SND 1/9 (SEP 2023) SITE #5 “the edge” STUDY
5. “the edge” (32 min)
Mystic meadows bloom,
Emerald leaves and sentinels,
Dance in Donkey's grace.
- haiku, iansmoz & ai
Here, narrated information from original dance is formed into an “epic poem” structure that was “Blakean”:
(hear read on YouTube: link coming)
In the meadows of Donkey’s grace
In the meadows of Donkey's grace,
I found myself in a mystic place,
Amidst emerald leaves that danced on high,
With a soul that longed to touch the sky.
Sentinels tall, they stood so wise,
Their shadowy forms 'neath azure skies,
In their presence, I sought to find,
A dance that stirred my soul and mind.
As I gazed upon the verdant cloud,
I felt the whispers of spirits loud,
The emerald leaves, a celestial wing,
In this realm of wonder, they began to sing.
With eyes that saw beyond the mundane,
I spun and twirled, free from the chain,
In every step, a message unfurled,
In the Donkey's realm, I found my world.
In this dance, neoteric and free,
A movement philosophy just for me,
For in this sacred Donkey's space,
I found the essence of poetic grace.
As I moved with grace and fiery flair,
The Donkey's spirit filled the air,
A dance that echoed through the ages,
In this sacred space, we turned its pages.
So let me now dance with joyful glee,
In the Donkey's Common, forever free,
With sentinels guarding the sacred tree,
I dance in this realm, where I'm meant to be.
**Analysis of the Poem: "In the Meadows of Donkey's Grace"**
The poem "In the Meadows of Donkey's Grace" weaves a vivid tapestry of imagery, emotion, and philosophical reflection. Its verses transport the reader to a mystical world where nature, spirituality, and the act of dance converge. Here's a one-page analysis of this evocative piece:
**1. Nature as a Sacred Setting:**
The poem's opening lines immediately establish a serene and reverent atmosphere within the "meadows of Donkey's grace." This setting becomes a sacred space where the speaker embarks on a transformative journey.
**2. Vivid Imagery:**
The poem is rich in visual imagery, from the "emerald leaves" that dance high above to the "shadowy forms 'neath azure skies." This imagery creates a sensory experience, immersing the reader in the enchanting world described.
**3. Spiritual Connection:**
Throughout the poem, there is a palpable sense of spiritual connection. The "whispers of spirits loud" and the "celestial wing" of emerald leaves suggest a communion with something transcendent, blurring the line between the earthly and the divine.
**4. Dance as Liberation:**
Dance serves as a metaphor for liberation and self-discovery. The speaker's movements are described as "free from the chain," signifying a release from constraints, both physical and spiritual. This reflects Ian Mozdzen's philosophy of "nonchoreography," emphasizing spontaneity and freedom in movement.
**5. Neoteric Philosophy:**
The term "neoteric" hints at the innovative and modern nature of the speaker's approach to dance and life. It implies a departure from traditional norms and a commitment to forging a unique path.
**6. Poetic Grace:**
The poem itself embodies "poetic grace" with its lyrical language and rhythmic flow. It reinforces the idea that the act of creating art, in this case, poetry, can be a dance of words and emotions.
**7. The Donkey's Symbolism:**
The "Donkey's grace" and the "Donkey's Common" carry symbolic weight. Donkeys are often associated with humility, endurance, and steadfastness. In this context, the Donkey may symbolize the source of inspiration and guidance on the speaker's artistic and spiritual journey.
**8. Universal Themes:**
While deeply personal, the poem touches on universal themes of self-discovery, communion with nature, and the transformative power of art. It invites readers to reflect on their own journeys of creative expression and spiritual exploration.
**Implications:**
"In the Meadows of Donkey's Grace" is a testament to the ability of poetry to evoke emotions, inspire introspection, and transport readers to imaginative realms. It celebrates the interconnectedness of art, nature, and spirituality while advocating for the liberating and transformative potential of creative expression. The poem encourages individuals to seek their own sacred spaces where they can dance to the rhythm of their souls and embrace the neoteric philosophy of artistic freedom and innovation.
SURPRISE TEXT BY CHAT GPT 3.5
— ie. I asked it to “surprise me” … it certainly did:
Amidst the mystic meadows' bloom,
Where emerald leaves and sentinels loom,
A dancer emerged, unchained and free,
In Donkey's grace, a dance decree.
With each step, a story told,
In this realm where mysteries unfold,
The emerald leaves, their whispers light,
Guided the dancer through day and night.
In the heart of the Donkey's art,
Where every movement played its part,
A poetry of motion, a rhythm's trance,
In the Donkey's Common, they found their dance.
With grace and fire, they took their flight,
In the emerald canopy's soft moonlight,
The sentinels watched, their shadows tall,
As the dancer's spirit began to enthrall.
A dance of wonder, a dance of dreams,
In the meadows of Donkey's gleams,
With emerald leaves as wings they soar,
In this mystical realm, forevermore.
ORIGINAL INPUT:
Standing now as if in front of a Donkey Common, but you can see the Donkey Common from the limit, from the boundary, and above the boundary is a green emerald cloud of leaves, and then there's a dark emerald leaves beyond that, and then beyond that are these trees, the Donkey Common, and all the sentinels are there, their shadowy long stalks and trees, and the figure enters and begins to gesture, and flick, and turn, and express, and reflect of the sun, and with the flowers on the back of the vest, and the hands spinning, and the figure is poised, and stepping forward and back, and clicking the heels in the air, and spinning, and arching, and walking backwards out of frame, a little dance, just a short little dance, below the emerald cloud, and now we're like, we can see, oh, a figure now enters again, and spins, and with fists to the abdomen, and the lifting of the leg, and pointing to the ground, and the hand extending, and the body releases back, there beneath the emerald green cloud, and the legs flick, and the body exits the frame, and then a hand reaches, and there's a kick, the figure, just on the edge of the frame, there, and kicking, and flicking, and like a gazelle leaping, and looking, beneath there, the green emerald cloud of leaves, and the sentinels stand, and the dancer here, at the limit, and the boundary, and the leap, and the arms, like wings of a plane, and the honking of a horn, and many horns heard in the distance, there, standing before the donkey common, have we been here before? it looks like before, but it's not before, it's everything that was before, but now, the dancer exits from the limit, and goes deep into, no, deep into the boundary, but not into the donkey common, it was as if going into the leaves that are no longer there, but are there, the dancer exits the frame, coming towards us, that claw reaching into the frame, from the greenery, the arms and legs of that dancer slice through the air now, and like a windmill passes through, and out, and we are left again, the donkey common, revealed to us from the distance of the limit, and into that limit is that sentinels, that, is this the forest, or the forest, the trees, the trees of the forest, and the flick of the legs, and the body, into the air, and landing beneath the green, the emerald green cloud, and the hands, as if in the air, gesturing to pluck a leaf, but not, the hands were empty, the dancer looks, and then falls to the ground, the dancer falls to the ground, flowers on the vest, the dancer on the ground, beneath the emerald cloud, and the dancer looks to us, and turns, looking to the ground, here, marking the limit, the bottom of the frame, within the limit, the body, a boundary, the body, the body gesturing, the hands flicking up, and curving, and flinging the leg, directing it, spinning it, flicking it, standing now, looking back, sitting, looking back at the sentinels, I am a sentinel, see, I know their line, it's the line to the green emerald cloud, and beyond that, are the cars, but now, in my hand, I hold a leaf, a leaf, and I bring, I bring, to the eye, it is a leaf that is dry and brown, oh, and it's flicked into the sky, and onto the ground, and I dash into the sentinels, I stand now in their cool shadows, and now I come back to the limit, I stand, I flick, I'm poised, I go to the ground, and look up, and I frame with my arms the emerald cloud, my gesture, feeling its emanations, tracing it out as if it were in front of me, but it is above me, and I am framed by the sentinels behind me, and they provide a cool frame, a cool focus frame for the green emerald clouds in the sky that are the leaves, and my body spreads, oh, and leaps in accordance with their beauty, and I exit the frame. Crunching and re-entering the frame, standing, looking back at the sentinels in the donkey common, flicking of the arms, flicking of the legs, its extensions, large, unknown forms, the lines, what are these figures, these figures that slant and tilt and spin and swivel and walk to the edges of the frame, as if, as if the dance of the sentinels. Am I a tree or am I a forest? Am I a forest or am I a tree? I walk out of the frame, the quivering of the emerald green cloud as I accidentally brush against a branch and trigger the whole cloud to shiver, and then I walk back into the frame, the sun reflects, I touch a branch, the cloud shivers again, it shivers, even spiders' webs are caught by the sunlight as I shift and trigger, and oh, throw, I fall to the ground, and I toss leaves, brown leaves up into the air, and I jump, and I, like a pinion into the air, like a sentinel, and then I brush off those leaves, I tuck myself up, I correct my vest and flatten that out and do a series of quick, expressive flips and switches and gestures that are a natural but precise, poised but eternal, refer to nothing but their own unique energy, and the sentinels stand and they watch as I beave, and there's a claw that reaches right to the limit, sometimes I think maybe I am the claw, clawing at the forest was the forest clawing at me, and I point to my head and I point to the sentinels in profile, my fingers fanning my face back and forth, and I gesture and glide my hands if I fan through the air, my hands are fans and now they're gesturing upwards in a strange language with the fingers and forms, and the eye brightens and I look down, the colours keep changing, yet the sunlight reflects off of my skin, off of my for my eyes, off of my clothes, off of my soul, and I spin and I twist and shining and under light, and I show the trees and the cloud with my arms framing at my arms and hands, and I fall like a vogue fall to the ground to show my blue bright socks now amongst the sentinels and my black shoes that are too big, and my pants which are grey and brownish as the limit boundary is, some of that red little flowers on my vest and my arms, my legs extending to the sentinels, to the ground, to the sentinels, to the ground, to the sentinels, pointing, tracing, arcing up and down the fingers, the arms, extending now to me, seeing me looking at me in the future, looking at me in the past, and I hold my fingers in my mouth like almost as if I'm biting my hand and I see my teeth, but that becomes a kind of enjoyment of this limit now, and then I take that into a series of bends and reaches and then I leave the frame, hearing crunches and birds chirping in the distance, a big leap and then a twist, a beautiful twist, arms in a circle, in a circle, leaping around the frame in a circle, and a silly fall to the ground, the birds are twittering, my legs flick in a blue, and then I jump to the ground in an X, and then I stand and the sunlight is blazoning off of me, and I stand there with an affirmativeness, like the sun, it warms me and it fills me with radiance, and I know that it's brushing across me now because the forest is here beside me, and the sentinels, and I'm poised, and I poise in a balance, and then I do a little, almost a little cross step across, and then I stand again, and I scratch my mustache and I exit the frame, leaving the sentinel standing there, the limit, and there's the frame of the humanity there, because it's part garden, and often the background are insects flittering and cars passing through, and there's a deep silence, and I walk across the frame in a careful cross step, a careful cross step, looking across, and then I exit. There are so many different little dances happening, little dances now, after 10 minutes, it's like a little dance happens, and then I exit, a little dance happens, and I exit, and a little dance could just be a little cross walk across the frame, now underneath this green emerald leafy cloud, in front of the sentinels at the limit, but the sky you can barely see beyond. Continuing now. I walk back in. No, more cross steps. And I look over across my shoulder. I seem a little bit like, la la la. And then I walk out of the frame, and I'm poising and holding my hands out as if stopping something. And no, and then I'm curving, and then I, I, I, I march off with my hands raised to the sky, and my hands at my hips, and I confidently walk out of the frame. And then I re-enter the frame, and I just look at you all, and I walk across, and I leave. These Donkey Commons are something, aren't they? Anywhere, anything could happen in a Donkey Common. Is a Donkey Common a dance? Is every dance a Donkey Common? Oh, and I flick my hat around. Oh, it's all about the head, the head, feeling the emanations of all that's around me. I just have to walk somewhere. I walk somewhere. My head wants to move. I walk somewhere. Oh, all this kneel here. Oh, look, when I kneel, my head wants to move like this. Oh, and it wants to move like this in the most beautifully sensuous way, and it doesn't want anything. It's just there. It's like, oh, all these feelings. Oh, look, I'm under the emerald sky. I'm under the emerald cloud, feeling that light from the sun with the sentinels standing, watching me flick, and I stand. I have their poise. I have their balance. I have their lines. They go in every direction, from the ground to the sky. I could scratch my elbow, and still the sentinels are with me. They're with me in every gesture. That claw reaching to the limit is the emanation of their strength, and I come in poise with my arms akimbo. You see those leaves coming off my back in the Vestana airplane. Rockets above us. We can't even see the sky, but there's a plane above us. There's a plane above the emerald cloud. My arms reach to the sky and the earth, and I spin between them both, and I exit the frame. I exit the frame into another Donkey Common, and it looks like every other Donkey Common, but it's all different. Each time I come back, I look back at me and the future looking me at the past. Huh, what do I do? I look around. I stand here. Oh, look, something important, and I feel it, and I take that to another head gesture. You hear the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of a bird. You see a car in the distance, but I'm in this Donkey Common. I'm not with the cars. I'm here now in the woods. I'm here not in the woods. I'm in a garden, a garden that reveals a woods. I flick my hands. I twist. I look to the ground. I flick my hands, little balances, little offset balances, asymmetries, over to the frame, over to the leap, and leaping, and big strides, and twists, and shifts, and a turbo turn across the frame out of it. Underneath the emerald cloud, the insects flitter, the cars in the distance. That's a Donkey Common with cars. I don't think we'll ever go there. Oh, we hear a train. We hear that train whistle in the distance. The dancer continues on, hands arched, looking back at us. What is the dancer saying? It's slightly, maybe even seductive, seducing us to what? To just do what we feel? The sun progresses my skin, and then I just feel it, and I look over my right shoulder, and then it wants me to walk forward. I walk forward, and then I point at my, not point, but my nickels to my chest. My arms raise, and then I look, and I reach, and I twist something. It was a flower, and I take it, and it becomes a spin, and then I press it outwards, and outwards is the sunlight that reflects off me. I just have to slice my arms through the hair, and I move to the side, and then I reach the ground. I yank that in, and that yank becomes a jump, and I have to, are they wings, or are they arches? And then I am, again, I have the strength of the sentinels, and I can stand in any position. I am my own Donkey Kong, and every sentinel, every sentinel is within me. And now I sit to my knees, the sentinels behind me, framing me with their darkness, with their shadows, with their shade. Small beams of light play through the emerald cloud and illuminate, illuminate my arms, my arms reaching cars in the background, far away some other Donkey Kong. I look to the sky, on my knees, on my knees, the donkey, sentinels, Donkey Kong and sentinels behind me. I'm poised, I sit in different positions. I look to the sky beneath the emerald cloud. They almost seem like wings to me, wings separated from my back. This emerald cloud, it's like a wing, the shape of wings in a canopy sky. The sun playing off my space, off my arms, off my neck. My legs flick, you hear the honk of a horn. I flip down, little backward, little backward leaps. Nonsense, nonsense, the only sense that can be sensed before, it can be sensed as a sense that is a specific sense. You hear the train, I go to the limit. I go to the limit, I pull out another key from the green emerald floor and I bring it to us now and I ponder it without saying a word. I bring the key forward, the branch from the Donkey Kong Limit to the garden. I raise it contemplatively, almost as if I don't know what I'm doing, just above me, just to my eye level. And my hands flick and you hear the train whistle. And the branch is coming closer, we hear the birds chirping. I gesture to my chest with my hand and the branch flicks as if on its own. It lays itself upon my body, upon my jaw, and it's bounced on my jaw as I lay back. And I twist a little bit, wanting to dance with it. And the branch just crawls down my body, and it rests on my chest. And I poise myself under this emerald cloud of leaves, in front of the sentinels before the future, and I flick it off my chest, and it falls to the ground, and I lurch back in the air, and then I walk off, another little composition. And I notice the claw again, and the limit line of the garden, the brown, the flowers on my back. I reach and pick up that stick again. I step back, I hear the train, the whistle. I raise the stick, the branch, into the air again, almost like a weathervane. And the branch tilts, and I rise and fling it back to the limit, as if I don't need it anymore, as if I don't need any more keys. I have all the keys I need. One key is all keys. Am I the tree? Am I the forest? Is the tree the forest, or is the forest for the trees? And I sit, and I ponder, and then I step, and I lunge, and I reach into the green canopy, arms like wings, and arches, and extending, and flicks, and stepping off, off again, into, oh, another flick, back into the scene. The sun, the flicking of the hands, radiating off me, and I twist my torso, and I flick my hands into the air, and I walk, almost off-screen, you can just see me now, you see me, cross over the body, hands arching, curving, flicking, down, low, spinning, balancing, tilting, little leaps that kick my heels into the air, and I walk, and I gesture, as if to pull, as if to trace, as if to set, and we hear distant birds, oh, and the sharp horn of a train, just high-pitched, sharp horn, and I've left, but now, not horn, but whistle, and then I come back in, and I reach into the scene, and I'm twisting, and reaching, and grabbing, and flicking upwards, underneath the emerald cloud, and up, forward, through my hands, like they were the leaves, they are the leaves that once were there, but are no longer there, that have been cleared away. I am what is no longer here, but was, has always been here, and I jump, X's articulately, into the sky, my arms akimbo, I do a little, I do a full, a full, a full spin in the air, and land, and then saunter off, and we hear the train again, whistling, and I'm twisting, back into frame, making X's reaches that are broad, and flick suddenly upwards, and downwards, into the ground, and I hear a bonging of something in the distance, the hands are poised, poised arms and legs, sitting on the lawn now, poised, shoulders twisting, moving, moving ever towards the limit where the emerald begins, and my eyes rotate around, and I see the little flutterings of insects in the sky, coming back, a figure poised in front of the sentinels, yes, pointing them to go forward, go forward and poise, go forward, upward, go to the side, a car behind me is seen, and I reach, and I balance, and it goes through the spine, oh, there's a squeak as if someone abruptly stopped the squeak of a tire's, and then I lurch into the air, and I smack my buttocks, and then I exit the frame. Crunching, re-entering the frame now. Crunching of leaves, those dry leaves, those leaves that we saw before. And now we're standing before it, before the whole forest, all the sentinels, all the cars that pass by, the claw, the emerald cloud of leaves, the shadows, the shades, the blue socks, the flowers on the back, the arms, the legs. I kneel, my back to you, the future, and I spread myself quickly to the ground and I sit on my feet. I look at the forest, the back of my head, you see, I flick around, I look to you towards the future, I look at my own eyes now, and then I just roll out of frame. It's inexplicable sometimes when your eyes mute your eyes that in the past expected you in the future and then you see it now as the future looking at the past and then I walk through as if it didn't matter. I walk through as if it didn't matter. That's another Donkey Common. It's an interlaced Donkey Common world. And then I fling my arms up and around and I'm back and forth and curves and arches and twists and turns and swivels and flicks and twists and I reach and spin it and carve it out and I snap it together and I look at us and I look towards a distance as if to fall and I fall to my knees knowing that I'm doing so and I'm on my knees now here before the Donkey Common. On my knees, you hear the birds and the green. I lift myself, I jump and I spread my arms and I clench inwards and it flicks a car in the distance. I shift my hair, I walk off as if I'm on a Hollywood movie set. I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille, but it's in a Donkey Common. That was the Hollywood Donkey Common. If you could label each Donkey Common, what would you call it? Please make a list of 32 Donkey Commons that could be associated with this dance and now go towards all these twists, these turns as if I'm like a lump of something moving across the frame, like a sculptural lump, a living, cellular, cultural, sculptural, sculptural lump and then I stand poised with the trees now in silence. I stand poised with the trees and then I swivel my torso downwards and I look out at us in the future, the Donkey Common behind me. You see all the sentinels, you see me and then we're back to being a sentinel and a car glistens in the distance. It passes through the Donkey Common in the distance. The holes in the Donkey Common, the holes in the Donkey Common reveal other Donkey Commons. I jump in the doorway to another Donkey Common. I step inwards towards the depth of a Donkey Common. I'm in the Donkey Common now. Have I ever gone this deep before into a Donkey Common from the perspective of the garden? No, I have not. There's always been obscurity. There's always been something in my view that has obscured it but now I'm clearly there. I'm clearly there in the Donkey Common and I see it from the garden point of view. I see I'm in the Donkey Common and now I can show you, now, what it feels like in the Donkey Common when there is shade and there is sunlight. I am gently twisting and turning and standing poised like a tree, a sentinel, my body covered in bark. I feel a tree standing and I walk towards us and I look us dead in the eye and I walk out of the frame. I've just done extreme up-depth and extreme of close-up. That was one Donkey Common and there is a hole in the Donkey Common and I come in now and I look up and I look towards us and I look up. I look at the green emerald cloud which hovers there the whole time. There's always an emerald cloud. Are they my wings? Is this emerald cloud my wings? And the feeling of that makes me fall to the ground and the dramatic gesture that points to them. But it's like they're far away but they are near and I feel them above me again, the sentinels again, frame me, frame me with the wings I do not have that hover above me but that I am always, always somehow coming closer towards, always closer, caught between, in a balance, the canopy and the floor. I point to them both and I exit. Entering the frame again, walking through, stepping backwards, walking through, that was the Donkey Common. Another Donkey Common is crouching and forward, and a forward bend, and then reaching into the sky again, and reaching to the ground, and extending to the sky, extending to the ground, extending to the sky, extending to the ground, twist and swiftly look to the cloud, the emerald cloud, and jump. The emerald cloud picks me up as if through the back of my neck, and then I pull my hair upwards and I look at the golden, not the golden, the emerald, the emerald. There's golden, but it's far away, but it's emerald now, it's an emerald now, and I reach to the emerald now, and I pull it towards me, and I listen to it, and I throw it to the ground, and I look at the emerald now, and I see it fall to the ground, and I wave that it falls to the ground, the emerald now, and my feet, I jump into the air, and my feet scissor, they scissor again, and I turn and swizzer, and I scissor, and I drop, and I drop, and you're hearing an aeroplane, a deep aeroplane sound, and my fingers and hands and face flick as I kneel on the ground, listen to the aeroplane clawing through the sky, my hands trace out the patterns toward the emerald tomorrow, and I drop that emerald tomorrow to the ground, and it becomes the tomorrow, it becomes the brown leaves, and it becomes the leaves, and I'm poised up and down my feet, my oversized shoes, black shoes pointing up at the heel, and I turn my body in this donkey common, this donkey common, and I look upwards, and I strut out of there, and we hear a horn honking its approval, and now another donkey common, it's a donkey common that's lots of twisting and framing, and showing how the limbs and the legs can twist and reassemble new forms into kicks in the air, clicks of the heel in the air, clicks of the heels in the air, a combination of clicks of the heel in the air, the emerald, I stand there in the emerald lunge, looking back, looking to the future, and then I look at the emerald and the sentinels, and I look back at the future, and I drop to the ground, birds chirping, my elbow to my knee, my fingers to my mouth, my eyes forward, I close my eyes, I stand, my arms slightly, slightly rising at my hands, I look like I'm communing with something now, my palms open to us, my eyes close, I'm standing, the sentinels behind me, I hear people shouting in the background, like children playing, or families, and my eyes brighten, and I start to go into quick positions that are light and contorted, but at complete ease, a little leap, a little flick, and then a twist, and a push, and a pull, and extension, and flat palms, and flicking hands, and twisting hands, and heads, and steps, and steps, clear steps, and drops to the knees, and hands, and points, and lines, like an arrow upwards, upwards now, through the emerald cloud to the sky, I see the sky, I see the sun illuminates me through the emerald cloud of leaves that hover above the sentinels, the sentinels that make both the shadowy canopy, and I look downwards now, and we're nearing the end, I look forwards, my hands on my lap, the sentinels behind me, my eyes look up, look across, they look downward, they look toward, they look the other way, they look the other way, I look down, I look up, I hear children playing in the background, and my eyes are going up and down, their eyeballs are just turning, I'm just still, I'm just still, but my eyeballs are flicking and moving, flick down, flick up, flick down, flick up, turning, turning, turning, turning, my face just naturally relaxed, but my eyes are spinning around in my head, moving this way, and that way, you hear birds, and it's in front of the sentinels, and then my eyes look up as if I'm in some sort of state, and the alarm goes off as if it was now the time, and then I drop my head now, the alarm going off, I drop my head, my hands have now curled up in my lap, I'm curling forward, I stand as if I don't have any strength, I'm standing, I'm trying to hold on to it, I'm trying to hold on to it, a car passes by in the distance, and the alarm's going off, and I'm standing there holding it, but I feel it going away, I feel it going away, I try to take it again, it's gone, I walk off, a car in the distance, the claw, the alarm, an alarm, an alarm, back to original … but a donkey common that is no longer common in any way imaginable
