Subject Poetry Contest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by autolycus

Comedian: it's FILES not FLIES :D — or was that a joke :) and yes it's the subject, but does not need to be explicitly quoted in the poem itself... some people take it as a challenge to do so, but that's a personal thing.

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:lol: a typo. but I sort of like it piles and piles of flies: sort of hellish. Well, piles and piles of files is also hellish. And all too real hellish for me. ;)

Thanks for the clarification on both points.

Here's my submission:

Pockets

My papers, graphs, and charts --
My pictures, songs, and .docs
Have never seen a box
Nor rode the transfer carts.

My mind molds to pixels.
My heart beats in blinks.
My work is made from cells --
My words of hyperlinks.

Invisible pile
Of my fingers' work:
My pocket-sized flash drive
That consumes my homework.

But my own flash drive
Is mostly case, air, and
Carpentry. My files?
Nowhere -- Dust on the sand.

The Comedian: you've given this round a very enjoyable start! Thanks, and let's hope for more to come...

OK, here's mine:

The Paper Tiger

The man finished his daily toil,
And on slippered feet left the room
And its piles and piles of files,
Not one of whom but thought that he, or she,
Could better the quiet man at his paper war.

“Hist, my fellow warriors!” called the haughty Agamemnon
“Come round and let us council
I propose that we do more
Than put pen to paper;
I will lead you into battle, which we will
Fight with all glory to ancient Greece!”

“Still at it, you old war horse?” sneered Achilles
"You always did excel at taking things that
Did not, in this world, or in ours, belong to you.
But you can’t paper over this old wrong.
I think I’ll pass on this invitation to raise my sword again.
Briseis asks that we make peace; at the least I’ll not make war.”

“What?” roared the mighty wounded king.
“Still full of hubris, you young pup?
I’ll show you the paper trail!”
And with a great shout flung himself at
The cherry red file folder strutting and preening
At the wide oak desks’ edge, and the other folders,
Anxious not to miss this battle between the ancient foes,
Sprang to their feet, baying, a keening fire
Stirring their soft, worn paper hearts.
“We are worth more than the words printed hereon!
Oh, paper, cut our foes to the bone!”
shouted one knave, and eagerly they dove in, gave chase,
The air soon thick with confetti and joyous rage.

And morning came, cold as a dish of sweet revenge.
The man, late from the murmuring waves of Lethe,
Looked at the carnage wrought,
The little cardboard hearts laid bare
And strewn across the office floor,
The orderly files, dissapated like a bottle
Of wine uncorked and then forgotten.
What had looked good on paper,
A mighty statue
Fallen,
Like any great, lost civilization.

Qimissung

qimissung: that is indeed in the epic mode; I was half-expecting to find 'this is the tale of the wrath of Achilles' somewhere in it! :)

A DIFFICULT CHOICE

The date of doom came swiftly to the fore;
Two entries only wait now at the door.
The choice of Paris was not harder than
This test of finest judgement to a man.

First comes a comic turn that turns the eye,
Of files that cannot pile or stand or lie;
When is a file that cannot file a file?
Ah, this comedian's art is full of guile.

Then comes an Iliad passionate aflame
A tiger to burn brightly by its name;
These epic dead are bound to disappoint
Their quiet clerk whose nose is out of joint.

How then to judge, between the mind and heart —
One comic turn, another tragic art?
I would give prize to both and not just one —
But in this place, such things are never done.

=====

So now I weasel on my judgement seat
To find the balance-point of choice that's meet.
By closer look, I find Comedian's great
But falling to the legalist's dictate.

You see, my friends, the epic one must win
For qimissung has found a lead, though thin:
Homeric effort leaves its dead in piles
But comic skill has disappeared the files!

=====

I'm sorry for this arbitrary choice
But you gave me the arbiter's own voice —
I now declare for all to clearly see,
That qimissung's the winner narrowly!

Thank you, autolycus. I think yours is better than mine. :)

Here, however, is a new subject: an epiphany; please include the phrase "and then fell I under friendly fire."

Blackout

......and then I fell under friendly fire
staring down the barrel of the gun in your hand
the steam still rises and I cannot erase the look within your eyes,
in the flash of light, the poignant sulfuric odor
I wonder how did I land here in the first place?

It did not begin with a will to die and broken hearts
upon the table ready for dissection
I try to find a moment in which we were happy,
your face is an image burned into my brain
I remember your smiles, but not if those smiles
where intended for me.

There were the ghosts in my head
which you could not live with and the secrets we kept
that bound us.......how many nights spent
finding me with stale coffee and a madman's tears
the look of a wounded deer fixed upon your face.

All the things I tried to forget came rushing back to me
the moment my life was inches away from evaporating
and then at last you would be set free, because I knew
as long as I breathed you could never leave me.

So how did it come that you were the one left
holding the gun....time flash......hit reverse,
the bullet explodes back inside the gun
when I realize I am facing your frozen eyes
behind the glass frame, catching the scent of flowers
on a grave.

I lived my life in a waking dream holding you
by my side, because you were the only thing
keeping me alive, for 20 years after you died
I escaped reality into this fantasy.

and in the end, I made you murder me
because I was always such a coward,
now I sit alone among the broken sorrows
with the blood upon the floor remembering
only falsified memories of a life built up
upon your bones.

Wow! I was just kind of checking, not really thinking I'd find anything, and here this is. You really know how to leap out of the starting gates, DM!

Hahaha, thank you!

A Bit of Cinematography


Short stop footsteps downhall show television reflections in their faces

Is that the sound I wait for months in line at a gas station dmv and whatnot?

no,-no

I clearly want to say or err mean what I say and say what I mean and stuff but,-

must ghosts haunt me in the morning fog?
other souls to pounce my falling sleep
the sickly cat and the sagging dog
her face out of memory
elsewhere i am in space and time
relentless indifference steal mine mind

So there it is; a few words, a few birds, to fly around until I awake

And discover in the early morning with the beating Floridean sun

That "under friendly fire" I am won and weary, but in sleep, I am lost but gay.

we are friends forever now
and i will love you to death
she said and i was happy
and at the end i wondered
even at the brink and then
i fell under friendly fire

friendly friendly friendly fire
it wasnt that kind of love
at all but it hurt like hell

Good ones and interesting, Daniel and autolycus!

Perhaps not everyone's idea of an epiphany..... or even poetry (!) but here goes :

DATING A RED-NECK

Our first ever date was a stylish affair;
there was beer, and burritos with dip.
He acted the gentleman all the way through
til he bit off that chunk from my lip.

He phoned the next night and suggested a ride
all the way past the mall to Belle View.
I offered to make us a picnic, but no,
he said he would be catering for two.

I squeezed a few zits and I sprayed both my ‘pits
then I listened out for his V8 -
and an hour behind schedule his Chevy rolled up
and demolished the neighbours’ front gate.

We listened to ‘Cradle of Filth’ on FM
as he fed me the dirt on his ex;
how she’d cheated and lied once she put on his ring
and ran off with some a$$-hole called Tex.

He pointed out trees that he’d climbed as a kid
and the tiny white church where they married;
that neat little field with alfalfa and clover
where Tex and Ramona were buried.

An hour or so later we parked at the shore
and he opened his trunk sort of slow.
Inside was a Marlin M four forty-four
and a top of the range Compound Bow.

As well as some boxes of buckshot and bolts
a Mossberg lay wrapped in a sheet.
“I’m saving the Mossie for special occasions;
let’s load up and get us some meat.”

I’d not eaten venison straight off the hoof,
or porcupine grilled on a fire.
I’d never drunk JD straight out of the bottle
or taken a leak ‘gainst a tyre.

He’d gone to such trouble I couldn’t say no,
a sleeping bag, Trojans and lube.
Then he starts talking dirty, and spat out his gum
so I pulled both my boobs from my tube.

He said ‘Foreplay’s for lesbians, ain’t that a fact”
and I heard my ma’s words - she’s a hooker -
“All men are the enemy…." and then I fell
under friendly fire from his bazooka.

So while he lit up, feeling pleased with himself,
I straightened my skirt in the Chevy,
reached into my purse for my Heckler & Koch
and left him for dead on the levee.

H

um, thank you Hillwalker, for joining the fray.