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raise the ceiling
more room for incompetence
it’s only play money
borrowed with unborn hands
gilding funhouse promises
From my books Bohemian Scents and Riverthink
Games
All posts tagged Games
“Night Café” by Vincent Van Gogh
keen eyes consider
calculus of carom and kiss
more discreet than pool
From my books City of Pawns and Riverthink
“Hustler” by LeRoy Neiman
shatter the triangle
crack the tight rack
launching resinous orbs
into pockets and rails
choose the high or the low
convert cue for finesse
stroke ballistic geometry
ordinal shot-making
stealth combinations
sweet carom and kiss
sink the eight in its time
take the money
From my book Ephemera
“Shooting Dice” by Aleksandr Trachishin
the desperate play
rolling bones in back alleys
begging for a fade
old bricks can trip up the odds
old dreams come up snake eyes
(originally posted January 2015)
“Man Reading” by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
writing seems such a solitaire game
between you and a deck of words
you deal them out
onto your paper or screen
and look for the hooks
to connect them in sequence
expressing the feelings
you find in your mind
but isn’t a solitaire game
meant for pitiful lonely
the chronically bored
a device to splice
sleep onto staying awake
escape from rude news
all the bray of the day
and parts of life best ignored
yet unlike a solitaire game
that dies on new turn of a card
writing lives for as long
as alacrity strains
to offer those clever-set
phrases and lines
to other eyes lonely and bored
in their solitaire game of reading
(originally posted March 2013)
“Old Yankee Stadium” by Frenchy
a game of inches
played on manicured acres
of statistics
(originally posted March 2013)
“From Different Viewpoints” by Layne Cook
It’s all in the underhand fingered release
A matter of reflex and instinctive math
That perfect drawn arc of a kilogram ball
Will it play to a point or roll too wide and miss
Will it grab ground and bowl a line straight as a crease
Or kneel into english and bite a curved path
Will momentum concede to reverse backspin thrall
Will it stop at the instant it gives jack a kiss
Teaching metaphors hide in this legionnaire’s game
True mastery comes through the practice of forms
Finesse wields more power than naked brute force
Velocity will not assure you arrive
The unfoolish target wants careful laid aim
Respect acquiesces to disciplined norms
Advantage belongs with the tactical course
Competitive friendships can bring one alive
It’s a simple game humbly equipped for plain hands
Rich with nuance that measures how character stands
(originally posted April 2013)
“The Night Café” by Vincent Van Gogh
keen eyes consider
calculus of carom and kiss
more discreet than pool
(originally posted April 2013)
“Carnival Midway” by Russ Potak
in the neon lit night
irresistible larceny
hides in plain garish sight
(originally posted April 2013)
“Heads of Chess” by Shellton Tremble
I learned the game
from a Cuban boy
near the copper-green
cast of Liberty’s robe
where his family
of chemists
fled ass over teakettle
north to escape
from Fidel’s
fatal handcuffs
the father now swept
iron shavings
from factory floors
so the son could
become engineer
and my tutor
their story was newer
but nonetheless
similar hearkening
to my own parents
who fled in an
earlier time
not from jailers but
abject privation
the boy taught me well
and to this very day
more than fifty years
hence when I
contemplate chessmen
I ask myself
what would
Antonio do
(originally posted November 2013)
Poesy plus Polemics 