A Game of Gogol's Bluff, revision no. 4

[TranquillityBase]

[quote="TranquillityBase" pid='253767' dateline='1626437014']
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 whore who 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.


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.

Brian

Thanks for you notes on these stanzas.  I need to clarify "the jokers" bit...supposed to be them sitting on the ant-hills, so obviously they'd be upright.  Haven't been back to the poem yet.

TqB