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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

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    Default Iron Poet Archives

    After recently becoming involved with Iron Poet, I got a desire to read through some of the previous competitions, but I found it very unpleasant to try to sift through all the individual threads, so I took it upon myself to create an archive. Hopefully someone appreciates it. If not, well, I was bored anyways, so that's fine.
    Last edited by Zjoot; 2012-05-14 at 07:42 PM.
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

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    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    So, this took a bit longer than I expected, and it may be a while before I'm all caught up, since this is number one and we're on fifteen.

    Iron Poet
    Winner: Ravyn

    Round 1:
    Castaras vs. Nevrmore; Theme: Hurricanes
    Castaras:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The whirling wind is cold that night
    Whistling past the ruins that were once so high
    Mighty and strong, brought to ruin by a wind so bright
    Fast, and cruel. A tight and fast whip that has let fly
    Destruction. Death. Misery.

    The remenants of the wind whistle through my hair
    Cold, almost silent, bringing the smell of death to us
    By a ruin, a mother holds a broken child there
    Weeping for another so dear, yet lost
    Gone. Departed. Faded.

    There, my eyes spy; three shivering childer
    Huddled together under a blanket warm
    Two staring eyes, skin pale with the death that killed her
    Peek out from the shadows of the fallen tower torn
    Destroyed. Crumbled. Fallen.

    The havoc that has been brought here so soon
    So fast, so lightening-quick, over in a flash of light
    In a way, it should be respected, as the remaining threats loom
    In case the hurricane comes again, before fading into the night
    Fast. Cruel. Murderous.

    Nevermore:
    None
    Winner: Castaras

    Phoekun vs. Fally; Theme: Glaciers
    Phoekun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I breathe; a mist rolls along the ground
    And vanishes in the morning air.
    She reaches; long white fingers
    Grasp the sky and stretch towards
    Infinity.
    I can't move. She seems to stand still,
    But I can feel her all around me.
    Were she warmer, I would drown myself
    In her. I shiver, and wonder if she even
    Knows I'm here. Her gaze doesn't
    Come at me, but through me. Like the
    Lance of purest white she uses to pierce the
    Clouds and rend the sky. Hours pass. Days.
    Years. Nothing changes. She stands, and I watch.
    My eyes fill with mist. What's happening?

    I had forgotten. My body goes limp against
    Her, and she doesn't even notice.
    That I forgot to breathe...

    Fally: None
    Winner: Phoekun

    Ravyn vs. Methodical Meat; Theme: Music
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Calling

    Well-meaning but misguided, they bring me,
    To echoing halls and silent rooms,
    To forsake the life of a dreamer,
    And find my place in the world.

    To stop listening for the world's song.
    To find work.
    To find dedication.
    To find a path.

    Complaining in a wearying, unceasing staccato,
    Five cowbells doing rhythm-fugues.
    Don't wander off, speak brightly, pay attention, smile.
    Distract yourself with nothing.

    I arrive, and their words are forgotten.

    It echoes, rooms away.
    A cascade of notes that tumble through my heart,
    Harpsong for heartstrings.
    Calling, seeking, summoning,
    More alive than these toneless people,
    And their speech of trade and tariff,
    Of toil in a world without song.
    Their droning nothing compared to this music.
    Before I know it, I am seeking it.
    Those who brought me are immersed in their droning;
    I will not be missed.
    Ironic, that the path in front of me now
    Is the one they tried to herd me away from.

    Through echoing halls it guides me, beckoning tendrils;
    Over hardwood floors that shine with fire from above--
    Past marble statues that seem to point the way.
    With something lacking, but the omission makes it stronger.

    It calls from behind a door of oak,
    Which I open slowly, softly.
    To startle the musician--to stop the song--
    Would be a crime.

    And I see her.
    She sits on red velvet and drips with gold,
    Black eyes intent on nothing,
    Slender fingers rippling through the air,
    Bringing forth the music that spills around us.
    Incomplete, calling...

    ...and I know.

    What are you waiting for? it asks.
    Nothing more.
    Life had been a holding pattern,
    The same repeated measure until I lost count,
    And played it again and again, waiting for that note,
    That would tell me where I am.
    Her song is my cue.
    The missing notes in her melody--
    I hear them now, the song of the world about her.
    The marble walls a chiming pattern,
    The hardwood below a mellow, reedy baseline,
    I hear the world. I know the world.
    Its song echoes in me.
    Somehow I know that it always has.
    My song, the world's song, complete hers.

    She looks at me--the song within an alien echo to the melody she plays.
    She nods towards the door,
    And now her music hints not of potential to be found here,
    But a world to be seen outside.
    To be changed.
    No words are necessary:
    Just one look back before I step back into the world.
    The colors are brighter, for I hear as well as see them.
    The future clearer, trumpeting through the discord.
    The harpist who plays the world has shown me my part.

    ...and hearing the symphony around me, I know...

    ...it is my time to play.

    Methodical Meat:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Danny sits to my left,
    plucks at his guitar strings,
    not a care for the world,
    he un-hunches and looks me in the eye,
    and says, "Let's play."

    I look at my hands,
    slim, delicate and far too pale,
    then cast my eyes to the corner,
    where lies the bones of my music,
    splintered wood and shredded notes.

    Danny starts to play,
    slow and quiet,
    fingers glide across the strings,
    and casts a spell of loneliness and longing,
    and for want of my music I weep.

    A touch on my shoulder,
    it's Rose,
    sweet, gentle Rose with curls of fire,
    and eyes of brightest green,
    smiling warmly, drawing me out.

    I look up with eyes far gone,
    lips parted,
    tongue quivering,
    brow furrowed,
    I sing.

    Rose moves behind me,
    she adds her voice to mine,
    soft singing drifting under my shaking melody,
    holding it aloft,
    carrying ever upward.

    Danny comes in low,
    deep, strong and full of life,
    surrounds our voices,
    all to the tune of quivering strings,
    dancing beneath his fingers.

    Twining voices lifting up,
    forever upward,
    we see ourselves singing,
    faces upraised,
    shattered hands forgotten.

    Winner: Ravyn

    Abacab vs. Tiako; Theme: Children
    Abacab:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Children enter school knowing nothing about life

    They start innocent

    But soon enough,
    A kid will soon experience things-
    Fighting,
    Name calling,
    Gossiping,
    Stealing,
    And lying

    They think it's the pinnacle of immorality
    Because days are spent thinking about the mental and physical scars
    They think it can't get any more severe

    It does

    Years later,
    Right before the beginning of middle school,
    When the line between popular and-non popular is drawn,
    Students become more raucous
    The crimes against peers worsen
    And teachers are fully disrespected

    A student will become discouraged
    The student might use the past as a comparison to the present

    The same past that
    Looked like playful brawls instead of fights,
    Sounded like insignificant rumors and small taunts
    And smelled like lies as white as snow

    The eleven year old will think that the past was more cheerful
    Because nothing was important

    And everything was innocent

    Tiako:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A child’s eye, bright and keen,
    After dark, is opened wide,
    The moon’s light reveals a scene
    Of shadows dancing, he tries to hide.

    Underneath the covers, safe!
    But oppressive blackness, pooling in,
    He feels his air is running out,
    He has two choices before him now,
    To risk a breath, and fresh air sweet,
    But face the demons and the dark,
    Or hold tight and fast in his cocoon,
    Without air, devoid of light.

    The child, huddled in his bed,
    Hearing demons left and right,
    The noises may be in his head,
    But real enough for too real fright.

    Winner: Tiako

    ZRS vs. Faerwain; Theme: Love
    Zombie Rock Star:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Incomplete Collection
    I think the captain is secretly in love with Wendy.

    Taking grains of sand for notes,
    Writing songs and hiring an orchestra
    Ten thousand strong to emote
    What I'm thinking as we dance
    On the beach, I teach the steps
    To you and we kick up the sand
    And send it in cyclones, we trip
    And fall on our backs, razing
    The coastline, We lie
    On our backs and I pry and stroke
    At your fingernails. They're long, like mine.

    We listened to Radiohead, since it was all we had there. The CD had just washed up on the shore and I looked out on the lake and begged it for more. "Give me a DVD, a book, a play, more music, a painting, some photographs...something," I said. "These are Christmas gifts come far too late and you owe me." From this medley (white water, blue, clear, red, yellow...) of the lake, many more things appeared, mostly music. We spent three months listening to all of it.

    I sailed the lake in a pirate ship
    Of LEGO. It took forever to fit
    Every piece together. I took
    Days finding each block
    Of the right colour
    Instead of some other.

    It's there, that's the important part,
    Though the ship only sails at night,
    When the episodic days are done
    And we must move on from each
    Individual, neatly packaged beach
    To a new one that looks the same
    As the one from yesterday.
    New episodes of a sci-fi show
    With a cheap budget.

    As we leave the beach the sand clings to our feet, but only for a short time as our feet are slowly drying...some of it falls over my floor like the pieces of LEGO scattered about. Except what gets stuck underneath out toenails, which I will never get out. The rest becomes wind for pirate sails.

    But I took what I head left and ground it into ink. I use that to make drawings and write novels. It makes you think.

    Our first date wasn’t a film.
    No gigantic glasses of Coke
    For you or me to spill
    And the size and noise of it’s a joke.
    Instead we went to the bookstore
    Where you spent an hour or more
    Tearing up every book on the bestseller shelf.

    Scattered pieces about the floor…
    Hanging on like snow
    On branches of a tree
    And we gather and turn into
    Papier-mâché
    A gift of a mask, put together,
    It itches when I put it on.

    Now, I write novels again and again; the same one each time but I put the sentences in a different order. I do it so you can tear them up and do the same thing all over again, for your birthday. For mine, I got a paint-by-numbers kit. I’m not exactly sure it was worth it, since it was a picture of a duck. I mean, ducks are fun, but was it really enough? The palette was too narrow, with too many shades of yellow. Every thought I had was a new colour that wasn’t there.

    I tried to paint a Valentine
    With these new colours of mine.
    It’s…not done yet.
    I think I need one or two more years
    Before I’m finished,
    As I spend days
    Deciding and deliberating
    On each debilitating colour

    When all I have left is a painting on a beach. Each grain of sand blasts brilliant, boring into eyes like the Saturn rocket, which falls to pieces as it leaves its orbit.

    Faerwain: None
    Winner: Zombie Rock Star

    JoseB vs. Goodfellow; Theme: Ocean
    JoseB:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Oceans deep, unforgiving and cold,
    Cold with the wind and the storms of the winter.
    Endless extension of mysteries untold,
    Always inspiring and always terrific.
    None dare confront you; none but the bold.

    Oceans red with the blood of the dead,
    Covered in smoke from a myriad battles.
    Enemies fighting and tearing to shreds,
    And in the end meeting down, little tatters.
    None are remembered; names go unsaid.

    Oceans wide and majestic and great,
    Calm like a pond in the twilight of summer.
    Embers of sunset reflect and pulsate
    All over you like the beat of a drummer.
    None is as glorious; none as ornate.

    Goodfellow:
    Spoiler
    Show
    At first there was nothing.
    Only the sound of water, as it moved to lovingly embrace the earth:
    the embrace from which we were born
    -Delicate salt statues.

    The embrace, aeons old, continues on still,
    as the two lovers meet by moonlight,
    whispering sweet secrets to each other.
    Secrets that their children dismiss as the sound of the surf,
    -As the cacophony of water.

    Should not these ocean children look more kindly upon their parents?
    Should we not embrace the smell of salt? The touch of the sand?
    Look more closely upon our mother’s turbulence and see,
    Heaven, reflected in her waves.

    Winner: JoseB

    Brickwall vs. Elvaris; Theme: Plays (theatrical)
    Brickwall:
    Spoiler
    Show
    There is a light that pierces the darkness,
    It hits my eyes, a nova burning bright,
    'tis the same that makes a strong man heartless,
    In it the refined reach their full height,

    Though not to say that their deeds are noble,
    Nor that I am cultured or sagacious,
    But that to acheive the highest total,
    One must practice to be more audacious,

    More stars brighten the sky, shining for me,
    As I look upon the crowd from on high,
    And they display my full for all to see,
    But they bring to bear not truths, but a lie,

    It is humorous that that glowing search,
    Lets shadows abound, and leaves fact in dearth

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Marquee. Makeup. Memorized lines.
    House lights. Audience, dressed to the nines.
    Costume. Adrenaline. Opening night.
    Stage crew. Double check, everything's right.

    Curtain. Focus. Hitting your spots.
    Action. Banter. Advancing the plot.
    Gasps. Tears. Gripping the house.
    Curtain. Cheers. Taking your bows.

    Handshakes. Flowers. Talk of the town.
    Adrenaline. Crash. Tough coming down.
    Apartment. Normalcy. Milk turning sour.
    Tedium. Memory. King for two hours.

    Winner: Elvaris

    Deepsear vs. Cult_of_the_Raven; Theme: Trains
    Deepsear:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Train,
    pulling a heavy load, straining
    only stopping at the end,
    reminds me of how life is funny like that
    you have a course,
    you keep going
    pulling your responsibilty behind
    you try not to stop
    sometimes you don't - you're feeling great
    sometimes you do - you have nothing to do it for
    sometimes you feel like just racing ahead without your responsibility,
    without your load,
    but you would get to the end
    and what would you have to show for getting there?
    nothing.
    So the train keeps going.
    It will have something to show.

    Cult of the Raven:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Gods' Train

    Have you seen the hidden train
    That runs within the trees?
    It goes across the silent plain.
    And brings with an ocean breeze.
    The wheels are made of angel’s hair
    The engine made of gold.
    Powered by all men’s despair
    And all things hard and cold.
    The train of silent speaking
    Runs only in the night.
    For it carries secret cargo-
    The secret to eternal delight.

    Winner: Cult of the Raven

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2
    Castaras vs. Elvaris: Island(s), Smoke
    Castaras:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A hazy grey fog coats my eyes
    The smoke of the dying fire
    Obscuring the flickering light
    Of the failing, guttering flame

    A twirling, twisting pillar high
    Of smoke a-dancing climbs above
    It alone can escape this place
    The silent cage of sand and dust

    Lonely I stand, watching the sea
    Topple in taunting waves upon the beach, laughing
    As I stand, stuck, without escape
    No ship will come sailing for me

    Lost in the lands of endless sea
    Without hope nor trace of comfort
    The smoke still stays a-twirling up
    Escaping the cruel, silent isles.

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Dandy Pirate

    ALL:
    Oh, we'll burn your town and we'll kill your folk,
    And we'll take your isle amid the smell of smoke.
    We'll loot your town and we'll take no chance.
    CAP'N:
    And all so I can get a pair of frilly pants.

    CAP'N:

    ALL:
    Oh, I am the dandy pirate.

    Yes, he is the dandy pirate.
    I'm the scourge of all the seas.

    Yes, we take all that we please.
    I'll pillage every island.

    You should run up to the high land.
    And your women I will please.

    Yes, your assets he will seize.

    ALL:
    Oh, we'll burn your town and we'll kill your folk,
    And we'll take your isle amid the smell of smoke.
    We'll burn their crops and we'll salt their dirt.
    CAP'N:
    And a bounty for the man who grabs a poofy shirt.

    CAP'N:

    ALL:
    I'm by far the best dressed pirate.

    He's by far the best dressed pirate.
    All my buttons shine of gold.

    And his cuffs expertly rolled.
    I will filch your finest vest.

    Yes, and we'll burn all the rest.
    My clothes, the finest ever sold.

    Yes, they take up half the hold.

    ALL:
    Oh, we'll burn your town and we'll kill your folk,
    And we'll take your isle amid the smell of smoke.
    We'll win the day and we'll sack and loot.
    CAP'N:
    And some leather for a brand new pair of stylish boots.

    CAP'N:

    ALL:
    Oh, I am the dandy pirate.

    Yes, he is the dandy pirate.
    And my features you should learn.

    Or by his torch you'll burn.
    Wait, what is with all this fire?

    Oh it's simple: We like fire.
    But the smoke gets in my hair.

    Oh, The rest of us don't care.

    ALL:
    No the rest of us don't care.
    {Some of the formatting was lost on this one...}

    Winner: Elvaris

    Cult of the Raven vs. Ravyn: Baseball, Saxophone
    Cult of the Raven: None
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The view from the stands

    He fidgets on the bleachers,
    And twitches in the stands,
    On sunny days that bari sax
    Must feel cold in his hands.
    His uniform says “Pep band”,
    But pep seems not his thing,
    At least when sports-time comes around,
    Especially in spring.

    In the still of autumn evenings he’d played far into the night,
    Without complaint, o’er helmets clacking, under stadium lights,
    When winter brought its icy chill ‘twas back to hardwood floors,
    And bouncing balls and swishing nets, past ever-heavy doors.

    He’d made it two semesters,
    And thought that he was done.
    This mandatory sports-gig,
    He never saw as fun.
    He’d learned from those around him,
    What times were good to cheer,
    And when to gripe about the ref,
    …at that time it was clear.

    In the still of autumn evenings he’d played far into the night,
    But here the energy is gone; he just can’t get it right,
    He never liked the other games, but now he wants them back,
    At least he understood them. Baseball… throws him out of whack.

    Then baseball season rolled around,
    And dragged the band along,
    So there he is, his sax in hand,
    A-wishing he were gone.
    The other sports he’d dealt with,
    Their pacing kept him there,
    But baseball’s ragged start and stop…
    He’s bored. He doesn’t care.

    In the still of autumn evenings he’d found ways to make it through;
    Those winter nights of basketball he’d brought his own tricks to.
    But here the game is fickle and the time just slips away,
    So many other things to do on such a fine spring day!

    And now he sits a-dreaming there,
    Of days when he was free,
    The crack and shouts from home can’t hope
    To break his reverie,
    The speeding ball comes streaking in,
    A clang rings through the stands.
    But now it’s nowhere to be seen,
    Confusing all the band.

    But he knows what has happened here and wishes it not so,
    What brass did sound that ringing clang, and where the ball did go.
    And why his sax is heavier, and why his hands are cold…
    That single, ill-aimed baseball….
    For it his bell just tolled.

    Winner: Ravyn

    ZRS vs. Tiako: Newspaper(s), Fire
    Zombie Rock Star:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Heart of the Paperboy


    My bike moves fast to keep the fire fanned.
    I try so carefully to keep my hand

    From burning like a leaf in campfire flame.
    I toss vermilion, blushing, bombs away.

    It looks just like I’m throwing oblong hearts
    And bleeding flame in rhythmic, jumping starts

    To flow through veins in every house I hit.
    And at the very end of my route, sit

    And watch, I do, the veins of every street
    Ignite. The wind makes the black smoke retreat.

    Tiako: None
    Winner: Zombie Rock Star

    PhoeKun vs. JoseB: T.V. Show(s), Farm(s)
    PhoeKun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Dreams can be funny things, you know? You spend your
    whole life working to make them come true,
    and when you've finally got it all worked out...
    It's never what you thought it would be.
    I know that, but... Can't help dreaming, right?
    Just how I am, I guess.

    I gotta tell ya, farming is definitely my dream. Keep
    the family farm alive; that's the dream I had. Make
    my living off the land, raise cattle. Good, honest stuff.
    'Cept, these days, not so much with the honesty.
    A drought'll happen, product'll be low... I keep
    hearing about how folks'll step in and help take some of
    the load off, but instead, I gotta charge more for milk than
    people pay for gas. Only thing is, I'm barely makin' ends meet.

    Life can be pretty cruel sometimes, you know?
    I remember, I woke up one morning - felt like the
    left half of my body was asleep. I shuffled over to a
    mirror, and, and half my face was just sagging!
    Like it was dead or something.
    Doctors poked at me for hours before they finally figured
    out what was wrong. Said I came this close to
    having a stroke. He wondered how it was I had even
    managed to drive myself to the hospital. And then
    he charged me $1500.
    Where the hell am I supposed to come up
    with that kind of money?

    But listen to me. I don't give a damn
    about any of that. So you open up those ears of
    yours and listen real good,
    'cause I'm only going to say this once:
    I'm not going to be your little pet. You want to
    kidnap the president? Fine.
    But leave me the hell out of it.

    ...Listen. I... I'm sorry about what I said last night.
    I was upset about some things, and...
    I know it's no excuse. But, if you'll just give me a
    chance, I'll make it up to you, I promise.
    Dinner, a movie... whatever you want. It'll
    be my treat. Come on, what do you say?

    Click.

    Click.

    Click.

    ...Damn. Nothing's on.

    JoseB:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Empty eyes watching the flickering glass;
    Empty minds drinking the dreck pouring forth.
    Sheep staring blankly, an unthinking mass
    Of pliant consumers that swallow the dross.

    Happy are those who provide TV diets,
    Watching the effect that it has on us all:
    We have become barely more than plant matter,
    Carefully grown to believe what they show.

    Oh poor inventors of broadcast technology!
    You had believed it would better mankind.
    See how, instead, we're now barely like algae,
    Farmed just like cattle, no use for our mind.

    Modern-day farmers don't bother with tractors:
    They wear real nice suits and Italian shoes.
    No hay or feeders: Instead they hire actors.
    That is just perfect for their lambs and ewes.

    Modern-day farmers and those high in power
    Know just exactly what to tell their flock.
    They tell their cattle that sweet is now sour,
    And we, very obedient, believe all that crock.

    Are we all really so hopelessly sheepish?
    Are we all doomed to be farmed by TV?
    Can't we wake up from this nighmare so fiendish?
    That, my friend, rests wholly in you and me.

    Winner: PhoeKun

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 3
    ZRS vs. Elvaris: Duck, Ocean
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I, Witch

    I’ll show them what I’m made of.

    They tried to burn me first,
    Gave me wine of gasoline,
    But it was only fuel.
    Pristine,
    And pure for consumption.

    They threw me from a cliff,
    But I could only float on air,
    I left exhaust clouds and dared
    Them to follow, which they did.

    For I am a bridge, you try to burn me
    But I’ll only remain there.

    But they could’ve read the warning label
    That said: "Keep out of water, you fools!"
    Because I, Witch, cannot swim.

    Sparks like candles on a birthday cake
    As I’m thrown—tied to stone—into the lake.
    I, Witch, am on fire,
    And I’ve shown them what I’m made of.

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    An architect was asked
    About the height of his designs.
    "Why scrape the sky with metal?
    Why challenge the divine?"

    "When I am asked that question
    I always seem to find,
    A poem my father taught me
    Pops into my mind.

    'Sunset on the water
    Pulls my heart out to the sea,
    But whirring gears remind me
    That the ocean's not for me.

    I was not designed
    For feelings or for flight.
    But sorrow fills my quacks
    For I am not water tight.

    If I could find my builder
    I would peck away at him.
    What kind of fool would build
    A duck that can not swim?'

    Just as a duck must swim,
    So must a building soar.
    To reach up to the sky,
    And then climb a little more.

    Because that's the human essence:
    To reach up to the stars.
    To climb the highest mountain,
    Or land a ship on Mars.

    My buildings push our limits.
    Grand visions I inspire
    In any who walk in them
    To reach a little higher.

    Why do I like tall buildings?
    Why rise above just good?
    Why do my buildings soar?
    They soar because they should."

    Winner: Elvaris

    PhoeKun vs. Ravyn: Hands, Navy
    PhoeKun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Our hands, together, turn to stone
    As we drift helpless out as sea,
    I'm with you, but I'm all alone.

    The sun that earlier had shone
    Above is gone, and as it flees
    Our hands, together, turn to stone

    With veins of ice that chill to bone
    And drain both heat and hope from me...
    I'm with you, but I'm all alone.

    But why don't posters ever show
    The ship can sink? Where's honesty!?
    Our hands, together, turn to stone

    That drags us under wave and foam;
    It's dark, and getting hard to see
    I'm with you, but I'm all alone.

    Is this the last thing I will know?
    And you: too late to say sorry...
    Our hands, together, turn to stone
    I'm with you, but I'm all alone...

    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Left Behind
    From out the poster smiles the lad,
    In sparkling naval blue,
    A gaze that says if you join up
    You can be like him too.
    The girls all say he's wonderful,
    But on that face I see
    A mocking, cold reminder of
    The love he stole from me.

    On foreign shores they fight their wars;
    On homeland coasts I stay.
    Above the idly churning sea,
    Below the sky of gray.
    There is a park atop the cliffs:
    From there I hope to see
    A ship that carries the sweet lad
    Whom wartime stole from me.

    Within this park were statues built,
    Great hands of polished stone,
    Some fisted, flat, or coiled to grasp
    At something yet unknown.
    'Twas o'er their granite fingertips
    We first had chanced to see,
    Each other's eyes--me and the lad
    Who now is gone from me.

    And now within their cold smooth grasp,
    I dream and watch the sand.
    Remind myself that both our fates
    Are in much greater hands.
    I reach and almost feel his hand,
    A solid memory,
    And then the wind comes blowing through,
    And takes it back from me.

    I hear from my love now and then,
    Once every month or two.
    By telegraph or dashed-off note
    He tells me he's still true.
    And speaks of how he's doing there,
    Somewhere beyond the sea,
    And how he longs for the bright day
    That he'll come back to me.

    He's not a strong one, is my lad,
    And none would call him bold,
    And still the sight and scent of blood
    Would make his own run cold.
    But he's gone for a soldier now,
    To think they felt that he
    Could learn to fight amid the strife,
    So far away from me.

    But when the pipes and cannons called
    He fled away instead.
    The town's ashamed to speak his name--
    But better that than dead.
    Cold comfort, though, when 'round each bend
    And on each wall I see
    The jeer of that bright Navy lad
    Who took my love from me.

    So every day, above the bay
    I perch upon the hands
    Await his coming on the ships
    That in our harbor land.
    Again we trust to greater guides,
    Together yearn to see
    The day when Providence restores
    The lad the war drove from these shores
    The one the poster-boy abhors--
    The one he stole from me.

    Winner: Ravyn

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Elvaris vs. Ravyn

    The poem must contain any and as much information as possible found in the following pictures or articles. Winning may be decided by the best usage of prompts.

    Prompts: River, Temple

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I pray at the foot of your temple
    Begging an indulgence from you
    A moment of your attention
    A touch from the divine

    Like a river I twist and turn
    Winding my way closer to you
    Searching for an opening
    Only to be turned away

    Like a beacon your fire draws me back in
    Yearning to feel your warmth
    But I am frozen in my banks
    Chilled at a glance

    I can feel a cold embrace
    Drawing me away from you
    Quenching the heat of desire
    Of unreachable fire

    One last turn before you are lost to me
    One last effort to scale your temple
    To be blessed and ascend
    To rise to your heights

    But I am cast down to the depths
    Damned by the touch I so craved
    Forever to despair at your loss
    To weep at the memory of warmth

    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Two Rivers


    .............................Waiting on the banks
    .............................Youths on the cusp....
    Boy with black-mop hair..........................Girl with braids and basket
    Eyes bright in darkness............................Gathering in the morning
    ...............................Following a memory
    Songs of the sister who guided him...........Laugh of the brother who taught her
    .................................On the verge
    Of the path to manhood..........................Of a choice that is not a choice
    ............................Come to the river to reflect
    To look for courage.................................To seek acceptance.
    ..............................In the shadow of the guardian
    Great pyramid, light watching.....................Oak that guards the stream
    Yellow eye in darkness..............................Dawn-sun cradled in its branches
    Ever-burning........................................... Standing for lifetimes
    ......................................Ever-watching
    Now a motion in the water........................Now the scent of herbs
    Fish-ripples attracting..............................A chance glance notes
    The Guardian's golden gaze.......................Pale leaves below the bushes
    ........................................Should I?
    It may be gone in a moment.........................It will still be here tomorrow.
    .......................................Hesitation. ....
    ...but he watches it glitter away...................But she gathers the leaves.
    ...............................There, on the right.....
    Wings splashing in the water.........................Otter cavorting in the shallows
    Bright colors muted by night..........................Sliding on the mudbanks
    Spraying drops of gold and crystal..................Two? Three? Never!
    ......................................Pause in wonder
    The bird who will never die............................Spirit of the joyful heart
    She............................................... ...... ......He.....
    ......................................is here for me.
    ....................................Spirit, animal, both....
    ....................................Does it truly matter?
    ....................................It is its own message.
    The bird flutters on......................................They see their observer
    Serpentine in flight.......................................Momen t of tumbling and rolling
    Into the treetops.........................................A nd they are gone.
    ...............................Again, thoughts the only company
    ......................................Pick up a stone
    ....................................Smooth and inviting
    She would smile............................................H e would laugh.
    ..............................Skip it across the empty water
    Test of skill............................................. ....Test of luck.
    ............................................One... .
    ............................................Two... .
    ...........................................Three.. .
    ............................................Four.. ..
    ............................................Five.. ..
    .......................................And it is gone.
    ....................................Gaze into the water
    ....................................Placid gurgling mirror
    That can't be right!..........................................Wh at magic this?
    ....................................Not a true image....
    A vision?........................................... ....... .....A window?
    ......................................Someone else's eyes
    Watching me................................................ .. ..Watching you
    Watching you............................................... ... .Watching me
    ........................................Who is this stranger?
    Sees the maiden dreaming Tamesis................Sees the lad hunting wisdom....
    .................................................. Or not....
    .................................................. .True?
    .................................................. .False?
    .......................................Reaching out to touch the water
    ........................................Reaching for a dream
    ............................................Finger tips and ripples
    ........................................The mirror is broken.
    ..........................................The moment is gone.
    .......................................Reach and touch a dream...
    A day of wonder............................................ A night of adventure....
    ...................................Two travellers at a crossroads
    .....................................Under the guardian's care.
    Waiting for the morning........................................... .Fearing nightfall
    .......................................Where does this river go?
    ......................................All rivers lead to the ocean...
    All memories to wisdom.........................................All dreams to the future.
    ......................................All time to destiny.
    .............................................Again , a pause
    ................................Searching for a dream's reflection
    ...............................In a self-healing, self-breaking mirror
    .................................Reach and touch another world
    .............................................So near....
    ..........................................Yet so far.....
    ........................................So different.....
    ........................................So much the same....
    Knowing where courage hides.................................Finding another path
    .......................................Lessons of the guardian
    .......................................Lessons of the river
    Eye, glow for me................................................ ...Tamesis, guide me...
    ...............................Half a world apart, the wanderers
    ........................................Find their waiting path
    .................................................. Alone.
    ...............................................Tog ether.

    Winner: Ravyn
    Last edited by Zjoot; 2012-05-13 at 06:43 PM.
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

    Join Date
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    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet II
    Winner: Rubakhin

    Round 1
    Mr. Saturn vs. ZRS: Butterfly(s)
    Mr. Saturn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Butterfly and the Moth

    I saw a butterfly in the cloud.
    It came to earth, although not loud.
    Upon the flowers it came to rest,
    and sip and nibble the flower's zest.
    Again I looked and saw a moth.
    It came from out a devil's broth.
    On wool and clothing it came to feast,
    To ruin and eat to say the least.
    Then to the opposite they did attract,
    with traits unlike and inexact.
    It was of something God hath wroth,
    the butterfly and the moth.

    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I locked a butterfly inside a box.
    It was just like a stained-glass hexagram
    With black and crescent sunbursts for its legs.
    The box… it shuddered as the thing tried to
    Escape… I dreamt of screaming from within,
    But nothing more than a soft, quiet hiss.
    I then took gentle pity on the thing.
    I opened up the lock and set it free.
    And there it flew to where the thing belonged,
    Not in a box—at the top of a tree.
    And like a star, it perched up there for good.
    It was exactly like a Christmas star.

    I’d locked a Christmas star inside a box.
    It was just like a silver butterfly
    And no one knew more of it’s suffering
    Than I.

    Winner: ZRS

    Ravyn vs. rubakhin: Telephone(s)
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Demon's Bargain

    I knew a girl, once.
    She’d sold her soul to a demon with twelve eyes.
    By day it slept in her pocket,
    Waking only to cry for her attention.
    By night it rested at her bedside,
    Feeding from her wall,
    Watching her dreams.
    Her devotion to it was total.
    If it called to her while reading,
    The book was soon forgotten;
    If it needed her while she was among friends,
    Her friends would have to do without her.
    Its summons could pull her from her cooking,
    From meals, from cleaning, even from the shower.
    Only for her professor would it be silent
    (Are all professors demon-slayers?)—
    And even then,
    She looked to it constantly,
    Apologetically,
    Silently begging its forgiveness.
    We worked at the same place, that summer;
    I hoped the work would free her.
    But its elder brother made its claim on her,
    Chaining her to the desk with a spiral cord.
    Its calls were even more insistent,
    Its demands stronger.
    Even its younger sibling was silenced.
    She hated it even as she served it.

    All around me are those demons,
    Leering from people’s pockets,
    Tucked safely in their purses;
    Clinging with a deathgrip to their belts,
    Or in a place of honor over their hearts.
    One has made its lair in my home:
    It perches on the wall, an ivory spider,
    Flinging out its web during dinner.
    One has taken over my sister’s room,
    And I sit outside and wonder—
    What unholy bargains is she making?
    What temptations does it offer?

    Now my parents have fallen,
    And given me a little one of my own.
    It curls up in a small, silver carapace;
    It is small, but that makes it more dangerous.
    They say it will watch over me,
    Tell them when I’m in trouble…
    What price will it exact?
    My friends rejoice that I have joined the possessed;
    They teach me to make its siren song more to my liking,
    Show me the delights it offers to steal my minutes.
    How the mighty have fallen.

    But then, one day…
    Lunch an eternity alone,
    It purrs in my pocket,
    Tells me my attention is needed.
    Lets me speak to a friend, while away the time…
    And I think that perhaps…
    Perhaps a soul is not such a high price after all.

    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Ya-Brodyaga (I, Vagabond)

    Childhood pastoral, a not uncommon scene:
    I used to wander so far that I honestly believed
    I had hit uncharted ground.
    Every boulder was a mountain
    To be named for me, a stream
    Would lead to heathen villages
    To make over in my image.

    This small room, with white curtains
    Wringing hands like impatient lovers
    In wind meandering, Septemberish
    Has its own monuments now.
    "The sheets that Sashenka used to sleep on."
    "Souvenirs I meant to give."

    The cell phone that I used to send you
    An ostentatious message full of pain.

    River Sevachka was paved over,
    Mount Rubakha is now gravel.
    As for you and me, Sashenka
    Love became impossible,
    What with one thing or another.
    "The daily grind," as Mayakovsky said.

    But could a soldier sleep atop a war memorial?!
    Lowered down, spirit broken like a mortar shell
    "The sheets that Sashenka used to sleep on."
    Eyes unblinking to the grey pulp of dawn
    I check my phone six times 'til sunrise

    And every time you will not call.
    Yes, every time I know you will not call.

    I belong to the world of dusty alleys
    Lit by sunlight and the burning eyes of poets
    Of torn-knee jeans and iridescent things
    That promise stiff drinks and open horizons

    Wild-eyed poems stalk the streets inside
    My mind; like gangsters walk the roads of
    Old Odessa; rubbing grubby fingers together
    Mumbling, with the tenseness of a thug
    Before a hit -
    "Sashenka, Sashenka, Sashenka!"
    No ship bearing sleep leers down on
    The clandestine docks
    Of my soul.
    My soul, cluttered by the syphilitic footsteps
    Of eight thousand syllable/sailors!

    Phone beeps, heart leaps
    Although I know it's just the alarm
    I answer "Sasha, sey minuta!" although I know it's just the alarm.

    Startled, suddenly, out of my reverie
    With this pen I'll burn the docks
    If I can't go out to sea!
    Am I - I, vagabond! - am I a man?!
    Or a lovestruck poet?! A lovestruck poet
    No more! My pen will tear my notebook paper
    Till it falls like fetters in a liberated prison!

    There should be a revolution of the heart!
    Full of torchfirelit faces and sweat-soaked arms!
    Women with dresses torn to the navels
    Boys with bald heads and hungry blood!
    There should be an escape of the heart!
    Border cross to Berlin, or Amsterdam instead
    To musky dungeons! Forbidden Americas!
    Where the old red sorrow of love can't chase!
    And yet - and yet! - and yet!

    And yet I, vagabond
    Distilled to a scoundrel pacing back and forth
    Before the cell phone lying like a relic on his pillow.

    This notebook should have been a bundle
    Tied to a cartoon stick.
    These blackened train tracks should have stretched
    From Petushki to the tundra.
    I should have been a hunchbacked dot
    Crossing the white empty Sibir dream.

    Who knows if we can speak again?
    We keep on passing one another in the night
    A waltz for two to the tune of train whistles.
    I'll leave. Right now I'll leave.
    I can't carry in these threadbare pockets
    Memories carved out of granite and gold.
    Just my cell phone, in case you want to call.

    I give up: it's love, Sashenka, love that
    Can't be stomped out by snow-caked boots.
    Nor my stiff drink, my open horizon:
    A toast to your bare skin, my darling,
    Whether I see it again or not.
    You know the number. I won't wait for it,
    But here's one thing I've got no choice to do:

    I'll name all the roads after you.

    Winner: Rubakhin

    Average Joe vs. Methodical Meat: Carnivals
    Average Joe:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Inside the Circus Tent

    This is not snow white
    Though the face is ghastly pale
    And the lips blood red

    This spectral pallor
    Could not be mistook for snow
    The moon's face perhaps

    He sits hunched over
    Grinning with those red-stained lips
    A vulture mid-meal

    But his shoulders shake
    Wickedly laughing at me
    Pale teeth 'tween red lips

    This is no vulture
    Nor a giggling hyena
    but a scavenger

    His hand turns a crank
    Keeping a steady rhythm
    In, out, light then shade

    The crank turns around
    His magic box produces
    A strange, ghostly tune

    Behind is a wheel
    It turns, keeping the song's beat
    A steady metronome

    Pale white with dark lines
    they spiral toward nothing; down
    toward infinity

    Mesmeric patterns
    Halt the mind; one only stares
    The hypnotic rings

    Who knows where they end
    In those vast outer reaches
    The dark between stars

    Do they truly end?
    Or do they begin again?

    Methodical Meat:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Midnight fallen and the city by the old carnival sleeps,
    While the father in the sky watches and weeps,
    To see his playground so changed from his dreams,
    His twinkling toy in the aether no more gleams.

    Far below amidst the tears run the children of the city,
    Hunting the Strange boy without pity,
    They hound him through the forgotten rides,
    Over and under old carnies' rusted prides.

    Fay and pale is the boy,
    Slim, fragile and coy,
    Strong and red-faced are those who torment,
    Their spite no longer dormant.

    Cornered and frightened,
    Senses all horribly heightened,
    Fay-boy huddles and weeps,
    Whilst up his spine fear creeps.

    The smallest of the bullies learned a new word today,
    "Changeling!" he shouts with a bray,
    A larger girl looses a stone,
    And for the Fay-boy it has flown.

    A cry in the night,
    A desperate flight,
    Cut short by a bit of concrete,
    Which for a rock was surprisingly fleet.

    They leave him to bleed,
    All are pleased with the deed,
    No one feels morose,
    Not a one feels remorse.

    They leave him there to weep,
    Not knowing what in the darkness does creep,
    Once they are away-ed,
    Out of the shadows a figure does fade.

    A stooped old woman with a beard,
    Certainly an old woman most weird,
    She crouches and cradles the child,
    And shakes her fist at the others most evil and wild.

    Then sighs and draws him into her arms,
    Wanting to shield him from all the world's harms,
    She drifts away into the shadows so quietly,
    Plodding to home so steadily.

    "We'll have you fixed up with a bandage and thyme,
    then have you home again in not time,
    so wipe away your tears my son,
    and always remember, I love you my only and one."

    Winner: Average Joe

    Amotis vs. Brickwall: Paper
    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    This is a poem; written.

    I never really liked your poems,
    but you wrote them for me.
    And it's like that really.
    You never tell your lover
    'I don't understand.'
    You just don't.

    And that's kinda like a metaphor,
    right? Like for our entire lives.
    And approaching something
    like the light that hits your
    endless clothing.

    There's certainly a difference
    between not understanding
    and not believing.
    And that's what you tell me,
    with that little look upon your face
    that says 'please'.
    Reasons why you won't take
    those pills I wanted you to.
    You call them 'suicide pills.'
    'They're only for safety,'
    I say.
    And you say you don't believe it.

    God, you're pretty, you know that?
    I could spend hours sitting with you.
    Making everyone jealous.
    Like that one time on the park bench.
    The discarded newspapers,
    like blankets for the homeless,
    telling them how to lie,
    and how their lives have just kinda
    boiled down into useless sexual steam.
    You sighed at the correlation.
    I smiled and tried to hold your hand.

    Or that other time.
    Sitting on the park bench.
    And a pair of sparrows just flew past.
    Us watching their jagged flight
    to the one of those urban bushes
    with cigarette butts and rain stains.
    They darted inside,
    and I mean at that speed,
    those little things are fast,
    surely they must of know where to go.
    Planned it before hand
    or knew each other's moves so well.
    Wind blew the hobo's newspaper
    out of view.
    And you moved my hand on mine.
    And I was confused.

    But you're kind to me, of course,
    patient when I try too hard,
    but I can't help to think
    sometimes you like a little
    pain.
    'Cause you give me a dry look,
    that says "hope.'
    And I don't know what to say.

    But you keep on writing,
    that's what you do, you say.
    I don't really get it.
    But I don't tell you.

    And you're always telling me about
    the finer points of virginity.
    And how the bitter water
    that we all drink,
    swing pass swing swing f***,
    really doesn't make it better.
    Bulls***, I say.
    I don't believe it.

    I still remember that night,
    where it was filled with things
    that made you cry.
    And filled with things
    that confused me.
    'I can't stop now,'
    you said.
    'You've gone too deep.
    My paper flower's gone
    and all that's left
    is to bleed.'

    'Well, f***',
    I said,
    and you agreed.

    So we filled this poem,
    with with pills
    and stuff that makes you me.

    And we smoked it,
    drunk and f***ed,
    and then you sleep.

    Paper epitaphs are the worst you said,
    just before the end.
    Just a oxymoron too the core,
    and how we ought to spend
    all our lives just wishing for
    something that doesn't burn.
    But in the end, you said,
    we live in a paper world.

    I never got that.
    But hey, I got you.
    And so that's what I told you.

    Brickwall:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Paper Crane

    Paper crane, paper crane
    I think I love you, paper crane,
    You make wishes come true,
    Everyone is happy to see you,
    Everyone loves you, paper crane,
    Someone worked hard to make you,
    You're the product of tenderness and care,
    You're delicate, lighter than the breeze,
    You're a few folds away from a flower,
    Everything about you is precise, and perfect,
    You haven't a flaw to speak of,
    Paper crane, paper crane,
    I'm not like you paper crane,
    There are so many things wrong with me,
    I'm a mismatched heap of all the worst things,
    Nothing could make me beautiful,
    I'm calloused and cumbersome,
    I'm a product of cynicism and scorn,
    No heavenly craftsman put work into me,
    Nobody is happy to see me,
    Because I can never make their dreams come true,
    Paper crane, paper crane,
    I think I loathe you, paper crane.

    Winner: Amotis

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    ZRS vs. Amotis: machine, house, actor
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    My acting mentor was my home; the house I lived in
    when I was young. The lessons were, like the floor, the colour of tea.
    Ballet lessons were going up the stairs to sleep on Friday night—
    Stage fighting in coming down again on Saturday morning.

    The stage turns into a death trap.
    The pulleys bring the walls in to crush you.
    The trap door, downstage left, is above a pool of sharks.
    The spotlight is a set of lasers.

    The tech crew are its sadistic operators. The stage manager is the diabolical orchestrator. The director gives me acting lessons in how to die and I am at home on the stage. This time, the lessons are the colour of cranberry juice.

    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Don't Call Me A Slut. I Am Surge Protector. I Am Revolving Doors. I Am Wheel.

    there is a house in new orleans.
    bought by my parents.
    and drawn by me,
    when i was three.

    my teacher asked why i drew it
    from the inside out.

    i answered with a sneer,
    "a rolling stone gathers no moss,
    but triggers a goldberg device.
    and that's why i'm still here."

    just let me walk down,
    this stupid town.
    just once.
    without you giving me
    looks about my clothes.

    working the ticket booth.
    of my front door,
    he's cute.
    he's nice.
    i'll let them in.

    and if my head was screwed on right,
    not hammered in with their values.
    i could forget your head
    and your screwing,
    and hammer the door.

    just want to hit something
    that means something
    to them.

    and that's why i still give
    a f**k about this world.
    and that's why i let them
    in. let them hit me.

    i've got a lifetime left in here.
    that's why i hate the intermissions.
    where the smokers walk outside
    and the actors stay backstage.

    my race is run
    on a treadmill.
    on a stage.
    if your parents watched
    like this is your job,
    and you're only in kindergarten.
    you would be bitter too.

    i wish i smoked.
    i wish i had an
    angel catcher.
    they're not dreams.
    apparently.
    wooden hoop
    and woven thread,
    just hanging from my ceiling.

    the only boy who's left
    in the morning.

    parting music,
    bow my head
    on to yours.
    i hate to believe it
    but
    sex ain't an escape.
    it's the motions
    that lock you into me.
    like gears
    that sets it into motion
    all over again.

    encore. encore.

    Winner: Amotis

    rubakhin vs. averagejoe: soldier, jealousy, game (electronic)
    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Rhapsody on a Theme of American Poverty

    America dances on a raw nerve
    Called my back.
    The mother tongue
    Has been pulled from my mouth
    With pliers heated in the melting pot.

    The kettle gets riled up, and
    Shakes from its sweaty lip
    A breakfast's worth of steam.

    Even the kettle doesn't speak
    The language of the samovar
    Of my youth.

    America - with its drumbeats
    And happy savages,
    no ancient parapets
    Nor colonnades; onion domes
    As far away as Grecian temples.

    America - with the chant of poverty
    Purifying the abandoned theater
    The mass written on the old marquee.
    My children will not know Khram Spasa na Krovy
    My children will not pray to ikons.

    America - where the jobs go to
    Yale students with trust frunds
    Seeking work experience rendered useless
    By nepotism. And I, with my poet's eyes
    And the blood of Akhmatov throbbing
    In a chest sunk in with sad compassion
    I, with my poet's eyes and eighth grade education

    In the afternoon wind, I exhale my problems
    In a cloud of menthol smoke and autumn fog:
    "The only chance I've got now
    Is to make a killing
    With a best-selling novel."

    The ghetto sings its chain-gang song
    "Yeah, I know, man,
    Yeah, I know it's hard.

    Peace Corps don't want me cos
    Communications degrees
    From party college come in handy
    In third world countries; the army
    Don't want more middle-school soldiers,
    Middle-class daughters
    Get the Dunkin' Donuts jobs.
    To buy video games. What?
    Claim I hate her outta jealousy
    This city: can't take it
    But we can't afford to leave.
    Too many lost kids singing "**** it -
    If life gives you **** then suck it"
    Slip Terry a kiss and an extra dollar-fifty
    Buys safety on the bus cos I know his hood is tricky
    He say
    "Honey promise me
    You won't go out tonight
    They got a guy going 'round, picking off us blights
    On society - cops and papers don't care
    They would if he was killing
    Regular girls."
    Terry knows what happens
    When you have a dream deferred.

    A dream
    deferred.

    For this dream was I wrapped in furs
    And sent sailing from a shore getting smaller
    And smaller. I looked back and saw my fathers
    Waving farewell among the pine limbs
    Singing lullabies from the water.
    The wind carried the cries of the Royal Martyrs.
    The twilight clouds bore the blood of Pushkin.

    A sea breeze kicks up dust
    On a desolate street.
    A last gasp from a dying city creaking beneath
    37 million
    American Dreams.
    The ocean is a lover's shoulder
    Calling my lips, my tear-stained cheek.

    America, let me run,
    towards the ocean,
    past the endless fences and parking-lots-on-the-blood
    Prostitutki! Ya - vash poet!
    I will fight for you, people
    Until tears take me over.
    I will sing down our swollen jaws
    Our filthy skin and broken sighs.
    The stained corners,
    The stink of urine.
    I will wed the drooling and depraved
    And lead the march down the streets
    In our colanders and boas, king of poets
    America, you will know our joy:
    We shall be saved!
    Though not all of us are beautiful,
    And not all of us are kind.

    I will run, America,
    Past desolate highways
    And deserts of construction
    I will run, America,
    Until I see the choking shore.
    And know for sure this
    Will never be
    Home

    And where

    Where are the cliffsides?
    Where is the sand?
    The shores are crowded with endless miles
    Of tanks, of carriers, of docks.
    Bridges sway among the rusty domes
    That seem to shriek in horror.

    Let my people
    go.

    Waves of Odessa, come find me, let me rest
    Come lull me to sleep once more
    You who rocked my cradle long ago.
    I'm coming to you, from beyond the fog
    In a funeral shroud, white
    Like the clothes of a virgin. I will lie
    In the water, hands crossing my breast
    Let the waves of Odessa bear me home on their backs.

    Average Joe:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The fighters stood, poised
    One the prince; the god
    Who lived at the world’s summit
    And, with his ancient machine
    Wove stories and spun tales,
    Showing peoples’ desires;
    They loved and worshiped him.
    He played his game; he pulled the strings
    The prince and his ancient machine.
    The second fighter, a young girl,
    A proud and noble soldier,
    Who believed in the miracle.
    A grand fairy tale
    Part of the prince’s game.

    They stood, poised,
    Battling with their minds
    Ready to fight with steel.
    And the prince wove illusions
    Visions of time past,
    Before she climbed the world’s summit
    Defeating his lieutenants along the way
    Then challenging the prince at the top.

    First he tempted her heart;
    A prince on his white horse.
    She believed him a savior,
    He made her his princess;
    A nightingale caged.
    He held her close
    And whispered to her ear.
    She, under his spell.

    Next he challenged her ego,
    Saying, “You’re as bad as I,” and
    “’Prince’ is just a foolish ideal.
    You have no right to this power.
    Foolish, naïve girl.
    You’re a child; you’re no prince,
    Though you wish to be.
    Your noble ideals
    Are merely jealousy.”

    Then he challenged her body
    With blade, blood, and fire.
    The old soldier, he said,
    “I have fought many times
    But you have only fought for play.
    Put up your sword;
    You have no hope.
    Give in, child.
    You are young,
    And cannot appreciate me,
    Nor my ideals.
    That power should not be yours,
    And I will take it from you.”

    She responded,
    “You are a mighty warrior
    And have proved yourself
    In the field and off,
    But I fear no harm
    And I never played when I fought.
    You use this machine
    To control others’ lives,
    Seeing their existence as part of your game.
    I shall not yield.”

    They fought;
    The clash of blades
    In that room at world’s summit
    Shook the Earth and heaven.
    Those who worked for world’s end watched on.
    The ancient machine started
    And as she fought
    She saw every battle she had fought before,
    And other things.
    The twelve apostles, puppets in the prince’s hands,
    The earth’s eye,
    The zodiac, an ancient clock,
    And a graveyard in an ancient city.

    He beat her back
    But she stood firm
    And she said,
    “I will beat you,
    and become a prince!”

    Lights flare
    The spell breaks
    The bells toll,
    As the grave of ABRAXIS shatters.

    The fallen prince watched
    As his castle crumbled
    His eyes went wide
    He fell back before her
    Terrified.
    Once friends
    Once lovers
    The fate of the world between them.

    Winner: Rubhakin

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Amotis vs. Rubakhin
    Promps: I (as in you), Happiness

    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I drive
    downstream southern california and blue roof dusk - and slowly
    find air between gray darkened dashboard
    and the open car windows,
    and the buildings.

    buildings
    that blur into sky as monet would have it.
    named for their cold high windows and their lantern eyes that talk softly from inside.
    names like ‘sunrise’, ‘forever’,
    and ‘trying.’

    on the steering wheel, positioned over on the left
    a thin string is tied - chains of deep turquoise mixed with
    strands of aged green. you tied it there.
    watched you tie it, remember the tiny warm rain it seemed to create
    against the angled light and cordial day breeze.
    how it felt on my hand as it moved across it.
    wanted to take a picture, already could see it in black and white.
    focused and ageless
    and saved.
    but there was no camera and the picture
    felt fleeting.


    with the silent tempo of asphalt; the scene’s a screen door.
    as full as new water running off a moving wheel,
    removed slipping and parted, but the feel -
    it makes it. it sings blue gospel to cloth horizons.

    but it's not horizons where headlamps face,
    brake lights flicker valleys and exaggerations across your white garage door,
    the wheel spins back into place and I feel the string brush across my palm,
    a left turn unto memory,
    headlamps face the west and the no endings there.

    Rubhakin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Ahmed Kalashnikov

    It was Grozny, after the rain
    and he was effervescent; filthy-minded
    adolescent with alabaster
    skin and trackmarks
    Leading our pack through the ruins of a proud and distant empire

    Ahmed Kalashnikov, innocent in his camoflauge and skullcap, bare toenails nascent in the dust and the sand
    Ahmed Kalashnikov, innocent with his axl-grease fingertips and face buried in my shoulder during a dilaudid high, and I am kissing his hands
    innocent in Ramzan and Kadyrov the elder, innocent in
    Playboy mags and Stoli hidden under a steel beam that used to be a mosque
    innocent Ruslan who holds us like a Pieta and sings prayers after sniffing glue in the old shelter in a voice that is naked and alone
    innocent Sevastian who was recognized in the breadlines by a widow of war and asked "Can you describe this, Akhmatova?"

    We were joy without trousers in one sock and leather jacket and fifteen codeine pills between us,
    joy giving blow jobs in alleyways, against doorframes
    dodging bullets during an irrelevant attack
    collapsing white and laughing in the foundation pit where we were safe:

    Seeing Ahmed's blue veins and thin arms and being hushed by the sudden presence of beauty.
    Kissing him.

    It was a week later, after the rain
    and Ruslan bursts into my room sobbing
    "Akhmed umer! Akhmed umer!" the meaning of which should be obvious in English
    He had gone out with my manuscripts
    and he was missing, I was kissing Ruslan's face and praying for him to be dead
    instead of

    Ahmed Kalashnikov, nailed feet and hand to a slab of plywood and left outside my door, twin bullets for eyes, still alive
    Ahmed Kalashnikov, suffering burns and strange pricks and starvation, naming names and killing Ruslan the innocent

    Innocent now in the governmental sense of the term, no more embracing like children, clothesless and direct, facing towards God and the Circassian dawn
    but panicked on my bloodstained mattress above the grey walls where prayer cards pasted with bubblegum serve instead of ikons
    panicked when we saw his body, on the kitchen table with its hands over its chest
    panicked when I kissed its vaulted ankles and begged in Chechen for forgiveness

    Ahmed Kalashnikov, little light of my life, died holy and murdered - by a punk with a handgun

    whose face I cannot picture twenty hours later
    in an American shopping mall by the airport,
    but surely all beard and muscle and cap
    like Ruslan who was stared at when we parted at the gate
    whispering "God forgive you,"
    Unspoken words: For I won't.

    America, king of dreck in its robe of tinsel and mantle of advertisements
    Play after play after play on words delivered by a cartoon chipmunk,
    safe after sale after sale runs screaming out of the radio in stores,
    and I, on the escalator, staring straight ahead
    Already thinking of Makanin and the story I'll write about a war vet
    who kills himself at the end to the tune of the most stupid, poshlosty
    Christmas song I can find (thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot-po-o-o-o-l-e ... !")
    Who is Sevastian? Only Akhmatov.

    Friends. Condolences. And I, blunted, surprisingly calm. "I don't know. I don't know. Well, thanks for coming. Well, at least it was quick. I guess so. I guess so."
    Come home and tell my mother I will beat your whore brains out with a tire iron if you don't shut the **** up about my smoking (god, if she had known our joy!)
    and for the first time in my life she apologizes

    Two days later, last words of sympathy, last cigarette.
    Ruslan is in bed with me, for the helluvit. We are platonic. Our eyes align.
    For the first time in his life it's
    "Shame about your prick," he says.
    "Yeah. A real shame."

    America, with its college bars and smell of women
    in perfume that is nothing compared to the
    metal-scent of Kalashnikov bullets that I bless'ed with my lips
    all cosmetics and white angles
    or first world female ultrasoftness
    Discussing, somehow priggishly
    Absinthe, eternity-by-Rimbaud, the beauty of sin and
    Self-congratulatory, giggling, references to Betty Page
    and inside my heart Ahmed Kalashnikov is dying
    YOU DON'T KNOW YOU DON'T EVEN ****ING KNOW HOW GOOD A BLOWJOB IS WHEN YOU'RE BEING SHOT AT
    and we did it like animals
    like innocents
    without a single thought
    because we looked at each other
    because we wanted to
    Freude, schöner Götterfunken
    in our beloved country, peace in war.

    So even sex with these people is an identity and an ideology and a set of fashionable clothes, fake British accents and the right books and the right stores
    Ahmed Kalashnikov, my sorrow and my joy,
    whose white smile and taupe lips are in my dreams
    while I am in the shower
    Afterwards I am cold
    Afterwards I think "I am a pederast and a ******."
    Afterwards I am alone.

    Ahmed Kalashnikov, died holy and murdered
    in my American thoughts, in my American arms.
    Whose image cannot live amongst the rise and fall
    Of plastic cups on the ocean: in pictures, on magazines, in supermarkets
    Next to headlines, in whiny articles,
    Ahmed Kalashnikov, king of purity, son of Elysium, flower of war!
    I see you in my mind as you were on that night
    In light blue headband and camoflague pants
    Bare chest, touching your shoulders like a woman,
    the three of us, standing atop the ruins
    watching the slowly-coming dawn.

    Winner: Rubhakin
    Last edited by Zjoot; 2012-05-13 at 06:42 PM.
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Yes.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet III
    Winner: Elvaris

    Round 1

    Amotis vs. Truemane: Light
    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    dies irae

    watched two pairs of headlights
    mutely collide
    in a darkened parking structure.

    aphotic sounds engulf the air
    and make the sky
    like it was painted
    or embroidered.

    i feel
    calmed - yet
    claustrophobic.

    Truemane: Poem is MIA
    Winner: Amotis

    Phoekun vs. Ravyn: Streets
    Phoekun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Sunset. Light dwindles over crumbling concrete.
    A flicker. Once. Twice.
    Too old lamp posts stretch shadows to cover
    The path. I shiver;
    A cold wind funnels in between cramped buildings.
    Looming. Glowering.
    I step. Footfalls echoing for miles, searching for another but
    Finding no one there.

    And here along this path of Gloom
    Stretching through some town entombed
    By age, by apathy, by disrepair!
    I walk, and frightened, discontent
    I stare into fading sunset.

    A hand! I startle as it grasps my own.
    It’s warm. I look. You laugh,
    And point from useless lamps to the sky.
    “You can see the stars.”
    The last rays of twilight dance across brick buildings.
    Enchanting. Magic.
    I squeeze your hand, to make sure you are real.
    This is too perfect.

    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Gutter Genesis

    The world came from the sky,
    And fell from the lights that illuminated its space.
    Little by little it formed
    Until it floated, ever-reaching, atop the Foundation,
    Black in a black space,
    Its growth rippling steadily in the firmament.

    The world knew its path.
    It measured its time in sunlight and gravity;
    In places it hurried to its end,
    Rippling away to the sheer drops where the Foundation ceased
    Where it would fall away to become something new
    Or join the worlds that had come before.
    In places it waited, placid,
    Until the sky and lights no longer fed it,
    And the sun came and ate it away.

    The world had life.
    Their shapes were many,
    Spirals and discs and shapes without shape.
    Where it did not know its place
    Larger things would appear,
    Hang from the firmament, wriggle,
    Grow and be gone again.

    The world knew its gods.
    They entered with a splash
    And changed the shape of what was around them.
    Occasionally they left heralds,
    Creatures that drifted silently through the world,
    Aurora they could be, if they glowed.
    Where the world flowed to its fate,
    So too did they,
    Unwinding serpents chasing time to its end.
    Where the world was placid,
    They spread, hanging in the firmament,
    Brilliant canopies.
    Where the world knew not which way to go,
    Or where its edges were ruffled by the wind,
    They spun, and trailed, and danced,
    Leisurely tracing paths to nowhere and everywhere.

    The world knew the Others
    They entered, as the gods did,
    But their times were fleeting,
    Their effects less.
    Sometimes they would avoid the world,
    Other times immerse themselves in it,
    Reshape it for the joy of seeing it fly,
    And take parts of it with them when they left.
    Some gave it things which were Other
    To take to the drops beyond knowledge
    Others poked at the heralds
    To see what shapes they would take.
    It mattered not; when they left
    The world remained.

    The world knew its end.
    When all that had sought the edge had reached it,
    When the sun had eaten away all that remained,
    There was Foundation again,
    Heralds, empty, still,
    Trailing like limp ribbon,
    Or, as disks of lightless aurora
    Splattered over the Foundation.

    The world is gone.
    Its gods rush heedlessly where once it rested.
    Someday it will grow again,
    Seed itself from the streetlights,
    Creep over the asphalt,
    Shelter the small and the shapeless,
    Meet its destiny in the stormdrains,
    Be eaten by the sun,
    Leave oilslick avatars as psychedelic snowflakes
    Stamped where once it had been.
    I, Other, step where once was world
    I will see it again.

    Winner: Phoekun

    coolgaelbert vs. Mr. Saturn: Night
    Gaelbert:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The darkness before the morning dew
    is often much maligned;
    the superstitions we possess
    roam these hours freely.
    People lose their minds in fear
    of what they cannot see.
    But this inky blackness is that which makes
    the daytime hours clear.
    For if all lived under this noble star,
    this giver of life,
    it's constant, blazing, searing light
    would burn away our sight.
    This night, this profane night,
    this gentle and calming night,
    provides us with the time to rest,
    and blinds us so we may see.

    Mr. Saturn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Perfect darkness
    Nothing less
    Is what comes with the advent of night

    The absence of light from the heavenly hosts
    Withdraw from the earth as a spirit or ghost

    A lingering eclipse
    Creeps in like a wisp
    But the same as it comes
    As we sleep in our homes

    All is forgotten, with the advent of light.

    Winner: Gaelbert

    Elvaris vs. Raiser_B1ade: Sleep
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    "Sleep on it" you said
    With a growing sense of dread
    Though it does seem fairly strange
    That a night of sleep could change
    How we feel about each other.

    "Sleep on it" I'd plead
    For even you fulfilled the need
    To have someone in my arms
    Though we both knew of the harm
    We were doing.

    "Sleep on it" we cried
    As we swallowed our own pride
    While we stubbornly denied
    That the other we'd abide
    Only in our sleep.

    Raiser Blade:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Moonlight shines into my window
    I feel you breathing
    I feel your heartbeat

    At least for tonight I know you’re here
    As I put my arm around you and close my eyes
    I sigh

    For tonight at least my world is complete
    No worries just you and me
    The rhythm of our heartbeats slowly falling into sync

    They say that sleep is a dancer
    Dancing away your worries and your fright
    Will you not dance with me
    Oh elusive dancer of the night

    Winner: Elvaris

    Gezina vs. Gem Flower: Birth
    Gezina: None
    Gem Flower:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Birth, the creation
    The joyous celebration
    Of a new-born soul

    Another being
    Who will move and breathe good life
    With love’s innocence

    The pain shall mingle
    With the heavenly trumpets
    That greet the new child

    There is not any more
    Frightening experience
    For the new infant

    So our lives are bliss
    No more frightening ordeal
    Than the one that’s gone

    Winner: Gem Flower

    Em Blackleaf vs. SweetRein: Grief
    Em Blackleaf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A benevolence lost
    In a dark outer world
    Like a closed door
    To an open heart

    A cut connection
    With no way to follow
    Lying still in a coffin
    Comatose for an eternity

    A life long lost
    A speck of existence
    All-consuming sorrow
    Alone with only memories

    Everything must go
    But the bereavement
    Shall stay with me
    Until my own heart stops beating

    SweetRein:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Blue Widow

    I rise from my basement low
    I've put my heart to the past
    I wish I could change what's done
    my tears fall for love long last
    and I realize I'm alone

    As I roam my barren home
    All abound are memoirs by
    I try to dwell memory
    yet only stir how to cry
    as I realize I'm alone

    Then I grasp an empty thought
    As to blanket my pain
    I try to carry it on
    I hide my tears and wane
    and I realize I'm alone

    So I move on with my life
    rare I look back upon it
    or else I am struck in grief
    the sounds of sunken sonnet
    as I realize I'm alone

    Winner: Em

    Malmagor Andrigal vs. Kneenibble: Pictures (photos/drawn, etc.)
    Malgamor Andrigal:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Big flowery shirts
    Shoes full of dirt
    Some ridiculous hat
    And an annoying camera, to top it all.

    It’s a tourist, not the smart one,
    who knows how to blend in.
    This one feels like standing out,
    Burning the flash lightbulb out

    Big Waterfall? There goes a picture
    Ancient ruins? There goes another
    Flashy Gift shop? Last one so far!
    Random poor kid? I’d rather pass.

    Kneenibble:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I laze undressed and captured in a frame.
    You colonized my body with your eye,
    A hole for light and surface; and my name
    Is "model 69: the lullaby".
    Your gaze is not a window. Glass alone
    Reveals content! But my form will fill
    Your soul, opaque as oil slicks. You own
    My image? Ha! - like junkies own their pills.
    You praise me with the hunger in your stare
    Like perverts gaud their icons with their pearls.
    But knowledge of my flesh is naught; you're bare,
    A naked subject collared in my curls.
    You grip me with the lens; but with a look
    Like hair or smoke, I take back what you took.

    Winner: Kneenibble

    Tormsskull vs. zeratul: Denial
    Tormsskull:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The sun lit abright her golden hair,
    Her lovely face, a smile, it did wear.
    Sapphire-blue eyes, enchanting me,
    Her beauty, obvious, all could see.

    I stepped with butterflies in belly,
    My knees as well, they were, jelly.
    Smile aface, my name I did bellow,
    Told her, I said, I'm a nice fellow.

    Her face became a horrible frown,
    My cheeks turned rosy, like a clown.
    I was in headlights, just as a doe,
    Then she hit me, a great big, "NO!"

    She laughed as she walked quickly away,
    There was nothing, nothing I could say.
    Times like these I try not to cry,
    I tell myself, that I'm, a good guy.

    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The beast inside him rages
    As his human spirit dies
    But as his infant demon ages
    He persist s the mirror tells him lies

    The town lies still in shambles
    With ash strewn all around
    Yet he still told himself
    That a bomb had hit the ground

    So he stumbled now from town to town
    Wherever the cold winds blew
    But each lies now in ruins
    So he tried to convince himself the lies were true

    Anything suppressed will leap out
    Like an arrow from a warring tribe
    But denial gets you no where
    And nothing but the demon comes out alive

    Winner: Zeratul

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    Amotis vs. Zeratul: Comedy/Humor, Swing
    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    shakespearean comedies (the end)

    two years ago
    we played together
    and smiled.

    with the world
    swinging by our young hands.

    we were close to god.

    now i sit (and remember)
    in dark playgrounds.

    and all my hands touch now
    are cold empty chains.

    if i write
    goodbyes
    about how it was,
    is it letting go
    or keeping it alive?

    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A peculiar thing is the swing
    High flying strange contraption
    The joy and mirth
    Which in it one unearths
    As stated in the caption

    Drawing closer to beams of light
    Like magnets to a pot
    Its chains jangling like bells
    So often bring foolish yells
    From a childish lot

    And at night it glides
    Reminiscing of rides
    And human and flying chairs truce
    And it shows its scars
    Yet remains unmarred
    For another days levitous use

    Winner: Amotis

    Kneenibble vs. Phoekun: Gymnasium/Gymnast, Camera
    Kneenibble:
    Spoiler
    Show
    his flesh bends fluid, flips, and lands,
    an O without a shape, or form -
    too flickering quick on feet and hands
    to be abstracted. flesh is warm
    and round; but mind is cool, square,
    and seeing seven somersaults,
    draws one in four sharp edges there,
    a static shape set free from faults.
    and thus, his folding flesh is cut
    from all the superflux of sense,
    and known in the judgement. but
    the knower has no recompense:
    the mind can look, but cannot touch,
    and tumbling bodies beg so much...

    Phoekun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Beijing, 2008


    He yawns and finishes a hot dog, cracks his neck,
    And lets the wrapper fall to the ground.

    Discarded scrap of paper wafts in artificial breeze,
    Flutters over five joined rings.

    Booming voice of God announces her name,
    Echoes in English, and Chinese.

    He bends suddenly, knees popping in protest,
    Fumbles for the camera.

    Her auburn hair dances in a ponytail,
    Sways as she steps into the light.

    Silver blue and red sparkle in the spotlight,
    Cling to slender subtle curves.

    Her chest rises and falls a little faster now,
    Pulsing music starts to play.

    She runs and tenses, leaps and flips, lands and poses,
    Avalanche of applause cascades down.

    But he sees her in reflected light.

    Twirl. Spin. Hit the mirror and reverse.
    Twirl. Spin. Hit the mirror and reverse.

    Body of light. She leaps and dives into an arc of electricity.

    Twirl. Spin. Flip the switch and record.
    Twirl. Spin. Press the button and preserve.

    Winner: Phoekun

    Elvaris vs. Gem Flower: Big/Giant, Cliff
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The old man sat and began a lament,
    An ode to a place called Earth.
    He spoke of trees and cliffs and bright blue sky
    Of mountains that only he'd seen.

    "You could swim in a lake near mountainside
    Then dry off under trees evergreen.
    The sky was open and vast overhead
    not hidden behind sheets of steel.

    I know what you're thinking, it's plain to see.
    The domes hold in the air we breathe.
    We couldn't survive without their presence,
    Why rail against that which you need?

    Because even here where the air is stale,
    Collected, filtered and returned,
    There are lessons in the ancient landscape
    That should never be forgotten.

    The universe is vast and filled with worlds
    Of infinite variety.
    But each has its own natural wonders
    That can not be duplicated.

    So build your domes, do what you must to live,
    But remember the fall of Earth
    And respect the planets on which you land,
    For even worlds have their limits.

    Gem Flower:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The cliff is what I see each day
    It’s what I say good night to
    But, always, it so towers over me

    Its innocent surroundings
    Give an atmosphere serene
    But, always, it so towers over me

    It’s just so overwhelming
    It’s biggest of them all
    But, always, it so towers over me

    I’ve never gone much farther
    Than my quiet little town
    But, always, it so towers over me

    I can’t imagine larger
    I’ve never seen its like
    But, always, it so towers over me

    Winner: Elvaris

    Coolgaelbert vs. Em Blackleaf: Baby/Child/Childhood (one or all), Seaside Town
    Gaelbert: Couldn't find this one either...
    Em:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A shining ray of sun on the sandy shore
    Bold as the crashing waves
    Blithely dancing on the water's edge
    A child, of surf and sand

    Playing cheerfully, with the stones
    Washed smooth by the tumbling sea
    Too consumed in his innocent games
    To be bothered with burdens of adulthood

    Now, the joyful boy has grown
    He looks over his old seaside home
    Only to shed a saltwater tear
    For the child long-last

    Winner: Em Blackleaf

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 3

    Amotis vs. Elvaris: Swim, Pride
    Amotis:
    None.
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Butterflies

    Stillness. Not a breath is taken.
    At a sound, an explosion of motion.
    A wave of life, churning away.
    A flurry of strokes propelling the flight

    A barrier, a change of direction.

    Now, a drive for a destination, for a perch.
    A goal in sight. Stretching. Reaching.
    Finally, a touch. A fleeting touch
    And a swell of pride as one finds wings.

    Winner: Elvaris

    Phoekun vs. Em Blackleaf: Space, Fate
    Phoekun: None.
    Em Blackleaf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Fleeting

    Speeding through traffic
    Running red lights and running out of life
    The sands of time pour down
    Hills of a life well wasted swell
    Like a wave that will never crash

    Old and gray now, though not wise
    So many experiences
    So little time
    The clock is ticking
    Like a bomb that will soon explode

    Moving slowly now, like a planet
    In orbit 'round the Sun
    Desperately grasping at life
    While time runs out faster, faster
    Like the life that never was

    Darkness
    The blazing beacon at the center dims
    An icy grip closes on life
    A bitter end to a frittered existence
    Like the essence that was never found

    Winner: Em Blackleaf

    Since the other two didn't submit, they made this the final round. Elvaris won!
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet IV

    Round 1

    Raiser_B1ade vs. Alarra: Relaxation
    Raiser Blade:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Shifting sands beneath my feet
    Oceanic melodies
    Beat upon the coast

    Hand in hand
    We walk and listen
    To the rythym of nature

    All the cares in the world
    Washed away by a sprinkle
    Of salty air as I let go

    I free my mind
    As you free yours
    We bask in the harmony

    As I forget the world
    The world forgets me
    And we let the surf remind us to live

    Alarra:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Centered, open, empty,
    I sit
    Breathing.

    The air has substance,
    Weight,
    Glowing, pulsing.

    I follow its journey.

    A measured breath,
    Infusing each vein,
    Bringing life.

    I exhale
    A fine golden mist
    Of tension, leaving.

    Time stills, waits.
    I inhale,
    Slowly, calmly.

    Color, light, air
    I breathe.

    Free of worries, time, care
    I breathe.

    Winner: Alarra

    Em Blackleaf vs. Hellpuppi: Perseverance
    Em Blackleaf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Broken, Sore, Restrained
    He looks around and all he sees are locked doors
    A shimmering ray of hope illuminates the key

    His lame limbs find strength to stand
    Determination overcomes the chains
    He makes great strides toward freedom

    His will to go on having paid off,
    He soars on brittle bones
    Leaving his constraints far behind

    Hellpuppi:
    Spoiler
    Show
    With will unbroken he stands
    Body bloodied but the heart true
    The knight saddles his tired steed
    And rides to fate unknown

    The lady sits quietly in a corner
    All around her demons wait
    Trying to pry apart her mind
    She writes to keep the demons at bay

    She writes about a knight
    Once proud and strong
    There are no friends beside him
    Only enemies nipping at his heels

    She writes about the knight
    Not knowing
    That she is writing about herself
    As he stands so does she

    Together in heart they ride
    Bloodied but unbroken
    Their will stronger than the enemy
    Their hearts lighting the darkness

    She writes about lost loves
    And friends turned rivals
    Trust betrayed and words left unspoken
    Not knowing she is writing her past

    Her work labors on
    The doubts set in
    Her heart is troubled
    The knight does not falter

    As he stands, so does she
    Not knowing that he is what
    She would like to see in herself
    She simply knows she cannot stop

    The book comes to a close
    The words stop rattling in her mind
    But in her heart she sees
    The bloodied knight riding to fate unknown

    Winner: Hellpuppi

    Nexus-R.C._Mina vs. Devigod: Uncertainty
    Nexus:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Walker of the Waste

    The sea of sand stretched boundless
    across the land,
    The land of vision, where all eyes burn
    Slow, danced the dunes
    Desert waves and desert tides
    There ebbed and flowed

    Graceful, the sweet caress
    Unheeding of mountains’ might,
    The crystal kiss lingered,
    Rose the ruby to sapphire smite
    Frozen thunder, crooked lances
    Made the devils dance and scream
    In sunlit sight, for sulfurous sin unseen

    A storm there blew
    From innocent sky of blue
    Swift, the wrath grew
    Beyond the heavens roared the crests of waves
    Beyond the abyss there gaped the troughs
    The night seethed and strangled light
    The stars sinking, wept
    The Moon, beaten, fled the field
    And left the sea of sand in darkness dread

    No more, it seemed, night its might shall shed
    But blazed forth once more the searing Sun
    Faith failed not the forge of fates
    Burned the dross to cowering, seething slag
    Scars of the desert, marring its sharp lines
    Scars of the waste, swimming in the sand
    Scars of the soul, the mountains and masts
    Where truth is born
    Where lie as one, the sea and sky

    There came once more a darkening of the sky
    Ere high-sun, ere noontide true,
    But was it midnight?
    Cold stung the sleeping feet
    The sky coughed and the wind sung a maelstrom
    Of its mirth was drunk the whirlwind
    And stood it still
    Amidst swirling silks and singing sand
    It was a tapestry of a thousand shards
    And smiled it so

    For lo! From its bosom there wandered forth
    Lone but for fate and faith
    One who walked the wastes,
    Shrouded in shadow, shone in silk
    The walker lacked
    not in cloaks and robes
    The head was bound in woven wool,
    Tight the bind, but light the crown
    Wrought of thorns and golden mould
    Wrought of pearl shards and iron black
    Far reached the gaze,
    Though naught of eyes was seen,
    Naught but a blackest shadow
    Betwixt veil and crown
    Behind was slung, black a scroll,
    And a silvern shield
    Faith and fate
    The way and the wall

    The walker wandered forth,
    Flying on wings of rags, pinions of dust
    The walker wandered on
    Beyond the gates of night
    The wanderer walked on
    Unto the maw of light
    The wanderer walked on
    And came unto the crest of *****
    Wandered forth, the walker of the waste…

    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    And then he'd seen-
    Seen the maid-
    Blue eyed with golden hair-
    Never before could one dream-
    Of seraphim so fair!

    Youthful form and gentle face-
    Humble pride and subtle grace-
    But could he know?... might never know-
    In indecision woe!

    The soldier 'fore the coming battle-
    So well trained but never killed-
    After so much time he's trained,
    and all the time he's drilled.

    The youth- he was so full of fear-
    Afraid he was, approach her near-
    He turned away and shed a tear,
    knew that of courage, he mustn't veer.

    The soldier hears the scouting crow-
    ‘Twould feast on him or fallen foe.
    And then came death on nocturne steed,
    beckoned him unless he flee!

    Sleeping night and sitting day,
    'neath the sky, the coward lay.
    All the time has gone away-
    Life goes on, whilst he delay.

    At his sleep he has a turn-
    Oh for her! his heart did yearn.
    And yet to her how could he to speak?
    What ‘twould he do with spurn?
    Weighted cold, his hope seemed bleak-
    Whilst his desire burned!

    And then he knew, he’d none to lose.
    Death in battle, or death in age,
    in his life, no other use,
    he’d to face his fear-
    Or face death’s cage!

    Wishing, hoping to the moon,
    for triumph in this battle soon.
    Crouched 'ntill it's opportune,
    beating fear, he climbs the dune.

    Angelic, oh she did seem kind-
    Tender yet so very blind;
    when the youth did give his try,
    she seemed to simply turn her eye.

    Battered, now he did retreat-
    Next day to foe in battle meet.
    He’d lived the day- no easy feat,
    just one more day- beneath the heat

    The youth resolved to finish this-
    Seek his eternal happiness,
    no matter the answer that she give,
    for now he knows:
    He’d try, he’ll live.

    Charging, eager- to the fray,
    beneath the twisted sun of day-
    Forgetting- oh... what should he say?
    And in response... he gets... delay?

    When the girl does call him over-
    Thought of the prospective lover,
    the young man's heart begins to pound,
    his lips are tied, his fate been bound.
    In her words she holds his fate-
    To right lay heaven, to left- hell’s gate!

    The girl said sorry-
    Gave him a nay.
    Sheepishly, he walks away.
    And with a laugh he thinks to say:
    "Well, who needs her love anyway?"
    From the lesson, now he knows:
    'Twas uncertainty been slain-
    His greatest of all foes.

    Winner: Nexus

    Jibar vs. Rubakhin: Instinct
    Jibar: None
    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Oh, mother, stricken, turn your back
    And hide your face like a battered bride.
    We have come to take your children
    And turn them into men.

    Brothers, you will see your sisters married
    Brothers, you will buy your family bread.
    Help us reclaim the gifts of our mother
    Which they have ruined in their stead.

    The clouds alone could veil her beauty
    Only the fields could hope to adorn her.
    An endless sky was once her dowry.
    A blackened hillside is her shroud.

    They have salted the earth with their language
    And the clouds are smoke in dreams of fire.

    (Love me, she-wolf. I am your son.
    Do not watch me lead your cubs to slaughter.)

    Look, brother, the stream is clear
    Our hands are cold, our prayers are clean.
    No more do our people need.
    Only the grass knows to tremble and weep.
    The howling lion has no memory
    Nor do the antelopes mourn the feast.

    Mother, hide us in your loving arms,
    Let him be no more than light that falls
    On the Tatar thistle and cicada-leaves
    Let him forget that he holds a weapon.

    Listen, brother, how soft our footsteps fall.
    We are but beasts with padded paws.

    (Love me, she-wolf. I am your son.
    Do not watch me lead your cubs to slaughter.)

    And when the mountains collapse
    Beneath torrents of rain, and shrug off
    Mud and landslides like a person a cloak
    Walk, until you can think of nothing but rest
    Walk, until you see nothing but the step ahead.

    And when it is time for you to kill
    Remember that we are the people of wolves.
    Reach without thinking for the trigger
    Like your father goes for his own bare fang.

    And when it is time for you to die,
    Remember that you want death more than life.
    Beyond life there is the warmth of a woman
    With closed eyes, to rest beside, the first sleep
    in a long time, and a silence.

    And no tower can haunt you like these valleys
    No law will give you pause beyond the growl of gunfire.

    (Love me, she-wolf. I am your son.
    Do not watch me lead your cubs to slaughter.)

    Yellow flowers, and the smell of dust.
    Sound of cooking meat, of radios breaking
    Half-grown men wrestle like playful dogs.
    Far behind us are the bodies. And tomorrow we will die.
    But no one thinks of it.
    In this alone we have our innocence.
    Would a canine know what lies beyond
    The grotto where we dropped our guns?

    When the smoke clears over the morning field
    And your children have gone to the earth
    What can I offer you, my motherland?
    The sun and wind braid your hair,
    alone.

    Winner: Rubakhin

    Helgraf vs. Felixaar: Conceit
    Helgraf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I am in involvement to mineself beholden
    No greater idol, no glowing unreachable orb
    No wistful longing for the disdainful to embolden

    It is to mine rightful ambition and place
    Before the gates of history to absorb
    The praise and power due properly mine face

    And if this to thee seem unsightly artifice
    Such as thine sensible digestion cannot absorb
    That is naught but thy unseemly avarice

    For thine place is not mine place
    and that which exceeds thy reach is the orb
    of mine orbit, high above the lowely space

    Tarry not in seeking the path of my ascent
    Thy arms cannot propel thy craft so oared
    The heights are mine personal advent

    This conceit is mine alone.

    Felixaar:
    Spoiler
    Show
    High and Mighty,
    Fast and Flighty,
    You don't have a clue.

    It doesn't show,
    So you don't know,
    The things I'll do to you.

    You stand tall up now,
    But you're gunna came falling down,
    It is true...

    The only way for me is up,
    and the only way for you is down.
    You might not believe it much,
    but you'll know it when you hit the ground!

    Crumbling, Falling, Flaking, Misting,
    You dont that I am listening.
    Richness, Wealth, Trade, Gain,
    You'll be in a world of pain!

    And when you've fallen,
    I will rise,
    And lead our people,
    To the skies!

    Winner: Helgraf

    Kneenibble vs. Dallas-Dakota: Desire
    Kneenibble:
    Spoiler
    Show
    it goes like this: I stick my swollen toes
    into the water, dipping for relief;
    I crave cold comforts, blistered like a leaf
    at noon -- the day-hot road has smoked my soles
    as red as apples! but the water flows
    too fast, too cool, too sweetly gilds the grief
    and takes me like a lover or a thief
    (that quiet), kissing bubbles from my nose.
    and every time, weeds wound around my thighs,
    feet slimy in the silt, I lift my eyes
    to glowing shimmers. cold as lenten fish,
    I shiver for that fire and how I wish
    to singe my soggy feet again! again
    I grope, and pleasure tugs me on in pain.

    Dallas Dakota:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Want, need.. Desire
    Its as if I'm on fire
    I need it
    If I don't get it, I don't know, may I'l throw a fit.

    The urge is there
    Haunting me like an nightmare
    But it can be a good urge
    But I can't splurge

    The urge is there.
    Its there, where?
    Always with me.

    I need it
    I want it
    I desire it

    But in the end,
    I know,
    I'l have it.

    Winner: Kneenibble

    Amotis vs. Quincunx: Simplicity
    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Where's Walden?

    few years ago,
    our friend on pcp thought she could fly
    and we believed her. so with ocean
    and driving past our old high school trees,
    we figured out what we wanted to do.

    but now,
    s**tfaced silence making it harder to reason with time.
    with tomorrow.
    first time i've felt anger in a while and now i feel naked. and vain.
    tracing unnamed hawks with my finger to colorado thunderstorms.
    as i'm stalled out on the freeway.
    yeah, i'm part of something bigger.
    but so what?

    i wish this was easier -
    finding a middle zone between
    living our dreams and getting high and jumping off of coronado bridge.

    Quincunx: None
    Winner: Amotis

    Zeratul vs. Brickwall: Curiosity
    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Couldn’t help myself
    Had to see what I didn’t know
    Couldn’t just let it go

    Had to find out what you were up to
    Couldn’t leave my thought’s alone
    Had to find out what to do

    Stuck my nose where it don’t belong
    End up face in mud again
    Had to look behind the lies
    Curiosity killed the cat again

    I thought you might be up to something
    The strange look in your eyes
    Checking it out was better than nothing
    First one to die is the first one that tries

    Found you in an old apartment
    Walked in through the door
    Wound’s on my face again
    Insatiable need to know something more

    Found I was right that you were wrong
    Saw through the veil of lies
    But I’ve got scars deep and long
    That show curiosity means the feline dies

    Brickwall:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Calli-hey, calli-hoo,
    Is anybody there?
    Is there someone somewhere?
    I suppose the saying is true,
    I should have stuck with the map,
    It would show me the way,
    And I'd take boredom any day,
    I could do with a nap,
    But I took my own route,
    Just to see what I'd find,
    I didn't think I'd mind,
    Getting all turned about,
    So now I just pray,
    To find someone, somewhere,
    Is anybody there?
    Calli-hoo, call-hey!

    Winner: Brickwall

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    Hellpuppi vs. Nexus: 'Scape
    Hellpuppi:
    Spoiler
    Show
    You hear the trickle of water over rocks
    A stream flowing gently
    A breeze whispers through the trees
    Scattering leaves with a delightful sound

    Pretend you are an explorer
    The first to see this place
    Pretend you are a child again
    And climb the trees with glee

    It is quiet and calm
    Beautiful and serene
    Here nothing bothers
    Here nothing distracts

    You spot birds flitting among the branches
    Give a wide berth to the bees nest
    Skip across rocks
    Play in the water

    You climb a tall tree
    And see the distant mountain
    You pretend it is Mount Olympus
    And there the gods are having tea

    Tomorrow you will return to your house
    There will be a job
    And an alarm clock
    You will have to do things because you must

    But today you have escaped
    Into the quiet of distant woods
    Playing in the mud
    And resting among the shade trees

    Nexus: None
    Winner: Helpuppi

    Rubakhin vs. Amotis: Don't Forget
    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Tell me how you've lived, pure one, beautiful one
    The way that he loved you, and the way
    You loved him too.

    I want to know what is ineffable
    Beneath the tremor of his glances,
    And the tenderness of his touch,
    The trembling eternity of first love
    And the refuge of a secret world.
    The peace that came to nothing
    The love that rose up and washed away.

    You are the path of wind in a wild field
    The cool moss that grows beneath a stone.

    You are the grass between the slats of a train-track
    You are the way the ague-leaf fits my palm.

    Tell me how you've suffered, white one, golden one
    The river where you dropped your gun,
    And where you bled your blood.

    Speak to me as though I have not suffered,
    Or like I've suffered all mankind has known.
    My soul is as vast as the sky
    Above the steppes, but my body is so small
    And my years are few in number.
    Yet I have seen this and I must bear it
    I must bear it because there is no one else who knows.

    You are the transient rain on a still summer night,
    The taste of salt that lingers on the shore.

    You are the skyline of a city whose name I do not know,
    You are the hidden whiteness of the midnight fog.

    Tell me how to love, pure one, beautiful one
    The way that I loved you, and the way
    You loved me too.

    I am not a man or woman, just a poet.
    My secrets go back a thousand years.
    I see them leave red stains in my footprints
    I see them pour from these two lips like blood.
    A lifeless line through silent mountains.
    I have no other way of loving.
    White one, golden one,
    I cannot save your life.

    Amotis:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Eve(n Night)

    I know that there's another girl,
    though I sit here with the windows open.
    where the trees reach the second floor
    and looking down, the ground broken
    with old roots like what first flowers implore.

    and now this feels of those roots,
    as this room feels alone.
    mulched new regrets with a lustful lie
    from days forgotten grown.

    and I feel like I should thank you
    for this little reminder,
    as not to feel cold or dry
    or god's embrace entire.

    Winner: Rubakhin

    Helgraf vs. Kneenibble: Rise and Fall
    Helgraf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Six times up and seven times down
    blistering grains form the ground
    Across the blasted desert sand
    Where I pursue a fallen man

    Up the slope of spiteful sand
    that seeks to snare my feet
    to throw me down its one resolve
    and wrap me in its sheet

    Astride a wretched summit
    echoed to the far horizon
    in the rolling symmetry
    of quenchless static ocean

    My pursuit reflects the sun
    as it must rise, so must I rise
    as it must fall, so must I fall
    Invariant to my task

    As the sun, so the sand
    through wind and heat
    through time and toil
    forged these hills of trial

    And as the sand, so I
    against inexorable forces
    against indefiable will
    am shaped by my opposition

    I am shackled by a fallen man
    whose form I have followed
    whose path I have pursued
    whose crime I have committed

    In a moment's wavering
    from dedication and purpose
    my rise became my fall
    my journey, my exile

    Countless times up, interminable times down
    A guilt-wracked soul run to ground
    seeking hopeless resolution
    risen ... fallen ... absolution?

    Kneenibble:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Down where the wind combs the ripples
    packed like dough and spins the grits
    thread-fine and hissing across the bars,
    the lizard sees valleys
    and blinks at the dripping sun,
    hot glass slopped in a puddle beneath;
    the scarab sees crestless waves
    that do not curl to slap their own feet,
    that do not reel head-over-giddy
    like a dolphin or a salmon
    but roll along flabby, flank-first:
    slow leeward snakes or strands of baked paste.

    The scarabs and lizards, poised scabby,
    loaf in the luxury of close meal-coarse grains
    and their toes scratch away crumbled sugar
    as they change places.
    The needle-tickled tidbits
    trickle where they scuttle oblique
    rising and falling in a fading pen-stroke line
    as static as the sand.

    But up where the wind braids the vapour and dust
    in a whipped hanging froth
    dabbed and strung against the sun in the morning,
    the sky cannot see beetles or toads
    like little weevils dragging their chitin
    across a bin of cereal.

    The sky, a stretched twisted slab
    sees the dunes from above
    shift along their rolling bulks
    not quite like a wrinkled barm bubbles and pops
    but like sentinel whales as old as boulders
    rearing their round glazen rinds
    and plunging again in a few sibilant weeks
    rising and falling in a silent mammoth onslaught
    as static as the sand.

    Winner: Kneenibble

    Brickwall vs. Alarra: Guardian
    Brickwall:
    Spoiler
    Show
    For you, my best friend in the world,
    I will guard your home,
    I will stand vigilant
    Against the teenagers
    who try to take your stuff,
    I will be wary
    Against the neighbor's cat
    I know she's up to something,
    I will be steadfast
    And I will not let my eyes
    Stray towards the poodle across the street,
    And I will not rest
    Because I know
    That soon you will come home
    And hold me in your arms,
    And you will tell me you love me,
    For you are my best friend in the world

    Alarra:
    Spoiler
    Show
    "Athena waits"

    Each evening you leave me.
    I sit, alone.
    Waiting, wondering,
    Will you return?

    Time passes.
    A minute? An hour? A year?
    All I know is that I’m lonely.

    A car door slams.
    I press my nose to the glass.
    Is it you?
    No. False alarm.

    I search the trash.
    Maybe you left me a clue
    Or a treat? Paper!

    I bring it to the door.
    Chewing as I wait,
    Knowing that I shouldn’t.

    No one comes.
    Hours pass.
    I sit. I chew. I wait.

    The sun rises.
    I look around.
    Are you home yet?
    No. I’m still alone.

    Soon, the distinctive sound
    Of your bike in the drive.
    The cat hears it first.

    I follow his glance.
    It’s you!
    I wag, whine, wallow in excitement.

    You come in.
    Pat my head.
    I was good, I say.
    Just a little paper today.

    I follow you around.
    You inspect our home.
    I kept it safe for you.
    Are you proud?

    Winner: Alarra

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 3

    Kneenibble vs. Alarra: Gratitude
    Kneenibble:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I found a piece of candy on the sidewalk today,
    A smooth and confected young thing.
    I tore off his wrapper
    Without words or flowers
    And scratched his thigh on my cheek.

    He admired himself
    In the foggy mirror
    Of my eyeballs -
    As clear a reflection as a muddy puddle
    Slopped against the bottom of a wall -

    And left no flower growing
    Where he knelt there gazing.
    I've slurped up all that he left
    Already, and I am still
    Hungry.

    He dissolved on my tongue
    And disappeared - he thanked
    Me like a picture
    Thanks a frame -
    Even wrapped up together, that unnoticed

    And that empty.
    But that necessary,
    I like to think
    (I took
    It, it's all the thanks I'll get).

    Alarra:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A cold, mourning dawn, in silence shrouded.
    The careless wind scatters wilted blooms.
    Pale mist casts forgotten tears on fresh packed earth,
    Collects in pools on neglected tombs.

    Through frozen limbs and aching joints, she holds her vigil.
    Kneeling molds in dark clay as she weeps.
    Her tears join the dew, to muddy her stockings.
    And still the silence she keeps.

    Hands clasped, she awaits the sun’s birth.
    Watching silent and still for her cue.
    As it crests, she begins her lament,
    Achingly giving the child her due.

    I remember you, always.
    Golden curls framed your face.
    A gurgling laugh and toothless grin
    And the joy you brought within.

    I remember you singing
    As you danced the backyard
    How you twirled through the flowers
    I could watch you for hours.

    I remember you crying,
    When a boy broke your heart.
    Holding you close, worries you’d share
    I offered comfort, compassion and care.

    I remember you happy,
    As you walked down the aisle.
    You looked an angel, glowing and pure.
    Ready, willing, confident and sure.

    I remember you dying,
    I clung hard to your hand.
    Death and birth, tangled together,
    A child without a mother.

    My life for yours
    In a heartbeat, I’d give.
    A new life beginning
    One you deserved to live.

    But lord, since you claimed her,
    My daughter, my love.
    I know that you’ve reasons
    To need her above.

    And so lord I thank you
    That I am still here.
    To care for this child,
    Show her a life of no fear.

    I’m grateful, my lord
    For the chance I’ve been given.
    A new life to raise,
    Old mistakes been forgiven.

    I’m thankful I find
    For the memories I hold.
    For the tales of the mother
    That the child must be told.

    I wish she were here, lord.
    My daughter, my friend.
    Yet I trust in your judgment
    Of what’s right in the end.

    And I thank you, my lord.
    For the child that waits my return
    For the love she’ll be given
    And the women into whom she’ll turn.

    With lowered head and hooded eyes she finishes her prayer.
    Though for a few hours more remains silently there.
    And then as the sun rises high in the sky
    She looks to the clouds and resolves no longer to cry.

    For now she is needed,
    A child to love.
    To hold and care for,
    As she’s watched from above.

    Winner: Alarra

    Rubakhin vs. Hellpuppi: Imagination
    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Your death will come as a matter of routine
    To these white walls, to that yawning nurse
    Timed with the flicker of florescent bulbs
    And the distant hum of your machines.

    I have written this poem to imagine death
    As I myself would have liked to have had it.

    I revive you. I revive you now
    In the mountains, where I sing nasheeds
    Songs that float to nowhere in the fog.
    Beneath the mist there is a lake
    Where, like a child, I play at believing
    That I alone among all men have seen it
    As I alone among all men have loved you.

    I revive you in the storm-winds and the dusk
    Revive you in the leaves and shadowed rain
    Revive you in the changing face of streams
    In the somber eyes of boys you might have loved.
    And in the evening, when night wells up so softly
    In my weariness, I revive you in my tears.

    But in my silence and my secrecy
    In prayers as soundless as a flock of birds
    That rise from a distant treetop
    I revive you. I truly do.
    I do not want a large miracle,
    no movement of the earth, but a small one
    That may have happened on its own.
    The test results. A sudden cure.

    And for this gift I had surrendered
    All that was left for me to give.
    Take my life, or everything in my life,
    In heaven and earth I want nothing for myself.
    You will murder me, rape me, carve deformities into my body
    You will burn my mind to ash, make me speak in tongues
    No longer love, and lose all reckoning
    Of humanity, of profound depths and infinite names
    Then you will cast me into the pool of darkness
    Where even your hand cannot go.

    My God! Why won't you take from me
    My offering? My life, my work, my reason.
    All hope for the future, all my gardens
    And my swaying gates. My dawns
    And my days, and my nights.
    Take all I have and give it to my lover
    My white one, my beautiful one,
    Come make your child better
    With my own breath and blood.

    And my love was so ardent
    That I knew I would die as I offered.
    Perhaps slowly, as you yourself may have died,
    at the hands of sickness, at the hands of men
    Or quickly, with a beating of wings
    And delicate exhale, a murmured word
    Light and shadow moving across the wall.
    My heart was at peace. I walked
    As does the wind, ephemeral and half a myth,
    I moved like a blessed thing. And I wondered,
    How will it come to me? What are the terms?
    What torment will I feel, what softness and repose
    What dark god will take my blood?

    In my weakest moments I imagine
    That this creature in his infinite grace
    Curls his massive hand around my shoulders
    And does not demand a sacrifice,
    For my kindness, for your good heart
    There will be a house, a road and a marsh
    With birds of prey and snails, flatlands, mud
    And storm-tossed reeds among the riverbanks.
    Here you will die, at an old age, with no sorrows,
    Where the world drifts close to us and dissolves.
    And at your feet will be our children
    Yaroslav Sevastianovich
    And his brother Alexeychik.

    And I wait for death,
    And I see it in the eyes of men,
    hear its footsteps in the beating
    Of my small and shivering heart,
    So fragile, in the face of this world,
    with it all its murders, with its helplessness and guilt.

    And I wait for death,
    And I see it in the eyes of men,
    And each night I continue living,
    and the dawn breaks my heart.

    And I wait for death,
    and I see it in the eyes of men,
    and if I can hear the smallest voice
    I will listen, will burn all I own,
    and throw my body on the pyre,
    I will tear my throat and eyes.

    There will be no voice,
    There will be no symbols,
    There will be no call.
    No signs, no sacrifice,
    no ritual, no power to this love
    To my fierce and terrible fire
    That blazes without wavering
    On the remote cliff side, on the farthest shore
    Of my soul, of my goodness, of my mind
    That cannot kill me, cannot cure you,
    Cannot light the smallest room.

    And I wait for death.
    Though I know that God,
    if He is still living,
    is not a savior of men.
    Not like this.

    Your death will come as a matter of routine
    To these white walls, to that yawning nurse
    Timed with the flicker of florescent bulbs
    And the distant hum of your machines.

    The end of the world will not know shouts,
    Nor thunder, nor hope of redemptive rain.
    There will come a dimness and a twilight
    There will come a stillness without wind.
    The sun will appear as a red heavy beast
    Slouching beneath the horizon to die.

    Hellpuppi:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I once heard someone say
    That imagination is like a lion
    You must stare it down
    Make your peace with it
    Or you can run away

    I once read imagination called
    The space of the mind
    Vast and incomprehensible
    Unknowable and immeasurable

    What it truly is no one can claim
    No words can bind it
    The greatest philosopher can only muse
    No science can measure it

    It is much like a sacred place
    Holy to those who know its worth
    Just another thing to some
    A part that everyone is equipped with

    Like those that came before me
    I can only ponder
    My words fail to grasp this unknowable depth
    Perhaps I can only hope
    To give you something to think about


    Imagination can be like a cave
    Dark and frightening
    Noises come from the depths
    Echoes of things you wish to forget

    A private playground to pass the time
    An adventure you create
    Filled with heroism and daring
    Simple entertainment

    A world the you build
    To share with others
    Filled with people you come to know
    But who do not exist outside of this place

    There are dark, frightening places
    That come sometimes only in dreams
    They can invade your private world
    Even if you chose to ignore them

    There are great beasts and nonsensical creatures
    There is light and happiness
    There is sorrow and pain
    There are things you are proud of making
    There are things you wish you could stop thinking about

    Heroes and villains
    That appointment you need to make
    (how did that get there?)
    An old friend
    That cowboy from some movie

    They all exist within that space
    That vast nothingness
    And yet everything
    That is imagination

    Winner: Rubakhin

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Alarra vs. Rubakhin: Dawn
    Alarra:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A stilled breath, heartbeat,
    Fleeting, chilling.
    I waited.

    Time caught, broke,
    Continued too soon.

    Your whisper in my ear,
    Step amongst the leaves,
    Illusion.

    Your hand in mine
    As you pushed me away.

    I longed for a choice.
    Having none, I left.
    Reluctant.

    A last look, assuring,
    You would come.

    Before dawn, you claimed
    And believing, trusting,
    I waited.

    I did not doze.
    Stood vigilant alone.

    Clinging to hope, love
    A passionate embrace.
    Foolish.

    Light’s first touch, shadow,
    A crystalline mist.

    I saw tendrils of smoke
    Over distant trees
    Inevitable.

    A perfect moment,
    Forever tainted.

    The mind grasped reality.
    Still, the heart hoped,
    And I waited.

    Rubakhin:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The storm is a beast,
    and the body is mine
    The lightening is heartbeat,
    and the thunder is blood;
    and I am coming to you
    from across the forest,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    The wind is your scent
    From beyond the damp earth.
    The rain is your voice
    From beyond the shadows;
    and I am coming to you
    from across the dawn,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    I will know happiness
    When night is on my back.
    I will know happiness
    When I have bloodied my feet;
    when the rain covers me
    like the body of a lover,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    I will not know peace
    Until I have what the thunder awoke
    I will not know peace
    Until he has me exhausted
    when I no longer know
    where my footsteps land, or why,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    Assah!

    Darkness, draw back
    like the sleeve of a woman
    Sun, rise up and cleanse me
    Light up the rain of my tears
    Leaves bend down and brooks overflow
    I am thirsty for him, thirsty,
    La illah ha il Allah!

    Come to me, oh, come
    I am your grey wolf
    Come to me, oh come
    I am dying, I am dying
    Let me come to you,
    endless run,
    La illah ha il Allah!

    Assah!

    God, grant me the breath
    so that I may kiss him again
    God, grant me the sun
    so that I may see him again
    God, grant me the ground,
    so that I may take him in the rushes,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    God, grant me the vision
    to carve his likeness with my words.
    God, grant me the strength
    to build the tower of my verse.
    God grant me tirelessness
    and I will make him immortal,
    La illah ha il Allah.

    Winner: Alarra
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Yes.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet V
    Winner: Truemane

    Round 1
    Gemflower vs. Elvaris: Observation
    Gemflower:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Colours so unique
    Trees so green and skies so blue
    So much change around

    I can see the world
    My scrutiny views it all
    A land of many

    Home ever-lasting
    We who observe the change
    So much is diverse

    I can understand
    It is all from what I’ve seen
    This kind of training

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Day one: A discovery!
    Day two: Calm reserve.
    The new lab assistant
    Is a pleasure to observe.

    Day three: Established pattern.
    Day four: Status quo.
    If she just sees my pluses
    Then surely love will grow.

    Day six: Altered pattern.
    Day nine: To no avail.
    It seems I must do more than watch
    Or this experiment will fail.

    Day thirteen: Signs of interest.
    Day fourteen: False alarm.
    My thoughts become a jumble
    when exposed to her charm.

    Day seventeen: All quiet.
    Day twenty: Losing hope.
    My degrees prove cold comfort
    As I feel like a dope.

    Day twenty-four: No progress.
    Day thirty: Like the rest.
    The scientific method
    Didn't help me on this test.

    Winner: Elvaris

    Truemane vs. Vavaara: Failure
    Truemane: Deleted again for some reason...
    Vavaara:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The eyes of your supporters burn into your back
    always wanting, never giving
    They expect your success, beating everyone on the 'track
    Your heart pounds, sweat runs in your face,
    They cheer you on like maniacs,
    Those who want you to win the race.
    You feel their pressure like a lead weight,
    Slowing you, strangling you,
    Your legs feel heavy, made not of flesh but of slate.

    Your companions, they know the score,
    They run with the weight as well,
    Though unlike you they crave the mighty roar,
    That sound of approval coming from a mindless entity known as Crowd
    You watch with despair as another passes you,
    Yet you feel a sense of relief,
    For now eyes burn into him and not you.
    You fall back farther, farther,
    The weight leaving your body
    Your feet have become feathers,
    Your legs a passing breeze,
    Yet you make no effort to go ahead

    To others you may have failed,
    As they mock your loss,
    But those who you raced know the score
    They know the weight, and the mighty roar,
    They have learned to handle and use it,
    And take no pleasure in mocking those who don't
    All the same, as you finish last,
    Those who burned their gaze into you
    Turn away, muttering,
    You don't care, as long as you feel good
    You'll gladly take the name
    From those who cheered,
    Who have never known the weight and the roar.
    Failure.

    Winner: Truemane

    ZRS vs. Flame Master Axel: Mystery
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Someone dies, and we sit people down and interview them,
    wondering what their story is. I forget them all. I wish I knew.
    I never take notes. It cheapens their lies
    to put them down in crude scratches on paper.
    I just want to be absorbed in the lie, not to analyze it.
    To exist as part of the lie, just him telling it and me listening.
    Then we have to figure out the mystery and his lie ends, when I just wanted to go one forever.
    I wanted to try and figure it out.
    Not to actually know.
    Don’t tell me the truth; I’m so happy with the lie.

    FMA:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Mystery of a Life and Death

    Rise and fall
    Return
    To the open hole you came from
    Agree
    To the terms and the conditions
    That you
    Told me
    And you obviously lied
    Whed you
    Told me
    How we go so far
    It's leaving now
    Forever

    We never know the ways
    In which we will discover
    The bodies and the plains
    So lets shout to one another
    The life and death of hate
    And the tradegy of man
    The mysteries of fate
    Are as far away as you
    Could ever know
    The knowledge of our lifes
    Is as hard to find as it
    Could ever show
    We know that in the end
    We'll see the glow
    Of a skylight burning bright
    Of a lonley midnight
    For us all
    We stand

    Tall and proud
    You learn
    About the way things used to be
    Look out
    For all the things you can't unlearn
    For all
    You try
    And I obviously lied
    When I
    Knew you
    How we knew so much
    It's a mystery
    Forever

    We never know the ways
    In which we will discover
    The bodies and the plains
    So lets shout to one another
    The life and death of hate
    And the tradegy of man
    The mysteries of fate
    Are as far away as you
    Could ever know
    The knowledge of our lifes
    Is as hard to find as it
    Could ever show
    We know that in the end
    We'll see the glow
    Of a skylight burning bright
    Of a lonley midnight
    For us all
    We stand

    It's all evolution; It's all so new to me
    It's all revolution; It's all a mystery
    But no matter how close we look into the future
    No matter how far into the past
    There is never any doubt
    Never any fear
    Never any need to look back

    We never know the ways
    In which we will discover
    The bodies and the plains
    So lets shout to one another
    The life and death of hate
    And the tradegy of man
    The mysteries of fate
    Are as far away as you
    Could ever know
    The knowledge of our lifes
    Is as hard to find as it
    Could ever show
    We know that in the end
    We'll see the glow
    Of a skylight burning bright
    Of a lonley midnight
    For us all
    We know

    Winner: ZRS

    Zeratul vs. Jibar: Solitude
    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    In the domain of my choice
    No need for the others of this world.
    Content with listening to the noises of the wild
    And nothing else but the sound of my voice

    Enjoying my company only of the beasts and birds
    I am free from the imbecilic chatter of the mobs
    Entertained by the battles of wolves and deer
    I have no need for the stories of their monotonous lives
    Free to hunt and to rest as I please
    Without interruption from their foolish words

    I’ll live contented with my life of peace
    Till blown away by sands of time
    When the bears and the wolves will sing my tale
    Down to the vast dark forests of the East

    As it was for the hunters and the hermits of old
    The solitary life is mine
    In the beauty of the crags and forests of the world
    My mead and my peace is all I require
    And when compared to the monotonous lives of normal folk
    I’d not trade it for my weight in gold

    Jibar:
    Spoiler
    Show
    One morning sitting in my big red brick house,
    I sat talking to my friend, the Dormouse.
    "Why Sir Rodent, why are we shut away?
    When outside it is such a lovely day?"
    "Why, good gentleman" he did speak,
    With his soft gentle squeek,
    "To be indoors this day is truly a sin,
    So instead, why not invite our friends in?"
    I ponder this most radical idea,
    'Till the Dormouse notes the fear,
    "Don't worry, I can see it in your eyes,
    You are scared of telling our keepers more lies,
    We just have to avoid them for an hour tops,
    Enough time to entertain the minces and fops."
    With this in mind we set the table and cutlery out,
    Telling guests to keep quiet and please not to shout,
    I naturally took my place at the table head,
    The Dormouse grew tired and went off to bed,
    To my right sat a dice of sides numbering three,
    A nice fellow despite his fascination with tea,
    Then to my left was an ancient pinball machine,
    Accompanied by his lover the sugar cube queen,
    The table was packed with individuals unique,
    From the loud and brazen to the quiet and meek,
    We all basked in the sun that poured through the grate,
    Laughing and singing until the hour grew late,
    And when pudding was served, a mighty great gateau,
    I used the knife to make a wound on my wrist quite shallow,
    Then those big fellows in white burst into my room,
    They were shouting in their harsh voices that boom,
    They took the knife and took hold my arms,
    While the rest of the guests were all in alarm,
    And they hauled me away down the corridors,
    Ignoring my requests when I asked them to pause,
    The doctor prepared the needle and stuck
    It slid in my skin
    The were gone
    I
    Dormouse too
    Back room
    Sun
    Alone

    Winner: Jibar

    Sewer Bandito vs. Brickwall: Madness
    Sewer Bandito: None
    Brickwall: None
    Winner: None

    Helgraf vs. Ravyn: Eternity
    Helgraf: None
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Time snakes around the world
    Brings the colors together,
    Wraps them in a sheath of green.
    Below there may be anything,
    Stone or metal, bark or stucco,
    Fence or bush or road or sign,
    But above all is the same.

    There were those who grew it;
    Those who seeded it,
    Who welcomed it,
    Who trailed it up their fences,
    Who tucked its blossoms behind their ears.
    Did they think it would change things?
    Time does not distinguish
    Those who welcome it,
    Those who fight it,
    Those who let it come.

    There will come a time
    The cars stilled,
    The people forgotten,
    The rocks and trees as one,
    Eternity will swaddle the world
    In three-lobed leaves,
    In violet blooms,
    All the time in the world but none to enjoy it.
    And the morning glories...
    They live on...

    Winner: Ravyn

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    Elvaris vs. Jibar vs. Ravyn: Glamor
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Down Home Fashion Plate

    Well I got gold studded jeans
    That ain't never seen dirt.
    And i got diamond cuff links
    For my plaid flannel shirt.

    Well my red carpet style
    Has got 'em pretty irate.
    I wear my string tie in black.
    'Cause I'm the down home fashion plate.

    Style section? Front page.
    Setting trends? All the rage.
    Best dressed? No debate.
    I'm the down home fashion plate.

    {twangy guitar solo}

    Yeah, I wore my cowboy boots
    On the cover of GQ,
    'Cause some fellah in New York
    Can't tell me what to do.

    Well, they paired me with a model,
    So I asked her on a date.
    And of course she said yes,
    'Cause I'm a down home fashion plate.

    Hot club? I'm there
    Dress code? Don't care.
    Long line? I don't wait.
    'Cause I'm the down home fashion plate.

    {even twangier guitar solo}

    My ten gallon hat's
    Got nine gallons of bling.
    And my silver belt buckle's
    In the shape of the King.

    I'm the good ol' boy
    All the yankees love to hate.
    I got southern high style.
    I'm the down home fashion plate

    Jibar:
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    This you weave.
    Lights and songs and satin,
    Cars that stretch around the corner,
    Crystal chandeliers winking,
    Your jewels smiling in response.

    You are stories:
    Your lives, your loves,
    Your wishes, your mistakes.
    Living for the world,
    Posing under glass.

    In your homes you reside,
    But it is in your names you live.
    Grand titles, perched on the hilltops,
    Discussed, admired, worshiped.
    In others' names you cloak yourselves,
    But yours shine through,
    Sun through clouds,
    Starlight through mist,
    Until the name you wore is gone,
    And only yours remains.

    I see your dreams,
    Spread between your hands,
    Wrapped around your hearts,
    Twined around your admirers.
    Through them I see you:

    Cold symmetry no mortal can match,
    Faces with no true feeling,
    Voices that tempt the young,
    Riches that sway the old....

    All your glory is dreams.
    All your names are echoes.
    I see you, your glamors stripped away.
    The lights faded, the illusions dimmed.

    Creatures the world ignored,
    Decked in costume jewelry,
    Draped in tinsel.

    How can I keep from laughing?

    Winner: Ravyn

    truemane vs. ZRS: Solemn
    Truemane: Nope.
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Marching in military formation.
    A dirge in military unison, because harmonies are too cheerful.
    A man speaking military words of military comfort,
    As we sit in military formation.

    Uniform colour surrounds us all. We are expected to be uniform men with uniform minds and uniform hearts. We walk past and salute a flag that lies perfectly still, more uniform than the rest of us.

    A child is told to be quiet. Now is not the time. We must be silent. We must be still. We must be military. We must be uniform. We must be solemn. We must be respectful of the dead.

    Winner: Truemane

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Ravyn vs. Truemane: Tranquility
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Glowing,
    Glowing,
    Carrying the treetops' color,
    Carrying the warmth of summer,
    Streaming from the noonday sun the
    Everpresent light.

    Flowing,
    Flowing,
    Ripples in the streaming sunlight,
    Water singing, pebbles clicking,
    Moving, waiting, cool inviting
    Step into the stream.

    Growing,
    Growing,
    Swaying as the soft wind blows, a
    Carpet for the weary toes and
    Scent that rises in the sunlight,
    Fresh and green and right.

    Drifting,
    Drifting,
    Sun upon my upturned face and
    Leaves upon the flowing stream and
    Warmth of grass upon my back and
    Drift away and
    Watch the day and
    Wait upon the shore.
    Drifting,
    Drifting,
    Dreaming,
    Dreaming...
    Dream...

    Truemane: Deleyed all his poetry for some reason.
    Winner:Truemane, though we may never know why.
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

    Join Date
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    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet VI
    Winner: Devigod

    Round 1
    Hamsterofthegod vs. Szilard: Journeys
    Hamsterofthegod: None
    Szilard:
    Spoiler
    Show
    There's lots of places,
    Lots of places to go to,
    All over the world.

    Just bring a journal,
    To record all your journeys,
    Around this great world.

    Pick any continent,
    Any country in the world,
    Then journey to it.

    It's not important,
    Where you go, it's the journey,
    That truly matters.

    Winner: Szilard

    Helgraf vs. Devigod: Sound
    Helgraf:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Torn, discordant bleeding
    drowning order killing sense
    as fingers flicker over metal cords
    tormented symphony of dissonance

    Screaming individuality
    throwing primordial notes in the face of conformity
    throwing away the self to spite similarity

    And the Sound rises
    And the Sound falls
    buried rhythm, buried meter
    an blistering aural assault

    A suddenly crackling hiss
    and the scent of ozone.

    Another amplifer blown.
    With just a faint electric crackle
    Silence comes to reign.

    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The sound so clear
    An airy bell
    The hollow sounds of death
    A clouded beat
    A sullen sound
    That marks the final breath

    A silentness
    A rushing sound
    An addle headed stir
    A solitude
    A nothingness
    A dreamish fading blur

    And then the bell
    That sounds its toll
    To make the people leave
    They leave behind
    The steepled house
    And leave the ones who grieve

    They walk the road
    A crowd as one
    And walk into the night
    They come upon
    The gaping maw
    And vanish out of sight

    They journey on
    An odyssey
    They’re far beneath the ground
    To darker depths
    And muted steps
    Silence the greatest sound

    They heare the roar
    Of crushing grief
    Though not a word was said
    And yet they feel
    In company
    The aching pangs of dread

    A flowing stream
    The walkers cross
    Across a dark abyss
    This tide of tears
    A darkish tide
    Made of forgetfulness

    The bell is tolling
    People sulking
    The bell to match their pace
    Lovers crying
    After dying
    Their love has lost its face

    To Erebus
    They journey on
    To Hade’s Fated land
    They pass the shades
    And hope they’ve not
    Gone on into death’s hand

    And the in drawl
    The silent toll
    The ever calling bell
    Unpounding hearts
    Can hold no fear
    As they walk on to Hell

    The walkers walk
    The deadly march
    They go on to the hall
    With ebony
    And candlelight
    That bringeth one and all

    Winner: Devigod

    Ravyn vs. Flame Master Axel: Depression
    Ravyn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Haunted by the Depression

    There's a hole in the ground where I hide the signs
    Of what I cannot do,
    Of what I want to do,
    Of what I'll never do.

    Out of sight, out of mind,
    Earth covers all things.
    Throw them in, shovel it in,
    Wish it all goodbye.
    Can I still let go?
    Can I even do this right?

    But the hole won't fill,
    And the dirt runs out,
    And that little dip is still there,
    Mocking me, reminding me
    Can I even do this right?

    So the dirt runs out,
    There's a dip in the earth,
    Perhaps the rocks will fill it?
    Find the pebbles by the lake,
    Bring them over, throw them in,
    But now it's a patch of rocks
    In a dip in the earth
    Mocking me, reminding me
    Can I even do this right?

    So then I toss in leaves
    They hide traps, right? They'll hide this!
    And they fill it for now.
    But some leaves blow away,
    And the rest rot away,
    And they show the patch of rocks
    In a dip in the earth
    Mocking me, reminding me,
    Can I even do this right?

    But there's a boulder near the spot
    Where the dip in the earth
    Sits for lack of dirt
    Can I fill it now?
    And I shove the boulder over
    And it covers the leaves that have rotted away
    And hides the patch of rocks
    That hide the dip in the earth
    Mocking me, reminding me
    Can I even do this right?

    But the rock looks like a marker
    Always drawing in the eye
    So I bring in morning glories
    To overgrow the boulder
    That sits on the leaves that have rotted away
    That hid the patch of rocks
    That hide the dip in the earth
    Mocking me, reminding me
    Can I even do this right?

    And then I walk away
    From the vines
    On the boulder
    On the leaves
    On the rocks
    On the dirt...
    Out of sight, out of mind;
    Now will I do this right?

    FMA: Some of the code was lost on this one...
    Spoiler
    Show
    Now, to the birds


    Teach me how to fly
    Because I'm falling fast


    We see things that
    lets us know we are
    alive

    Never give ----- We read sights and sounds
    Never say to let us know how
    Never ever to survive
    Never mind
    In this world where
    truely living is not
    mandatory

    Where books and movies
    are never the true story
    And we can't know why
    It's never been alright


    Standing over a ledge
    Wondering how things
    ended this way.
    How it makes me hurt
    Wonder lures me.
    Gravity tempts me, physics mocks me
    To fly, to fall, then die

    Distance knows me
    How to push my buttons Maybe death is painless
    Maybe it's not

    Maybe were all falling
    off a ledge
    into the ground
    soon
    forever


    ...
    In the end, we're all just fools
    Who fall, and fly at our own expense.


    Winner: FMA

    Wadledo vs. Zeratul: Birds
    Wadledo:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I am god.
    I am black,
    I am white,
    I control my world with harsh, unmerciful strokes.
    I am Emperor,
    I am King.
    My crown is sky,
    My throne ice,
    All creatures great and small bow before me.
    The beasts of the sea carry me,
    The creatures of the air gaze at my beauty,
    The animals of the earth hide from my magnificence.
    I am god,
    I am penguin.

    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A Walk Through Stone

    I gazed upon the etched rock
    Worn by neglect and time
    I read eroded names
    Of those who died
    As I view a vast black flock

    The crows have gathered here
    Their domain amongst the dead
    Where I, like them find refuge
    From the world and its troubles
    To be amongst those past
    Who once were held so dear

    And I sit alone among them
    The misunderstood avian they are
    My kin, among the beasts
    Surrounded with the trees
    And with decay
    And with peace
    As I walk away, one follows me
    And reminds me of the content I feel
    Beside the bird that most condemn

    Winner: Zeratul

    Rubakhin vs. Wolfbane: Evening
    Rubakhin: None
    Wolfbane:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I come down from the heavens
    Lingering eternally between day and night
    Never resting, ever moving
    I am forever the Harbinger of The Night to Come
    I am the Alpha and Omega for this world,
    The Beginning and the End
    I end the healing warmth of Day
    I bring the cruel darkness of Night
    I come into existence, then I leave

    Winner: Wolfbane

    Elvaris vs. Gezina: Madness
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Breathe
    Running some errands,
    walking home from the store
    Try to beat the crowd.

    Pause as more and more
    people fill the avenue.
    Spaces grow tighter.

    Shoulder to shoulder.
    A person at every turn.
    No
    Room
    For
    Breathing.

    Turning
    Bumping
    Shuffling
    Sweating
    Shaking
    Dropping
    Stuttering
    Scrambling
    Clenching

    Breathe.

    Gasping
    Struggling
    Dodging
    Searching
    Darting
    Jostling
    Veering
    Crushing
    Sobbing

    Breathe.

    Reaching
    Fumbling
    Turning
    Stumbling
    Climbing
    Trembling
    Stretching
    Opening
    Lunging
    Slamming

    Breathe.
    Breathe.
    Breathe.
    Breathe.
    Breathe.
    As I lean against the door
    In my apartment.

    Oasis of air
    Closed against the teeming throng.
    My heart rate subsides.

    Gezina: None
    Winner: Elvaris

    ZRS vs. Raiser_B1ade: Mind
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Weep for David
    A fanboy's elegy for David Foster Wallace

    The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
    —Sylvia Plath

    Yesterday, I put my thoughts on a wall in the street with tiny red specks of paint. I tried to put them in coherent lines and coherent colours, filling in the painful spaces left by my painful lines and leaving something permanent on the body of the wall. I’d seen other people do it. The managed to create beauty out of paint and brick, and so I wanted to. But it wasn’t really working. In the end, it was just red paint on a wall. It was just another inane mess and every other wall in the street looked exactly the same.

    I was thinking of the times when you could read my thoughts—when you knew what my mind looked like and how it went with my soul—but I could never read yours and I resented you for it because it felt like an invasion. I was thinking of the times I tried to tell you but could only say I loved you one word at a time, and you knew a thousand that you could use.

    And I was thinking of the voice crying in the wilderness, wondering if it was saying anything useful, because I remembered you promising me once that you would sing for me until your voice went hoarse and cracked, and that, even then, you would keep trying, making fond retching sounds for me because you had to keep singing. I remembered you telling me that the sound we make when we sing for so long that our voices collapse, but we keep singing anyway, is what Love sounds like.

    So I was wondering if the sight of a man hanging from the rafters of his garage, or slumped over the toilet, or lying on the road under the bridge, or of his mind in red on the wall...is that what Love looks like? Because I was wondering if dying is the only art left; if the only way to show someone what your beautiful mind looks like is to show it to them literally. I was wondering if suicide is the only unironic communication left in a postmodern world. It is painless, after all, and I was wondering about death as a metaphor.

    A man passed me by and asked me how I’d done it—how I’d managed to get my thoughts so eloquently on the wall, and he looked at it in wonder. The aerosol can was clearly in my hand. I said: “I don’t know, man. I just make this s*** up as I go along” He laughed and I laughed, and then he turned and walked away, leaving me to cry alone because I knew that he was the only other person I was ever going to see again.

    And, if you’re telling me that dying isn’t art, then give me another word for it, you who were so f***ing good with words, because I don’t have any.

    Raiser Blade: None
    Winner: ZRS

    Stormthorn vs. Hellpuppi: Mystery
    Stormthorn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Inscrutable (response to prompt on Mystery)

    Dark the call of stranger singing birds
    Whispers faint like oil on glassy swells
    Ringing ears not knowing what I heard
    Troubled, struck by midnight morning bells

    Questions needing answers and a voice
    Tomes all laying broken through the spine
    Like any man I follow without choice
    Seeking, hidden things for which I pine

    Never will the riddle lose its pride
    Nor the secrets within depthless seas
    Searches I for where the answers hide
    Hopeless, riddles locked up without keys

    Hellpuppi:
    Spoiler
    Show
    I saw a little dog one day
    Sitting at the pound
    She barked at me to let her out
    So I couldn't let her down

    We walked and played
    I took her home
    I think we both needed a friend
    I notice she doesn't like to be alone

    I brush her fur, she stands quite still
    She doesn't bark or chew
    I don't understand, who left her there?
    I really wish I knew

    She's very cute, my brand new friend
    She has a funny little walk
    She already knows how to sit and stay
    She sometimes tries to talk

    I see no fault that could condemn
    No ill habit of which I could speak
    Did her owners no longer have the money?
    Had to move? New baby? Allergy?

    Her name is Rosie, someone had named her
    And taught her to behave
    Kept her for a few years
    And walked her on some days

    I know this because she perks right up
    When I say the word 'outside'
    Oh well I suppose she's mine now
    Maybe I'll just never know exactly why

    Winner: Stormthorn

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    (Szilard dropped out, so another odd one)

    Stormthorn vs. Wolfbane: Separation
    Stormthorn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Distance Between Point A and Point B is Futility

    She pines for him

    I know that she does

    A girl needs her father

    Her mother tries so hard

    Yet she is but a mortal soul

    Raising a daughter born to the flame

    So the girl longs to be with her daddy

    And we both know that this will never happen

    That her father will never take wing and return

    Because he is in hell and there he will stay

    So she puts on a brave mask for the world

    Yet I can see how much it hurts her

    And she’s missing him so deeply

    That late at night her chest aches

    And she thinks she is crazy

    Longing for someone

    She's never met

    Wolfbane: None
    Winner: Stormthorn

    Zombie Rock Star vs. Devigod: Trust
    ZRS:
    Spoiler
    Show
    White Chocolate

    The frost on the glass door draws promises for her.

    She trusts the promise of the door;

    The promise of the white chocolate streets beyond.

    She lives in the milk-chocolate world
    & trusts in the promises of its indie music
    & dark roast coffee
    & people in long scarves.

    She trusts in the promise of her ticking watch
    & its assurance that thirty minutes isn’t too long to wait
    in this weather.

    She trusts in the promise of snow
    & the white chocolate traffic.

    What’s the good of losing heart now, that’s what I say. We should have thought of it years ago…

    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The pastors all about convene
    To cast the light on things unseen
    To gentrify the things obscene
    To beautify the things unclean.

    The white sheep cast in them their trust
    To scold and keep them from their lust
    Is this by choice, or forced will?
    Within the house, upon the hill

    The writings cast the world alight
    The people see inherent blight
    And evil still in every shade
    They justify attack and raid

    The lambs attack their fellow ewe
    They’re tricked and led to what is ‘true’
    And though a some would call it right
    ‘Tis brutishness, and hate, and might

    These merchants are of only lies
    They speak of ‘father’ in the skies
    And after death that all’s not flies
    That you can see without your eyes.

    The foolish customer’s been sold
    He buys a lie, the oldest told
    And swindled out of his just right
    He grovels for words, day and night

    The happy miser makes a fee
    That all be in hegemony
    Beneath the feet there of their Lord
    The coffers added to their hoard

    The silencers of all the din
    Forgiving all the rich who sin
    Outside their house all life is grim
    The lies from all the wool they trim

    Money’s the madman’s only care
    Whilst he looks up and speaks to air
    And awes the crowd with fancy speech
    Becomes a drone to his own preach

    And soon delusion takes the crowd
    Demanding blood from those not cowed
    And fervor chokes out all the space
    It pushes out all civil face

    And when the profiteers do see
    The margins that they risk, they plea
    They tell a truth to stop the rage
    And then resume and turn the page

    But when the liars made resign
    A slowly tinning, sinning whine
    It reached a few enlightened ears
    They leave the house, and face their fears

    The foolish now been left behind
    To lead their flocks to munch on rind
    But now a few can take their leave
    They slip through cracks within the sieve

    And now their life is simply free
    Guided now by morality
    A cradled life is made more pure
    And life no longer a detour

    For faithful men just bow to fate
    To be received at Heaven’s Gate
    A few are moral, good and kind
    The rest misers, they lead the blind

    Winner: Devigod

    Flame Master Axel vs. Zeratul vs. Elvaris: Tears
    FMA:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Storms

    Water drops pattern the sidewalk
    The little pattering of rooftop windows
    pollute the air
    A cold wind runs past my face
    The sky rumbles above
    The ground moistens below

    Suddenly, it hits.
    Wet washes from above
    A waterfall soaks me and
    the ground I step around.
    Cold, bitter drops stain my face
    Bleeding blue into the grays
    and blacks that litter the sky.

    The sky shouts at me.
    Flashes it's anger and hate.
    Screams to the world! Why!?
    The earth fears for its solid state.
    Any shelter is ripped away.
    The storm presses. Dominates,
    It pushes into me and out of me.
    Cold and wet become one.
    There is no droplets.
    Only a solid block.
    Crashing to the ground.
    A final break down
    of anger, of pain, of hate and misery.
    Daylight for but a second...
    Nothing but the screams of the sky...
    Then...

    Light vanishes. Sound flees.
    Winds die down and stop.
    Floods turns to showers, turns to drops.
    The light returns, and birds sing.
    New creatures are unearthed
    And enjoy the aftermath
    Of the wet soil.
    I recover my balance, pick myself up.
    The smell of ozone warms me
    The worst is over
    The storm has ended.

    Zeratul:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A monotonous pain has come
    A bland sorrow boring mind and soul
    No longer recalling where it came from
    Like an endless song awaiting it’s final crescendo

    But the flow never begins
    Never begins to start the healing
    And emotions meaning thins
    And leaves you without a spark of life

    Pride will not release a tear
    Holding the floodgates firmly shut
    And the joy in you, you used to hear
    Fades like a note played long ago

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Lost
    In a haze
    I've lost my way
    Without you
    And the only signs
    Of where I've been
    Are the spots
    The darkened stains
    Where my teardrops
    Leave their mark
    On the ground
    As I pass
    Again and again
    I see the trail
    Where I've been
    And tears fall
    At the thought
    That I can't break
    From this path
    Without you
    I've lost my way
    In a haze
    Lost

    Winners: FMA and Elvaris

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 3

    Stormthorn vs. Flame Master Axel: Circle (or Circular)
    Stormthorn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    THERMALS

    And who is to say the falcon is blind
    As she wheels about the circumference of the sun
    Cutting shadows in the desert sand?

    Stretching at the tethers in her mind
    As she draws rings in the void till day is done
    When gyre breaks and she returns to land.

    She sees the path of her own orbit
    Perfect as she turns and turns about in the sky
    Riding the hot breath of the earth.

    I don’t care what mortal men have writ
    For her eyes are open drawing whirligigs on high
    And of all that she has seen I’ll ne’er know the worth.

    FMA: None
    Winner: Stormthorn

    Devigod vs. Elvaris: Ocean
    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Each bright horizon in my view
    I search on for my home
    I trek on roaring mountains blue
    A stranger where I roam

    I’m just a man, a man of fate
    That stares against the sea
    That thing of blue, that ocean great
    Hinders my ship and me

    Is it some god, brow fury wrought?
    Paternal of the shoal?
    With rains and winds my ship he caught
    Made me a wayward soul

    And so I wait, await the day
    After the squalls subside
    My vessel falls into a bay
    Pulled by the rolling tide

    And so I sail, against the storm
    Seeking and searching on
    In my mind’s eye, I hold the form
    My lovely wife and son

    And my heart rises, in the rain
    And my arms pull the oars
    And I fight on, against the strain
    To reach Ithacan shores

    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Apologies

    “I'm sorry.”
    A pebble tossed in the ocean
    That's grown between me and you.
    A gulf I dug with lies,
    Filled brimming with your tears.

    “I'm sorry.”
    A plea you've gotten used to,
    Used oh so many times.
    But the meaning fades with distance
    As you drift farther away.

    “I'm sorry.”
    And now I face the truth
    That the gap's too wide to bridge.
    Throwing pebbles aren't enough
    When the only words I have
    Are “I'm sorry.”

    Winner: Devigod

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Stormthorn vs. Demigod: Reflected Lake
    Stormthorn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Deep
    Down into the shadowed mouth of earth and liquid seeping
    Across cold waters naked wade into that dismal room
    Were flowstone teeth steadfastly guard the empty echoed tomb
    Down to heated cavern with the eyeless spiders creeping

    In the distant darkness the echoed heartbeats one can hear
    Of those who tread were mankind is not welcome; is not known
    Until they’re seen to halt were acid water meets the stone
    And pause unsure of progress through the foggy cloud of fear

    Each member of the party has seen many cavern maws
    Deep in places twisted by strange forgotten cosmic laws
    But here even the hardiest are hesitant and pause
    Who would venture forth into lugubrious salted jaws?

    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A mirrored carpet, spread out, ever old

    There far below and shawl’d in earthly light

    Behold this glist’ning gossamer of gold

    Sublimely vast, yet veiled from mortal sight

    No wrinkles cross this burning bright abyss

    Yet steeped it is in many terran roots

    In its smooth depths, perceive – forgetfulness

    Whilst all 'round me, perceive the Pannish flutes

    Encircled in this misty aurum’d bank

    I trail fair Lethe down – below her flat

    With shrouded masqueraders, ‘neath here sank

    I sought where in that ebon hall she sat

    Thus ‘mong stone faced shades and ever-revelry

    I ‘leased a sigh, for I had fin’lly found thee.

    Winner: Devigod
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Zjoot's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Yes.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Iron Poet Archives

    Iron Poet VII
    Winner: Alarra

    Round 1
    Phoekun vs. Cryptana: Apocalypse
    Phoekun:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Way the World Ends

    Twilight wanders slowly down the street,
    Breathing in the moments before the night.
    It happens across an open window
    And lets itself inside without thinking about it,
    Mingling and playing with the gentle glow of a television.

    They dance, their delicate romance unseen
    By the woman drifting off to sleep on the couch.
    Her head falls forward onto her chest,
    The motion jolting her awake again.

    And in that single motion, the moment is over,
    Twilight vanishes, the room suddenly darker than expected.
    The woman sighs wistfully and changes the channel.
    Her phone rings.

    "I'm sorry."
    She says nothing, staring at the screen.
    "Hello? I know you're there. This is important."
    She yawns and shuts off her tv.
    "You haven't heard?"
    She hesitates. "Heard what?"
    "He's dead. He's gone."

    In the pitch black, the world shatters.

    Cryptana:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Eschatology

    The end came
    after much watch-ticking,
    each click of the secondhand
    a new link to the weighty
    chain between us.

    Red-shifting into infidelity,
    only your will could hold
    me in your world
    like a loose net of atoms
    that others see as solid.

    I read the books.
    They said to look for signs
    encrypted in a toxic flow of insults,
    the rise of a despot
    in every clenched fist.

    But when I opened the door,
    there was no rain,
    no red heavens,
    no rage or ruin.
    It didn't even hurt...much...

    A rectangle of sunshine erupted between us.
    “Fresh air, the friend of corruption,”
    you quipped jealously, my dear horseman,
    with a face the color of bruises,
    sallow in the center, then darker and darker.

    The room pulled at you,
    blurring your edges,
    an event horizon
    in the bang of the door.
    It was Rapture.

    The rapture of losing everything
    and waking up to a life wiped clean.

    Winner: Cryptana

    Helgraf vs. Trumane: Dance
    Helgraf: None
    Truemane:
    Winner: Truemane

    Mewdo vs. Rankrath: Insects
    Mewdo:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Insects

    These insects have taken my freedom.
    These insects are taking my life.
    These insects have no care
    But to cause misery and strife.

    These insects have no value.
    They are small, insignificant beings
    That only think they have worth
    In the grand scheme of things

    These insects are only men
    On a world that just spins and spins
    And does not spare a thought of them
    Or their horrible sins.

    These men are only insects.
    What else can I think of those
    That took away my right to be free?
    But, if these men are only insects,
    What does that make me?

    Rankrath:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Insects rule the world

    Insects rule the world,
    a wise man once said.
    And he is right.
    For what animal
    is so important to us
    and yet so devastating?

    While pleasing as the butterfly
    they are useful as the bee
    yet annoying as the fly
    and deadly as the locust.

    And what creature
    demands respect
    from all others?
    For a spiders web
    is only for the fly
    the cow's tail likewise
    a flower's pollen,
    and it's nectar
    exist only for the bee.

    No, man may build and strut upon
    this brown ball he calls home
    but it is insects that run it
    as the wise man once said
    and he is very wise indeed.

    Winner: Mewdo

    Felixaar vs. Alarra: Myth
    Felixaar:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Heroes Of The Present
    by Felixaar
    An age from now, in a world much older
    Will beauty be in the eye of the beholder?
    Or will our descendents look back at us with distaste
    And run from their history at most frightening pace?

    Will we be glorious heroes of the past
    Or will the riches of these days fade fast?
    Will our great buildings, our stuctures, stand tall
    Or will they, like all things, eventually fall?

    In an age of disposable nappies, and plastic forks
    A pretty voice it surely wont be, when our history talks
    What is a shopping mall, to the colliseum?
    The slums that we hold today, what will they be then?

    So come on all, lets work together
    And build a history that lasts forever
    Something that any storm, it can weather
    Not in buildings, but names
    Not in buildings, but names.

    Alarra:
    Winner: Alarra

    Elvaris vs. JoseB: Scents
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Our first date was at the cafe.
    We didn't talk.
    We held our chais to our faces,
    Smiled tentative smiles between sips,
    And stared into each other's eyes.
    Now every time I smell cinnamon
    I see your eyes,
    And I can't help but smile.
    So when you ask
    Why I have 'that goofy grin'
    over a snickerdoodle,
    It's because your eyes
    And your smile
    Are as beautiful now
    As they were on that day
    In that cafe,
    Behind your chai
    Surrounded by the scent
    of cinnamon.
    And because "snickerdoodle" is just fun to say.

    JoseB:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Madeleine...
    Aroma that brings back forgotten joy;
    And again
    I feel what it felt like to be a boy.

    In my heart
    Emotions brought to life by that sweet scent,
    Like a dart
    That pierces through my soul with kind torment.

    In my mind
    The memories that rush like a wild flood;
    Intertwined
    With the gold of the past, and with the mud.

    Oh that scent
    That brought my soul to life with such a start!
    Heaven-sent
    To give me back my youth, at least in part!

    Oh the joy!
    Oh memories that made me happy again!
    I enjoy
    That sweetly-scented, humble madeleine.

    Winner: Elvaris

    Devon68G vs. Thurge Namor: Weather
    Devon: None
    Thurge Namor:
    Spoiler
    Show
    The Storm of Ages
    All of God’s fury
    Unleashed in one outbreak of rain
    And as water pours down my face
    I can’t help but wonder what I did
    To fall out of grace
    With the most high being.
    Light flashes, and thunder claps
    All while fear ratta-tap-taps
    Against the window to my soul.
    Emotions flowing down the street
    As a downpour becomes a flood
    And anger leads way into wrath
    A wrath so great, all I can do is cower in anticipation
    Of what it to come.

    Then, when all seems lost
    Wrath breaks
    And leaves a hole in the cloud.
    Sunlight streams through
    As fury breaks away, leaving only forgiveness.

    Wash away my sins
    And leave my soul pure.
    I welcome you with open arms
    Storm of Ages.

    Winner: Thurge Namor

    Devigod vs. Wadledo: Island
    Devigod:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Desolation

    Oh see the rising, golden crown
    That fills the empty plain
    Oh see the gath’ring blackish smoke
    That calls the choking rain
    Oh stare across this roiling dune
    A thing of sea and sand
    The water’s edge beneath the moon
    Strangles a piece of land
    Stuck here are you, the sky a dome
    And yet the waters deep
    Doth tempt thy thirst and froth and foam
    And then from thy lips sweep
    But to what cause, and for what end
    Can oceans be so cruel?
    Blue tapestries that thy heart rend
    Make thee a stranded fool
    For you are gone, and you are lost
    A marooned toy at sea
    A pounding heart, forever tossed
    You’re left to kneel and plea
    And here stand I, hold I your fate
    The waters can I lift
    And yet I don’t, is this thing hate-
    To leave thee at the rift?

    Wadledo:
    Spoiler
    Show
    As one walks along the beach,
    Pondering treasure, and the deeps,
    One may happen to see(off to the side,)
    Tiny islands, lost in the tides.

    Do you know the stories of these tiny lands?
    How they were created at dawn,
    And are lost with the sun.
    Tales of kings and pawns,
    Legends of sword and gun,
    Epics beneath the shifting sands.

    What if I told you,
    That these stories are true,
    And all your dreams lie just beyond view,
    And to walk down that path,
    To see the islands in the tide,
    One must put aside wrath,
    And bury pride?

    If I told you these things,
    And of men who were kings,
    And lost, precious rings,
    Lying golden beneath the shifting sands,
    And of a world rotting beneath the western sun,
    With all things forever undone,
    Would you say "He misunderstands"?

    Winner: Wadledo

    Rutskarn vs. Flame Master Axel: Jealousy
    Rustkarn:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Dreams of a Shattered Dream

    A bitter knot of tangled guts, and bile on the tongue
    Jars of venom, stored up on the shelf
    Private poison, bone-deep sickness choking at my lungs
    Hatred of the enemy, and self

    Why, I whisper, why, must my virtue drown and die
    Choking on the brine of jealousy
    It isn’t fair to me, that my hated enemy
    Can strip away my good will fatally

    The cozy little wisdom of my cozy little life
    Tender flowers grown from naivety
    Such was it imparted not to wish another strife
    Let the victories of others simply be

    Never wish another’s bundle, simply take your own
    In good will we are noblest, most pure
    Do not entertain such jealousy, so base and plain
    The sickness of the soul has little cure
    Upon such thoughts I rested, never dreaming they’d be tested
    Never dreaming of the shame that was in store.

    She was like a garden, and I tended her with care
    Coaxing the blooms to sigh and reach
    The hunger for her gnawed at me, it drew away my breath
    Hunger for the love I might beseech

    So came the day, the dream, when the sun would soar and scream
    Together we would be upon that day
    Until he came, a parasite, a grimy-feathered crow
    He sang to her, and then bore her away

    The hole bored through my soul, a dark abyss lonely and cold
    Now fills with boiling pitch and blazing shame
    My perfect world destroyed by a bitter bastard’s ploy
    My nemesis, who doesn’t know my name

    The lonely days are empty as a dusty china cup,
    My companions my emotions, and my scar
    Hated, bitterness, and all, I wrap these things into a shawl
    And shudder violently as I watch from afar

    But things, they won’t grow better, and my shawl is but a fetter
    And I’m fettered to a worthless cratered pit
    Someday I’ll break this chain, and then I will be free again
    I’ll have a brand-new garden, fence in front of it

    What I mean to say is though I'm miserable today
    And my hatred for him isn't soon to die
    I contemplate the day I let my hatred lift away
    Perhaps that'll be the day I finally cry

    FMA:
    Spoiler
    Show
    "Your only love"

    I wonder
    I wonder how many days I've seen you
    I wonder how many times you've been held
    by someone who isn't me
    I wonder how many times you've never noticed
    when I've tried to hold onto you
    I wonder

    what goes through your head
    when I touch you
    I think of the days
    you've spent with me
    I think of the many times I've been there for you
    I think of the times you've never noticed
    I think of the times I wonder

    I've always just say idly by
    I've watched you throw your life away
    I've seen your rebirths and evolution
    I've seen your deaths and desolation
    I was there with your ups
    I was there with your downs
    and still you never notice
    still
    I wonder

    what would you do without me
    what would I do without you
    how could you ignore me like this
    why can you leave me like this
    every damn time
    and never even return
    still you do it again
    and again
    and I try
    but you never notice
    I need you
    no

    you need me
    you will never need another
    why do you bother
    why can't you see
    why am I pushed to the side
    why don't you listen

    I wonder
    is it love
    or are you just trying to hurt me?

    Winner: FMA

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 2

    Trumane vs. Elvaris: Interest (any kind)
    Truemane:
    Elvaris:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Well you signed us up for a yoga class
    Even though you knew I'd fall on my ass.
    And I couldn't hold a single pose
    While my falling led to a broken nose.

    Now we may not be invited back,
    But I know this much is true:
    I may not share your interests,
    But I'm interested in you.

    Next you dragged me down to your reading group
    Even though the book threw me for a loop.
    Well, I'm sure I left your friends enraged
    When I hadn't read a single page.

    So I may not fathom Shakespeare,
    And for Joyce I have no clue.
    While I may not share your interests,
    I'm still interested in you.

    You threw your arms up into the night,
    And asked for anything I could do right.
    So I pulled you close and I held you tight.

    I may not be well-rounded,
    But I'm loyal through and through.
    And I may not share your interests,
    But I'm interested in you.

    Winner: Truemane

    Mewdo vs. Wadledo: Humor
    Mewdo:
    Spoiler
    Show
    A Somewhat Funny Story

    It’s sort of funny, though.
    That all you think and all you know
    And all the evidence you showed
    Had no effect when it came.
    Now you’ve gone mad
    While I stay sane.

    Of course I’m very sad.
    We were always best friends as lads.
    But I guess I just was never bad
    At laughing all misfortune off.
    You would obsess
    While I’d just scoff.

    And still now I must confess
    I see the humor in this mess.
    You rambled on about “these insects,”
    As if you thought them less than men.
    Now you’re the one below
    While I am one of them.

    Wadledo:
    Spoiler
    Show
    There is often the question of what seems funny,
    Or if all I say is just too punny,
    And weither or not life is too runny
    When things are never that sunny.

    But when I think this
    (From this little spiel, you must think I'm amiss)
    I often must regrettably admit,
    I never know quite when to quit.

    This whole poem is getting out of hand,
    And honestly, is rather quite bland.
    With this in mind, and nothing to list,
    I say to thee, I'm in a bit of a twist.

    Please, stop reading right now!
    Or I shall have to give in my cow,
    For the words keep on rhyming
    And I'm out of timing
    And this last one is nothing but wrong!

    Winner: Mewdo

    Thurge Namor vs. Alarra: Dedication
    Thurge Namor:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Elegy:

    Grave side chats of the nature of life
    and hopeful serenity in death
    as flesh becomes earth below.

    Breathe in
    Breathe out
    and let my life dissipate
    then I'm on top of the world
    watching the vicious betrayal
    of my body turned to dust.

    Tiny tears of pain drip from my lover's eyes;
    a testament to the void of loss created at my passing.
    Softly i whisper in her ear words of contentment
    and she looks to the heavens
    as my dedication of love passes into her soul.

    Graveside chats of remembrances of life
    and patient thoughts after death
    as flesh becomes earth below.
    I slowly wander away
    with a smile on my face
    at the golden flowers resting by my grave,
    her dedication of love to my eternal soul.

    Alarra: Again, missing...
    Winner: Alarra

    Flame Master Axel vs. Cryptana: Honesty
    FMA:
    Spoiler
    Show
    "A true word is worth a thousand pictures"

    Formulate thoughts into words
    Speak your mind
    Don't hide
    Show your voice
    Don't disappear
    Behind a facade

    Criticize!
    Feel Alive!
    Free your mind!

    Don't be allowed to
    pepper your feelings
    with bittersweet compliments

    Live vicariously through the moment
    And treat yourself to freedom
    Give no thoughts to shadows
    and lies

    Because only in truth
    can we truly
    be free.

    Cryptana:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Bitter

    The coffee was bitter. A tongue-twister,
    a scalding sip that squeezed tears
    from my eyeballs, causing her face to shimmer.

    “So hungry,” she gasps as if truly famished
    and not just crashing from the grande latte
    she had for breakfast. I nod, and her mouth stretches,

    lips bending around the burger,
    blissfully feeding her bender.
    Grease ran down her finger.

    “100% Natural Grade A Beef,” said the menu.
    An honest cow then, if by honest you mean
    incapable of falsifying a simple moo.

    I won’t crash. I will take the bitter coffee
    if only I could swallow the gelled dregs
    of what seems to be yesterday’s percolations.

    Her cheeks worked the food,
    the cud will be chewed,
    and the only afterthought will be cow pies,

    steaming patties in the field.
    The waitress passes with a balance
    of plates full of the honest beef.

    The neon coffee mug on the wall
    buzzed red-yellow, red-yellow
    Best Joe, Best Joe, Best Joe…

    My stomach roiled from the stench
    of cow patties, the clatter of plates,
    the bitter coffee surfing down the esophagus.

    “How is everything?” the waitress says,
    passing by. My fingers hug my mug,
    protectively. “It’s good.”

    Winner: Cryptana

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Round 3

    Alarra vs. Mewdo: Poverty
    Alarra: Nope
    Mewdo: None
    Winner: Alarra

    Truemane vs. Cryptana: Paradise
    Truemane:
    Cryptana:
    Spoiler
    Show
    Livingstone

    I knew it was you hiking up the Zambesi,
    the river, always swelling to bursting when you approach.
    Do you wish me to rise and meet you too?

    Your movement stirs the humidity,
    a waver of white marching through the brush,
    defying the churlish thunder.

    You walk through the storm,
    like you walk through boundaries,
    malaria, and the death of your fellow gods.

    Whole villages come, to touch you unbelieving.
    But only I would ask for a kiss,
    a wet tryst under the misting canopy.

    Could I ask you to discover me?
    The place unvisited, naked on the map,
    dark as soil, unfreckled by cities.

    Clouds diluted seeping through the leaves,
    dripping heat enveloping us in steam.
    Your cheeks glow a divine pink.

    This is Africa,
    what you've been searching for.

    Winner: Truemane

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Final Round

    Alarra vs. Truemane: Wonder
    Alarra:
    Truemane:
    Both poems were stolen by Poem-eating web monsters.
    Winner: Alarra
    Awesome Lion Avatar by the wonderful Mr. Saturn. Thanks


    I have a bloog now. Go check it out if you love strange poetry.

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