OTI:two poems and notes:10/7/17

Open To Interpretation
 

 

Beyond

 

There's things beyond our reach

But not beyond our dreams.
 

 

Semblance

Oh, by some semblance we resemble them

That set us on our tortured sad journey.

As those with dark skins' freedoms light skins hem,

So we are born into their slavery.

At our slightest nuance they throw their whip

And lash and lash again at our twinned fate

Survived from that wreckage tossed around flip

Confounding our whole world from love to hate.

What with our hand cuffs and ankle shackles

We can only shuffle and dare not touch

In our dungeoned romantic debacles

While we scream and to our sanity clutch.

Who are we beside to them they carry

To know their disdain, their vengeful fury?

 

 

 

Dead Man's Hand

"Join us Blue Sky!"

Said Poe,

Sitting with Queequig and Ned

On the Black Deck

Of Black Ship Liz,

Playing cards with the black deck.

"We need another hand."

"I've observed,"

Said Blue Sky,

"And rules I know

All too well,

But yours confuse."

"Game's Dead Man's Poker."

Said Ned.

"After one wins,

One becomes the dead man.

You're dealt eight cards

But you can't look at them,

They stay face down

Until the end of the play.

Then you can look,

See what best five you have.

The rest play the usual way,

Five card draw."

"In such straights,

How can a dead man bet?"

Asked Blue Sky.

"The discards are shown face up

So there's some clue,

But not much for the dead man

Or anyone."
Said Poe,

"His hand could be

Or not be

Something or nothing;

His and our guess until the end."

"And whose advantage?"

Asked Blue Sky.

"Oh, Queequig's been known

To stay dead the whole game

And send us penniless below."

Said Shaw of the missing tooth grin.

"Make room, I'm feeling lucky as

Queequig, but not as ugly."

The five sat and played

A long while.

Blue Sky's attention drifted

To Destiny beside Ishmael

At the Red Wheel.

"That hand you can't see, is it?"

Asked Poe.

Blue Sky blushed.

"She's different." he said.

"She's Lenore."

Said Poe.

"Dulcinea." said Quixote,

Who was kibitzing.

"Captain of her crew."

Said Ned.

"Fate." said Queequig, and turned

Over his dead man's cards,

And gathered in the bets.

"No,"

Said Blue sky,

"I mean from when I knew her,

When we were young, children."

"Best not to open her book."

Said Poe.

"The Dragons know!"

Said Ichi,

Wedging himself a seat at the game.

Queequig gave Ichi the black deck

And stood, joining the onlookers.

"Queequig won't play with Ichi!"

Laughed Shaw.

"She shares her cabin with the girls,
Her siblings, so long as anyone remembers."

Said Poe,

"That page we all know."

"Oh, and with Ichi too

Her cabin she shares."
Said Ned.

"Go fathom.

And now he's dead, and blind,

Winning your cares."

And Blue Sky smiled with Ichi.

DolphinWords

Notes: hmmph...again I'm diverted by a thirty one day challenge this time, this month...hashtag inktober, hashtag inktober2017...this is the pen and ink crowd...very different from the plein air bunch...lots of Manga like images with Manga conceits--young girls impaled by swords and such!...that in the mix for Semblance, and a gawdawful MidnightMovie...movieGirlWithTheDragonTatoo2011 which has about every viewing restriction icon imaginable...so a caution...I like detective movies and have watched a spate of them of late...Bosh and True Detective on amazon prime...gawdawful too...oh, and movieMulholland Drive2001, which I had to resort to wiki to know if I actually watched a movie!...there's some strange things Hollywood turns out...there's been a dearth of watchable movies, even by my easy going censor, in the theaters of late...and I'm having to hunt and peck for stuff to rent from amazon...both prime and hbo and just general movies that amazon makes available for like four bucks to rent...just watched the middle one of the Hobbit trilogy...maybe after post watch the first one...I'm very good at consuming movies!...indeed, entertainments of all sorts...so, it's something of a 180 to try and create things for an audience...hours and hours I'm spending watching tutorial art clips on youtube...time was Bob Ross was it for such on PBS...years and years...now everyone with a pencil is making tutorials!...some so far to make a video for each day of the inktober contest....go youtube, search: #inktober2017...youtube needs some kind of algo to censor anyone with the sniffles!...they're much Bob Ross like fun to watch...and there's something so engaging about watching these instruction clips, and attempting pen and ink, plein air, etc., that one is transported away...a happy clam...Dead Man's Hand is a reach back to the beginning of the Black Deck Tales...I have to get a deck of cards and see if such a poker game actually works!

:)

DavidDavid