2019 ILX Poetry Competition: Open Division

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Thanks, guys! <3

A poem can exist in and of itself, outside of any community. Let the poem be the poem, it may bloom in isolation or outside bubbles. Does it not blossom, that is ok too. We all die alone etc.

I agree, of course, but I keep failing that 'test of solitude', as Emmanuel Hocquard put it.

pomenitul, Saturday, 5 October 2019 11:15 (four years ago) link

Great offerings from everyone so far! Elusive, but not too much so. There's definitely lots to unpack in all three. Thanks for starting this up, Aimless! An exciting time.

tangenttangent, Saturday, 5 October 2019 11:56 (four years ago) link

I wonder who will be the first trickster to submit an undetectable offering by an established poet so we can have our yearly debate about the weight of proper names and whether plagiarism is acceptable in literature.

pomenitul, Saturday, 5 October 2019 13:07 (four years ago) link

Or the first to use Talk To Transformer...

imago, Saturday, 5 October 2019 14:52 (four years ago) link

i will submit one constructed from an anagram of the initial letters from the most ugly/best meta thread i can find

too many cuckth thpoil the broth (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2019 14:54 (four years ago) link

If that’s going to be the attitude I won’t bother

YouGov to see it (wins), Saturday, 5 October 2019 15:38 (four years ago) link

poets society is dead

too many cuckth thpoil the broth (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2019 16:11 (four years ago) link

Just a friendly bump. I'm hoping to get some kind of a start on a poem this week. It all depends on this wheelbarrow and the weather. I can't explain it any better than that.

A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 October 2019 04:34 (four years ago) link

ANAMNESIS

 Remember when you wanted what you have;
it took two dreams of dog bites,
a month of mosey,
year by the sill;
caught sibling wishes
in fettered breath
soothed regal guilt
from nosing the tufts
(though mostly wilt)

Now new night spills
like scarlet to sink

The old oaken limbs
kiss streetlamps unlit

The cats mimick -
all shadows awry

I cultivated calm
now new night is mine

meaulnes, Tuesday, 15 October 2019 04:59 (four years ago) link

telegraphic. kinetic. nice.

A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 October 2019 19:29 (four years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Fucksake none of youse cunts care, do I need to write a second just to bump this thread?

Whatever you're thinking, I THOUGHT IT FIRST
However you feel, I FEEL WORSE
I took three buses to get here tonight
And smoking's only sexy in black and white
The migraine pills will get me through it
A shotgun with a torch taped to it
A paper bag to breathe into
And a drink for every thought of you

Little Timmy would have gave her the world
But LITTLE TIMMY AIN'T INTO GIRLS
He's into Some Came Running and The Great Pretender
And nostalgia for days he can't remember
Sandinista! from his bed
Six sides just to clear his head
The beats will fade then what we got?
Time-and-a-half, but all for what?

"Corbusien Purity", the "Boy/Girl Aesthetic"
Filtered through his dialectic
Half-past-nothing and I can't feel my legs
Just concentrate on the last thing said
Reflected glory comes in waves
And starts to sting my eyes again
Flinch from a ghost, snow falls on snow
Where did all the good times go?

Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 1 November 2019 19:11 (four years ago) link

Sorry, the title is SLOW MOTION WHEN IT MATTERS

Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 1 November 2019 19:12 (four years ago) link

heh im not beating that or your other one so as a motivator its unideal

deems of internment (darraghmac), Friday, 1 November 2019 19:19 (four years ago) link

I'll try to post something mediocre, so deems can get motivated.

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 1 November 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link

OK. It's time for all you freeloaders to get serious about pulling your weight. If you can't come up with something original, plagiarize yourself from back when you still had interesting thoughts.

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 9 November 2019 17:31 (four years ago) link

sorry the muse sang to me of puke and shite this month and shes off again

deems of internment (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 November 2019 18:13 (four years ago) link

A bit short, but I like it!

Frederik B, Saturday, 9 November 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link

I need to get drunk and power something out in twenty minutes like usual

imago, Tuesday, 12 November 2019 11:12 (four years ago) link

ok stud

deems of internment (darraghmac), Tuesday, 12 November 2019 11:13 (four years ago) link

I'll post something by the end of this week, even if I am forced to use Trump tweets as 'found poetry'.

A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 12 November 2019 20:02 (four years ago) link

Flarf is ripe for a comeback anyway.

pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 November 2019 20:03 (four years ago) link

Seurat Upon the Asteroid

Seurat upon the asteroid
found the lack of atmosphere
oppressive. Nothing softened, rounded,
everything displayed unwanted harshness.

Seurat upon the asteroid
complained most of the monochrome
and felt embittered by its ill-adaptedness
to the pallette he was fond of.

He found the jagged edges of light too sharp
beyond what his tender eyes could accept.
He gripped his brush in impotent rage
against the bleakness and barbarity there.

Seurat upon the asteroid sat, and sighed,
and soothed his loss in dreaming,
attempting to fill his empty surroundings
by lingering in the intangible.

"Must I invent it all again" he thought,
"the muslins, bustles, upswept hair?
"The trees that secretly are clouds?
"Here such inventions seem beyond impossibility."

Obstinate, without intention, the asteroid
imposed itself upon the artist, until
Seurat upon the asteroid reconciled himself
to the angularity of the shattered light - and painted.

A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 14 November 2019 19:38 (four years ago) link

Intriguing. I can picture him drawing inspiration from the clusters of stars.

pomenitul, Thursday, 14 November 2019 19:42 (four years ago) link

My wife has often asked me why I never write poems about our daughter. Today, sitting under a tree in the dunes near the ocean, I was reading Rexroth's translations of Tu Fu and they showed me a possible way to accomplish this, for me, difficult feat. So, this will be my second entry:

My Daughter's Misfortunes

My daughter's misfortunes seem never to end.
They accumulate beyond counting, beyond tears.
For three decades I have shared her struggles.
Her body is as near to useless as a body can be.
She cannot move herself, she waits to be moved.
She cannot speak, her mind is fathomless to me,
Yet sometimes her face can be read like a book.
She never laughs, a smile is the limit of her delight.
She never cries, for tears could bring her no relief.

In autumn a surgeon cut off part of her femur.
In winter she nearly joined the legion of ghosts.
In spring a permanent slit was put in her bladder
So that a tube might empty the urine from it to a bag.
For her, my wife, and I, these few bald lines
Describe nothing other than a daily truth,
The texture of her entire life and half of ours.

It is hard to tell others how it is we live.
Around strangers I dread their conventional questions,
Our mutual awkwardness as my poor answers are revealed.
But there is nothing here that is unspeakable.
On Sundays we all visit together without exception.
We lie down all three adjacent, close, familiar.
I place my head against her head, lightly touching,
And she relaxes hers to mine, accepting the contact.
For an hour or two there is space for contentment.
This one thing, more than any other, is how we live.

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 01:55 (four years ago) link

:) ;_; !

i have actually read those rexroth translations so i know exactly what you mean by them offering a path

imago, Friday, 15 November 2019 02:11 (four years ago) link

While I'm here:

the deadline for submissions is some time vaguely around mid-November, 2019. This may change, depending on the weather, the number of submissions, and my judgment.

I'd say we need to extend this vague deadline for about another week or so, to gather in some of the strays who have been out galivanting instead of giving their muse the honor she deserves. But in fairness to those who submitted early, my indulgence for procrastination will not last forever, so all you poets, get to poetizing!

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:31 (four years ago) link

that is really moving, aimless, thank you

Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:46 (four years ago) link

Okay, so I'll post a few from this project I've been working on.

6.

The people of Des Moines, Iowa, are no strangers
to economic upheaval.
It never goes out of style.
He cleared the pipe and passed it.
We all close like water, and once
this floodplain hitched to the coast, blubbering over the scape.

My observations inform me
his real ambition was to start a band
playing music in the vein
of Jimmy Buffett—
he liked the relaxed lifestyles, baby let's cruise
away from here:

"how to wreck a hard drive,"
"water damage to a notebook computer."
Just browsing, treading, it's not illegal
to not want to be found. It's been explained
repeatedly. The tourists are covered in crude,
the schoolchildren started to vomit
scanning for shore. Nothing on the cameras
perchance to dream how the film depicted
in light's painful rigor a thirst
unplugged, a handwritten note left
in the unremarkable room
where we burned our papers
and set off the alarm.
A crowd gathers
on a strip of grass.

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:51 (four years ago) link

3.
No wonder the dinosaurs
threw in the towel,
would for a softer ending, a coo at last light's
intense waveforms, but no, instead it's
the first time we've been forced to think
about how we fight war.

Is that the raclette or the diaper
of history bestirring my schnoz?

The aged loosen and it's a fright.
I palpate but the air is filled with zither music and
haggling in Vietnamese,
my intentions likely misplaced
as I tongue congee off a cleaver.

Snort all you want. Let's pretend we're viruses.

I call nipah and supply the mansions
with palm toddy, chucking thoat swabs
in the dustbin. Some were violent, and screaming;
they were pacified with injections.
I wanted to craft fictions.
It's a skull thump
on concrete.

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:52 (four years ago) link

finally, one from today:

7.

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:00 (four years ago) link

oops....

7.

A particularly telling symbol is an absence.
My shame is right on, then,
the spreading thorn
strapped and surfing copper
unease crisp a celebration
of life padding parking lots and structures'
demanded lineation, looking behind me lustily.

It was all dell, surrender surrender
in fluxed splendor the jumbo word find
a recursive embrace of hurt's spillage,
pump up the contrast the orders
a view dimmed to gruel.

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:04 (four years ago) link

ty, ttitt

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:59 (four years ago) link

I'm gonna bump this at least once a day for a few days.

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 18:38 (four years ago) link

Daily bump.

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 16 November 2019 16:02 (four years ago) link

^

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 17 November 2019 17:29 (four years ago) link

I think it's time to set the deadline for entries: midnight (GMT) Saturday, November 23. I'll cobble together the poll sometime soon after that.

A is for (Aimless), Monday, 18 November 2019 16:24 (four years ago) link

On a Rooftop in Manhattan

The planes performed their dance above LaGuardia,
banking lightly into a slow descent.

Margaret regarded the procession with envy.
When she was younger she thought the whole world moved
like gears inside a clock, churning indifferently
around the mounting catastrophe of her life.

Someone told her that this fantasy was called libertarianism,
evoking images of gun shows and New Hampshire
that quickly dissipated into a mosaic haze.

Margaret had no judgments and no ideals
at this moment in time,
and she caught herself saying that fatigue was a kind of nihilism
when she meant to ask for another drink.

treeship., Wednesday, 20 November 2019 03:49 (four years ago) link

thanks, treesh. Last time there were 17 poems. yours makes 9 so far this time around. I'm hoping we can harvest a few more before Saturday.

A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 20 November 2019 05:36 (four years ago) link

one last bump before this thread shuts down over the weekend

A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 21 November 2019 18:35 (four years ago) link

poets! submit!

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:16 (four years ago) link

I need to get drunk and power something out in twenty minutes like usual

― imago

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:51 (four years ago) link

poets! start drinking!

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:56 (four years ago) link

I've already made an ass of myself. It's everyone else's turn now!

pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:58 (four years ago) link

One last reminder:

If you can't come up with something original, plagiarize yourself from back when you still had interesting thoughts.

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:07 (four years ago) link

Just 'thoughts' will do at this point.

pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:09 (four years ago) link

I dug up an Onegin stanza I left unfinished, but I just can't get it to work.

Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:13 (four years ago) link

I left it unfinished ten years ago, I should say

Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:14 (four years ago) link

That's OK. You're already a blood donor.

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:16 (four years ago) link

Slap '(A Fragment)' on it and call it a day.

pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:16 (four years ago) link

But it's the middle part that doesn't work...

Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:17 (four years ago) link

yours and mordy's were the other best things to ever be in this maybe

imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:13 (four years ago) link

id read a book of hellion mumble's stuff, and i wont read a book of anything usually tbh

deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:18 (four years ago) link

there are forgotten heroes

Gatemouth did some truly staggering forgotten-hero work for instance, and then stopped posting

imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:19 (four years ago) link

mordy's 2014 poem is the great one from the the archive if anyone is ever making a zine

tangenttangent, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:20 (four years ago) link

careful, deems won't forget you said that ;)

imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:21 (four years ago) link

in a smallshit factory town down west
the college is hosted macabrely
between st marys, where the nurses now train
(amongst the easier cases)
and teresas

johnny was easy. hed wander the campus
asking have ye fags, have ye fags- he was harmless
but startling

fergus another, he wandered around once
one thursday (id had an accounting exam)
saying i kilt a man
i kilt a man ah god help us i kilt a man

hed stabbed johnny five times in the back,
out the back
fergal probably shouldnt have been in st marys,
we reckoned

that was for easier cases

the other flank of my beloved alma mater
was teresas: secure, for the difficult cases.
secured to their beds
or secured by prescription
or secured in the first and last instance by mick
who was alright of a guy, all considered

i never got used to visiting teresas
but many years later, with clipboard and tie
i carried out duties vested in my person
by the county of mayo-god-help-us
and a fella climbed onto my car while i did so
and wouldnt come down til they threatened the doctor
and i thought

ive had worse visits to this fucking kip
that left worse dents and scratches
and at least this time its on the clock
and none of my brothers are crying

deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:36 (four years ago) link

AI think it's time to set the deadline for entries: midnight (GMT) Saturday, November 23.

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, November 18, 2019 8:24 AM (five days ago)

According to my calculations, midnight had passed had passed at the Greenwich meridian when deems posted both of his poems to this thread. Personally, I am not averse to including them in the official balloting, but I throw open the floor to other participants who may feel aggrieved by darraghmac's flouting of the announced rules. Until I hear further, they are held in official limbo, pending adjudication.

Hint: Some sitting in ashes, or thoughtful bribery, might soothe the feelings of the other contestants.

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 04:18 (four years ago) link

serve me right

deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 11:18 (four years ago) link

This morning, upon further thought, I remembered that flouting announced rules is vmic for poets, so any caviling would be ungenerous of us. You're in. I'll post a polling thread in an hour or two.

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link

i knew pretenitence would do the job

deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link

Voting for your most-preferred poem may be done on 2019 ILX Poetry Competition: VOTE HERE.

Poets who vote for themselves will be judged in heaven upon a scale of perfect justice, but since all votes are anonymous let's just accept the eventual outcome as being uninfluenced by undue vanity. I'm just hoping there are more total votes than the eleven poets who saw fit to show us their poems. Good luck, y'all.

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 19:35 (four years ago) link

btw, you have invented a new and valuable word - well done, deems:

Your search - "pretenitence" - did not match any documents.

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 21:26 (four years ago) link

ack too late to submit - alas. next year i'll do better.

Mordy, Monday, 25 November 2019 17:12 (four years ago) link

three weeks pass...

Have to work tomorrow
But will be back here again believe me
Once the barmaid options are exhausted
Back here to fucking decompose

calstars, Friday, 20 December 2019 02:25 (four years ago) link

(Aimless opens thread, expecting to find a decomposing calstars. Does not and is relieved.)

A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 22 December 2019 04:15 (four years ago) link

two months pass...

I forgot to say thank you to my voter!

And, by the by, via some weird cold clockwork of the stars, Christopher Fairbank ended up reading and recording my poem: https://soundcloud.com/mattpoacher/deer

Ngolo Cantwell (Chinaski), Saturday, 29 February 2020 21:25 (four years ago) link

it was me fwiw

strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Saturday, 29 February 2020 21:56 (four years ago) link

pfft

BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Saturday, 29 February 2020 22:17 (four years ago) link

Thanks imago.

Ngolo Cantwell (Chinaski), Saturday, 29 February 2020 22:20 (four years ago) link


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