OCARINA MEDLEY
(Inspired by the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of
Time video game)
I. The Forest Temple
Negotiating vertigo architecture
in a tangled hotel of undead hosts
I stumble and wonder if I'm
simply sleeping in a side-effect
of what the Village Elder called
being alive
We never knew the word in the wax
museum hamlet of our youth
or the meaning of what happened to
the Elder...a meaning
I could not define for you
or comprehend for myself
as I set out for his pioneering
final wish
Childhood sleep painted no portraits
of a revolutionary field trip
Fate talked me into a vow of silence
I could not defy until the meaning
of your goodbye gift caught up
with the trot of my growth
The meaning
you could not define for me
Greener than the grass stains
on the splinter orphanage of my extremities
was I - the son of History -
in the ways and purposes of human skin
I would break from these unholy
halls of lurking art
disassemble all the royal blocks
sealing their ambition
and appeal to the Goddesses
for a writing off of this as a practice run
all for one sliver of vacation from this
destiny
to learn the feeling of your fingertips
on the day I crossed the glorified
cliche of a bridge
for the paradox I thought
would drop me off with your gift
still flesh-warm and abstract
in my unprecedented hands
II. The Fire Temple
A childhood knack for
rock gardening
was skewed into curled
facade of chagrin
when acquaintance was
made with a tribe
whose babies are raised
on literal pebbles
(Rocks in the belly are
sumo ambrosia
Cocoa and fruit are for
artists)
Boulder entrees in a
brainwashed beast's
volcanic vicinity
humbled them from
poor choice of rival to
diffident
prisoners of a war taken
by tampered time
for a personified hog
ride
Their penchant for
dancing and brotherhood
euphemised the magnitude
of my calling
from chosen to willing
The itch of their fabric
was made bearable
when the molten
necessity of their beatified
ruby's stolen nobility
agonized me with
heat-seeking chicanes of
insistent back-drafts
and door-painted mouse
traps glaring
triumphantly from the
come-hither perspective
of motion-fused hallways
ignited
The gleam of their
gauntlets implanted
a sumo invective in my
demolition of
vindictive cells
shushing brethren
who braved the red
lake's rock causeways
for the release of their
rambunctious captain
I coveted this summit's
infernal virus
to thaw out the famine
unleashed by a tyrant's
spite
The almighty ruby can
dance on my chest
in the shrug of an
integral bonus
III. A Night In The Water Temple
'When water fills the lake,
shoot for the morning light.'
Who's unearthly pen of purpose
spiked the medicinal lingo of
my life's mission statement with
the sweet calligraphy of a
redeemer's destiny
On what grounds of anticlimactic
credentials was I plucked from
the frozen context of forest green ignorance
and assigned to this twitchy box of a bath
house
and its drowned doors spiteful currents
self-appointed damsels and
sea dweller duds
This I ponder as a hero
pampers his beleaguered feet
beneath the towel of an opportune torch
and inquires of his whimsical pet pearl
why an instrument of heaven's orchestra
could not compose a path to a shoehorn
With everyday gadgets of the gods
he is coming for my heart
and I will beat him with it
till the destiny of a redeemer wraps
its existence around the black dimensions
of my inferiority and makes
for the morning light
Yamauchi Fusajiro founded Nintendo in 1889 to make and market hanafuda cards ("flower cards"), used in a number of Japanese card games. Nintendo can be translated as "the temple of free hanafuda" or "leave luck to heaven." His grandson Hiroshi began diversifying into other areas, including taxis and love hotels, and in 1974 he secured rights to distribute Magnavox Odyssey video game consoles. In 1977 Nintendo began to produce its own hardware and hired a student product developer, Miyamoto Shigeru; his games have been the flagships of every Nintendo console made and the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises such as Mario and Donkey Kong. In 1984 Tezuka Takashi joined the firm, and the 2 of them created "The Legend of Zelda" 2 years later. Minamoto named the title character after the wife of American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, "a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name." However, the series centers on Link, an elf-like player who is often given the task of rescuing princess Zelda and the kingdom of Hyrule from Ganon, an evil warlord/demon. The plots commonly involve the Triforce, a set of 3 golden triangles representing the virtues of Courage, Wisdom, and Power that together are omnipotent. So far the series has expanded to include 19 entries on all of Nintendo's major game consoles, as well as a number of spin-offs, an American animated TV series, and individual manga adaptations. In the 5th entry, "Ocarina of Time" (1998), Zelda 1st appeared as a child who enlisted Link to collect 3 spiritual stones needed to open the door to the Sacred Realm and obtain the Master Sword and Triforce, but the evil Gerudo king Ganondorf intervened and Zelda fled. Seven years later, in disguise, she and Link resumed their quest, After Link defeated a resurrected Ganon, they sealed him in the Sacred Realm. To progress, players had to learn to play numerous songs on an ocarina, a type of vessel flute that may date back over 12,000 years. (Known in Japanese as a "tsuchibue" ["earthen flute"], 17-year-old brickmaker Giuseppe Donati reinvented it and called it a "little goose" in his Bolognese dialect.) The game was the 1st Zelda to employ 3D graphics and introduced features such as a target-lock system and context-sensitive buttons that have since become common in 3D adventure games. During its lifetime, over a million copies were sold in Japan, and over 7 million worldwide. The review aggregator site Metacritic ranks it the highest-rated game, while GameRankings places it behind Minamoto's Super Mario Galaxy.
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