Poetry:
I noticed a poetry thread that seemed to have died in November of last year. The Flash thread competitions flourish here, so I seek to spark the poet within. Once a month I will issue a one word (and/or) photograph prompt. I challenge you all to write your best poem. What? Yes, use your best words, because you will have very few.
Guidelines:
-25 lines or less
-120 words or less
-When a single word prompt is issued, that word has to be used in the poem. If a picture is issued it has to clearly inspire the poem. No Recycling!!! Up to three poems per submitter each month are allowed.
-Only one poem per submitter will be considered for the monthly poll. (What Poll?)
-Poems can be edited at anytime you want up until the poll is created
Competition:
This all depends on how many poets or bad ass fiction writers want to attempt this endeavor.
I will submit my own poem on the prompt each month. I will not be eligible to win.
The more who compete, the more who will be selected. Selected for what?
As it stands now, I am poor and can’t afford prizes. I’m also too lazy to figure out how the postal
service works, since the invention of e-mail. Hopefully one day I can mail the winner something cool.
Until then:
Do it for fun! Do it for bragging rights! And unfortunately I’ve resorted to the Nike slogan “Just Do It!”
At the end of each month, I select my favorites. I create a poll. You all vote for the winner. Sound fun? Hope so. Let’s get this ball rolling.
The Cost
In a bleached out country of hatred
All that’s left is a sense of regret
A sense of bullet sure anger
A decade of regret
Day after day it remains
In the country of the free
All that’s left is…
`~`
Deer leaping, springing
Through autumn fields of sere grain
Bullet intersects.
Ah, how cool! I started a tumblr for my poetry here: http://xsilentcryx.tumblr.com/
Hopefully some of you follow and so on! I write a very restrictive form of haiku which hopefully adds a bit of spice and dynamism to an ancient form. But here's my bullet poem:
autumnal
alone-- bullet blow
winds wintry
The Seamstress
The back of a worn black coat
Altered and sewn
Walked away without pause
Weary stitches come undone
Expose her loss
A quilt of torn memories
Cover frail legs
Woven around
The handle of his shotgun
Needle and thread fingers
Place bullets
Delicately into the barrel
Running stitches up her side
One shot
Through the eye of a needle
Crimson embroidery
Decorates the tapestry she made
For them
And the life that he tossed aside
My first ever zombie story and it's a poem.
Fun thread. Hope the competition takes off. (p.s. edit - sorry I had to fiddle with it a bit. Editing is allowed before the end of the month right?)
The Two She Thought We Had Lost
solemn reason
to kiss the bullets
a final chance
to kiss her
release comes
to us both now
in ammunition
kept secret
Bullet or Bullit?
I go with Bullit. Why?
Because Steve McQueen
who inspired songs by both
Cheryl Crow
and the Drive-By Truckers
In the ode to McQueen
Patterson, the main trucker says,
"That pussy Alec Baldwin sucked in the remake"
It's a getaway reference, of course
But point taken, Patterson
Bullet Haiku
OK, here's the deal
the business end of a
Bullet is bad news
^ likes that one
Ava
The red spills out across the floor;
A dressing gown upon the ground.
The kimono’s drape as she closes the door:
A glimpse of something lost, now found.
Whispers inside won’t break the glass.
The whispers won’t stay,
This too shall pass.
She clings to the tassel that keeps out the day.
Adore was once the word they spoke,
Roses littered the empty stage.
No one remembers any more,
The river rushed, the dam broke.
Bullets and wine get better with age,
The red spills out across the floor.
JR- you could draw a picture for the winner. Or the winner gets a signed copy of your poem.
Ive never done poetry. This is close to a first for me so dont laugh. Ima little nervous, but what i love abot this site is that you can just write.. It doesnt matter . So here goes, with the bullet prompt. i will keep my day job, but wondering if this is a worthy start or not.?
GUILT
A bullet ends it
But it's not over really
Your spirit resides
Talk to me baby
Tell me who tore your sweet heart
We can seek revenge
It was me you say?
No, no I loved you always
Guilt, guilt, leave me be.
I toss in sweat-soaked linen
Your spirit reminds
I tore your heart before
the bullet hit
@Jonathan: Thanks for checking out my site! I'm not really sure how to promote any of this. I started a facebook page also but don't really know how to get people to know about it. It's very tricky!
http://www.facebook.com/xpenxdragonx
@Pendragon Self-promotion, you say? Post here: http://litreactor.com/discuss/official-whoring-thread
If you're not already on Twitter, I'd recommend doing that as well; you can tie it into your tumblr.
Cool cool! Thanks!
JR- Yes, make it one of your poo poems on toilet paper! That's art, dude.
Where is your poem J.Y.? That doesn't count. I really liked the one you posted somewhere, once upon a time.
I really liked the one you posted somewhere, once upon a time.
Yeah, I can see it made quite the impression on you. ;-s
I'll do one. I've twelve days yet.
@ J.Y. For real, it did. It was magical. ;-)
Stacy --- I've been wondering what poem you meant. Was it the "Zombie Zoo" poem? It seems someone deleted that thread, forcing me to be the second person to post a zombie poem in this thread. It went something like:
The whole truth must surely include
the zombie zoo, and me, and you
[something, something, something]
A spherical cage with no bars but gravity
[something]
No visitors but the aliens who set up the place
In the first place
The only place
Was that the one?
More importantly: Why are people deleting threads?
There were also two I wrote for Phil when we became "friends": one limerick and one total bullshit.
Phil is a guy from who-knows-where
And God only knows what he does there
For wry erudition
He shows predilection
Of witty remarks the big-cat's share
It was the Zombie Zoo one, find it.
I like this thread.
Woohoo! One of these days I'll figure out how to get people to know about my facebook page!
I Will Not Forget
The Spring of your life, men with bullets shipped you
Across an ocean blue; soon you would know
A life of pain and sugarcane, some chew.
The Summer winds brought you a tropic glow,
A golden painted beau; a kindly man
With Indian tough skin and determined bros.
With Autumn’s cooling rains brought a baby tan
With freedoms respite and sweetest loves light;
Her child’s thin dignity would forge a clan.
The winter of Spanish war left’a future bright,
She drank dark Rum and sang to America,
A world of dreams and growing deserved rights.
Wild she was, scarred yet free, a wife with dogma
Who loved her man, her child, and ripe canepa.
Romeo
It happened in slow motion
Bullet time
For the crazy girl with big blue eyes
Crumbling in to a thousand
Damp little pieces
He stood and watched her fall internally
Thou her body never moved
Looked at his watch
Said
I’ve got better places to be
Than here
With you
Words imprinted on a fractured heart
True Love
Romeo Alpha Tango
@JY - was the poem in the poetry thread that we had? That thread is not deleted, it just is locked to the public.
My poet's plight: soft copper in the night air:
spent casing clinks after bold bullet's brain.
The old ones are still the good ones,
though we'd never know the better
of this reptile's rhetoric, which is fine with me:
I flick forked tongues like chili-farts,
fire men in the boiler, blaze stockings
back-talking. Each window is a ledge,
each ledge an opportunity
to catch face upon the morrow
a chance to grind that system under me.
It's been a while, so have mercy...
Post Mordem
In ashen spells of silence
without time, we feel bound
to take up our icy blades and
open up the other on a worn slab
with the echelon sheets carving
jagged about our curves like mountain
switchbacks dropping off the edges
into blackness.
As we flay away our covers,
that fluorescent moon pouring past the blinds
cleaves our waxen, battle-scarred
nakedness in broken gashes—
a sliver of curled fingers,
a ribbon of tendons on the neck
dulled from rigor.
We attempt resuscitation
with tired cuts and gouges,
tearing out our sutures
over and over again;
you with your graceful talons,
me with the blunted molars
of a jackal,
denuding some writhing
quarry,
long wailing
for a bullet.
Remembrance
She brushes her hair away from her face,
Shy out-of-town grin across the windy mall.
Teeth like bullets, legs even more dangerous
Kept partly hidden by vintage VonFurstenberg
or maybe some Target knockoff.
Lips stained by Light Up My Latte close over that .25 calibre smile
I see the streaks, down her cheeks;
The sorrow I was too hungry to see.
The eyes that aren't laughing.
I pay for my hot dog but she's gone,
Dwarfed behind the wall,
Caressing that cold stone with her fingertips;
Etching the name,
Joining her fingertips with the mosaic of a million other pilgrims.
Fixes and Treats
I'll trade you bullets for candy;
I crave the sweetness
The rich salty taste of iron and oxygen
Suspended in plasma.
The bang which turns ivory teeth
Into smashed fragments of candy corn.
And dreamers
Become sleepers in that long night.
@Emma:
"And dreamers
Become sleepers in that long night."
I like.
Good stuff.
Thanks! I seriously just banged both of those out on my iPhone while watching X-Men First Class and thinking about Hamlet.
Tamed
A bullet on a strangled leather string.
The perfect accessory for
a broken butterfly heart.
@Emme: That's got to be the best "inspiration story" I've ever heard.
As for the topic of this competition, I had *just* gotten that Hollywood Undead song out of my head...ugh. Ah, well. I decided to do something a little different from my usual and go with a sonnet. Annnd...ta-da!
The Frailty of Peace
When all the world lay still in peace,
And naught is heard but happy sighs,
When War's put down like frothing beast,
A bullet still in gun resides.
The children know not what it's for,
They only point the thing in jest,
They do not know the Game of War,
Until it goes off in one's chest.
The parents now weep tears of rage,
Again was set mass slaughter's stage.
Loving it!
There once was a man with skin cancer
Who had a young dog he named "Prancer"
The dog licked his 'noma
And fell into a coma
In his dreams he co-starred with Tony Danza
@J.Y. -- WINNAR! lol
@MLNicky I am usually watching X-Men and thinking about Hamlet.
Is it because of Patrick Stewart? I love that man.
I love PStew, too, but, no, it's because Hamlet just rocks: it's so wonderfully deathy. And who notices PStew when there's TENNANT.