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BlackFrost posted:Sure, I'll bite. I haven't written poetry since High School (more of a prose guy), but this is the Thunderdome, and I expect to be hurting by the time it ends. Your lack of bravado - terrible garbage ![]() Own that rule, son
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# ? Feb 15, 2025 12:39 |
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BlackFrost posted:Flash rule: Must be a haiku (can be longer than three lines, to meet the criteria of the thread. So just go 5-7-5 over and over). If someone deems this rule as "Terrible Garbage" then too bad, this is the loving THUNDERDOME bitches. M-M-MEGAHAIKU? ![]()
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Just being clear here Try me.
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Call me Stockholmed; I'm back in. And I would like to see proper epic poetry. A real narrative. Long, epic simile. Iambic pentameter. Make Homer rise from his grave to come kick your arse. If you don't, I will. Symptomless Coma fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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gently caress it, I'm done. Let this be a lesson to us all.supermikhail posted:a poem featuring my vision of the late Thunderdome MMXII. The Ballad of the Challenger 371 words Three slav'ring heads the creature had that staggered forth to greet me; And though I knew it only meant to judge me, not to eat me, I felt a wave of panic wash throughout my timid body – For though I'd laboured through the night my poetry was shoddy. I knew that surge of primal fear, that heralds one's demise; And yet I struggled onward, for to vindicate my lies. I'm in, I'd said, I'm down for this, you've lessons, I'm to learn them – But one glance at my writings, and I yearned inside to burn them. The creature knew it – this I sensed from 'neath its wrathful glares; The eyes of all three heads were turned to scrutinise my wares. And now its dread mouths opened, and let out a slew of scorn, That did, though just, diminish me to that which I'd been born – An infant! Just a suckling babe, all withered on the teat, Not capable by half, it seemed, of standing on its feet; And all around, the jeering calls of others in that Dome, Did flood me with desirousness to lock myself at home And curl into a little ball beside my TV set, And lose myself in pabulum, that I might soon forget Those aspirations that had called me to the written word, Instead to lumber on through life an illiterate turd. Alas, it was too late for this. My efforts were exposed; that dread Judge laid its tentacle upon my stinking prose, And tearing, as an octopus might shuck a barnacle, The beast excoriated me: 'A try-hard, and a fool.' I wept, though no emoticon could justly represent The depth of sorrow that I felt – but lo, the monster went To criticise the next poster, whose prose, I knew, was worse! My terror dissipated like some ineffectual curse, And sighing with relief I sank into my writer's chair; The Thunderdome Chimaera was reputed to be fair. I could relax – I ate and slept, and went about my life, But niggling doubts kept at me, always twisting, like a knife. Before too long, I'd logged back in, myself to reassure; Imagine, then my horror – 'neath my name – the SHAME-ATAR! STONE OF MADNESS fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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BlackFrost posted:Flash rule: Must be a haiku (can be longer than three lines, to meet the criteria of the thread. So just go 5-7-5 over and over). If someone deems this rule as "Terrible Garbage" then too bad, this is the loving THUNDERDOME bitches. Challenge accepted: I'm in. Master Buson, guide my hand. Flash prompt: your poem must have a rhyming scheme, but must not include the same rhyme twice.
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Etherwind posted:Challenge accepted: I'm in. Master Buson, guide my hand. Etherwind, your prompt is mine: Symptomless Coma posted:And I would like to see proper epic poetry. A real narrative. Long, epic simile. Iambic pentameter. Make Homer rise from his grave to come kick your arse. Virgil and Dante and those various anonymous dudes who wrote Gilgamesh are your guides for this week... Symptomless Coma fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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You never said you were in explicitly, and your phrasing of the prompt was ambiguous. If you'd wanted me to take your prompt, maybe you should have been clearer? ![]() Editing it after the fact doesn't save you.
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^ Clearly you two now have to Thunderbrawl for the haiku prompt..?
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STONE OF MADNESS posted:^ Clearly you two now have to Thunderbrawl for the haiku prompt..? Symptomless Coma, I'm calling you out! One story, one time, one thousand words maximum. You can pick the prompt, because I'm loving hard, and sebmojo can judge if he is willing. Winner gets the haiku prompt, loser takes the other's prompt. Do you accept?
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STONE OF MADNESS posted:gently caress it, I'm done. Let this be a lesson to us all. ![]() 0/10 ----- More seriously, though, that's what I'm talking about - that's the kind of poetry that's meant to be read, not nose-picked about (rhymes, I mean).
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I have started writing this megahaiku, Etherbreeze. By the seven hells, I shall finish it. A brawl it is! *heavens shake, crowd roars, salted nuts are passed out* But what caused this challenge? Nothing more than mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting, wishy washy double-talk. ![]() Something I have been accused of before. So, this prompt couldn't be simpler. TELL IT TO ME STRAIGHT. Sebmojo is welcome to judge, but I also want to see crits from STONE OF MADNESS, in his role as chief poo poo-stirrer. 24 hours enough for you? If so, the deadline is Friday, 09:59 GMT.
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Etherwind posted:Symptomless Coma, I'm calling you out! Yep, I'll judge that. Flash rule: I have to care about one of the characters by the end. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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entropy or something like it After many long days I lay down to sleep in the middle - who knew rosewood had no smell? Bartolini mkII and casual epiphany stowed in a shoebox. poo poo it's all coming back to me. Tell me why you cry kiddo. poo poo I know- I just wanna hear you say it. It's eating me inside-out and that's just the dark cells; venal things that never once said please. what happened to my hands? You always knew them better than me. We met a man with rags in his soul and had him drink gasoline; the cosmic molotov- what we smallfolk call purpose. You taste like cloves and you smell like poo poo but I like that about you, kiddo. You light my fire- you make my morning like fresh-juiced OJ and little hairs stuck in the shower drain. In the back room of a pizza place on Cuba we met a man whose head was a brown peach. He had baby gums- bare, pink and fragile. You remember? He said “my lover has fat thighs and my guitar has five strings and I teach both to sing in the dead of night,” and he had us dance until the candle burned down. There's a fist of dark cells growing around my heart and one day soon it'll grow so big that even fire can't kill it. It's young but it's got promise- it's making friends, setting down a few roots. Come back in a few months kiddo and it'll put on a show. I got locked in the metro once- me and this 5'2 French bloke smoking gauloises from 3am til sunup 'cos “there's always a train running in Paris. Just you wait.” Nothing came out of that tunnel but dead air. We drank them down to the filters; two hot inches of air to stop the shaking in our hands. To shake is a fine thing- it means your heart's still beating. I shook when the peach man played- shook until the candle burned down. You taste like cloves and two inches of hot air. I know what you're going to say kiddo. I just want to hear you say it. [355 words] ![]() ![]() SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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To be entered on my inevitable win over Symptomless Coma: So Haiku have to be self-contained, which makes building a narrative out of them quite challenging. I ended up forgoing the kigo in quite a few of them, and in others I broke with the modern perception that the juxtaposition must be common. Etherwind posted:Memories Edit: forgot word count, 339. Etherwind fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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I accept the rhyming challenge. I'm in. The next person's poem must be a ballad. Like a real deal loving ballad, not a bunch of rhyming couplets with "ballad" in the title. HiddenGecko posted:
I think of my writing as junk food. It's the shallow fishin' hole as opposed to the ocean. It's your summer gently caress-buddy as opposed to your wife. I go for entertainment value over substance. It's meant to be a lark. However, I accept your challenge. I will attempt to spill my guts in my rhyming poem about death. Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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You can't do justice the ballad genre unless you write in authentic Middle English. Oh, the music of those "thou"s and "wherefore"s. I don't think your summer gently caress-buddy necessarily mustn't cook well and be deep.
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I would not complain if they threw in some Middle English.
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I'll take the ballad challenge. If anyone else applies, my flash rule is you must write the poem in iambic pentameter.
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EDIT: drat, beaten to the ballad while typing my response. Alright, Iambic Pentameter challenge accepted. On this, the first challenge of the new Thunderdome thread, I step into the Dome for the first time. I never learned to love poetry while taking the required courses on it during my schooling. Poetry's rules and constraints baffle me and leave every attempt I make at it awkward and silly. If I can't learn to appreciate it by Sunday, I will learn to hate it - I will make it my bitch. Now for my rule. The next person who enters must write a poem based off the rules of Concrete Poetry (here's an info page on it http://www.poemofquotes.com/articles/concrete-poetry.php). Why concrete poetry? Because every amateur attempt I've ever seen at it has been awful and I want to see you fools do better. monkeyboydc fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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Poetry? I hate poetry! Therefore, I'm in. I'll take that concrete poem and make it tough enough to contain gamma radiation! Edit: vvvvvv Next person's rule is in that post vvvvvvv Meis fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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Mysterious space radiation has seeped in and infected Meis' prompt! For not including a flash rule you've subjected yourself to another one: your entry must be upbeat and optimistic. To you joining after, I want to see something from the perspective of a dying man.
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I tried to play it straight- like a song you'd hear in an old pub or something. The General's Fate - 553 words Throaty howls and the clanging steel Filled the battlefield. Stomping boots crushed upon the ground as blows fell on the shield. The General stood before the men “Today’s the day we die!” And with a flourish of his sword He led them with a cry. Down deep into the blooded marsh The General killed with ease And all His men looked on in awe as they saw He was pleased. For every head that He did chop And every bone He broke The General’s grin grew larger And began His horse to stroke. “Onward steed, let no man stop us” was His coarsely uttered roar; onward they went to sow that field with discord and bloody gore. The day grew long as the battle raged And men looked on their Maker. Souls plenty sent to Heav’n or Hell As they all sought favor Of the fierce and mighty General. But when He found the camp Where the foe had kept their kin He trod forth, raised His lamp “Women, children, all without guard, what protects your righteous lives?” The General sneered and drew His blade As mothers fled amid babies’ cries. The gruesome work began with vigor. The General killed them all, Except for one – a child – No more than four feet tall This Boy of ten years stood his ground And cursed the General’s name. The Boy threw stones and hurled barbs As the General forward came. His wicked steel shone in the light Of the bright harvest moon, And He swung down to end the Boy’s Pure young life too soon. But Heav’n guided the steps of the boy As he darted beneath The General’s many vicious cuts And drew a knife from sheath. The General’s great laugh boomed aloud As he mocked the child’s play “What foolishness jest you young boy? Your flesh I’ll surely flay!” Yet the Boy let out a victor’s cry As he found the armor’s chink And thrust his blade deep in the gap Faster than his foe could think The General fell into the mud And breath’d His life’s vapor Out into that frigid black night. He saw Hell’s demons caper. “What fate finds me this fateful eve! A disgrace to my name, that my final duel did come unbid; This wound has ended my claim To an honored place in the halls Of my many lauded kin. I am done in by this youth’s blade; A warrior’s greatest sin Is to find himself thus felled Not by war but a child. The Boy responded with a voice No longer meek or mild “Go on, you beast, you soulless man, go die a coward’s death; you sought to kill the innocent, so with your dying breath I command that Hell take you on Down to the fiery pit And torture you for every drop Of blood that you have spilt.” And thus the General met his end At the hands of this young boy, A death noted for both its justice And its method of employ. A lesson learned for all men that Life’s end can soon be met By forthright battle in the field. Or, lest you all forget, That even the mighty can find Their end on a child’s knife. Beware the fate of those with hubris; Your pride will end your life.
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Meis posted:Poetry? The white space is almost as important as the words Because I'm showing off this week, here's a concrete experiment I did a few months back. I swear not everything I write is like that. Just the good stuff, for some reason. code:
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Aaaaw poo poo bro, I love concrete. Meis, you'll be wanting to use the [ code ] [ code ] tags or SA's formatting will ruin it. Also, you can't use forum code inside the [ code ] blocks so you can't use bold/italics etc. pre:Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair We use it all the time over in Traditional Games when we're making ou- guys? Guys? Edit: To clarify, everything between [pre ] and [/pre ] is rendered without first going through the preprocessing to strip white space. So you can use an arbitrary number of spaces, tabs and any other special characters that would normally be stripped out, and use them in any position you like. However, unlike [code] the tag does not interpret all the contents between the tags as literals, so it still searches for matches on forums codes and smilies. Etherwind fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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Bad Seafood posted:Mysterious space radiation has seeped in and infected Meis' prompt! For not including a flash rule you've subjected yourself to another one: your entry must be upbeat and optimistic. Oops. Got a bit over-enthusiastic and I went and forgot to add my own flash rule. Additional restrictions, just another obstacle to overcome. No problems. Also I might just create an image file rather than gently caress around with [code] or [pre] tags. That way I won't be limited by anything in regards to creating shapes! ![]()
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Etherwind. Your pre-emptive poetic mindgames and knowledge of haiku don't faze me. Much. The Remainder. (579w) It's 0030 on the blackberry and my children are back in bed, as is my husband. Word is open. The little vertical bar blinks impatiently. Ian's booked the press for 0630. I type, A disaster has happened. May as well start with the truth. It's 0100 and Kevin's come over with takeaway, security-approved pizza and his draft notes. His words soar, as they always do, but they saw too high and the phrase "out of touch" still appears in my dreams, coming out of phones I answer or printed in dossiers I open. Kevin makes that joke Stalin made about a million deaths being a statistic. I'm not sure it was a joke at the time, but politicians have a habit of getting misquoted. It's 0112 and we've destroyed the pizza together, high glycemic index be damned. Kevin asks if there's anything else he can do for me. I tell him there isn't. He should be at home, like I am. It's 0139 and I've got the BBC, Associated Press, Guardian and TMZ open on tabs. Tabbed browsing was invented by the enemies of freedom, I swear. AP always have the easiest time of it. Pure fact, other people's actions and opinions. I decide to be more encouraging of Sarah the next time she says she wants to be a journalist. It's 2008 and I'm being introduced to Richard Phillips who will run the campaign as he has run so many before him. I ask him, as I will in every quiet moment, the only question I have. "How do I win?" "That's simple. Be direct, and be you." "That's all?" "Simple and easy are two different things, Minister." It's 0202 and I'm debating the difference between sorrow and dismay using Winston's old thesaurus. It's in surprisingly good state. I think he hardly used it. I close the book and type, sadness. It's 0231 when I finally tire of watching Winston Churchill speeches. The phrases are so simple, but the speeches are so lofty. Words for another time, when the subject matter was a war that everyone wanted to happen. I check YouTube for videos of myself. The most popular is still the one of me tripping up the stairs at Conference. It's 0322 and I have three paragraphs written. It's like exams again. The room is too big and too quiet, there's a pressure in this chamber that makes me want to scream. It's 0410 and my blackberry - my personal blackberry, vibrates the desk. I have an email - just like Richard to make contact at four, after a year. He offers condolences tips. He says, I miss you. Just reply. It's easy. I slam the phone onto the keyboard, hoping that between keypad and keypad something intelligible might come out. Millie's little face peeps out from the oak door. I didn't think she could manage the stairs, yet. "Mum, what's happened? Why are you still awake?" "People have died, honey. Lots of people." "Everyone?" "Not everyone. But have had to say goodbye to their mummies and daddies." She steps out of the shadows. The huge study makes her look even tinier. "Can we look after those people?" "We can't make them better, Millie. But we'll try to help them. Now go back upstairs, and I'll make you some cocoa." Millie nods her head. I stare at the clock, at the blackberry, at the map of the nation, and wish that everything was this simple.
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Symptomless Coma. You don't impress me. Much. So you've got the words, but haven't got the touch. And don't get me wrong, yeah, I think you're all right: but that won't help you win in this long, hard, lonely fight. I am so sorry. Etherwind posted:Conversions
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Oh, yeah, should probably have mentioned this. Since everyone's prompt is subject to custom tailoring, kindly include your flash rule in your submission post. It makes things easier to keep track of. If you've already submitted you're off the hook. This time.
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Etherwind, Symptomless C, I've read 'em both and crits will follow ere the 12th ![]()
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Bitches, I'm on a roll this week. Here's a thing:![]() ![]()
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SurreptitiousMuffin I totally owe you a brawl from earlier and really loving want to, but I have a small novel worth of poo poo I have to write for this weekend (no joke: if I thought I could manage both I would). Is this a one-time offer, or can I murder you next week? STONE OF MADNESS, cool poo poo, could you drop me a preview via PM if you get it done before then? I am hungry for pain.
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Flash rule - first and last word the same. we left, and it was OK code:
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:
Flash rule: Sestina http://poetry.about.com/od/poeticforms/g/sestina.htm Bite of the Grind You! Take note of the Grind! Bite down and taste the blood Open your eyes and shake the rust Servant of Heaven we are a tool Tasked with souls to save, Bask in the power. Without your power, Succumb to the bite of the grind. Your light you must save, Don't spill your own blood. Keep sharp your tool Or infect the host with rust. Gurney rolls in, squeek rust! Ventilator, electricity, buzz power! Attach the cord, swing tool! Rough skin, rough eyes, grind! Ignore the sweat, forget the blood Do it my way, save! But no we can't save, Sickness wins, and we rust. We fought with our own blood, And it sapped our power. This is how it feels to grind. Merely a blunted tool. Hands are tied to the tool. How many we did not save? This weary slog, our grind. In our own tears we rust, Unplug it all, cut the power, Clean off all this blood. But now again there's fresh blood, Arm yourselves, get the tools! To redeem is true power, This body we must save, Fight through the rust, This is how we grind! With our tools we can save, Blood cannot make us rust, Power in all things, we will beat the grind.
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Benagain, have you contacted HiddenGecko for judging our Brawl?
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![]() ![]() Ok, I'm here. I've binged on pasta after a hard day of manual labor and my brain is working again. I'll judge the heck out of this Thunderbrawl. Since this week we're exploring poetry in all it's terrifying forms I'm giving you two something interesting ![]() Contestants: Noah and Benagain. Others may join as well. Conditions: You're going to write a SHAPE poem. http://goo.gl/LHMeD will give you an exact idea of what I'm talking about. Your Prompt: "Canned peaches, a down comforter, and the gardener." Your prize: MY LOVE Deadline: Saturday afternoonish. Since this is an artsy kind of prompt and you'll need the time to make it good. Since the format for this is unconventional you can hand draw your poem, save as a PDF, use html, or even save it as a bitmap. Whatever it takes to get me the poem Now GO ![]() HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jan 11, 2013 |
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Double Post. Martello. Could you pretty please judge a Thunderbrawl between me and Iroel. I need someone with the terrifying hard tack you're made up of.
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Down. Don't forget, we're on a 3 round Thunderbrawl HiddenGecko. We'll need two more prompts.
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gently caress yes. So in for this.
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# ? Feb 15, 2025 12:39 |
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STONE OF MADNESS posted:Etherwind, Symptomless C, I've read 'em both and crits will follow ere the 12th I have made my decision, but will wait for Madness' crit to render it.
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