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
