Subject Poetry Contest.

[qimissung]

Wow, these are AWESOME, each and every one!

[Nick Capozzoli]

I guess there has been enough time for submissions. I've never had to judge a poetry contest before this, and I don't feel cabable of judging this one.

I can submit the poem I wrote with the line ti use as a take off, "after the first one killing them was easy..." Here it is.

Cowslaughter

After the first one, killing them was easy
As learning to place the shot well
Back of the ear, the others waiting
Behind a door ready to kick the bar out
When she would fall against it, as if
Suddenly realizing her own weight.

Cutting was the most difficult. To break
The skin it seemed you’d need a hammer
To pound the knife in, your hands working
Behind a curtain of flesh, probing
For the right vein. The blade
Came always on the same things:
The white wall of sinew, loose flesh,
Then scraping along the windpipe where
You 'd find it,
The quick release of blood.

You don’t think of that, only knives moving
Rapidly, the skin falling to the floor
In folds, like a tarpaulin. Better now,
That it looks like work: a groundcloth
To catch the mess, a winch lifting
The carcass by hind legstumps, a grainsack
You cut open. Spilling what was inside
You gather it back to its own skin, hauling it
To the dump in a pickup truck.

Hours later when you return.
The shed is empty, filled with breeze;
The hollow carcass hung in halves:
No blood now, all washed away
Or receded into the horny flesh.
Whatever had been on the air is gone.
The cattle and horses no longer edgy
Fall back to gnawing the bales of hay
You toss to them. Only you,
Who smelled nothing at the time,
Recall many years afterward
The smell this blood left on your hands.


Someone else, maybe Q-Sung, shoud judge this
competition.



Nick

[qimissung]

Yours is quite beautiful and powerful, also, Nick.

I would like to help, but this is your party!

[PoemsEulogy]

PE,

Interesting and creepy (serial-killer-like) take-off on the suggested phrase.

Nick

Thanks

[Nick Capozzoli]

I would like to help, but this is your party!

OK. I guess this challenge has been out there for a while, but I'll set a date to end it: August 23, at 2000 hours (Pacific Time). Keep 'em coming!

Nick

[Nick Capozzoli]

Thanks to alakungfu, Poems Eulogy, March Hare, The Comedian, Pendragon, and LMK for their excellent submissions!
It was hard to select a "winner," as all of your entries were strong, with powerful images.

I guess that I should have expected the take-off phrase, After the first one, killing them was easy would prompt a poetic exploration into the mind of a psychopathic killer (either an individual or, as in Pendragon's excellent Bloody Hells, a collectivist State bent on murder).

But I had to select a "winner, and here it is (DRUMROLL):

LMK

After the First One, Killing Them was Easy
by LMK

After the first one, killing them was easy
One by one their heads fell
I watched the first, disbelieving
But soon a flash of ecstasy shot through me
And after it a release I had never imagined

I carried on in frenzied, passion, a burning fury to kill them
Everything was covered in red, there was so much red
The younger ones had little to give up,
Just tiny buds, barely life even begun
But, the older ones with little blush left on their bloom were my favorite

Sharpened blades made all the difference
Why did I wait so long to do this?
Such liberation, to be rid of them all
Oh, that I could escape from them, I often dreamed
Their dying, turning to dust, blowing away in the wind, left to be nothing

It was a satisfaction I never expected to fulfill
For how long did I pretended to love them
While hatred and resentment grew in my heart
I waited, biding my time, not forming any plan
Patience rewarded me with such exhilaration I never conceived

I still can’t believe that he planted red roses
He knew I had asked for lilac bushes
I spoke often enough of how they would perfume the air
With spring’s gentle breezes; the fragrance of my youth.
He understood, he knew, he did it to mock me; “a love that will bloom forever,” he said

“Mother’s won another ribbon,” he’d gloat over her prize roses
For five years, I fawned and pruned, cut and trimmed
Keeping their blossoms full and their stalks trained while he recounted her latest win.
Well, no more, the last bud, flower, stem and root
Composted, leaving only a small track of petals I’d tired of picking up, as if a trail of blood

Yes, after the first one, killing them was easy.

Let him grow roses and compete with his mother if he wants,
I'm ordering lilac bushes!
/*
~L

LMK, as the winner, it is now up to you to chose a topic and judge the entries. Good Luck and Godspeed,

Nick

[NickAdams]

This is reminiscent of the third inter-chapter in Hemingway's short story collection In Our Time:

"We waited till he got one leg over and then potted him. He had so much equipment on and looked awfully surprised and fell down into the garden. Then three more came over further down the wall. We shot them. They all came just like that."

What a great take off phrase; wish I would have came upon it sooner.

[LMK]

Thanks Nick!

OK, how about something a little different, and random perhaps?

The subject is hope, and the words, "...red button..." should appear somewhere in the piece.

If there is enough response (at least 3), by September 15, then that will be the last day of posting entries. If there is not enough response by then, I'll give it to September 30.

Hope you enjoy,
~L

[Pendragon]

Panic Button

Panic is a slimy thing
Curled like the Midgard Serpent
Enchaining the human heart
Keep all thoughts on-line
For hitting its bright red button...

Hope is that feathered thing,
Perched precariously upon
A bust of Pallas deep within the soul
That keeps our frenzied minds and hands
From pressing that red button...

Pendragon
© Wednesday, August 26, 2009

[Sapphire]

I don't think it is random

Which one?

Do you see them?
___________2 round buttons
___________yours to push

Which will you press?
___________the red button
___________or the green

It is sure that one
___________will bring disaster
___________the other salvation

You decide which
___________be colourblind
___________it is all up to you

Press none
___________and all you'll have
___________is hope

[PoemsEulogy]

My red button down shirt
Is my now-shirt
For the now-place
That's fine for right now.

The bright yellow lights
Are the tomorrow-lights
That I can't see past.

[alakungfu]

The song let loose
The last troubadour stood down
Sidestepped the noose
And denied what he'd known

An epic life no longer his
He looked to the sky to lead him forth
After shedding ritual guise
And embraced again the Star of the North

He undid each red button of his dwindling breeches,
Slung on a new belt to fit his new tunic
Pulled on some larger pants, disappearing into the beeches
As the knave took off into the rustic

What had been of the buccaneers
Hung in the chorus of his song in the trees
To be tried by peers and seers
With a cryptic map of creaks and leas

The captain of yore, abandoned in part,
But left, in his words, to the judgment imparted
A random message and a new start
An extension of the course first charted

[balehead]

Is this one still open??

[Pendragon]

Is this one still open??

I haven't seen notice of "contest closed" so I would say, yeah, it's still open...

[LMK]

Sorry all, I've been living in hotels and airports for the last few weeks, so lets keep this going until the end of the month.

Thanks so much to all who have entered so far!

LMK