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 

Tending the Classics- 42 Days with Huck Finn 17:42

Ain't No Shepherdsons Around Here

Huck finds himself among 

an old family feud.

Shepherdson family, roaring

hatred, goes forward,

enkindled by "true" old men's tales.

The boy, Buck proudly waves hate   

with a bowie knife,

Ready to scalp their heads. 

Tick tock

comfortable

went the family.
The river became a silent witness.

Twain Quoted

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad hearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

Chapter 17

Tending the Classics- 42 Days with Huck Finn:15-42

Huck's Experience in the Fog

The lone star Ohio- free State,

we yearn, free, but are Shot into

fog.

Shapes pass: a barn owl/a man,

Hoots and whimpers into

night.

The Big trees cast ghosts near the shore,

it's darn lonely drifting by and by, into

silence.

My poetry to the stories are not going to tell you the whole yarn.  So I may take out parts in order to focus on an impression, so enjoy the poetry and then read the chapter if you want.

http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/huckleberry/chapter-15.html

Tending the Classics - 42 Days with Huck Finn 14:42

Huck and Jim argue 
meritocracy of old King Solomon
while smoking cigars


But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!"


Link to Chapter

Tending the Classics-42 Days with Huck Finn 13:42

The following QUote is possibly where Popeye got his famous saying
a Sailors Life for Me... Toot Toot.

Shut up, on ghost-ship  
We hide from sniggering thieves
Holding nervous in


Prowling for the escape pod
Bowed-knees knock 
we found 
the skiff.


cutting the square knot
away we went. Plunk-Splash 
Sailors life, toot-toot.


Quote: but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'D live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I --"


rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.


Read Chapter 13

Tending the Classics- 42 Days with Huck Finn 12:42

Wigwam built piecemeal,
from old cottonwood branches,
de' breeze moves raft's roof.

a short-bowed forked stick 
hangs the old beckoned lantern,
So Proud Mary might see. 

Our raft safely move,
living the riverboat high-life,
 short lived, fixed up.
                  
                  But then
                            Boat went on-
                                            without us....

Tending the Classics- 42 Days with Huck Finn 11:42

Who twas, that killed Huck Finn: Jim? Pa?
Rumors fly high,
Huck hears
woman.


Huck's hands shake, as he hears story.
Jackson Island search,
Torched eyes of mob look for Huck.


Huck rekons, I'll rest a while,
and I'll go on.  
Mr. Dark, 
don't scare.









Quote:
Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it; that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain.


Read Chapter 11

Tending the Classics- 42 Days with Huck Finn 10:42

"To be shaping again, model

And tool craft of culture 

How we go on."*

Bad luck be treasured
It's a commin'
Jim's a bitten by rattlesnake.

Apply Pap's Drink,
Help Jim cure snake bite: exit
IN the dark, and look sharp.



Huck in drag knocks on widows door, sivily.**

*Hoover, Paul. Postmodern American Poetry. New York: Norton, 1994. p.220
**Yes I know I spelled sivily wrong, I did this because this is how Huck Finn would have spelled the word. 


Read Chapter 10

Tending the Classics-42 Days with Huck Finn 9:42

Chapter 9:
Poem Influenced by Gary Snyder's Form.

Facing Freedom
Illinois, Away!
For Jim to escape Bonds.

In the island cave,
protected, hard rain-drops.
blue black- outside.

Birds cover up-hunker down.
Natural signs.
God floods green banks.

With dead loot, We got home all safe.

Quote

A house floats down the Mississippi, this is probably where Huck got his hat:

"De man ain't asleep -- he's dead. You hold still -- I'll go en see."

He went, and bent down and looked, and says:

"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face -- it's too gashly."

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe -- it might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account. The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff

Chapter 9: 42 Days with Huck

42 Days with Huck Finn 8:42

The Form Today is from a Poem by Gary Snyder:

Raft down the old blue byway, FREE!!!

Huck eats sacred bread,
sent to find his body;
from prayers teared born.

Carcass, rising.
to the top of still
water, cannon balls blew.

Escape by and by. Illinois.
Jim day dreams of,
Hopes rising current.

Raft down the old blue byway,
                                     FREEWAY!!!

42 Days with Huck Finn 7:42

Huck Finn Chapter 7: Getting Away from Pa

Daydreams before breakfast.  

Savage reality, 

Cold/Wet

Hid/Out 

Read: Huck Finn Chapter Seven

Soil: Hannibal Missouri

The June rise used to be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts -- sometimes a dozen logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the wood-yards and the sawmill.

Missouri meets the Mississippi in a gradual way.  The land does not fall off and then join the river.   The river meets Hannibal right there before you.   I was amazed by the Mississippi and the lands relationship when I drove through Hannibal on my way to Lakeland Florida.   Hannibal was out of the way but I desired to see the home of Tom, Huck, and the infamous Mark Twain.

I pulled into the small town, and found my way around. I stopped at a classic looking soda fountain.  I ordered a Chocolate Coke, which was by the way delicious, and listened to the people talk about the tourists.  I hoped that I did not look like one of the Lotus Eaters; but hey when you are a tourist its hard to hide that fact.  So I buttoned my lip and enjoyed my Chocolate Coke.  There was fresh squeezed Apple Juice was on the menu. But I had my fill from the apple orchard stands, that lined the highway on my way through Missouri.

When I went towards the old river, I was expecting to see something like the Snake River in Idaho. The Snake River in Idaho is segregated from the potatoes in the field, by large, carved out, canyons.    The Mississippi, on the other hand,  creeps right up to the land, like a carpet bagger from Minnesota, meeting the folks in Missouri, with  a "how do ye do?"  and a cobalt-blue  handshake.


Check out Mark Twain's Book: Life on the Mississippi
  

42 Days with Huck Finn 6:42

Poetic Impression Chapter 6

---Baku------
----Pap gets a hold of Huck----

Huck lov'd the freedom with Pap.
He cussed life up. 
Free While, 
no trap. 


----Haiku---


Pap tore Huck's hide.
But drink made him loony.
So Huck got Pap's Gun.




Huck Finn Chapter 6


Quoted:

"Tramp -- tramp -- tramp; that's the dead; tramp -- tramp -- tramp; they're coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me -- don't! hands off -- they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!"

42 Days with Huck Finn 5:42

Context and Quote:

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.  (Chapter 5 Quote)

Poetic Impression:

Fiddling Pap, strikes Huck black and blue,

Tar and feathered,

black white,

right back.

Read Chapter 5:

42 Days with Huck Finn 4:42

Context and Quote:
This chapter deals with Hucks fortune... and the two meanings of the word fortune...Jim reads hucks fortune through his fortune telling hair-ball.

"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."

Poetic Impression of Chapter 4

His Pap Returns

Six times seven equals thirty,
adds up to not.
Liquored,
fortune.


Read Chapter 4.

42 Days with Huck Finn 3:42

Quote and Context:

 Huck and Tom laid ambush on what they hoped would be a bunch of Arabs or Spainards, but was really a primer Sunday School Class.  All they could find was a hymnal, some jam, and a rag doll:


He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sundayschool, just out of spite. I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull. 

Poetic Impression: Baku

Huck is a perfect "sap-head",
low down, in the muck,
life like,
logic.

Personal Experience

When I was a kid and I would read too many Louis L'Amour books; my bike would become a horse, my brother was an injun, and I was a scout looking for reds.   The make believe world became more real than the real world I was a part of.

Don Quixote Reads into our Enchanted World

Huck is only able to think like a natural man, his ability to use imagination is lacking.   It is real, or it is unreal, there is no fantasy land for Huck.  Huck is a survivalist.  And does not have the safety to day dream, day dreaming takes a certain security to be able to do.  He plays Sancho to Tom Sawyer's Quixote.




Read Chapter Three

42 Days with Huck Finn 2:42

Quotes in Context:

Context: Tom and Huck play a trick on Jim.  JIm explains the trick by ways of vodoo magic.  

Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that fivecenter piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.

Context: The boy's gang is debating what it is to ransom someone, without  a complete knowledge of the word:

"Because it ain't in the books so -- that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you? -- that's the idea. Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

Poetic Response:

Story book notions, play with your itch.

Highway boys nest, 

and break,

fences.
_ _ _ _ _ _

Thoughts on Notes from a Native Son and Mark Twain's Novel

At once, a need, for saving de
"Nigger". White absolves;
black+red
is blank.

Link to Chapter 2

42 Days with Huck Finn 1:42

A commemoration of Mark Twain and his wonderful, unexcused, uncensored masterpiece:

Quote from Chapter One

Context-Huckleberry has a Hamlet's Father moment:

Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. Huckleberry Finn Chapter One




Poetic Impression Chapter One:
House laid like a tomb, still as death...
Sivil Huck dreamed.
Freedom:
Me-yow!

We will be spending 42 days reading this story, as their are 42 chapters, and one chapter a day which equals 42.  We will write a poetic impression of the chapter each and every day we read a chapter.  I hope, y'all enjoy it...