(07-16-2021, 09:03 PM)TranquillityBase Wrote: A Game of Gogol’s Bluff
At sunset in Broken Soul the damned exhale dry lightning I love what you did here in editing, great image out of the electrical discharge comes Leroy McDoom, I can see McDoom emerge from the discharge, sustaining himself on the breath of the damned. I like the "damned/McDoom alliteration/consonance an alias for gunpowder and grins. He takes the town under his direction I need a bit more imagery, clever turns-of-phrase which preceded it, here. This line seems too insipid for me. because God condemned its existence I agree with Knot- these next 2 lines seem a bit superfluous in the whole of the poem. to give Satan a place for his spawn.
Flickering lanterns hang Great assonance here and image from a gallows built of crystal and lead crystal and lead are a cool juxtaposition here where the town’s feral children love "feral children"- I envision wan children dressed in burlap sacks play jump the noose over a trapdoor to Hell. Perhaps this introduces the concept of a "game" Inside a saloon called the Pink Goddamn toads wait at the door of Serpentina the town’s only whorewho sheds her skin every spring. dark image, effective Downstairs, sitting on ant-hills littered with gold, "ant-hills littered with gold" is an eerie effect upright jokers sip an incipient brew great consonance with "sip" and "incipient"- are jokers standing or just sitting upright? Who or what is sitting on anthills? I presume the bar is... of bone char, alcohol and lust, I like the unholy "trinity" of the cocktail and the immanent symbolism an amalgam of McDoom’s own design.
Morse’s code is banned as a tool of divinity but the telegraph hums at McDoom’s command, sending out cryptic temptations for those without exemption from the Game that must be played every day if McDoom is to lengthen his stay. Megaloblatta is appointed sheriff, his badge of office, a dwarf’s pocket watch, He scurries up and down the town’s only street tickling out of dust the name of the next contestant.
An eternal drifter, christened Frank DeSade, hears McDoom’s call as he rides nearby. Out of the desert he comes wearing a poncho of sackcloth and ashes, lured on by the sound of Serpentina’s shrill laughter. High noon is a myth, it’s really midnight when McDoom issues his challenge: a game of Gogol’s Bluff played with a deck of Tarot. The stakes: DeSade’s soul if he loses, Or a night of coiled delight if he conquers.
The game lasts ten seconds, or ten days in Biblical time. Swords and Cups flash in their hands, Staves and Pentacles in their eyes. Visions come tumbling onto green baize The Hermit, The Fool, The Hanged Man, The World. McDoom starts to sweat, Frank tightens his grip Megaloblatta flees into the night, Serpentina’s eyes grow bright as Frank throws down Judgement upon McDoom’s crumbling Tower.
Broken Soul lets out a collective scream it’s the end of their infernal dreams. McDoom is flung back to the Bottomless Pit. DeSade saddles up, Serpentina’s transfigured and rides at his back. What McDoom’s crooked heart could not know: Frank DeSade, a curious saint, gave up his soul long before the Game ever started.
At sunset in Broken Soul,
population unknown,
the mouths of the condemned exhale dry lightning.
They dance up a storm
and conspire to invoke anthems of submission
for the town boss’ delight.
Leroy McDoom is an amalgam
of gunpowder and grins
who took the town under his black wings
not long after God erased its existence
from the map made at Satan’s insistence.
Morse’s code has been banned
as a tool of divinity
but the telegraph hums
at a scorpion’s command,
sending out cryptic messages of temptation
composed for the ears
of those God has exempted.
Flickering lanterns hang
from an unneeded gallows
the town’s feral children born of crystal and lead
play jump through the noose
on a squeaking trapdoor.
A foot-long cockroach plays sheriff,
his badge of office so small, a dwarf’s pocket watch,
he does McDoom’s bidding
scurrying up and down the town’s only street
tickling out of dust
the gamble of time’s last relenting.
The pews of Last Baptist, a religious way station,
now an opium den where vultures perch on the sleepers
hungry scavengers who listen to the news
recited by a blind prospector
who has memorized every issue
of the Daily Inspector.
Inside a saloon called the Pink Goddamn
toads wait at the door of the town’s only whore
who sheds her skin every spring.
Sitting on ant-hills littered with gold,
citizen slaves sip an incipient brew
of bone char, alcohol and lust.
In a schoolhouse built out of buffalo skulls,
wild turkeys and hogs do sums
while Clio, the drunken schoolmarm,
chants Rimbaud for children not absent
but in limbo. Clio’s the goal of every game played
and the game is never forsaken.
The daily attraction, christened Frank DeSade
rides in at dawn looking wide-eyed with joy
a wandering boy from the desert,
carrying flowers for the hogs
and whiskey for Clio, his indifferent darling.
High noon is a myth, it’s really eleven
when McDoom issues his challenge:
a game of Gogol’s Bluff as it’s called
played with a deck of Tarot.
The stakes are simple: DeSade’s soul
if he wins, or his sweetheart if he loses.
The game lasts ten seconds,
or ten days in the Bible.
No matter how often he plays
DeSade wins and loses.
The same cards flash in his eyes.
McDoom snatches them back
as the lights in the drifter’s eyes fail.
DeSade is not dead, only soulless
until the wasteland’s false dawn.
He wakes every morning and mounts up once more
to ride to the only destiny he knows.
Where twilight and blood orbit, Broken Soul waits,
deadlocked between zero and tomorrow.
Population Minus Zero
In the town of Brokeplate
the pleasures are few
dry lightning exhales
the dead and the lewd.
They dance up a gale
then stand in a gang
and scream at the night.
Flickering lanterns hang
from a gallows so bright
forming rainbows of hate.
Its church is bled static
where the decomposed sing
and the town’s only whore
sheds her skin every spring
while toads wait at her door.
Morse code has been banned
but the telegraph hums
at a scorpion’s command.
Feral hogs do sums
in a blackboarded attic.
The town boss is synthetic
made of scraps of lice,
bent aces and gin.
He shoots bullets of ice
at targets without sin.
His voice is like thunder
if only he’d speak,
but instead he just wonders
who is the real freak
and what is “aesthetic”?
The town’s main attraction
is an innocent cowboy
who rides in each ugly dawn
looking happy but coy
an unordained pawn
carrying flowers and a glow.
But the boss is a shark
at the game of G0-No-Go,
cowboy’s eyes fall dark
without a moment’s distraction.
Brokeplate’s dysfunction
circles a western sun
a planet of recurrence
where reason is spun
out of occurrence.
Cowboy is buried only
for fun, he’ll be back
tomorrow just as lonely
without hesitation or slack,
to meet at the junction
of sunrise and sunset
and that’s as far as he’ll get.
In the town of Perplexity
lightning creates thirst
play-piercing the complexity
of the patently condemned
who race to be first
to wave invisible limbs
and ward off the eyes
whose pupils are coyotes
lacquered with lies.
Inside the Bone Char
a pink neon saloon
built out of blood-stains
of twilight and sin
Candyman is relapsing
his face is collapsing
into four aces and a grin.
Outside in the street
his bullet-faced son
Cotton-eyed Joe
traces hearts in the sand
and counts out the rings
of detonations and gin.
Candy and Joe run things
as they care to displease,
keeping an elephant in the brothel
ant-hills up their sleeves.
Feral hogs keep the peace
church hymns sound like static
and the town’s only whore
is one-eyed but not tragic.
Though morse code is banned
the telegraph hums
at a scorpion’s command
and it’s a favorite abode
for hangmen to gather
wearing fezzes and robes
they dance the Hereafter.
If you want to tune in
to this alchemical age
sharpen your lips
and curl up your rage.
Smoke it or snuff it,
it’s all up to you
but the cemetery is off-limits
to all but the few
for a recipe God only knew
special ingredients
for slumgullion stew.
tqb,
Here is a little critique of the first 2 stanzas, more to come! You've crafted over time, painstakingly, a clever, disturbing poem- I love it. The imagination it required is a class apart.....I will treat the rest of it shortly and review the whole.
