It’s storming outside, and I’m in a dark mood, but I’ll spare you – for now – not because you deserve mercy, but because today is a special day...
Today the BOTF Poetry Slam takes flight, winging off into the blogosphere where it becomes its own creature, no longer confined to the obscurity of a backwater bulletin board. Today obscurity can be had in an arena a million miles wide.
In honor of this special day, I will not ask you to write verses upon a harvest feast. Today I will spare you themes of dry turkey meat and lumpy gravy and the horrors of one’s extended family.
Today, dear poets, on the event of the BOTF Poetry Slam’s emancipation, I offer you the only suitable topic: Britney and Kevin’s breakup. Or, more generally, the shucking off of things that have turned bad, that have perished, that are rotting like a turkey carcass left in the oven.
Write your hearts out.
I’ll pick a winner and get back to you tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Poetry Slam
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Well, I wrote one in this morning's early hours about the failure of redemption. Fortunately, it works here too.
All Alone Now
I broke my palms on the shattered rocks
and puzzled to watch them bleed.
I plunged my face into the chilling tide
and struggled to pull in breath.
I filled my belly with salt water
to see the visions on the edge of the dark.
I torched the bridges that drifted past me
and my skin crackled in the blaze.
I bloodied your line and threw it back
and my heart stopped beating.
I flailed my limbs against the current
and my body flagged and sank.
I buoyed myself to the surface
and watched the foreign shore recede.
#
Dumb notes:
- I liked the sound of "alien shore" here, but I would have been lifting it from somewhere less cool than a Tennyson poem.
- Also, A couple of hours after writing it, I realized that I'd unconsciously poached the structure from a post I read just two days ago, sheesh.
bit of doggerel. i hate confrence calls
To The Consultant Who Came Before Me
Jackass.
Surely you knew someone
would inherit this shit,
this labor of hate
you produced for pay.
Fuckwit.
There is a single key
devoted to this task.
Why couldn't you use it?
Why fear to delete?
Asshole.
Iron Man
Against all the odds,
I iron the clothes
before she gets home,
every pleat
is neat and curt
in the shape and
sharpness of its line,
Pants are so crisp
they stand by themselves
like the half of me
that wants to
leave before anything
is done brewing,
Every blouse is arranged
on a hanger
with the care of
decorators descending
on a cake,
Skirts feel the heat and conform
to the warm
and persuasive alignment
of lines in
confinement of a mess
that only ruins
the fluid lines of a dress
as it might catch a breeze
and cause damaged knees
in the business district
of men
not watching where they’re going
as you pass by going to a meeting,
clean-cut and curving in
the suits my iron took
upon your seams,
that’s what I mean,
Shirts this pressed
could be made to
fly with just the right
number of
well placed folds, my ironing is streamlined,
efficient, aeronautically superb,
Fly me to the moon….
I am a an engineer of straight lines,
new kinds of symmetry, I am so good
at this that it’s a pity to get undressed
at night, at the end of an day when everything
pressed came into play,
Shall we practice
sleeping standing up,
fully clothed?
excuses of an inconsiderate boyfriend
hunger drove me near insane, into the gloom of night;
found her waiting at the bar, tempting to the sight.
salty, soft-flesh'd venus sat, a siren there for me,
to suckle, slurp, and swallow whole--tasty as can be.
now i ask (nay, beg!) forgive: it did not mean a thing.
no, my love, not even that--i'd not call it a fling...
i never meant to hurt you; i never meant to lie,
nor ever to desert you, or leave you there to cry...
well, you could never give me, as i'm a man of needs,
that for which my body craved--the thing on which it feeds...
no, my dear, i swear to god, 'twas not a lassie fucked,
not a whore or prostitute, but something i had shucked.
formatted
sorry. formatted.
The Poetry Mistress is late with her review of the Slam. Keeping you waiting gives her a little thrill.
ha! As it should. Let 'em go another day or two, I say. People need this kind of thing occasionally now that they've up and taken Limbo away from us.
OT: I'm experimenting with different ways to indicate within my replies and posts that I'm laughing. I've always labeled anyone who uses LOL as a psychopathic retarded fool, "snort" just isn't ladylike enough for me, but "hee hee" and "tee hee" just sound flat out insincere. I've been going with "ha!" rather half-heartedly, but I'm thinking maybe from now on just using "I'm laughing." If whatever I'm responding to was really really humorous, I'd increase it to "I'm laughing really hard."
What do you think? Anyone? Maybe I'll ask the fray. They're starved for a poll over there, looks like.
I feel about that much like I do about emoticons. Try to write well enough that you don't feel the need to use them. (Note I said "try.") It's more of a guideline than a rule--I do sneak out an unenthused "heh" every once in a while, but I've never written "lol" or the like without irony or derision.
Saying, "that made me laugh" usually works fine (I've taken the habit of some here in preceding that with a curse), and has the added advantage of being intelligent-looking written English.
K
ahem.
[grin]
[chuckling]
[laughing]
etc.
'tis easy. you can use {} as your braces, if you want to mix it up a bit.
Post a Comment