Here again I am taken by the mysterious contradictions: (a) sky's honeysuckle; (b) earthly octopi; (c) own gravediggers; (d) chalky waves. All these references highlight the strangeness of the house in the middle of the ocean. And all, too, bring to mind images of surrealist art, including these bizarre images:

The final line also contains a contradiction of sorts: the ocean ones knows well but is never still (ever-changing). While the poem brings us back to the house in the middle of the ocean, it certainly does not clear up where we have traveled with the poet or why we went there.

Definition of ichor:

1 : a thin watery or blood-tinged discharge 2 : an ethereal fluid taking the place of blood in the veins of the ancient Greek gods

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ichor

This duel meaning raises the stakes in terms of myth-building in the poem and drawing out the sense of wounds and injury. This is not a happy-happy place. And the subsequent line, "it would be good . . . from the sky," further focuses on gods, but in a mysteriously negative way. "It would be good . . ." indicates that it might not be the case.

And then there's this middle stanza (I could not get the line spacing right, but the odd indents are correct), which feels like a song, a chant, even a lamentation (if you will) -- in part because the words are set off from the left margin and in part because of the phrasing and repetition.

This interlude pulls the reader completely out of the house in the middle of the ocean. Sure, it contains the word "house" a couple of times, but it also brings in generalities like "season" and seems possibly to have the house burning. The poet also takes us into the sky with the airplanes and down to the depth of the sea with the dropping anchors. This section thus significantly disrupts the expectations of the first stanza and opens up new territory.

Two things jump out at me in this new territory:

1. contradiction: damp house versus burning house; high altitude versus sea depths; and eggs verse (the obviously omitted) bombs. We are in a disruptive, incohesive state.

2. Bombs as eggs grew increasingly curious to me. I began to think about unexploded ordinance and found this article:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/seventy-years-world-war-two-thousands-tons-unexploded-bombs-germany-180957680/

Are we walking/wading through a world filled with metaphorical egg-bombs, waiting to hatch into explosions? The poem seems to present a sense of impending danger, especially with the repetition of "watch out."

/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/1d/b8/1db82154-0dfa-41cf-809e-d19a0d4e0ae9/janfeb2016_e01_bombs.jpg)

The image of the egg-bomb draws attention to the potential for harm around every corner, even in the most innocuous items, like an egg.

And the anchor too seems to be hanging over our collective heads.

The house is under siege. We may suspect that the artist must be under siege as well.

And octopi are no joke. Who wins between octopi and shark? See this to find out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=Q36_8s5z6S8

At this point in the poem, I am feeling very trapped in this house in the middle of the ocean. I mean, beaks pecking against windowpanes -- that's straight-up terrifying.

Here I note a Biblical association with this phase. Lamentations 3:48 (English Standard Version) states: "my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people." Lamentations contains a series of "poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem." Wikipedia. This allusion, if intentional, only adds to the sense of sorrow in this poem.

Interestingly, Lamentations contains an entire section in which the "verses are spoken by the city herself. You must think of Jerusalem as a city or person speaking before you will understand" the meaning of those verses. Theseason.org. In the second half of the poem, we seem to lose the direct thread, as though perhaps a city (or an entire world) is speaking to us, not just the author in his little isolated house in the middle of the ocean.

But of course this could be simply a translation coincidence because I don't as yet see any other Biblical references. I am thus left curious as to whether the poet used these specific words intentionally or not. In either case, the phrase truly calls forth the deep meaning of lamentation.

Setting: At first, the reader is led to believe that we are going to have a stable setting, the house in the middle of the ocean. The lines that follow the first line continue to encourage that interpretation by giving the house architectural details -- the windows and walls and the windowpanes. The entire first stanza feels like a set up for a poem that compares the poet with a house in the middle of the ocean. We are therefore thinking about the isolated artist, the alienation of the soul where sorrow (rivers flowing from eyes) seems endless and possibly meaningless (as it flows directly into the vast ocean).

Certainly, houses in the middle of the ocean exist:

Though this one seems to lack attacking octopi.

Burlap starts the poem off with such a down-to-earth tone.

How to make your own pig trotters glue. I find parts of this poem clear, like this reference, and then others not so clear at all.

Starfish? What else has five arms? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwq8Mq-_InQ

Rusted out old cars are so damn beautiful and poignant as metaphor.

It's almost like he is making up his own language here. The reader can sense what he is communicating, but only in a slant kind of way. Not direct communication.

This line kicks me out of the poem a bit.

The use of a colloquialism and humor (?) does not seem to fit the pattern of the rest of the poem.