THE ULTIMATE BATTLE OF POETS: ROUND 2

Round 2 - FORM CHALLENGE.
*Choose any form EXCEPT free verse* - http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/types.html. One form per poet, per poem.

HERE'S THE TWIST!!
*Once a form is submitted, I will post that it is taken in the thread, so pay close attention! This means - there will be NO duplicates.
Once a form is submitted, it may NOT be submitted by a different poet. Which means, you will have to hurry in submitting your poem!
*When sending me your poem, please specify the form you used and the rules (copy & paste from the link provided, please).

BONUS POINTS:
*Writing a form that is longer than 15 lines and following all rules. (+2 points)
*Writing a form that is non-rhyming as well as following all other rules. (+1 point)

PENALTIES:
*Writing a form improperly ( - 1 point )

POEMS MUST BE SUBMITTED TO ME VIA PM BY THIS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21ST 4PM CENTRAL TIME.

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Submitted forms:

Double Etheree
Double Tanka
Cascade
Acrostic
Ode
Sestina
Senryu
Sonnet
Monody

Yes...you're correct. If it's already been submitted, you may have to choose a completely different form and start all over...so it's important to get your poem submitted quick!

I see you have added a different twist to the contest from all the rounds that have been seen thus far. Anyway your creativity is great and I think many people will find this round fun and more then not hard and frustrating! :]

Lots of options!

Double Etheree has been submitted! It is no longer up for grabs.

Please note: Forms such as the Etheree and Haiku, I will accept the double or singular form as well.

A double tanka has been submitted!

This round sounds great, I love your Ideas..

Two forms already! What will remain 0.o

Oh man

***Important Note: Please do NOT rely on syllable counting websites. Myself along with the other 3 judges will be counting syllables to determine penalty points and bonus points.

Oh sheesh. Way to speed up the submissions! Clever girl...

The cascade form has been submitted!

Jiminy cricket!
*Hey, this is completely off topic but... Jad, I feel like when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to a wolf. Who here feels like when they're talking to me, they're talking to a bumble bee playing a banjo? Kind of awesome, right?

Anyway... this contest is a toughie. Glad to see new challenges within the contests being presented. Lots of great ideas boiling, I bet, for future rounds. I know I have a couple!

Thanks for hosting, Temps ;) Good stuff.

Lol Jane, I am actually a human contrary to popular belief. :P But, yeah it is kinda awesome when you look at someones avatar and try to envision what this person looks like! :]

Also, three forms within the first day is pretty fast! :]

An acrostic has been submitted!

4 already! Only 4? Still lots of styles open but not for looooong!

15 - 4 it looks like. Yup.

Four poems have been submitted! That's great. :] C'mon the rest of you out there. Don't hide now. :]

I'm surprised the Free Verse hasn't been sniped yet. That said, I wonder whether the judges will be giving "subconscious bonus points" to poems simply because their chosen forms are particularly constricted and tricky. I hope not. I hope it is the quality of the poetry itself that will prevail.

And THAT said, any poet that can make a very formed poem seem unforced and free is worthy of praise.

I want someone to do Christ-in-a-Rhyme.

Circa 971-931 BC
The King one day promises to return.

Song of Solomon
4:16
The Shulamite Maiden,

"Awake, O north wind; and
come thou south; blow upon my
garden, that the spices
thereof may flow out. Let my
beloved come into his garden,
and eat his pleasant fruits.

Imagine that, beautiful poetry.

Thanks for bringing that up Abby, I won't be accepting the free verse form....I have already been asked.

An ode has been submitted!

Five forms! That means there is what six or so people left to grab the form they want before someone else does! Time is ticking away as I speak this nonsense so hurry :P

I don't know how the participants are doing it. Imagine spending five days writing a Quatrain and then bang! someone submits one before you. I need a stress ball just thinking about it.

Good luck all.

Haha lol Mel..ur thinking is funny

The sestina has been taken!

That makes six forms now, I believe! :]

5 more

The senryu has been submitted!

Still four poems to be submitted, you have approx. 27 hours remaining!

The sonnet has been submitted!

COOL!!! I badly want to read the entries

Me too!

Lol you have a very weird CUTE avatar ..she should make it the theme of the following round..

I can't wait to read everyone's poems.
The real fun part after, is trying to figure out who I think wrote what ... lol

A monody has been submitted.

Only 7.5 hours remaining....still looking for 2 more poems!

WELL...you can't know :P she said she's waiting for 2 still..

-maybe they aim to make a change ;P

Round 2 is now closed...it looks as though we are down to 9 poets, two have been eliminated for not submitting a poem. I will be posting results within the next day or two!

Wolf (Double Etheree)

Eyes
stare out
of darkness,
pierce the nighttime.
A howl, warning;
no man should walk this way.
Grate the woodland canvas now,
with claws shredded like old parchment.
Teeth like concrete stone, yellowed by age,
fur matted, blotched like paint; defender.
He will guard us all; the weak and the strong.
The moon will quiver, the stars will shake,
when he defends his kingdom; home
to no one else but his kind.
no man should walk here now.
A snarl, piercing
the brightest sun
is no match
for this
wolf.

Double Etheree: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

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The quiet sky was crying

I remember when anguish was self-revealed:
It was raining, the quiet sky was crying
And the shy clouds were my shield.
The leaves whispered to me he was dying.

That dark day, the dim lights did sigh
As I walked among the flowers and the dead,
Scratching my skin into the wild night,
Waiting my dangerous world to drop dead.

I look back in anger and in despair,
Feeling the wind blowing the ash of my low fire,
Running in crazy circles, going nowhere,
Looking for him in my sick desire.

Nothing I have but that damp grave:
Memories stained by pain and solitude
When my naked soul does rave
Blurring the past in my tired blood.

My love, where are you? You are not here.
Everything is lost forever. I am undone.
Everything does lose meaning and disappear
As I look myself in the mirror and find no one.

Monody
A monody is a poem in which one person laments another's death, as in Tennyson's
Break, Break, Break, or Wordsworth's She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways.
(Also see Dirge, Elegy, Epitaph)

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In Memory (Senryu)

Three friends in two years,
Walking the stairs to heaven.
Ethan, Ana, Kam.

Note: All three were people I went to school with who have died in the last two years. Ethan died November 19th, 2010 from suicide, Ana on June 12th, 2009 from complications from a surgery, and Kameron on December 10th, 2008 from suicide. You are forever missed.

Most popular definition, but there is more to senryu than meets the eye:

Senryu (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed
lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in
the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess
no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

The 5/7/5 rule was made up for school children to understand and learn this type of poetry.
For an in depth description of Haiku, please visit the Shadow Poetry Haiku, Senryu,
and Tanka section. There is much more to senryu than the madeup 5/7/5 version.
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A Salute to Sex (Ode)

You were always the desire to engulf another,
from a billion murky years ago, when
two single cells,
tired of tearing themselves apart, touched
and together performed the
first romp.
Membrane to slippery membrane,
an offering of guts
within another's guts,
your shaken cocktail of life was born,
held in filmy folds and emerging as
complete and new.

You hungered for more.
The world swelled
bright with your vanity.
The flowers flushed with your longing, the mantis
lost his indulgent head, the deer was crowned
for your attention.
You painted the peacock
and taught him to dance.

You festered on the old, furry dung of horses,
shooting out your spores,
dying to be
devoured again
in patches of greener grass.
You created symphonies
between two bees, clinging in mid air, fat with
your nectar.

You made
my lover.
You gave me his breath
on my breast.
You budded beads of
salt along his back and entangled
my hair in his fingers, my head caught
in the curve of his shoulder, whispers of worship
muffled in the tumble towards
your promise.

You instilled a sense of
the sacred
in us,
in things that bloom
and die and bloom.

You stirred the matrix of the earth,
waiting for things to come.

An Ode is a poem praising and glorifying a person, place or thing.
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Waterfall(Cascade)

A deluge of flowing torrents,
cascading in dangerous beauty
entrancing the serene portrait.

Water forcefully pulled down,
mistafying the grand beauty
a deluge of flowing torrents.

All eyes centered to the edge
where gravity plays with liquid ,
cascading in dangerous beauty.

yet the picture remains unmoving,
collecting dust on the wall but
entrancing the serene portrait.

Cascade, a form created by Udit Bhatia, is all about receptiveness, but in a smooth cascading
way like a waterfall. The poem does not have any rhyme scheme; therefore, the layout is simple.
Say the first verse has three lines. Line one of verse one becomes the last line of verse two. To
follow in suit, the second line of verse one becomes the last line of verse three. The third line
of verse one now becomes the last line of verse four, the last stanza of the poem. See the
structure example below:

a/b/c, d/e/A, f/g/B, h/i/C

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The world passes by those who fail to begin only for fear of an ending: A Sonnet

As winter shuffles in and stomps its boots,
and autumn, fleeing, leaves the door agape,
we shiver - shocked - and faced with absolutes
we're driven past the moment of escape.

Past any promise that we could contrive,
we're hugging our poor bodies, robbed of heat-
forgetting that our hearts could have revived
if we had let our frosty fingers meet.

It's too late to save for later, pale and staid,
pristine, but only for our lack of nerve.
Leaves pressed between some pages always fade
and crumble in our yearning to preserve.

We've given up, too timid to crusade,
and wind goes whistling down the trench we made.

A Sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines (iambic pentameter) with a particular rhyming scheme:

A Shakespearean (English) sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet, and rhymes abab cdcd efef gg.

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Starved Love - Journey of the Mind (Sestina)

In love and life I ride the waves.
One day drowning in sin and sorrow,
the next rejoicing beneath golden sky.
Such struggle within a clouded mind
when two souls live in a separate world -
desperate to fulfill the appetite of starving love.

Is it only in fairytales, this thing called love ?
Where mermaids sing at the crest of waves
and prince charming circles the world,
only to find his Cinderella in the grips of sorrow.
Have childhood stories tainted our mind
into wishing upon falling stars that light the sky ?

Days pass - another moon, another sun reaches the sky.
Something in me believes there must be true love,
yet my heart never seems too convince my mind.
I rest, only to find sleep comes in waves,
and dreams once again awaken the sorrow.
Still tomorrow I will again, take on the world.

Feeling like a triangle in this circular world -
Tonight I find myself there, again, staring upon this sky.
Searching for answers between tears of glee and sorrow,
trying to understand if there is indeed an existance of true love.
My thoughts resting only to pound again, intrusive waves -
snickering at the confusion deep within my mind.

Fimiliar darkness lingers, invading my mind.
Now I begin to question my - existance in this world.
Benumbed, I see the sunshine skip upon waves
and birds soar playfully across the sky.
Thoughtlessly upon clouds I trace these four letters ... l-o-v-e
only to be disappointed as they slowly drift away, laced with sorrow.

Am I destined to find happiness in this journey through sorrow ?
Shall there ever come a day, my heart will convince my mind
there truly is a thing called 'true love' ?
Or shall I settle for the one who seemingly fits into my world
yet never strokes the shadows of my soul beneath midnight sky ?
In life and love how long can I, survive the waves ?

So much sorrow, love created in this world.
Yet in the depths of my mind, beneath this midnight sky.
I will forever search for true love, until I can no longer - ride the waves.

Sestina
The sestina is a strict ordered form of poetry, dating back to twelfth century French troubadours. It
consists of six six-line (sestets) stanzas followed by a three-line envoy. Rather than use a rhyme
scheme, the six ending words of the first stanza are repeated as the ending words of the other five
stanzas in a set pattern. The envoy uses two of the ending words per line, again in a set pattern.

First stanza, ..1 ..2 ..3 ..4 ..5 ..6
Second stanza, ..6 ..1 ..5 .. 2 ..4 ..3
Third stanza, ..3 ..6 ..4 ..1 ..2 ..5
Fourth stanza, ..5 ..3 ..2 ..6 ..1 ..4
Fifth stanza, ..4 ..5 ..1 ..3 ..6 ..2
Sixth stanza, ..2 ..4 ..6 ..5 ..3 ..1

Concluding tercet:
middle of first line ..2, end of first line ..5
middle of second line ..4, end of second line..3
middle if third line ..6, end of third line ..1

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The Conundrum of Ambiguity

The pendulum strikes!
He asks for more time, but
Evanescence is ever present.

Churlish is the word
Of the day, they say, as his
Neck bends to consent an
Unorthodox decision bearing
Naught but false claims,
Denying all hope for
Reprieve - though,
Unclear as the facts may be, he is a
Martyr to his cause.

Oh, dearest death...
For death is dear in repugnance...

At last, the ax
Meanders downwind, and
Bits of fearsome revolutionary
Inklings can be seen
Gasping for a final, flying breath.
Unfortunately,
It happens with ill showmanship -
Three more falls before
Yclept the end.

Acrostic Poetry is where the first letter of each line spells a word, usually using the same
words as in the title.
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Sounds Of Solitude (Double Tanka)

Subtle hums blows in,
caressing calmly my dim spirit .
Preciously I listen ,
to the peaceful solitude.
Staring at the voidness of time.

Alas wind blows in
disturbing the sense of silence .
Straining to listen
for the last few calm minutes.
I lose solitude moments

Tanka is a classic form of Japanese poetry related to the haiku with five unrhymed lines of five,
seven, five, seven, and seven syllables. (5, 7, 5, 7, 7)

I adore the Ode (though it's borderline free verse, eyy?) and the Sonnet.

"You made
my lover.
You gave me his breath
on my breast.
You budded beads of
salt along his back and entangled
my hair in his fingers, my head caught
in the curve of his shoulder, whispers of worship
muffled in the tumble towards
your promise."

Oh hello there!

The Ode to Sex is completely splendid.

Edit:

Haha! We were so obviously lurking, Jane.

-Lurk lurk- Yeah, we're good at that ;)

Edit: I'm bummed 2 people didn't submit their poems. Appreciate that you're still in guys! Show some respect to those who were knocked out of the contest in previous rounds by remaining active. Maybe there will be a wildcard round again? :)

I hear ya, Jane. But I suppose the nature of these sorts of challenges is to sift through the participants who lack the racehorse stamina and testicular fortitude needed to even stay in the running, thereby ensuring only the fittest remain in the race. By even daring to submit ANYthing, you're a winner.

Says I.