THE CLUB'S POEMS AND SCORES

* IF YOUR NAME ISN'T ON THE LIST BELOW, PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE. THE ONLY POSTS ALLOWED ARE POEMS FROM THE TC TEAM LIST. THIS LIST CANNOT BE CHANGED. ANY COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION SHOULD BE TAKEN TO THE "MARATHON" THREAD.

* CONTEST STARTS 00:00 3 OCT PNQ TIME

* MODERATORS: If this thread goes beyond 100, please don't lock it, but I will try to make new ones on time if need be. Also, please delete any posts here that aren't poems (unless they're from me!).

TC TEAM LIST AND SCORES: 264
silvershoes: 7+10+8+7+8+9+9+9
Monster: 9+8+9+6+8+9+9
Nicko: 0
Hellon: 7+9+7+8+8+8+8+8+8
sibyllene: 9+10+9+8+8+8+8+8
Kevin: 0

THE THEMES FOR EACH ROUND
1. 21 syllables
2. Tanka
3. Water
4. Free verse
5. Include the word "microscope"
6. Wild card (pick any theme from this list)
7. Cats
8. aabab rhyme scheme
9. PnQ member
10. Alliterative verse
11. Five lines
12. Halloween
13. Toilet
Once all 13 rounds are completed by your team, go back to Round 1 again to start a new lap!

THE POINT SYSTEM
* Each submitted poem, if it complies with the theme of the round, will earn an easy 5 points straight away for your team, regardless of quality.
* Poems will also be roughly judged for quality- a maximum of 5 points can be earned for a high quality poem (giving a maximum total of 10).

HOW TO RACE
* The Great Marathon starts on 00:00 3 October, PnQ time.
* Anyone can start the race by submitting a poem for the first round in this thread.
* Another team member then completes the second round, and so on.
* A person who has submitted a poem MAY NOT submit another entry until TWO further rounds have been completed by other members of the team.
* All poems MUST be new and submitted here by the authors themselves.
* You may plot your team strategy within your club. CLUB LEADERS, it is up to you to do all you can to get your team's entries racing along. Bribe, threaten, shame, PM, blackmail...but get those rounds completed!
* With each entry, PLEASE LIST the Lap #, Round #, and the theme with your title.
* If all 13 rounds have been completed, the team can start from the Round 1 theme again to earn more points in further laps. These laps are unlimited.
* The team with the most points wins. Individual team members who gain the most points will also be recognised.
* It all ends on 00:00 9 October, PnQ time.

GOOD LUCK!!

Lap 1
Round 1
21 syllables

Family A La Mode

A woman
caught a man's eye.
They didn't have a child.
It wasn't in style
at the time.

Lap 1
Round 3
Water

"There is Nothing Like Thirst."

This is what she would have thought,
had she thought at all, with her sea-
glass eyes all dry and thick, looking
through another pane of frozen,
globbed-up liquid.

Her hair shivers with static, floats
stiff like feathers and wire. Knuckles like bark.
Fingers like cypress roots, greedy and sucking
and thirsty, always, for more. Hearts
shrivel like the last green onions of October.

Her eyes are dry. They look out.

Over the hills, no rainclouds gather.

Lap 1
Round 4
Free verse

Lost mind, Lost Soul

Humidity splits your skin
again and again
as panic sets in, your mind
sits at wits end.
Try to pretend that as far away
as the end is, its moral message depends
on the speed and precision
of malcontent and subsequent contrition.
Sitting and typing;
burrowing that magnificent skull
into a furrow stuck between
remorse and metamorphosis -
the doctor said that you'd do well,
that you'd be able to label
in detail your problems in a fable.
"A child's perception of right and wrong,"
she said
"is in the palm of your mind's hand."
but your grammar doesn't know how to began...
no, begin. You begun to spin a
rhyme of rhythms, a backbone of spines
and decent patterns to inspire laughter.
It seemed to go on for forever but
then at the end you said
"where did I begin again?"
You've become lost and you can't find your
way back, but remember:
always keep your feet on the ground and
your mind and soul will stay intact.

Lap 1
Round 6
Wild Card (Cats)

Cats are the girls who stir their coffee
with a tiny straw and a flick of the tongue, who
sling themselves languidly
on velvet cushions or moss,
feigning sleep, whose
eyes will dart suddenly,
secretly, sharpening like claws,
when they see prey go by.

Lap 1
Round 7
Cats

A Rather Odd Fellow

"Ah, yes, concerning cats...
I had a feeling we'd get to that."
The long-haired old fart
of a wise man spat.
"I surround myself with these
feline friends,
it's actually just a means to an end."
His eyes darted lazily
here
and
back
again.
"For you see in order to justify
my passionate love for tiny kibbles
day in and
day out...
I have to keep these pesky
bastards about."

Lap 1
Round 8 - Rhyming aabab

A Small Girl's Old Dog

He sprawls on the floor beneath her feet
She feels between her toes, his furry heat
The chafe of his tail on the floor - swish, swish
His sticky, hot breath stinging of meat
Wet tongue lolling out like a boneless fish

Lap 1
Round 10
Alliterative verse

Swooning ships
sink and swoop,
drip and droop,
bossed and doused by
wild wind, shear sharp,
and waves washing wickedly
against the hearty hull.
Pirates, proceed!

Lap -1
Round - 11
Five Lines

Shortchanged

Five lines?
My, I think I'll try
to write it in five minutes.
Oh, wait I lied and breathed a
breathy sigh. It only took five seconds.

Lap 1
Round 12 - Halloween

A Ghoul's Feast for Few

Pumpkin spice, chopped nuts, and fruity rum,
Mulled apple cider and an overripe plum
Pies in the oven, cold fritters on the counter
What other deliciousness can we encounter?

In fly the witches, from East and then West
To pick, poke, and choose of which they like best
Then climb the goblins in through the windows
Sucking and snorting and smelling their toes

The crones with their schemes, their evil plots
They share just one eyeball to gaze in the pots
And werewolves unwelcome, howl to the moon
Where are the warlocks? I hope they come soon!

The ale has been drunken, the cider has too
Baked goods have been eaten, and so has a shoe
It's All Hallow's Eve for at least one more hour
But we all fall asleep, nothing more to devour

Lap 2
Round 1
21 Syllables

The branches crack the
blue egg of the sky, strike
fall into my heart
like crushed,
blood-red leaves.

Lap 2
Round 2 - Tanka

An Autumn Drive

Cool wind whisks my face
The glass window cracked open
Air whistles and whines
The road paves itself ahead
Grey on grey; an Autumn drive

Lap 2
Round 4
Free Verse

Kevin

Kevin is too clever
for contests. We, banner-
wrapped, flaming, blood-spattered,
cast our poems onto the front in
frenzied passion. While he,
cool as a cucumber
(one of those prizewinning ones
with the giant foreheads)
gloats above the fray
in unwrinkled linen trousers.
He's the bad leg with which
we, a band of five, limp
into battle.

Lap 2
Round 5 - Microscope

Perfection?

You are gemstones and diamonds
Crystalline smiles and
Exotic essence
You are perfection at its finest
Riches abundant and
Fruitfulness aplenty
You are the purity of hope in chaos
Soft comfort on a cloudy day
Melodic harmony
You are all that is good and gay, true
But under a microscope
We might find a zit

Lap 2
Round 7
Cats

My cat is
my little striped shadow,
with a pink nose, a swinging
belly, and a curious knack for
evisceration.

She pads around
behind my head like
a dark-blooming unholy thing,
purring and stretching and
yawning, showing
every single one
of her teeth.

Lap 2
Round 8 - aabab rhyme

Sushi Unlimited

Freshly inebriated off three sake bombs,
I feel the sweat trickle from both of my palms.
I stand and I sway and I feel mighty gay,
and forgetting at last all my cluster-cussed qualms,
I sigh and I sputter, "what a marvelous day."

Lap 3
Round 10
Alliterative Verse

I Need to Take a Technology Class

My stupid screen keeps
swiveling around, since I
screwed with some setting.
Swish, swoosh, where is Safari?
Where is that silly symbol that stands
for "service?" This
stuff is making me sick,
the motion swerving and
swinging. Seriously?
Seriously.

Lap 2
Round 11
Five lines

Dinner

Briney broth bubbles
and pops, spewing drips and
drops all about on my counter top.
It's a mess here...
I listen as the wine talks.

Lap 2
Round 13 - Toilet

My Sim

The Sim in my Sim game
is showing red in bladder control
I want to relieve his loins
but I can't afford a toilet bowl
I try to save my Simoleons -
it's very important that he poops
But other objects are too inviting
like flower pots and B-ball hoops
It might take a few more days
before I have enough to let him go
Can a Sim die from this sort of thing?
Well, there's only one way to know...

Lap 3
Round 1
21 syllables

Historia

Visceral ties
keep us together, bound
like leather over the spine
of an old book.

Lap 3
Round 3 - Water

Alaskan Spring

Sleepily, she trickles across wedged rocks,
around mossy boulders,
in riverbeds of Alaskan landscapes,
singing herself into existence -
first, a quiet whisper,
then in spritely outbursts,
until it is all she can do not to explode
in a flood of lustful exuberance;
a picture of young zest and
unquenchable thirst for adventure!
She is the Springtime song of wilderness,
shaking the forest into flurry whilst
frothing against deep river walls and
rattling down frosted mountains.

Lap 3
Round 4
Free Verse

My sheets are dark and cozy
and it's far too cold outside.
The weather tricks its passage
and I burrow in to hide.

The birds have woken hours ago,
the frogs are all to bed,
exhausted from the final
creaks and croakings that they've said.

The sun rises before I do,
but I must be on my way.
Just one more yawn, and then a poem,
before I start the day.

Lap 3
Round 5
Include the word "microscope"

Love

Warm perfect curves
sparing no flesh.
This creation
is masterful.
Looking through
a microscope,
one will find that the
supple movements of
red blood cells
will never fail
to capture attention second
after glorious second.
Even her time spent standing
still makes the world
a better place.

Lap 3
Round 6 - Free Verse (Pick Any)

I'm sitting upstairs,
more like pooling as cold milk does in a bowl,
in a white and gold threaded papillon,
laptop overheating in my doughy lap,
and my thoughts are with you.

You're sitting downstairs,
more like hunched over as a clawing crab,
on the dirty green couch in my lobby,
laptop on a coffee table set before you,
and you're thinking on word roots.

I stomp the floor sometimes
to interrupt your busy thoughts,
and I imagine your knowing smile as you look up
at the ceiling and imagine me looking down
on you, thinking of you thinking on word roots.

Hellon, that's hilarious. Bravo!

Lap 3
Round 8
aabab rhyme scheme

Rebirth

Embers and ashes fly up in clouds,
the sun hides itself beneath a shroud.
A mighty winged beast soars through the air,
flames hug its body in tightly knit crowds.
Phoenix rises to heights that you wouldn't dare.

Lap 3
Round 9 - PnQ Member

Monkey Woman

That was not all they spoke of her
in rippling recesses of anarchy.

They marked her a heroine;
a silver-tongued rebel with
words like daggers at her belt.
They eyed one another edgily,
unsure of whether to throw her down like a beast
or worship her like the goddess that she is.

The ignorant stake her for a hammerhead,
the arrogant for a spotted hyena,
the wise for a sly red fox,
but I know what creature she really is.

She is the love-child of an Orangutan
and a Bonobo, and her head shakes
when she laughs.

Lap 3
Round 10 Alliteration

What a unreliable rabble we are
and Seriously, supper slack I have been
but no more flack! for Jack is back
with heavens high hopes
and top score,
to take the precious prize
from the likes of
moonlight muses and more

Lap 3
Round 12 - Halloween

Holiday Balloon

On Halloween night,
I ingest more sweets than one
year put together...
Over the next few days,
I swell up so big,
they tie me down with a tether!

Lap 3
Round 13 Toilet

Toilet humour used to be all the go
pull the chain and out it flowed
anticlockwise depends where you sit
from down South or some Northern git
but now we have to be all polite
or you upset all those political correctness types
darn shame if you ask me
now all I do in the toilet is have a Pee

Lap 4
Round 2 - Tanka

The Last Nectarine

In Spring, I plucked thee,
and heard the wet snap of twigs.
You burst on my palm;
there I licked your sweet nectar
and engulfed you whole - ohhh yes.

Lap 4
Round 3
Water

Dew drops are dripping
from leaf to leaf,
down that massive tree a mile high.

At its base sits a lone wolf;
he waits for a drink of the most
flavorful water in the forest.

It took a while
but the tiny little drops have
finished their long journey home.

The wolf sits in silence
and laps up the water in a pool
built up near the tree's roots.

Lap 4
Round 5 Microscope

Way back in highschool
biology used to be my favourite class
2, 40 minute periods per week
my mates thought me some laboratory geek
Barry Maister was my teacher's name
a tough taskmaster with cane in hand
he also gained Olympic fame
it was the only subject I truly loved
looking down that microscope
my only academic hope

Lap 4
Round 6
Wild Card (5 Lines)

Circle

It seems that somehow I always get
stuck here on the same path.
However, I do always enjoy my walk.
It's interesting, you see, how the trees
all tilt in the same direction.

Lap 4
Round 8 aabab rhyme

Its night time in my little house
My sons asleep as quiet as a mouse
Its late, time for me to hit the hay
yet I'm all alone without a spouse
but hope brings tomorrow, a brand new day

Lap 4
Round 9
PnQ Member

Nicko

Although abandonment
was certainly on our minds,
touching our hearts in all of those
not so pleasant ways,
you've returned to help The Club.
Unlike a certain unnamed
disappointment-harboring poet
(whimsical though he may be)
let us down, didn't have the
metaphorical stones to be here,
you came to see this through.
A bit more weight has been
lifted off our shoulders.

Lap 4
Round 10 - Alliterative

Fellowship

Somberly, Samwise is struck with simpering,
simply for his maverick master, Frodo -
whom he follows - forgot to fold his folly.
Legolas, on legs for days, left legions for no lesser lessons.
His place now plays him with the pledge of plucking at his bow, and fresh new friends,
they freely fight beside him:
A surly, short, and shaggy dwarf, and masterful man, who strides the manors madly.
Do we not already know their nifty names?
And lest we leave the littler folk, who serve as
servants too! Poor Pippin and meek Merry, I
have not forgotten you!

STARTING HAPPY HOUR #1, OPTION 2!

Let's do this, Janey.

Lap 4
Round 11
Five Lines

Migraine

Death seems to be clinging
to the back of my head.
A stampede of pounding drums
tramples past my ears
as I hide my eyes from the sun.

Lap 4
Round 12 - Halloween

The Unlucky Cat of the Season

We black cats, we do just fine,
until it comes to Autumn time,
and in this month, this one - October,
the fineness we had is finally over.
All Hallow's stories are twisted lies,
they say we're omens with evil eyes,
then children fear us, unless they're blind,
they make up stories about our kind.
Their mothers shun us from their doors;
they try to sweep us off their floors,
so we hide in shadows, day and night,
in fear of what happens if we're in sight.

Lap 4
Round 13
Toilet

Around the flush box
there is moisture collecting.
Someone just finished up in there
he flushed, washed his hands...
to be honest he may have even
brushed his teeth.

The toilet is still sweating
and every now and then I hear
a bit of water pulsing
through the pipes.
This might sound odd but
perhaps it's panting
from enjoyment.

Lap 5
Round 1 - 21 syllables

Forest Feline

Once I was a black jungle cat
lounging with chin on paw
in the curve of a strong bough.