Billiards

 

Or pool, as we called it:

sticks and stones. A scrum
of spheres explodes on a
Victorian green. Then all settles
into chalking the rapier,
surveying the solar system,
and hiring geometry to send
numbered balls to Hell.

Kisses and rails and playing it
safe. Running the table til the 8
of noir sits alone in bright light
like the planet Pluto. The loser-
to-be stands stoically. After

the stirring crack
of the break, my interest
always waned. Women
at the bar drew my focus
from English draw, banking,
and the sour spirit of incompetent
competition. A game for
aristocrats, with their cigars
and brandy, for me occurred
on warped tables in obscure
side-pockets of the American West.

I can't recall the best shot I ever
made, but I know it came from luck,
not skill. Years later, teaching
a class on the Harlem Renaissance,
I found Jacob Lawrence's rendering
of a pool room. More luck.

hans ostrom 2022

Frank Herbert, Gore Vidal, and Richard Brautigan Walk Into a Bar . . .

In Tacoma, at the apocryphal corner
of Brautigan and Herbert Streets,
you may hear worms singing plaintive blues.

Turn on, tune in, drop out:
what bullshit. Nothing's that
sequential in T-Town, and Dr. Leary
was Ownership, not Labor or
Management.

It's a long way from San Francisco,
especially by dune buggy on back roads,
through the mind-fields.

Call yourself a duchess, call yourself
a duke. Nobody really gives a shit
unless you buy a round of beers
and feed the pool table. Seven-ball
in the Montana pocket off
the Portrero Hill rail. You
have to call it first.

Gore Vidal was stationed near Tacoma,
but wrote over the episode
while serving his celebrity in Italy.

Shit can get complicated real fast
is the theme of every novel,
every life.


hans ostrom 2015