[meatfinger]

Jeff/Angel_Princess won last time.

[ThePlaidRanger]

skeeter_dan's
Bedroom Baptism:

underscoredLife

Unborn species (breed,damnyou,breed) of humanity

Have sex all night
If it makes the demons go away
Bound together
Breathless
Beauty betrays itself in the end

Idiosyncracies twist
Betwixt and between
Ocean-scarred vessels
Bouncing like bedsprings

Under
-neath
-fed
-fold
-told
-scored and appreciated
This new breed
A beauty best left to itself
Bruised and beaten in bed

[Skeeter]

the flamingo

one am is like being drunk,
it's when all my thoughts run to you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

firstly, i don't understand you.

i didn't put my emotions on a string so that you could pull each bead off and throw it in the bottom of a fish tank. i wanted you to wear it like a smile except around your neck. i wanted to catch each ray of sunlight and sparkle like a prism.

i wanted to be there when sweat & tears roll
down your temples
like rain.

secondly, i'm not just any girl.

there are tens of thousands of girls out there, all beautiful with trim bodies. but when they wink boys fall at their feet and crawl up their legs wanting something God made for adam and eve to share. these long eyelashes might look pretty, but they don't wink & they never will.

i will not let you snake-charm me into a cage with a hypnotic trance--i am not another trick in a card game. if you seek admiration without reciprocation, you played the wrong hand.

thirdly, i still love you.

when you're not around, i miss you.
i miss your voice, your smell, your touch. but i can't sit here and pretend that your hugs mean nothing. i can't say that when we are together i don't feel different, like i don't see you without these jaded cries of romance.

i have waited all my life to love someone like a warm sunset slowly burning the landscape with cooling cinders. one last spark for a limerick before the fire is snuffed out with stars pressed against the black like freckles.

i could love you like that.
i could love you like rain rolling down the windshield of your truck as the moonlight casts a glow against the slick pavement. i could love you like it doesn't make sense.

fourthly, come as you are

i won't promise a field of wildflowers with cute little kittens all in a row, but i can offer my heart--each spackled crack of imperfection and all,

but

before you think another thought
remember that i embrace your faults like a mother who just found her newborn baby will never see dust swimming in sunbeams on a late august afternoon, the color blue, or the power of wind.

i will never pretend you are perfect.
i will never make you to be someone you are not.

above all, isn't that what we want? someone to accept you for who you are after the day is over and it's time to turn off the lights?

fifthly, love is more than a four letter word

would you give a thirsty man an empty cup? or a hungry man a bare plate? likewise, i do not offer empty words. i do not tease when i say i love you,

i mean it.

but before you dodge everything i've said, remember this is frightening for me too. imagine all the emotions i've allowed myself to feel, all the tears i've let myself cry just thinking you don't love me.

i'm not going to pretend to be ready at this rate i don't think i ever will, but that's like waiting for God to use you until you are sinless. still, i don't want to jump off the deep end to find out i can't swim.

i can wait
if time is what you need.

i can do anything,
but i can't make you love me.

[Than]

Chris' The Sea:

The sea is a very strange creature.

I hold that it is a creature: that it lives and breathes, that it circulates, spreads, and stifles life, as any other living being must. And it will die, in its time, with a proud sneer upon its face and the broken lives of a thousand of its colleagues twisted into an ugly trophy crown on its brow.

I won’t let it.

For now, the sea will roll on its belly and sigh in sluggardly happiness. Who does it have to fear? There is no creature who can tame its toxic spray, no being that can run across its waves. It houses an army of wicked soldiers, Goliaths with rows of teeth and other harsh weapons.

This savagery is unreal.

It extends its groping fingers upon the land and licks it with a cold, unloving tongue. It spills its salty saliva on life, throttling warmth with its kiss. It torments the land, bludgeoning it with a soft brush of the digits. No soldier can battle it (even with sandbags) and no retaining wall can hold it back.

Everything falls apart.

Like a stone, I have seen the sea. I have watched it for eons, edging closer with its frigid hands, wielding love like a frosty mace. Stones are strong. Humans use stone to fashion weapons and to build parapets. Stones are strong. But I have seen the sea’s love beat other stones brutally. The buffer between the sea and myself is filled with broken stones.

I will stand against it.

(There is something fascinating about the way the sea destroys. I love to watch it, sadistic as that sounds. I think it is the way that it continues to push against its own inevitable death by causing death of its own. The way it tries to impress God by winning trophies and ruining them with sloppy kisses.) Everything falls apart.

The sea: my inspiration and my fate.

[meatfinger]

The Plaid Ranger's Rite for the Consecration of an Assistant Assimilation Pastor

What will people think
when they hear that I'm a Jesus freak?
When they see me
proclaiming damnation wittily
with 100% cotton tees?

Irrelevant.

Exulting in a chorus
of the mentally diminished
spitting joyous paeans of
God's servitude to me.

Irrelevant.

I reach out to touch the cross
as it glides through throngs
of the newly newly repentant
promising eternal servitude
this week, and perhaps the next.
I need a raise, God.
Don't forget.

Irrelevant.

Thank you, Lord, for sending
a savior
(Can we call him/her a Savior?)
to redeem us (or enthrone us)
and teach us (by example)
the ancient miracle-working power
of the Prayer of Jabez.

Irrelevant.
Relativist.

Irelevant.
Pluralist.

Irelvant.
Anti-intellectual.

Irlvant.
Shallow.

Irlvnt.
Unloving.

Irlvt.
Materialist.

Irvt.
Gnostic.

Ivt.
Baseless.

It.
Is.

I.
Am.

Irrelevant.

[Jeffrey]

I'd like to nominate the Slap J's seemingly untitled work that was posted under the thread "nonsense."

---------------------

I want to uh
write a nice poem sometimes
But I CAN’T

I wish I could just get some scissors
shiny
And stab my ID
Maybe it would bleed
Black
Onto the page and and

Maybe

I think maybe it would coalesce into words

Something vital and muddy

Like a Seamus Heaney poem.
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
some say he scratches out pint-and-a plow nonsense.

I think everything is nonsense

sincerely,

your
friend

at his unraveled

end

[Skeeter]

Looks like a pretty solid lineup of poems this time around.

[Anchored]

Pieterfriedrich's "Deadman"

dead man
by Pieter J. Friedrich
-----

not a boy
just a man

strained at the slack rein
a fenced lamb
sought the mark of a slave
everything was a sham
so now he makes love to the devil

withering-spirit man shrieks "god is dead"
fool says in his heart there is no God

spins the dial
hates the rock
outstretched
a middle finger at the cornerstone
and so forsook the flock

shepherd knows His sheep
was he one of His?

one of a hundred
tore up the map
wandering in the wilderness
sat in his Father's lap
reached up
and gave him a slap

still the man on the radio
is expiring

radio man shrieks "you dreamed up a god"
the Man/God who is Truth
He is a stone of stumbling
stretched down and touched him
marked him with His mark

radio freak shrieks
"and now you're one of us"
did he know amazing grace?
"the wretched"
was he just trying to save face?

shattered myself once
I was found

now he cripples us all
by his choice
I have lost his trace
and he's chosen Sacrilege
to bear his pall

speakers groan at the voice
of a dead man
radio man shrieks
"god is dead and nobody cares"
all they that hate Him love death

dying
he kills himself
in a roundabout way
calls god dead
and so commits suicide

his spiritual self-murder
shreds you and me

shepherd find him
my desperate prayer
Maker remake him
even though
he doesn't care

[Jas de F]

ConsumingFire's "Can't You Read Me Yet?"

Jaded as I dream of things i never should.
Chasing fantasies in my head and knowing they will die away.
I can't believe I've waited this long to realize what I've lost
Losing hurts, nobody can take your pain from you.
Oh, what I would do to take back time, and change the impossible.
Vaguely I speak forth, scared to tell.
Everything's wrong, dare I tell?
Yes, I know, the pain it would cause.
On a day like this, it's the imperfect clause.
Underneath my flustered mind, thoughts of you go flying by...
Presented with this tormented choice.
Leased for too long, return policy void.
Everything's faulty, and soon to die.
As I gaze into the vast beyond.
Staring at what was had, and now walking away.
Enormous grief, as I can't change my choices.
Dumb. Is how i feel as, I face the reality of it.
On and on, you walk, farther from my grasp.
Nothing to be done, as you leave.
Telling would kill, please realize this.
Laugh as you always do
Always keep your smile
Enjoy your life
Volunteer to stay
Everything then, would be OK.
Murmurs stalking my inner thoughts.
Everything alive one day must rot.

[meatfinger]

Pieterfriedrich's "Deadman"

ConsumingFire's "Can't You Read Me Yet?"

Any nominated poem must have been posted in this forum or the Songwriting forum (does this even exist anymore?). If they have been posted, please give me a link, because I can't find them here. If they haven't been, delete your nomination please, or it will be null.

Originally Posted by Jeff, in the original contest rules,

1. Nominate someone else's poem that is posted on the CGR Literature board or the Songwriting board.

[Jas de F]

dead man -- posted here

can't you read me yet? -- posted here

[meatfinger]

Thanks, pieter.
How did I miss those? Sheesh....

[Jas de F]

Originally Posted by meatfinger

Thanks, pieter.
How did I miss those? Sheesh....

*cough* That's, umm, what we wondered...

But you're welcome.