
Her voice— Oh! Like the whistle
of a pot nicely steaming, or
the dying hymn of green beans
(he heard that once, years ago,
when a shipwreck proved most bountiful).
He bumped against her rock—
princely kiss on a virgin’s glove—
and told her how to
smoke salmon over a sea-weed fire.
She would like that, he said.
“I will,” she said, “and you are kind,
but you need more legs, dear Octo,
if you are to serenade me
in the algae-light or
catch seahorses for my aquarium.
If they are lost, dear Octo,
then surely they can be found.”
To hear her sing for him
and more, perhaps,
of course he would attempt the quest.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Laurie - that’s so you, somehow. The agony of having to leave one door, locked!
Alankria - I love it to death.
‘ “Your legs, my friend, as bet,”
and off they came with a sound
like a blowfish popping. ‘
- you should see my sad face.
I like the balance between poeticcy parts like the dying hymn of green beans, the comic, the whimsical and the poignant - and it’s a poem with a story, yay!
Seriously, this is a great piece - and much as I love it, and my mind’s going “Noes!!” as I type this, you should probably not post more here, as someone might well want to publish it and prior appearance online can be a problem. Up to you. I will buy any magazine it’s in, though. (And if you want to slip a preview under the email table, all the better…)
Actually, that goes for any more Octotrope stuff too - best be by email (I’ve edited the post to that effect)
August 21st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Hee! I’m glad you like it! I’m reasonably new to this poetry stuff — well, I wrote angsty stuff as a teenager, but more mature poetry is a recent experiment and one I’m having a lot of fun with. I have a poem coming in the Fall 2007 issue of Goblin Fruit, which features a carniverous house.
I was thinking about the prior publication problem last night, and I won’t post any more of the poem here. An email preview when it’s done, though, may well be forthcoming.
(Selling it will be a delight, though, considering its length; it will almost certainly go over 100 lines. And it feels bizarre to moan about sales, but I already have stories in two magazines that I love and which welcome long poetry (Sybil’s Garage and Farrago’s Wainscot) so they’re out. But I shall poke around.)
August 21st, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Alankria - how odd, I was just thinking of Goblin Market. (I don’t think of it every day, honestly). Please yes to an email preview! I think Electric Velocipede might take poetry that long. Possibly Jabberwocky, too. And some literary journals might bite. When it’s finished I’ll poke around too.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Electric Velocipede goes up to 100 lines but the wording suggests that’s a firm upper limit, and says he usually takes much shorter stuff. If I manage to keep it up under 100 lines then I’ll try there (once he’s responded to a fiction submission, which might be a little while yet), but I suspect it will be a bit longer. I’ve been looking around at literary journals and might try Conjunctions, and will see what others I can unearth. I’m not aware of Jabberwocky having open submissions; I think it’s invite-only.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Jabberwocky’s editor was TEC’s first publisher. I’d be happy to show him the finished work, if you like.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I’d certailny be interested in that. I’ll pass it on to you once it’s finished and polished.