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

Transformation: Footballer

(soccer, that is)

When I become a footballer, I run across
grass wildly but stumble into
thick mud as it were: halted.  I become

two years old again and stab at and stomp
and kick things with my legs. Adrenalin-
incited, I then oscillate between manic

ambition and dispirited lethargy. Every
so often, ambition gets what it wanted
from a ball and some netting.

Sweat-ecstasy. For a moment I'm held
in the raucous hive-mind of the Folk.
Even as I begin to celebrate, I feel

the thrill begin to fade. I see the howling
crowd drunk in the rain, and I turn 51
and lie on a couch snoring while TV

broadcasts a soporific match.



hans ostrom 2017

No, Chess Isn't War

Chess isn't war. It's opposite of
war. Non-violently, hands seize the medium
composing pieces, lie quietly, make
notes, or report silently on stress.

Considering chess, a mind's
distracted from plunder. Narcissism
is tucked into one corner, napping.
true, your ego might get nicked,
your imaginary status jostled.

Loss of coin? Possible, unlikely.
Otherwise, flies buzz. The worst
that can happen is that your "king,"
a figurine, must leave the checker-board
floor and stand on a table. That's it.

Chess is a minor miraculous mess
of angles invented by angels--
no, actually by thoughtful, playful
people in India and Persia. A parody
of royal courts, it's played democratically.


hans ostrom 2015

Gaming Humans

In the photo, the soccer-players seem to be ruminating on the futility of it all.

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Humans and Their Games

In golf, humans attack a tiny white ball with long
metal clubs and then walk or ride in pastures, acting
as if the attack had not occurred. A bit later, they
attack again. The ball flees from them, but it rarely
escapes. No one knows what the ball did to offend
the humans. In chess, humans move figurines around
a small board and never talk. They look like pouting
children. In bowling, people roll a large sphere
toward milk-bottles, which have been beautifully
arranged. The aim is destruction, apparently. In

soccer, people run around an enormous field arguing
about who should possess a single leather ball.
Clearly, more soccer-balls and less field constitute
one obvious solution to this prolonged frustration.
In hockey as in golf: small object, large clubs,
inexplicable anger. Ice, however, is added, and
men embrace frequently, although their attire
turns them into clumsy clowns. Now, baseball

is a game in which too much activity is considered
gauche. Standing, scratching, staring, murmuring,
yelling, signaling, spitting, waiting, eating seeds,
hiding in caves, and using tobacco are crucial to this
game and constant. There is a sense in which the
game is opposed to activity. Football, though,

is nothing less than felonious assault observed
and encouraged by thousands. Make no mistake:
in this game, men attack men. Skiing and luge
are gravity-assisted suicide. Ski-jumping is
a bad idea someone in a Nordic country once had.
It is inadvisable. Racing cars around an oval

track is loud and repetitive like the screams
of a demented man. In tennis, the net always
remains empty, and the lake around it has
dried up. Somehow, in spite of all these
absurd spectacles, we can be induced to care
who wins, after which we forget who won,
and we go back to work. The rules of these
games become our era's sacred texts.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Concerning Games

(The image is of a "shocked" Monopoly man; maybe he invested with Madoff)

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Not Much For Games
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I was never much for games. In "Hide and Seek,"
I was content to let the others remain in hiding. I
enjoyed the solitude. In "Tag," there seemed to be
celebrity attached to being It, so why share it?
I liked collisions in football, but they gave me
headaches. I liked playing right field in baseball
but was often tempted to keep walking--into other
fields beyond. In Monopoly, I wanted to disperse
the property equally, end the game, and go drink
hot cocoa--unaware the world cocoa-
market was probably controlled by a monopoly. In
charades, I always want to to say the answer and stop
the nonsense. I liked badminton and table-tennis--something
about an obsessive concentration on one object and
the pleasure of returning what came over the net.
"Gambling" is misnamed; it is ritualized losing.
My father played poker well, had no "tell."
I'm competitive, but I've never trusted the trait.
Survival is the only game, and is no game,
and will be lost in due time. Let the games
begin, and continue, but often without me.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom