The Mask of Ice: A Collection in 9 Poetic Forms

Most of you reading this would have probably seen the header below and wondered how Blue could be considered forgotten when he was the rival in the first generation Pokemon games. Well, in Japan our Blue is their Green and in both regions there was an adorable female trainer who, despite appearing in the earliest concept art and manga, never made it to the games or anime. While she may be called Green in the US, (and Leaf since Gen 3 which further complicates things) I prefer to use her original name. Blue looks better with her character design, it fits with her sad backstory and for my purposes it’s great for writing rhymes.

Blue, the Forgotten Pokemon Trainer

These poems are all part of the same series I did about Blue. They’re coupled with some illustrations of her I found online, cropped out and posted on some dark, blue-colored backgrounds. NONE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF BLUE ARE MY OWN WORK. Some of these backgrounds I merely found on Google, but others I made myself. I’ll point out the originals when they come up.

I think Blue could plausibly be dubbed the most overlooked and misused character in the history of fiction. That’s a bold claim for sure, but nobody else I’m aware of comes close. Nintendo had this amazing girl with an adorable character design, compelling backstory, a three-dimensional female role model…and they sat on it. They left her out of the games, the show, and the larger cultural phenomenon. Despite illustrations proving she existed very early in the conception of Pokemon, for some reason she got limited to just the manga, and not even under her real name in the US. Because of this, I wanted to finally give Blue a “voice” and recognition through my poetry. I like her, if nobody else does, and that’s what matters.

I felt drawn towards Blue for several reasons. The relative obscurity was definitely one of them as I love overlooked underdogs. Beyond that, I always found the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist to be a great character archetype. I love how he’s scrappy and rugged, yet somewhat fancy and respectable on the outside due to his top hat and suit jacket. He’s a kid who values style and fashion, yet obtains them through elicit means and retains a rouge persona as a result. When I saw Blue for the first time, I found her to embody the same qualities but in a female form. I love the contradiction of her as a thief in the night, getting her hands dirty, yet wearing an elegant black evening gown and regal white opera gloves. It’s absolutely adorable, yet inspires a sense of mystery and danger in a way Misty (and really, all other characters in Pokemon) never could.

In order to fully understand some of these poems, you need to know that Blue was kidnapped into a ring of child-burglars headed by a man named Pryce. Despite that unfortunate backstory and criminality, she retains a large degree of empathy as demonstrated by helping Silver escape and caring for him like a little brother thereafter. Blue’s command of her own sexuality (using her feminine wiles to manipulate boys like Red and Green into doing her bidding or going easy on her) shows she’s had to grow up before her time. Yet, her team of cute Pokemon, complete with dainty nicknames (a Squirtle named Blasty, Clefairy named Clefy, Ditto named Ditty, Jigglypuff named Jiggly, etc) show that there’s still a playful side to her yet. Blue wears her Ditto as a mask, using its transform ability to disguise her face. It’s an inventive use of Ditto’s powers, never utilized by any other character in the Pokemon lore (at least not in Gen 1). You could look at it psychologically as Blue longing to escape her life and become someone else, though it’s never spelled out in the text. What I’m trying to say is, she’s a multi-dimensional character and one I found extremely compelling to write about.

Femme Fatales are my favorite character idiom, and seeing one in a story (the Pokemon Adventures manga) about and aimed towards kids was pretty cool. It made me think of all the ways both the show and games could have been so much better, if Blue was a recurring friend/foe whom Ash/Red can never decide whether to trust or not. At least it might have meant not every episode would have to rely on Team Rocket trying to capture Pikachu. (Even as a small child watching the show, I got sick of that formula real quick.) The idea of a femme fatale in a kids’ show and videogame intrigues me very much. I honestly can’t think of any examples of it being done, and for that reason it would have been interesting to see at least. Alas, it was not to be.

Carbon Freeze [Haiku]

Trapped in my own flesh,
prison of anxiety.
This is Carbon Freeze.

Midnight Figure [ Limerick ]

Black satin form wanders the night,
at first appears an alluring sight.
But one pays a Pryce,
to see the mask of ice,
when all alone in the moonlight.

Names of the Shade [ Three Forms of Cinquain ]

Leaf
Distant Fragile
Falling Fainting Drowning
Always Green Ever Living
Survivor

Blue
Wandering Children
Loneliness in Company
Without Faces to show
Isolation

Named Green
Stalking Shadows
in want of companions
or the parents she never knew
She Grieves.

Queen of Darkness [ Diatelle ]

Blue,
the Queen.
Libertine
in a Black dress.
A specter from a dream,
the beauty of which boys obsess.
Alone with a monster there to caress,
a silent accomplice that pounces on her cue.
The bounty captured for Pryce to possess,
her a pawn in his game of chess,
a cog in the machine,
A life repressed,
at thirteen.
Demeaned
Ewe.

Portrait of a Shadow [ Free Verse ]

Blue alias: Green,
Indigo’s Artful Dodger.
Weaponized beauty of Pallet with
garments from divorced gray shades.
Stalking bounties, scores
settled through tamed elements,
weaving Red, Green through wiles and mischief.
Her tides draw blood from ice masks.
A thief in shadows:
bangs cloud eyes, Ditto hides face.
Yet no shield guards against memory:
a Prisoner for a Pryce.
Hostage of Ho-oh,
reach for warmth with captive hands,
calloused heart. Past scars like mascara
shrouds the girl that should have been,
now a life unknown.
Kanto’s O’Shaughnessy, she
dons the night sky, cloak of deception.
From stars, tracing friends. Always
as Silver’s sweetheart.

Trapped in a Mask [ Petrarchan Sonnet ]

Life on this earth is to be behind bars,
ensconced among forbidden forms of Grace,
wrapped up in silk, furs and Chantilly lace.
Their song obscured by a Master called Mars.
And yearning in silence beneath the stars,
to throw down my name—take on a new face.
But how to do it, yet not bring disgrace,
and return to where the future was ours?

Deep down forever longing to escape:
a drone’s destiny when I am a queen,
the past, the taunts, the memories of rape.
Feigning courage by the mirror I preen
my body a canvas to paint and shape.
And call upon Venus to set the scene.

A Moment of Vulnerability [ Flarf ]

You’re a lonely little girl.
Cold rain to splash water diamonds colored Green
and she shoots colors all around,
dancing in the shallows of a river.
She belongs there left with her liberty.
There, running my hands through her hair,
I will bring to you flowers in the night.

Soft as trembling fingers touch you–love,
both of us thinking how good it can be.
Lonely moonchild,
never known as a non-believer.
Like a sunset going down,
warm wind to touch the trees colored Blue
and the world for them is too unreal.

So you’re lonely, lonely, lonely.
I can offer you wine and candlelight.
Soft skin to spend the every day colored gold and
have you seen a lady fairer?
She laughs and stays in the one, one, wonderful,
dreaming in the shadows of the willow.
Someone is speaking, but she doesn’t know he’s there.

^This poetic form is created by taking words or sentences from outside sources: the paper, a book, magazines or in this case song lyrics, and putting them together in a different order so as to create a brand new meaning. The songs I sampled were “Lonely Little Girl” by Frank Zappa, “Here There and Everywhere” by the Beatles, “Love Song for the Dead Che” by the United States of America, “Grace” by Country Joe and the Fish, “She’s a Rainbow” by the Rolling Stones, “Moonchild” by King Crimson and “Wonderful” by the Beach Boys.

Brokeness [ Pantoum ]

Every night I watch the moon, cycle back to New.
She paints us as shadows, unhindered to torment
In my mask, as a raccoon, the thief—I am Blue.
My team of six encircles our mark in his tent

She paints us as shadows, unhindered to torment
Just as well, so they can’t see my regret, my fears
My team of six encircles our mark in his tent
But then I lose my nerve, behind ice there are tears.

Just as well, so they can’t see my regret, my fears
I have never had someone with whom I can cry
But then I lose my nerve, behind ice there are tears.
I cling to Jiggly, listen to her lullaby.

I have never had someone with whom I can cry
There is only Silver, who needs me to be strong
I cling to Jiggly, listen to her lullaby.
Why did it come to this, where did it all go wrong?

There is only Silver, who needs me to be strong
Every night I watch the moon, cycle back to New.
Why did it come to this, where did it all go wrong?
In my mask, as a raccoon, the thief—I am Blue.

The Ballad of Blue [ Sestina ]

Moonless nights the silk wolf slithers behind her prey like a shadow
Face buried under her only possession—a mask of ice
Tracking her mark through Viridian Forest with his body’s warmth
Not for want of human companions but for coin—she is a thief.
Empathy has vacated her heart long ago, snuffed out like a light
And yet while she’ll never admit it deep down she is lonely.

Her master, Pryce, would best be described as cold…grim…lonely
A legacy of stolen futures looms over his children like a shadow.
The silk wolf, the one called Blue, never had a chance to find the light.
A collection of lost souls bound not by blood but a Pact of Ice.
Her corrupted innocence, snatched away by Ho-oh the bird-thief.
For her there was only Silver, his embrace her only source of warmth

They escaped together down the mountain, Blue shielding him with her warmth
And traded pets to never forget each other…never feel lonely.
Silver laid claim to her heart that night as the only kind of pleasant thief.
They split ways and again she was nothing, fainter even than a shadow
She vowed never to let a boy that close again—her heart was now like ice
Blue traced the shapes of new friends from the stars & found her way from the moon’s light

Fire ensnared her with its paradox of destruction mixed with a guiding light.
Yet only Blasty the water beast made her feel any true kind of warmth.
Towards Red, her first human encounter, she was as cold as ice.
He’d grow to loathe her…pine for her…but never know she was also lonely
Yet Red was always nothing to her, he was always stuck in Green’s shadow.
Green alone could summon a blush and smother the inner thief.

Blasty was the true paradox, she stole him like a thief.
Though he awoke the Mother in her, he was her life’s light.
Ditty replaced her mask, concealing it better than a shadow
Jiggly sang her lullabies, her plush embrace giving warmth.
These pets, naive to her corruption, made Blue feel less lonely
Still, Blue showed no tenderness to humans—she was hard as ice.

Only Oak loved her for who she was—he saw thru her like ice.
To most other men she was desire, a tease, ultimately a thief.
Their first emasculation, a dom who left them bitter and lonely.
Only with time and sympathy did Red or Green see her in a new light
Red saved her from birds, her only fear, and offered her his warmth.
Their kindness would cure her, the criminal past she would hide in shadow.

Twisted woman buried in ice she struggles in vain towards the light,
A world class thief unable to grasp her hands around a lover’s warmth.
Always a lonely girl who’s too proud to cry except hidden in shadow