FOP BATTLE THREAD

9. Time

That Wednesday I got up at the unholy hour of 4.45am,
and, eyes glued with sleep, felt for the corn flakes
and splashed a spit of milk on the clean counter.

The mountain air tasted like caffeine and married
my senses once again. The river meandered
in front of me in the dim barely-dawn.
At the massy bank I set up my rod, tied on
a teal blue silver and threw out the first cast.

The sunrise rewarded me with the sight of an osprey
beak-diving into the waters and emerging
juggling a brown trout. I watched the sun rise
and smelt the mountain air and felt like spring.

10. Rhyme

I once saw a cat,
who sat on a mat....
Ok, so this is what I'm at?
A competition has reduced me to chit-chat
poetry. Oh where is the inspiration I had long ago?
Don't worry, only 50 or more poems to go!

1. A formed poem - diamante

loss
barren, lovelorn
slipping, standing, breaking
half empty, half full
sharing, slipping, fixing
courageous, unusual
gain

2. 30-32 syllables

"Slaughtered sheep, defect dreams;
no man alive till all greed sleeps."

She sung and sung, twirled like feathers,
chanted a spell for ever and ever.

3 - "a star"
Lovers
There's a pair of tan legs stretched
across the bed of a tailgate, and he can't help
but wonder if a star falling now
is the reason for her whispering wishes
aloud. In that moment, he'll promise her the moon
and lasso it with his heart
just to make her his bride.

4 - Song Title
Walk The Line
We'll tiptoe the universe
and crash along Saturn's rings,
where ant-less picnics take place.

We'll snack on watermelon rinds
and laugh about the dust
settling on our grapes.

We'll escape to our fantasy,
and walk the line of reality,
for one more breath with each other.

5. Category must be sad/depression

Control yourself.
Delete.

Control - delete.

Never save.

And I'll glue my fingers to these keys
till my sanity sounds like poetry,
till I stop counting the ways flies
won't fly away from me, till the clock
stops ticking in my head even when I'm dreaming.

Because I'm never save if I look up
from this screen, where colours collide
and make up the broken mosaic I'm living in.

I'm never save, so I don't save myself.
It's head above all, and no head over heels.

Control yourself, delete.
Control, delete, never save.

6. Free choice of any poem at all

Everywhere I go, pigeons follow my heels
as if they smell that I don't belong in flip flops
and aim to steal every bit of rubber
as if it were bread crumbs.

The tourists gawk at their majestic union,
photocamera at hand, feet planted in pavement,
as if they, too, want to be a monument,
waiting for wings to descend upon them.

7. 10-12 lines

Traitor:
Cursed may you be
for allowing your body
to be turned into a bloody canvas,
where damnation crawls out of decay

Lifeless - hollow - broken.
Stop your mythology of violence,
and break the evil circles
of your fear-induced despair
overreaching

Beyond all hells I'll wait
for my sleepless dreams.

8. Must include a body part in your poem/title

Even after betraying the forever I promised,
I still throw your name out into the wind
whenever I stumble over the skeletons
of my past lives weighing me down,

Chaining my shoulders to the world,
forcing me into a state of disgrace
where the only penance for my hate
is turning into Atlas in your place.

9 - Time or Date

She reads the words painted
on his ribcage at midnight,
so focused on the placement
that she refuses to see
the lust in her own eyes. He graciously
allows this mistrust, knowing full well
what it will be made of -
a bed of bruised lips and tattered hair
full of the passion she's become to resent.

10 - Rhyme

She paints pink roses
on her breasts, pretentious noses
go flying - surreptitiously crying
for a recall of morals. Of course they'd rather
do their blathering in quiet,
for their own hypocritical nonsense
may be laundered by it.

1. A formed poem

Acrostic - Uninspired

Uninspired lines I vomit,
Never aiming beyond mediocrity,
In the wake of repeating circles
Nullifying the protective charms,
Stopping my imagination from flowing freely.
Pained fingers and 4 hours later,
I am stuck in the echoes of my former glory,
Reaping the last force of power standing -
Ending the forever that I created in my
Dreams.

2. 30-32 syllables

Finding the dreams of a tomorrow lasting
means going beyond the yesteryears,
breaking the habits of self-neglecting pride.

3. Include "a river/ocean" or "a star(s)" either by the words, or through metaphor.

The seashell she left
still sits atop your cd-case,
as if between every guitar riff
you could hear the corals being caressed
by the breathing bubbles
of underwater laughter.

It always astonished me, the way
wood and ocean clashed, and merged,
like a sinking ship, but she saved you
and carried your brokenness,
as light as foam, and left you a souvenir
to keep holding on.

4. Use a song title for the poem's title.

Burning in the skies

Vermillion birds, rise, rise
but it's not New Year's eve,
and the laughter, it dies.

Beaks peck through the air,
picking up scraps of metal,
stripping its tropical flavour.

Burning in the skies
are rockets in mid-bloom,
denying celebration.

5. Sadness/Depression

My fingers snap easier
than the pencils you've placed
between your anger. I don't know
when we got to the place
of hushed darkness
and cold corners.
You used to hold me like a map
and devour the legend
like it was your passion,
until it wasn't. I'm not. We aren't.

6. Freebie!

There are children dancing in the background
at the edge of the park,
and I work alongside them, listening to their squeals
of freedom, their easy laughter, and their
ice cream smiles. None of these children are mine;
I've been given the task to keep
a watchful eye, but have yet to be blessed
to hold the responsibility of a watchful heart.

7. 10-12 lines

If ideas are never unique, then forgive me
for recycling my ideas, over and over,
bereaving my own brain, till nothing's left
but dust, that will settle on my words
and cloak their meaning, like a cheap mantle,
tricking my poems into feeling like a queen
that reigns with the bereavement of sleep,
just to realise, upon sobriety,
that it never brushed its teeth,
nor changed its underwear,
just to realise that all it's ever been
was a queen of bad odour.

8. Must include a body part in your poem/title

You collected my hair, my nails,
vacuumed all of my body,
like I was meant to walk upon.

Sometimes I thought you were in love
with death, praying and praying again, in front
of the bedpost, you inscripted my date of birth upon.

9. Time/Date

It's the first Saturday in September,
and we're nearing 6 o'clock. I can hear
her heartbreak from down the aisle
and we turn to stand for the bride.

She's stunning, of course, and
I could have sworn her
soon-to-be husband stopped breathing
for the quickest moment.
Moments of tattered lace and broken pearls
mean nothing to the memory
of that first glance,
the last single smile just before
the first committed touch of the lips.

10 - 1 Rhyme

Daisy was a cat
who played with a bat,
tossing it in the hat
where her owner sat.

She never liked to play
during the hours of the day
(if there was any way
all she would do is lay).

(poem 60)

ROUND 7

1. formed poem

Acrostic - battle cry

Besieged by heartbreak,
all beauty was lost.
Turning and twisting,
threatening sleep with loss,
like a wounded dog
enveloped in rain.

Chaos ensued, but
rallying hope helped
yearning to survive.

2. 30-32 syllables

She speaks in monologue,
even ignores walls,
for they could conspire
with the floor, thence conspire
with the earth, spilling her secrets
to hell.

3. River/Ocean or "A Star"

I long to feel the misty breeze
crash against my legs, instead of a whipping wind
slam against my face. Someday there will be
my very own blessing, a softness sent to me
by the ocean. Until then, I'll fashion these
sandcastles in the dark and await my turn.

4. Song Title

Say Something

I watch as your eyes squint toward the sun
and realize the wrinkles burrowed upon your face
are full of worries about me. You never utter a word,
but expect me to just know. I hear conversations
all the time of how you're no mind reader,
but you never offer the same respect.
I refuse to tiptoe on shattered glass; I refuse to
pretend your scarring doesn't bother me, and I refuse
to admit any of this at all to you.

5. Category must be sad/depression

Summer rain came as a bad representation
of how she felt when the last lines of her laughter
were drawn on the canvas of aching bones,
reminding her day by day that the bitterness
of unconditional and unrequited love
is the last memory of life she had,
before she stopped hating
leaving bed in the morning.

6. Free choice of any poem at all

Echoing
throughout hollow forests,
her voice guided by regrets,
she prayed that her wishes
would reach past the gloom and doom

That she'd have a place to return to,
a house called a home.

7. 10-12 lines

The water bottle's drying up
on her desktop, and she feels like a raisin,
her fate sealed by the sun and studying.
She thought about feeling like wine,
but wine would turn sour with time,
and she's been too sour all of her life.
Hence she's been trying to cleanse herself
with water, but even the purity of water
is abandoning her now, as if it was never there,
a fata morgana. Perhaps she should stop
hallucinating, focus on her maths
or count the days till summer holidays.

8. Must include a body part in your poem/title

Eye to eye, but all you seemed to notice
was the scar on my left ear,
making me wonder if you had microscopes
for irises, for I could never read you,
but you, my dear, mapped the very anatomy
of my past, and somehow, somewhere,
I began to hope that our anatomies
would merge on paper.

9. Time/Date

There's sugar on her tongue
and she uses her eyes to cast
a lightning on men's souls.

She waits until last call,
2:30am hits
and she strikes.

The clock dings
and like a rocket she flashes
onto her next victim.

She's a sassy girl,
with spit in her heart
and evil in her smile.

10. At least 1 Rhyme

There's a day full of
seventy-five degrees
in my view,
yet I haven't a clue
why rain must continue.

(poem 70)

ROUND 8

1. A formed poem - senryu

Waft of lewd perfume
arrives on the bus station -
watch your pants, mister

2. 30-32 syllables

She wished to be a wallflower,
but had beer for colourings.

Teeth yellowed with self-hatred,
decomposing her dignity.

#3 River/ocean/star

I held your hair when you painted the sink with
Vodka-flavoured sick, and tucked you in.
I didn't sleep all night, bucket at the ready.
You asked me why I looked so tired in the morning
but my lie was white.

I was the one you called first, I was the one
you laughed with over lasagne. I was the one
who showed you the North Star through the orange/black
city night sky.
I was the one.

#4 Song Title

There Were Roses (Cara Dillon)

There were roses in the friary garden,
pink and perfect. Brother Sean tended them,
green-fingered. The lawn was immaculate
and visitors sat on the scattering of benches
admiring the inner city sanctuary.

Young Seamus from the Heights arrived,
party-hatted and jerseyed. Brother Sean watched
the soccer match unfold from the window.
Watched the trampling of the roses and wondered
about the wonder of God's creation.

5. Category must be sad/depression

With feet tied to socks,
socks ties to shoes,
I walk - chained from fabric
to fabric, sinking in posession,
and it starts at the toe
but skirts amongst my skin
like a shiver, reminding me
how I'll die in material,
tied to irrelevance.

6. Free choice of any poem at all

In the elevator, music has been banished,
for youngsters are much like banshees,
demolishing everything by sound.

I'm such a youngster, except
brewing the cacaphony inside of my soul,
till someone demolishes my barriers
so the cries keep men from levitating.

7. 10-12 Lines

Deep breaths.
Don't allow this guilt
to consume you,
don't allow the evil
to overcome you.
Don't allow the darkness
to swallow you.
Hold your head higher
than the light.
You will succeed.

8 - Body part

My lips utter fancier words
than my elbows can throw -
that will be
the last you've ever
underestimated a woman's smile.