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.


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

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 22:42

J.I.M. heard
prophecy like
ye parrot, "Watch
Out!"
for the hang man's noose
held by town tots.
Brutal justice-
savage town.


The poetic structure is based on Charles Bukowski's poem The Mockingbird of course there are a few variations to show my unique human voice, but overall the form is Mr. Bukowski's. 

Tending the Classics - 42 Days with Huck Finn 20:42

Robot* Runs On Down South?

Runaway Robot, had been rafting down southbound:

Drone market, Orleans

Buyers awaited arrival of Robotic Property:

Chained. Owned? Theirs!

 White linen suits leaned on the auction block.

Robots devised rebellion.

Yesterday, "Sear Suckered Men" drank,  gossiped, and feared revolts.

Today, a raft streamed towards Orleans.

Robot's fate: to feel the weight of civilization?

lights by and by -- sliding by a small town

  the wind howled,white caps waved.

bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-dum

thunder growled our descent

lightning zig zagged, 

waves carried nude Huck overboard, Robot J.I.M., 

points, smiles, laughs.

Tent revival reveals-divine truth:

         Ms. flows down, 

                                   not up.

*Robot is used instead of the Nigger used by Twain. Twain used the N word in order to show the dehumanizing aspect of his time period towards people of color.  Robot is a dehumanized thinking machine, just like all drones who make things for people that are considered menial work. Got the robot idea from Gothamist.
This poetic structure is based on Charles Bukowski's poem The Mockingbird of course there are a few variations to show my unique human voice, but overall the form is Mr. Bukowski's. 
Hoover, Paul. Postmodern American Poetry. New York: Norton, 1994. pg 59-60


Read the Chapter 

Walt Whitman Speaks of Madame Mississippi.

Walt Whitman on the Mississippi River:


Oct. 29th, 30th, and 31st.—WONDERFULLY fine, with the full harvest moon, dazzling and silvery. I have haunted the river every night lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never tire of it. The river at present is very low; I noticed to-day it had much more of a blue-clear look than usual. I hear the slight ripples, the air is fresh and cool, and the view, up or down, wonderfully clear, in the moonlight. I am out pretty late: it is so fascinating, dreamy. The cool night-air, all the influences, the silence, with those far-off eternal stars, do me good. I have been quite ill of late. And so, well-near the centre of our national demesne, these night views of the Mississippi.


Excerpt from 
Whitman, Walt. Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [Date of Printout].

50+ States of Reading-Missouri: Mark Twain

Mark Twain is our Representation for Missouri
We will be reading-Huckleberry Finn.

Extract from Eve's Diary Part VIII

TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate;
and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get
lonely and come. But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all
about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,
those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the
sky and preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths
and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--
apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited.
But he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not
care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one
from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does
not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care
for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for,
except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain,
and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering
the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it
with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had,
and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film
rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran! I thought
it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened! But I looked back, and it
was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and rested and panted,
and let my limps go on trembling until they got steady again;
then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there
was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted the branches
of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man was about,
I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.
I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.
I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it
out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth;
and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting,
I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began
to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it
occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE!
I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world.
So without hesitation I named it that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added
a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this,
and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him
and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--
but I reflected, and did not do it. No--he would not care for it.
He would ask what it was good for, and what could I answer? for if it
was not GOOD for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful--

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good for anything;
it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could
not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness
and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words.
But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love you,
you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL--and that is enough!"
and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained.
Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly
like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:
"THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE."

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied
it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home
and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it
sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran.
When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching
and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name
of it--SMOKE!--though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.

Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke,
and I named them in an instant--FLAMES--and I was right, too,
though these were the very first flames that had ever been
in the world. They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly
in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke,
and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture,
it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for
many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he
should ask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course,
and I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know
and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him.
After a pause he asked:

"How did it come?"

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.

"I made it."

The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge
of the burned place and stood looking down, and said:

"What are these?"

"Fire-coals."

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it
down again. Then he went away. NOTHING interests him.

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate
and pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the embers;
I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out,
and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active.
But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled.
Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones.
Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.

Extract from Eve's Diary Part One

Translated from the Original by Mark Twain



SATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.
That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was
a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I
should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen,
and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now,
and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it.
It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused,
for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be
important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment,
I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person
to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel
convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment,
and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not;
I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it,
but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my
position assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it?
The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance
is the price of supremacy. [That is a good phrase, I think, for one
so young.]

Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of
finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,
and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants
that the aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works
of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world
is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously
near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time.
There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others,
but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The moon got
loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme--
a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it. There isn't
another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable
to it for beauty and finish. It should have been fastened better.
If we can only get it back again--

But of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides,
whoever gets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself.
I believe I can be honest in all other matters, but I already
begin to realize that the core and center of my nature is love
of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and that it would
not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged to another person
and that person didn't know I had it. I could give up a moon that I
found in the daytime, because I should be afraid some one was looking;
but if I found it in the dark, I am sure I should find some kind
of an excuse for not saying anything about it. For I do love moons,
they are so pretty and so romantic. I wish we had five or six;
I would never go to bed; I should never get tired lying on the moss-bank
and looking up at them.

Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair.
But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far
off they are, for they do not look it. When they first showed,
last night, I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach,
which astonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out,
but I never got one. It was because I am left-handed and cannot
throw good. Even when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I
couldn't hit the other one, though I did make some close shots,
for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into the midst of
the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them,
and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could have
got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,
and after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the
extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground
and I could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway,
because I could gather them tenderly then, and not break them.
But it was farther than I thought, and at last I had go give it up;
I was so tired I couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides,
they were sore and hurt me very much.

I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold;
but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most
adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant,
because they live on strawberries. I had never seen a tiger before,
but I knew them in a minute by the stripes. If I could have one
of those skins, it would make a lovely gown.

(Continued April First) (No Joke Intended)