Exegesis

[Sparkydashforth]

What Ho RiverNotch!

I feel an edit in the offing. A tidy up and a more reasonable rumination of content maybe.

Pretty neat unpacking of this work from you.

After the hectic merriness of this season I will roll up my sleeves.

Much obliged!

They are the octopus, I am the beak.

What? Yeah, what?

In dark waters we are pockmarked by light. I jest, I jest. I think I'll have to focus on the whats, here -- call the whats Critic-speaker, the non-whats Artist-speaker. My personal interpretation is this is sort of a critique against critics, a diss poem or whatever (dissing the nature of the interplay between the critic and the artist in general, and not any individual sort of critic or artist), but that's sort of irrelevant, especially since to critique that would be to buy into the whole show. I'll focus on more technical bits, such as how the first "What" works well enough to set the stage....

What?

Today all is a linty green, even so, Should be a semicolon for that first comma. 
the sun stalks with its goring horns. ....I mean, the point seems to be that Artist-speaker is being a real surrealistic pillow, and Critic-speaker is trying to take it in all "I'm legit"-wise. But ah, to elaborate is to buy into the whole show, and I'm sure all the Artist-speaker really wants is some peace and quiet....

What?

Here is a meadow -
the thugs of Venus
have trampled it into ruts and mires.
April sucks Oh, the line break between this and the next is really, really juicy. 
at pores and arteries.  ....I mean, I'm sure that's how art is supposed to work, right? To just be displayed, and not talked about ---- to show, and not foster any of the told dialectic that, to a lot of people, facilitates the epiphany the artist wants.... 

What?

Listen,
we are the many Comma or colon after many. I'd prefer a colon. Some would prefer an outright period, although I'm too much of a stickler for that. 
the invisible feelers, the mycelium, Er, I'm just not sure whether fungi have feelers -- or whether they actually feel, in the same way the feelers of a fish or an amphibian do (from whom I believe the term originated).
the crusty plasma of countless spores. --- crusty plasma? Er, I see something, but the term still feels incomplete. Yeah, it's far less poetic, but you do mean "plasma membranes", aye?
We speak for the leaves and grass. Fun fact: I think a lot of leaves get infected on the insides by this sort of fungus that happens to improve their useability in agriculture? I don't remember what sort of fungus that is --- but many more sorts of fungus just outright kill them. And returning to the poem, I see here dead leaves, and though it is a clean reference to old Whit-u-man the White, the tension between that sort of referentiality and all the clear images of before sort of comes to an uncomfortable head, here.
Walt Whitman
is the little finger you hardly use. This reminds me of a comic book I just read where the water wouldn't give the people undergoing Exodus any of her thirst-quenching stuff until they offer her the tips of their little fingers. That association produces a lovely, lovely images (and I don't mean that sarcastically; it's a perfect fit).

What?

Frog phlem speckles wet driveways. Never seen it spelled like that: "phlegm".
See the fugly skulls of April, I checked fugly in Google Search (I knew already the meaning, I was just curious), and I found that the term had been found in some documents from the 1850s. Well, lol. 
how their jaws mince
beneath the green undercroft?
Hear you, the paw-slapping
hoo-ha songs of the earth?
I am the beak, they are the gummy cephalopods. ....or maybe what the Critic-speaker did was inappropriate, because this wasn't a work endorsed by the Artist-speaker as "high-ish, right proper Surrealism with a capital Z" art. Maybe the Artist-speaker was just making something delightful, and had shown her work because he wanted to see if others found the work delightful, and how the work could be improved in that regard. Then the Critic-speaker came in, politicized the whole thing....

Yes, yes, about this beak thing. ....see? Now Critic-speaker's interrupting Artist-speaker....

I am the ink and the silence.
In a fledglings gawk I am the fluff and bull, fledgling's?
the bloody bruit, the crimson coercion. These three lines are just so sexy. 

What the...

"April is the cruelest month".

..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGXEVt6wUik .....

Oooo wait.....shit, I think I get it.

Really?

Please explain. lizziep's suggested condensation of these two lines, I think, is warranted. Dividing "Really?" and "Please explain" doesn't add anything for me, and the role of asker-asked shifting at this point is clear enough even without such division. Although I do like the original form of Critic-speaker's "I think I get it", if only because I'm titillated by the use of swear words (and also because it shows a bit more of the character of the Critic-speaker, thus making all those "What"s seem more purposeful).

.....then again, the world is a chaotic place, and people can't be controlled. If all the Artist-speaker wants to have some peace and quiet, some fellow appreciation, why not just go into politics, instead? That's a much more controllable world, for those in power -- and there, it's far easier to get in power than in poetry. But now I suppose I've fallen into the same trap, giving both speakers something more than that which is presented -- something that, ostensibly, doesn't belong in the poem. But then what does belong in the poem? Or rather, who does the poem belong to?

Lovely, lovely work.