2010 Poetry Contest POLL! congratulations poem submitters

fuckin lapdogs
http://i41.tinypic.com/nn88rp.jpg

― unregistered

fuck is such a coarse word
that should be seldom heard
when language offers fine delights
like quim and felch and turd.

― tomofthenest

You remove your clothes:
fatty tanned skin blobs all around
as you lie on the deck
I cry
a seagull hands me a requiem for mercy
written in Lichee juice

― Latham Green

Mariana Revisitation

I want to ignore disaster.

Or no, not ignore it, but fondle its corners absentmindedly.

Thus, an abandoned Key.
I create a sculpture in sand
I call Katrina: a child’s doll,
a filthy toothbrush, an oily splintered drift.

You admire my work and smoke.
Over luxury homes, a blimp swims.

These are not scenes of passion.
The pills are wearing off
and crowds gather around our stunned bodies
suddenly clanged on turf.

The closest we will ever come to touching,
I hunt the ditches outside of town
for an ending to embrace.
Tiled slickness speaks an evasion,
my saliva full of ass, it isn’t yours.
A whore died and you died with her.
My fingers curl in your curls,
the closest we will ever come to touching.

I fall asleep on the turnpike.

Smears of blood like morning,
saming tangles on every line.
You never answer me,
the trees are drowning my views.

A character does not possess his or her own nature.
Your muteness is complicit, the contrast
to my lush movements towards your inner thighs.
We keep getting high over and over and over,
synthetic twinklings no use any longer.

I want your soul. I need your soul.
A mondegreen. Utterly right. Safe.
Like our backs turned east to watch
the sunrise.

― the table is the table

Heavy Metal God
They talk about Him
like he's an old man, withered body --
-- so tired from creating Earth, animals, the genre formerly
and simply known as heavy metal but now varied as
death metal, technical metal, math metal, Scandinavian melodic
Eurovision-tailored horror pop --
his eyes are dim and he sits on mountaintops a lot
promising transcendence.
Or maybe He is actually a She,
flowing long blond hair I imagine much like a Lady Godiva,
her breath smells like chocolate liqueur like
lazy Sunday mornings
Earth goddesses read Tikkun Magazine,
contemplate World Peace,
in grace.
Kabbalists, working from scripts say
that you can't contemplate the unknown
unknow the known the unknown the beyond
the limits of human language the grasping of
verbs and nouns to delineate spaces that cannot
be grasped somewhere
that isn't there
that isn't anywhere
that isn't isn't.
Whatever.
That gives you headaches to consider and anyway,
I have a competitive theory.

― Mordy (edited for length)

For My Murdered Mother
My eyes are your eyes facing the wall,
my tongue a failed version
of speech. First the voyeuristic slip
from their nets, then iron turns the
dick hard. Everyone loves a war hero.
Evangelical, I lecture the lives
of saints and do not cry, last in a
long line of hardhearted boors.
Near the harbor, ropes tighten
around the throat of a woman.
Ice cubes rattle in glass bottom boats
filled with drowned drunks.
It's so Tussaud, or de Sade. You
remove your wig & dirty habit.
Denuded, you embody your worst
aspects; distant, annulled from duty.
In pushpin bullpens cops 1) square off,
2) make rancorous tally of your worth,
3) reek of coffee and metallic sweat.
They teach me how to rank the dead.
Now I live in your endless trunk,
walk the tall cold halls of its
arms and legs, a new kind of
missionary possessed with new
strength. Each blind day I wake
to trawl this rich river of blood
for my concerns
are of the body.

― Edward III

Macaronium

This city's so much ugly furniture
I may not rearrange, nor haul off, all
to nether Nederland gladly sent. So
I seek to set myself apart, once more go
there, where my heart blows my blood
more forcefully, and it settles best. It'll be
Just me, gone to that all-not-city of the world,
a well-favored place that we hairless beasts
let grow with less of grubbing, less of grab.
In my mind's ear already the hermit thrush is
larking at dusk, a low-note to start; it's held,
then frisky, darting and jubilant up the scale.
There will be dust at my feet, and stones, for this
is the true setting, and the trees shall get
more stark as daylight further cocks its hat.
That creek's less brutal than it sounds. The night's
odors businesslikely sit at home, changing
only inasmuch as I exchange my place. I wish.
I wish. I wish. I wish. I wish. Love catches
at me again and the frets of love. Out there,
The empty, awful earth awaits me still.
For all of that I do rejoice. Perhaps I'll
send you some paper boats. Perhaps not.

― Aimless

Freon Day

A dog in heat, a dog in heat
What you want is beneath your feet
It’s out on the corner or in the street
You find it sweating beneath your sheet
A winning song, a winning song
A thousand splits in the cosmic throng
You can’t feel out ______ for which you long
The shape and the number both feel wrong
An empty bed, an empty bed
A dizzying fracture is blaring red
And blue, Don’t take me, I swear instead
I’ll do whatever you left unsaid

― Abbott

Space Tourism

I see ya jogging 'gainst the traffic for yr physical fitness
Higher than the satellite dish on the Eyewitness Van
Catchin' as catch can
Beating down the doors of the rock climbing center
You get returns on investments, you're no longer the renter class
Fuck the unwashed mass
But one day you will FLY FLY FLY past the lumpen
With your energy beverage and the U2 pumpin', man
Catchin' as catch can
Catchin' as catch can
Doing time
On the inclines
The pan pipes
And the wind chimes
Everything you have is nothing
You're a hollow pumpkin hull
It's not enough to own an island
When you're as old as Jethro Tull
When you're as rich as Rupert Murdoch
And the dirt can't hold you down
Gravity means nothin' to ya
Hot air balloons
Are the saddest
Clowns
Country clubbin' in the city, separated from the freeway
Peering up the arching pylons like a veteran with a sign
Fermented clementine
In space you don't haggle, you can take it by fiat
Getting to yes is no way to do business, man
Catchin' as catch can
Catchin' as catch can

― get bent

Amnesia

I can count the seconds
Since you went away
I can count the times
I begged you to stay
I can count the times
You put me in my place
I can count forever
But I can't recall your face
Who were you to me?
Who was I to you?
Staring out the window
Staring out the door
Staring at the ceiling
Staring at the floor
Staring at the photograph
Taking all the blame
I can stare for hours
But I can't recall your name
Who were you to me?
Who was I to you?

― HI DERE

The Lucubrations Of Luca Brecel

drown down from the bedroom
no sensation, subaqueous
when all playthings are dense
anchor-strewn baize mentor
stumble then glide
like leaving a nest
tonight only one boy bears the trident
one boy falls to rest
silt-settle acrylics
cold effluvium
spin across
in shadow-congress
or tidally back
and inside each droplet is a god
particle instantly vanquishing itself
as it disappears into holes
dug by methane worms or oil workers
lined with nets to catch bathyspheres
and return them safely to the sea-bed
tonight only one boy naps
and flicking his nap are anglerfish
the shade of red you can’t see
because it’s pressurised blindness
marking dreamy channels
in the deep green
with a child’s taut assurance
he joins shots for this
hidden ecosystem
fragile to the softest kick
broken at chalky baize
mentor
friend or
cue for
insomnia
surface, O champion
and let the strands of kelp
spill from your shoulders

― acoleuthic

We never go downtown

I need cable internet access
so I can look at more furry porn,
is what I eventually said,
because the landlord said
he kind of wanted to know why there was a bucket truck
instead of the sun, something of the divine
in this exchange, like realizing suddenly
you are indifferent to God
in the middle of an orgasm.
And then, I think, a moment of silence
before grinning at the weather,
small red birds and water everywhere, what a planet,
but cold cocks
my fuzzy thoughts with his talk
of snow and late winter-
bums shit everywhere, what a disaster,
so let's just wipe our noses
and think about where does that shit go to
because a man who, you know, likes to watch
dudes dressed as animals get it on, well,
maybe he thinks in a different way
than I do, maybe he knows things. But really,
I don't know, so we just wipe our noses
and stare enigmatically at the bucket truck.
Sometimes I see other people wipe their noses on their sleeves
so now I look for the residue on most everyone and everything
but it's not always the thing you think it is
is the thing, so sometimes you've got to really think about it. He's thinking
and then he says, far off someplace,
they actually make that stuff, well, I always knew
there was a market.

― casual rigmorale

Cherish your fingers
For they may be your last
Car doors slam!
Trunks slam too!
Alligators don’t regard humans as prey
But I wouldn’t stick my leg in there

Pancreas Cancer effects 5 million children each day.

― CaptainLorax

i placed a vote but good work all imo

no stanzas for me

I actually had a dream last night that the table is the table had written a brilliant collection of poetry. I can even still picture the cover.

I haven't actually read anyone's poem yet besides the short jokey poems

lol, I just misread something in Abbott's poem as "cosmic thong"

common mistake

also lolled at cosmic thong until I realized I misread

― (e_3) (Edward III), Friday, May 21, 2010 2:42 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

Acoleuthic, please post your other poem. I still want to read it. Heck, if anyone has a poem they want to share this is a better place than any

OK, as you asked...

Sips of Raki

tonight with lemonade
covenant love-coloured
steep to taste
then aniseed shard
sward-swarm of tender tongue

liquor your gift
my tonic bead together skin
salt-sweet once more I
throng myself your body
gridiron

from bubbled intercourse
reflecting geometry
shard invites more sips
you’re tasted nor
vibrantly recalled

its guile is time’s thud
on drunk knowledge
glass and lip
along aerial bond which
flights every lick of love

drinking to moisten
all that’s chapped
now chair-slumped man
whose fake leather clings
to your humidity

should next wind bring
slow-cooked juices
you slew yourself
gulf-kissed with a gusto
this raki is not

the above purely for ornamental purposes - please do not let it sway your vote ;)

That ornamental poem has prominent knucklebones.

Oh, and here's a nonsense poem I wrote, just by-the-by

JL ETOV

Rever of seo
Tru OY! Folort
Noces ol' L
Lah! Su OY!
JL ETOV! ton
Odu OY! FI!

It must have taken real fortitude to eschew rhyming that one.

tough decision here tbh

Bert Parks to thread! We need someone who can sing the theme to the Miss America pagent with suitable crooniferous stylings.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted - found it QUITE an easy decision in the end - there's a pool of about 5 from which to choose a serious winner IMO

i'm gonna vote when I can focus on reading better, but I better vote soon

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I broadly agree with the general trend of the results, except for my poem accidentally getting top billing, and acoleuthic's poem getting shut out.

nah it's fine, post 3 poems and nobody will vote; a lesson that has been learnt before (plus neither have been my best)

voted for table fwiw, dude has skillz

congrats to the triumverate

I agonized over table vs casual, glad I went with the darkhorse tho, poems about furries require care & recognition

Would have voted Hi Dere but for got #^_^#

oh hi everyone, thanks for many kind words said about my...er...words. fwiw, i didn't vote? reading over all of them again, i think i'd go with "We never go downtown." but my moods change a lot, thus explaining why i didn't vote in the first place.

i regret that i totally dropped the ball this year on the contest, but i only just recently finished a thing -- just wanted to throw a link to it here as i feel like sharing.

(i'm just posting a link because of gratuitous m/m non-consensual sexual content; consider yourself trigger warned)

SAINT SEBASTIAN, PRAY FOR US.

^^ please note that each line of the poem is an anagram of the title

strong work

That is fucking incredible.

Awesome. Am I correct in presuming that you only used letters that were in the title?

the lines (and title) are all anagrams of each other

so yes

!!!!!!!!!!

probably a good thing for purposes of vote-spread that you didn't submit that one

game = raised

is ilx user casual rigmarole a lurker? i like his one

also elmo is next level

That is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. And yes, I'm a lurker... most of the time! *slinks back to cave*