A crap game (edit)

[Danté]

A crap game

The carpet’s curled along one edge
revealing boards with cracks between
where light cuts through, illuminates
a spider and three flies.

A poker game they have in hand
was dealt by one who understands
the taste of shit upon his breath
and how to levitate.

Eight cards are better odds than six
the game is rigged by silky threads
four flies arrived to try their luck
now only two remain.

.

[Leigh]

I loved it, especially shit breathed man, just how you would imagine card shark. It made me wish I knew more about poker: I was never really that interested in cards. A really dastardly predatory image, the flies really have it coming em; the foolish germ ridden quick eyed beasts that they are. Flies always remind me of my father: rather than going fishing me my brother and my dad would roll up news papers and dive around swatting flies.
Incidentally, returning to the shit breathed man, there is an obscure british comedy (I use comedy in a very loose sense: sometimes it is funny- even hillarious- but its main objective seems to be to disturb) series called Jam by a bloke (Genius) called Chris Morris and he opens one of the shows with a sketch about a man whose only freinds are the "dung breathed men". You might appreciate it, if you havn't already seen it that is.
Good stuff man,

Leigh.

[Alucinary]

I loved this too! It conjured a perfect image and I must say theres nothing I could find wrong My particular favourite part was "Eight cards are better odds than six"[\i] but I say favourite in a loose sense of the word because I enjoyed it all immensely!

[Raisin]

Really like this one Dante, lots of good imagery.

When Leigh was talking about the card shark idea I started on the idea of loan sharks handing out money to helpless addicts, and then also I got Spider Solitaire in my head as well from the spider and flies part

One nit and that was, I understand if you want to keep the line how it is because of the syllable count but "the light does pierce and irritate" sounds a bit odd compared to the rest of the poem, it could just be me though.

"Now only two remain" for some reason reminded me of "of mice and men" by John Steinbeck, I won't repeat all the stuff we analysed in class but it did anyway

Nice read, thanks,
Raisin

[jms]

Hi,

A bit of interesting, clever imagery going on here, I enjoyed it. Couple of suggestions:

I didn't like 'light does pierce'. How about 'where light pierces to irritate'?

'The poker game' instead of 'a'.

Lose 'was' S2L2.

I'm not sure I liked 'levitate' in S2L4. How about 'and how to rise', or 'the art of rising', or something like that, to play on the poker theme a little more explicitely?

I think you need punctuation - maybe a semicolon - the end of S3L2, and a comma at the end of S3L3.

Cheers,

Jon

[arunansu]

Take a bow, Tim! I'm afraid I do not know much about poker, however, the picture of flies coming in and
"Eight cards are better odds than six
the game is rigged by silky threads
four flies arrived to try their luck
now only two remain. " - I get the feeling you are refereing to eight limbs of a spider and six of a fly ...
Great read.

[karalma]

Hi

I really enjoyed this and thought the imagery was great. I particlularly liked the last stanza and had the same imrpression as Arunansu. Also like it because you didn't have to know much about poker to enjoy it - there was much more going on than that - very clever.

[mesmie]

Wonderful Dante

I stopped at your first stanza for some time .. just to give it its just reward..super stuff

[Suzanne]

Tim

This was so well thought out. The imagery is great, you always do such a good job with detail work, in so few words.
Remided me of a Wild West Saloon scene from a movie.


"and how to levitate. " was my favorite line.

Very entertaining, (as always.. from here to violins, you do it well.)
Suzanne

[El Wow!]

what agreat idea, loved it
El

[BenJohnson]

It is a great piece Dante, very much enjoyed reading this, as I find I do with all your pieces. Like jms I also found the line

where light does pierce and irritate

a bit jarring. It sounded out of chaacter to the rest of the writing style, slightly forced. Barring one slight niggle was impressed.

[Danté]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I really appreciate all the feedback and comments, and have revised line 3 of S1, which a few of
you have rightly pointed out, does not work gramatically.

The line "where light does pierce and irritate" is changed to, where light cuts through, illuminantes"

Leigh, I'll check out the comedy that you mentioned, I've not seen it.

Once again, thanks guys for the positive remarks and pointing out the cock-up.

all the best

Tim