XLII Days with Huck Finn XLIII: XLII (Final One)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book a lot. The experience of encapsulating every chapter into a poem was a fun but challenging experience. Twain had a lot more than just a kids book in mind when he wrote this.
He was writing to all people who were caught up in the political question: "Should one leave slavery alone, or do something about it?"

I however, did grow tired of Tom and felt like grabbing him by the lapels and screaming, "Grow up Kid!"  But it was merely a book, and Tom Sawyers merely a fictional character, so I restrained myself.  And maybe, just maybe that was Twain's motive; maybe he was attempting to say, "America your acting like annoying Tom Sawyer, come on and grow up; these are real people involved with your political melodrama."

This book is an astute answer to the political cross hairs of the nineteenth century.


View all my reviews

My Next Poetic Challenge is Moby Dick by Herman Melville, bring on the whale!!!!!

XLII Days with Huck Finn XLII: XLII

Fall Guy on Heathen Poles

"The sun set. And Jim stood tall.
Hang old J.I.M. as an example to all?
What happens in the land of the free?
J.I.M. did not say a word, even to me."
Huck said. "Jim has  been set free."
said Tom, "Yet he stands the fall guy?"

"This town's hullabaloo is a great hoodwink.
If Jim is already free, Tom please rethink
your plan to place J.I.M. on heathen poles,
a fire pit to roast him black, over red coals."

XLII Days with Huck Finn XLI: XLII

Good Friday 1884 Floating Down Yonder

Dreams shot Tom to the rimed abyss,
Sleep begets sleep and Tom Dreams:

 Doctor says, "Suck on this here cannabiss!"

Meanwhile Huck floats down into the jet stream
and runs into kin while white washing downtown

"Where you've been Tom?  Why you in this town?"

Family fear of Injuns dried up in the day.
A Cigar Store Injun stood and obeyed,
his lips did not move, quiver, or admit,
to the crimes done by the White Jesuit.
Noble Injun stood with a brave request,
"Stop blaming us reds/the middle-east/
and the Chinese for all the great defeat.
You owe plenty to man's judgement test."

XLII Days with Huck Finn XL: XLII

What Huck Finn Should Have Told Tom Concerning the Plan

"Tom's yer fantasy works when pigs fly,
I see yonder a  castle made of dust.
I am baaing so sacrilegiously.
Deadbeat plans of TNT, will combust.
I follow with fear, I think wer deadmeat.
Whoopjambereehoo-aint no kids game-
a throw of loaded dice, no sure bet,
that this scam will raise our acclaim.
Bang-bang: bullets, serenade our end game."

42 Days with Huck Finn XXXIX:XLII

Never Quit Being Made

J.I.M. is a prisoner of style made,

by the imagination of play things.

The plantation they wisely evade.

"Beware. Trouble is brewing.  Keep a sharp lookout."

Fears take the family's heart,

spooked again, and spooked again.

Ouch! Whoopjambereehoo! of flintheart, 

the family stands firm in their pain;

till all the blue dragons are slain.

42 Days with Huck Finn XXXVIII:XLII

Maggiore Fretta Minore Atto

Tom speaks of what old heroic legends say: 

Red dragons of the night take haste.

Tom tells Huck, "We must find a dungeon fast.

Find dusty wine bottles from yesterday, 

the prisoner must be drunk on Beaujolais.

Dirty rag prisoner is a true-blue outcast,

appearing with no hope,  Jim sad faced.

Get this all staged before the ends-day."

Huck asks, "Are you saying this soberly,

All of this romance is a huge drain.

Why all the heavy work for levity?

These are heroic plans made by scatterbrains."

Tom replies, "Huck we shall take heart

for this escape is a piece of art." 

42 Days with Huck Finn 37:42

Looted Walls

Shirts, spoons, candles, plundered delights.
From small holes in the walls, mice peep,
blamed for all trickery done dirt cheep.

Aunt Sally is ready for a prizefight.
Hot, red, cross, holding her temper in with might;
we become blue from the news, we're ready to reap,
what we stole, when the house was asleep.

"The calf got the shirt last night.
But what became of the spoon, this is insane!"
cries Aunt Sally, "Where's the moonshine!
Where's Alibaba and his caravan?
We can't let them carry loot to Palestine.
Or is this a mission God willed?
all the mouse holes must be filled."

42 Days with Huck Finn 35:42

Tom's Complicated Plans

Storybook notions go
forward and complicate verbal
plans to free J.I.M.

42 Days with Huck Finn 36:42

War of Northern Aggression

Digging in the reddened clay, through the dust, 

scraping with a butter knife tunneling; 

with all means necessary total robust. 

 Our pick ax singing ding a ling, a ling.

Freeing Jim with all their wits and might.

Huck and Tom fur flying, setting Jim free.

Israelites freeing the old Ishmaelite.

Right or wrong depends on the view point, you see,

no true way on slavery, with the bible as your guide. 

  

War of Northern Aggression? 

War of Black Liberation?

Right, wrong, blistered hands, couldn't let it slide.

backs grew tired, strained, they sweat and sufferth

Right, wrong, blistered hands, couldn't let it slide.

backs grew tired, strained. they oft lose breath

Plantation owners, nice as they could be;

they were blind to why slaves being set free.

War of Northern Aggression? 

War of Black Liberation?

42 Days with Huck Finn 34:42

True Southern Hospitality?

Tom and Huck arrive, to JIM's benefit.
Hear the thump, thump, thump, of a buried heart.
JIM was buried in a shed full of shit.

As by the truth he gets no other light,

But to see Vice, a restless infinite.

The flies loved 'em He was their true sweetheart.
Tools disregarded use, once were like star-dust,
but now were forgotten, laid in disgust.

They showed True Hospility: hypocrite,
great actors, (John Wilkes Boothe), Southern Art
there is a difference between showing
                                     and knowing
Excuse it, as just that Southern Way.

A boat, to which the world itself is Sea, 

Wherein the mind sails on her fatal way.

sun, soaked illusions, set in the mire 

to serve, to honor, to love and obey

works, and works, and never does retire

until the sun sets and ends the long day.

Tom and Hom working in secret, at night,

        scratching out freedom

to release JIM into the truth set in light

        they scratch out freedom  

breaking laws of Jim Crow is a delight

There is no reason to complain

about the Sear Sucker's bane.

42 Days with Huck Finn 33:42

Betwixt You and Shekels:

"An Owdacious Puppy!"

At the crossroads, "betwixt you, and shekels", a haunted day,
when Tom Sawyer decided to help Huck commit a sin.
Tom inspired lads to stow away,
their noisy dreams and love for a win.
He welcomed all with "Come in, come in!"
He a boy filled with Southern Hospitality!
A dynamic duo, Tom and Huck, together again,
always able to share jokes filled worthily;
for Cracker Culture that had been sorrowed and had lost its felicity.
They long apart, a dynamic duo, Tom and Huck, together again.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the world is as it ought
to be again, they are here to steer us, they are here to entertain,
and laugh at all the lessons those darn boys taught.

42 Days with Huck Finn 32:42

Black metal robots work the ash grey Grove,
in the heat of the day, sun shines the place.
The spinning wheel spins more and more and more.
Huck's lips quivered at the red clay disgrace.
Hear a quite hum, a blue note, dirty soooul.

Huck/the Hounds quickened to an embrace,
as if dancing to a beat out tune, to and fro,
foxtrot,side steps, a dance, a duet, of foes.
Backward went Huck's feet trying to exit, to leave,
but where was there to run. Would no one want
to change the path Crackers yearned to cleave?

God's providence is a mighty pursuivant,
Huck finds Tom Sawyers kin here amidst the plant (ation),
Cracker wives will  watch carefully and duly ward
the duties found for "pine-wood inhabitant"
And all for love, and nothing for reward:

O! Hounds a-smiling, but don't make good guards.

42 Days with Huck Finn (Mark Twain's Description of a Plantation)

"Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks -- hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smokehouse back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ashhopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods." Chapter 32. Huckleberry Finn. 

42 Days with Huck Finn 31:42

We float down great wetness.
Then J.I.M. was captured from his flight,
"LORD" Huck prays "get me out of messiness!"
He knows you can pray a lie with all your might,
but a lie can not take hold.
JIM would be sent to his last breath:
"N'Orleans"; if Huck did not grab hold,
of JIM and save him from death.


The Son of man; 
The skies, the heavens, the earth the tomb,


Wherein we rest till then;* 

B'twixt two paths Huck toys 

with writing a letter that told 

the Widow of JIM'S certain doom.

Among the smell of saw dust Huck conquers the crest,

on the Road to Lafayette his feet did ran,

Huck ran and ran till his heart thumped in his breast.

40 pieces of trade for JIM sparked this plan;

the Dauphin then bought bottles of Old Crows.

All Huck wanted now, was his robot and some relief

from troubles brought by "Rapscallion Crows",  

                                          With gunshots of belief.*

42 Days with Huck Finn 30:42

Ernest Leonard Blumenschein

"Where's was yous when lights grew dim",
says King to Huck, "They ate our hide. 
Our lives turned white like lilies.
Townies were ready to give us a trim.
And Huck you, like an Ostrich hide.
You will do what the king's will is." 


To sing by and by, comes the day.

"I scampered swiftly away"
says Huck, "I was in a fright! 
I ran so quick that heads of lilies
turned towards my dismay.
I did not want to take flight,
but I do what our LORD's will is."


To sing by and by, comes the day.

42 Days with Huck Finn 29:42

English-Men, with right flare;
tell the truth, straight, just so.
"King" is of freebooting breed,
English paint us, Frauds indeed.
Tension, intrigue, feels the air.
The truth told straight, just so,
takes care.

We could not avoid their eyes,
peering into our souls with mite.
Gold buried, we in need
to keep from being hung indeed.
We hoped to feed the home breed
with more and more and more lies,
lies could paint everything a white-
disguise.
Form based on Verse by William Dunbar fl. 1547-1549 
Davie, Donald. The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1981. pg 5 

42 Days with Huck Finn 28:42

A Swan At Bok Tower - Lake Whales-Polk County
Central Florida

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK Goes THE CLOCK 

Dead beat frauds the king and dauphin cower;

at the "awesomeness" that is "girl power".

Odoriferous, the nose picks up the scent,  

the smell of rotten lies 

attracts a swarm of flies

or so the stories told went

on and on, just so, perfumed lust.

Huck tied up, caught in the  rapscallion torrent. 

Jim with other Robots can only trust,

that they will not be sold on the auction block.

"Tick Tock" replies the grandfather clock.

42 Days with Huck Finn 27:42

Corpse candlelit on display,
witness-watchers of the coffin today,
they sat to see the coffin lid stayed as before,
shut off from the living by a door.

The day moved on and watchers play aside,
mourners come in, and fail to bury tears inside.
Black Robots work steady beside

the dead - work is always on their eyes;
for fears of the auction block arise
silently work, overcome their sighs.

Hyms sung, and our saddened blood
calmed, an icy balm to our tearful flood.

They buried him with prayers to Father on high;
"Through all our wounds to us we cry!"

Based on the Poem: Thou Who Createdst Everything





 Davie, Donald. The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1981.

42 Days with Huck Finn 26.A:42

Boys and Girls back to their houses.

Innocents tell no good lies, they leave holes
in their Gospel reply, the king does not attend
church in Sheffield-not anymore

The HOLeY GOSPEL

According to Huck.

"Honest Injun, haint you been selling me
Swamp Land in Deed"
Asks Mary Jane, "Lay your hand
on the Good Book and tell me true."

Huck replies with his eyes crossed turned upwards

"Hark from the Tomb, I swear on this Dictionary."

Thousand Sinful Lies

Thousand Sinful Kisses.

42 Days with Huck Finn 25:42

Feininger Longeuil

Democratic Intelligence 

Mississippi Pilgrims come
back "home" finding Madam
Death.  Who has made a deadly call?
Small coffins on Arkansas ground,

Duke thinks, "What great Profits in Death?"
"A golden laced dream", replies Huck.
"Lets play this emotive scheme!"

at a somber hour, songs from hymnals cry,
the crowd joins in triumphant melody,
music rises heart, better than sugared words.

Funeral Orgies, Public Scene-
Funeral Orgies, Public Scene?

A pruple storm cloud charged on by,
truthfully lit, lightning zigged from
Doctor Robinson's lips, "These men are bad,
frauds!" Pointing at the Holey Pilgrims.
"Their English accents betray 'em."

Townies sang back in repose,
a note of wary defiance.