19/08/2008 Spaces - Writers Forum

Amber Leaf · 08-19-2008, 06:05 PM

Ok then. To kick start the poetry competition again we have the topic of 'Spaces' as suggested by Mermaid on the Breakwater.

Spaces - they could be spaces in time, distance or even ponderings over the inside of a few black holes. The choice is up to you - just write a poem about it, post it up in this thread and in four weeks time after I've found some judges to rate the best there will be a winner.

Good luck! Closing date is 17/09/2008.

(P.S. If anybody wants to judge then PM me now please.)

ohdear · 08-20-2008, 10:05 PM

Gone

Open arms
Empty
Long days
Cold nights

We loved
Laughed
Cried together
Intimacy

Now gone
Cancer
Stolen moments
Too much space

Mirror · 08-21-2008, 05:22 AM

Mirthless wait

Wait. If I can stop the warp-edged cells
watercut into marrow, I can hold you up.
Twenty years I've run behind; you moved
like a molten core then, powerful
and hard. Each molecule of you
pressured tendon and muscle; a tense lack
of space inside your pulsed blood
pumped the bones into motion, far away

from me. You found a fragile balance
only once- grab my feet, I'll reach for her –
that storm-loosened day little Maya lost her ground
and slid down a sluiced brokebone vein bleeding
into the sewer drain. Steel grates gave way with one heave
of mother-save-me strength; as you leaned, it took all of me
to snatch your iron anklecurve and stop you
from following her down headfirst. Saved
with a yank and a pull, the girl would not release
the most solid of us, knowing you couldn't break
or cave inwards like a hollowed shell.

Twenty years, and broken. That balance lost,
you could only watch as Maya's daughter climbed
atop a toy pram amalgam of cheap invention and tin
to see the winter ice weave on the window,
and the buggy crumpled, tilted, tumbled her
onto the dining room floor, cracked her open

arms. Now you labor to raise the same cold pane and breathe
the chill to see the fall of mercury through the frosted glass,
and I hear the same crack, glimpse the same slump of flesh
as your ulna crumbles, and know there's too much
looseness within you. The quicksilver rush of beaded poison
skitters away inside; a balled up race and grab, each second
sickens more. The arm snap breaks the pressure build
with ease. The skin cools too fast. Please. Just wait.

Nimbus1944 · 09-04-2008, 07:27 AM

And on the eighth day, stuck for some amusement,
God went about his universe to see
How each creation chose to use its spaces,
And from that, what potentials He could see.

The first creation days had been devoted
To separating Yin and Yang a span—
Day/night, sky/earth,wet/dry,light/dark and critters,
Then, afterthoughts—a Woman and a Man.

That takes a lot of work, y’know, creating;
He looked about and saw that it was good;
The 7th day he spent content at napping,
The 8th to walking in His neighborhood.

His goal was seeing how His nacent newbies
Agreed to use the space left in-between
And whether they had used their given genius
To peacefully divide, or vented spleen.

So Day and Night, He found, had soon decided
To time-share, split at Midnight and at Noon.
The Sky and Earth had chosen atmospherics,
For clouds and Day/Night’s golden sun and moon.

The Land and Sea had been unsure, He noticed,
And so in several ways their space was tossed;
So here there was a beach, and there a swampland,
Plus floods and tides and ice and permafrost.

Now Light and Dark had cleverly decided
They need do little, thought they with a yawn;
Just let Day/Night and Sky/Earth do their wobbles
And then declare their spaces dusk and dawn.

The fish liked swimming, while the birds chose flying,
Though some fish flew and some birds dove for food;
The lambs lay down with lions. All were happy;
He looked about and saw that it was good.

Two thousand earthly years went by, unnoticed,
Til He recalled His great eternal plan
Had also had two afterthoughts included,
And went to check the Woman and the Man.

He found the Man was naming names like crazy
(Their space was Eden, Adam said), while Eve
Devised a little business in her spare time:
A roadside apple stand, can you believe.

“Now, wait a minute,” God began. “How is it
You’re selling apples, when it’s just you two?”
“Oh that was then, and this is now,” said Adam;
“We’ve multiplied, and now there’s quite a few.”

God looked around, and sure enough, he noticed
A sizable contingent of their pride.
They sat around and multiplied like hamsters,
ate apples and spit apple seeds aside.

The apple seeds took root and generated
An orchard-full of fruitful apple trees;
The Eden space was choked with trees and people;
The apple blossoms drew in bumblebees.

The trees and bees and people had resulted
In drawing in the cows and deer nearby;
They feasted from the trees and were prolific,
And cow-pies hampered walking by and by.

God saw his only two house-flies approaching,
Attracted by the cow-pies in the lot.
He thought about it long before deciding
His afterthoughts required a bigger spot.

He spread them ’cross the earth and all was pretty,
Some apple trees becoming other wood,
First pines, then hemlocks, and et-cet’ra so-on;
He looked about and saw that it was good.

He wished them well and headed back to heaven;
And mankind said, “Y’all come back now, hear?”
He needed rest to think about the outcome,
And napped an eon and a megayear.

God woke, and stretched, and went to check His spaces.
He found the afterthoughts had filled the earth
With trees and bees and cows and flies and people,
Proliferating more with every birth.

He now had only one space left to grant them:
The space between His heaven and their world.
T’was huge, but wouldn’t Man and Woman fill it,
Each planet with a people flag unfurled?

He groaned; He realized that His creations
Could fill the “endless” cosmos wall-to-wall.
He’d only have to take a nap, and whammo!
His spaces would be used up, all in all.

“No more,” He thought; “I grant them this, their last space.
A patient soul, I’ve taken all I can
Of trees and bees and cows and flies and people;
The universe I hereby give to Man.”

And when the Eden outskirts crowded heaven,
He wiped it out, just like He said He would,
And used the space to build a model railroad;
He looked about and saw that it was good.

andrew_w · 09-08-2008, 06:58 PM

There was a time,
a long time ago,
where i would stand on this stage
my voice booming through the
worn mic.
The words would flow from my
lips.
And beauty was heard from my
spoken word.

There was a time,
a long time ago,
when i would have people
sitting in the floor
around the stage.
The ushers and such would try to
sweep them off.
Yet i would insist that they could stay,
for they were my true listeners.

But alas, this time has passed.
And all i stare at now are empty seat.
Spaces once filled with
lovers of poetry.
my poetry.
Surely it couldn't have gone so soon?

I ponder this,
as i sweep off the stage,
and stop dreaming of what could have been.

For me with Squalor · 09-09-2008, 12:30 PM

Happy End

My happy end is misery, met wine,
Blew right up in my shocked face,
As I told so many times:
’For your eyes are saying otherwise’

A little gangrene pillow I have to
Sleep with, some more rain now
I need it. In the end self helps ed
Was sharing ’your life’ thoughts
While suicide killed the author.
Voters lament, pale and spent.
And space crept in between.
Never wished the bastard
A shared drink with me.

These days are still those days,
Carpeting her well televisioned soul.
How to get over a broken heart in 10
Days? the blogger blindly wrote.
How to re-saddle a minced heart in
10 days? You don’t!

It’ll have to be ecclesiastical effervescence,
Or liquid interference, some glum combination
Of the two.

The only reply was from ’Suicide King’:
„Great piece of poetry!”

Olly Buckle · 09-16-2008, 06:12 PM

Sorry folks, we overran a bit here, next step is to consult ith judges, thank you all for your effort