Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Come at me, brah.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Weltlich
Feb 13, 2006
Grimey Drawer
The Reality of Hunting Dogs

Heaven’s net casts wide.
Though its meshes are coarse, nothing slips through.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching #71

Half remembered, now: a dark October night,
bracing cold, and all hounds — save one — placed
back into the camper shell by starlight.
My grandfather’s ears scanned the gloom. He paced,
listening for the baying, then scooped me up —
striding into the swamp. Lit by carbide,
muddy paw prints (evidence of his pup?)
were all we found along the bayou’s side.
Over pine covered hillocks, he’d let me tramp,
before carrying me across hip-deep
marshes. We turned back in twilight’s damp
chill. She sat truck-side, like nothing was amiss -
her nose swelling up from a copperhead’s kiss.

Meinberg
Oct 9, 2011

inspired by but legally distinct from CATS (2019)
Time Sucks

“In a certain house, where there were once many, there is one now;
Where there were many, at the end none remains!
With night and day as two alternating pieces of dice,
On the chessboard of the world, Time plays with living beings as pawns.”
-Bhartrhari, Passage of Time

I’m older than I should be,
I take a dozen pills a day, my back
aches all the time, my heart is failing,
but by the count of years, I’m not even
middle-aged yet. I’m getting older
faster than I ought to, every
day brings a new stress-induced wrinkle
as I scan my twitter feed and see
the exploits and the depravations of the truly
old, the wizened wealthy who refuse to die,
who cling onto life and their blood-earned
dollars. They rejoice in their decrepitude,
these ancient spreaders of rot, while I walk
step by step into the grave. What’s the point
of living long to see the death of the world.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Lament, With Fantasies

"And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound,
All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mournful and shrill
Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,
Gather up the red flower of her blood, which is holy."


-- Bion, A Lament For Adonis

A fantasy about that night: I run
Into the hotel hallway, naked, bound,
Screaming. My friends unbind me, lend me clothes,
and walk me to my room to get my things;
My rapist watches, silent and ashamed,
And then I never speak to him again.

After he saw my pain was real that night,
He moaned and wailed and wept; he said his hands
Should be cut off. My present self agrees,
But my past self still loved him all too well.
I forgave him. I comforted. I soothed.
My tears were not yet dry upon my cheeks.

Another fantasy: I slide a knife
Beneath his sternum, up into the heart.
He sputters, chokes on blood. I say the words
He said to me a week after the night
He cut a ragged chunk out of my soul:
"It's no big deal. Why are you still upset?"

I didn't leave him. I tried to pretend
My love was not broken and gangrenous.
It took me three years to work up the nerve
To amputate that rotten limb; I tried
To be kind. He cursed me to our friends.
"That harpy wouldn't even tell me why!"

Third fantasy: he dies in the car crash
A year before that night. I mourn. I heal.
(A messy thought, but sometimes I think
A widow's wounds would heal cleaner than mine.)
And as for him, he dies good, victimless.
His cycle ends with him and not with me.

No, he was never good -- but I pretend
To tell my younger self she loved a man
Who tried, not a viper waiting to strike.
I mince my words for her sake, not for his.
For him: If I'm a harpy, let my words
Befoul his table. Let him choke and starve.

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The Last Ennui

"It is best of all for mortals not to be born and not to look upon the rays of the piercing sun,
but once born it is best to pass the gates of Hades as quickly as possible and to lie under a large heap of earth."
- Theognis, Elegiac Poems, 425–28


I shy not of the dreams wrought in the sleep of death,
but that death may bring sleep, rather than the nothing we are due.

Alas, there is no direction in time,
where we may shoot an arrow and,
in blind optimism, dare to hope
to hit the mark of final ignorance:

For I'd be a fool to trust the kindness of entropy,
if the vast nature of the past delayed not our misery.

As such it may be only under a heap of earth,
but alive, that we may find solace,
lest infinity catch up again,
and in doing so bless us with life anew -

And in pondering the ennui of that eternity,
I suffer more to think the innumerable torments of a short life.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









it made me think of steve

Now Pegasus flew away and left the earth, the mother of flocks, and came to the deathless gods: and he dwells in the house of Zeus and brings to wise Zeus the thunder and lightning...
-- Hesiod - Theogeny 295

i saw pegasus one afternoon, cantering a-
thwart the wings of the storm, tail flicking,
narrow hooves trip-
trapping on the lightning-fenced paddock of the sky
he glanced down at me, wings of cloud
bunched up like grapes, contrail
lambswool-white from his haughty marble rear end.

it made me think of steve who liked
storms, and horses, and me, and then steve said
mate are you seeing what I'm seeing?

no, i said, i'm seeing what's there.

he died a long while
back, you understand:
just one of those things.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Dec 3, 2019

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
Olivia Something

I tell you
someone will remember us
in the future.


-Sappho (fragment)

A cemetery lies,
small, fenced-in,
behind yoga rooms,
dog barbers,
kiddy dojos, whose
graves sit,
carved fresh with
cartooned guitars,
paintbrushes,
a smiley-face by a girl’s name
and child’s dates.

Her name is
gone from
newspapers
and books,
torn from
every body
now that worms
have ate
the one beneath,
and ripped from
every face except
a circle two dots a line,
and it lives now
only here.

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
Oh, and Lofi, brawl me. :toxx:

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




You're on. :toxx:

Still up for judging sephiroth IRA?

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
Excellent. Excellent!

Theme: insults

Three tercets with an ABA BCB CDC rhyme scheme, roasting your opponent. Tercets must be in iambic pentameter.

Due by Sunday at 11:59PM.

Some inspiration:

shakespeare

Rap battles (one of my favorite things to watch)

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
As We Be

"I met you often when you were visiting princes
And when you were playing in noblemen's halls.
...Spring passes.... Far down the river now,
I find you alone under falling petals."


--Tu Fu (712 - 70), On Meeting Li Guinian Down The River

Disheveled devil,
born of beast,
upon this barren land.

You rise with men,
lie with ease,
spinning glass from sand.

It brings no purpose
to you to be,
except to be eternally
and escape eternal rest.

flerp
Feb 25, 2014
An Elegy to a Supernova Down the Street

There is no god, who has become a star, without a companion.
"Shall I be your companion?"

-Unas Pyramid Texts

A star burns not for us.
You burned while we sent you
to that home that would be your pyramid.
You were a star
without a companion, but my father
tried his best to be one as we shuffled you
between beds like

the one in your home, with the sheets
still folded neat, the cloth you hadn't changed
since you moved. And the bed in the home
with the smell of rotting cherries,
where my father forkfed you dry chicken.
The home with the door the front desk
had to open like it was a vault but you have been
empty, burning, full of hydrogen gas

but what happens when there is nothing to burn,
when my uncle and aunt and father around your bed
like teenagers pointing their telescopes like bows
at a star that went supernova so long ago, where there was
always the lingering of light,
lingering of the question,
how long ago did you die?

Was it when I went to your house and you
walked outside and went to mailbox
for the third time that afternoon and you sat
on the front porch in the summer heat and complained
about how cold it was? Was that when
you morphed into that red giant, when your death
expanded so completely
that it sucked in my father, who cried
in the parking lot of the Wienerschnitzel
five minutes from the assisted care facility?
I did not see the moment you died, but,
when you did, did my father breathe in the
last of your helium body and know
there was no way to burn with you?

Thranguy
Apr 21, 2010


Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.
But come, my friends, as we stand here mourning, do you see the lightning?
​See its glittering, like the flash of two moving hands, amid the thick gathering clouds.


-THE POEM OF IMRU-UL-QUAIS (tr. F. E. Johnson)

The Vigilantes

The miracle man's daughter mounts the stand,
And testifies her father's magic touch:
A talent honed through years of honest sweat
For coaxing out of arid skies fresh rain.
The gathered crowd is ready to believe,
Or ready to take in her beaming face.

The sun declines and leaves the full moon's face
To draw long shadows out from where they stand.
And Ned, the preacher man starts to believe
In more and less than God: this woman's touch,
Her graceless grace and eyes pale blue like rain,
His skin beneath his collar soaks with sweat.

The miracle man doesn't break a sweat.
His eyes can read hope's dawn on every face.
He tells them how his tool can bring the rain
He tells them of the mud in which they'll stand.
He sees one mark himself an easy touch,
And tells him lies they all want to believe.

"So put that money down if you believe
A man should earn recompense for his sweat."
A pause, a murmur, then a hipward touch,
And billfolds open up on Lincoln's face,
To hand over their shares in line they stand.
"Tomorrow, with the dawn will come the rain."

The morning comes, but not a drop of rain.
Eileen is absent too. He must believe
Her enjoying some tasty one-night stand.
He waits, uneasy, cold crustacean sweat
Dripping through the runnels of his face
As time scrapes through his hands, scaly to touch.

A mob arrives, their fingers bad to touch
Their holstered arms. "So where's that blasted rain?"
Eileen bursts from the church with flustered face
And runs to father's side. "Do you believe
Your lies?" they chant. Their twitching gun-hands sweat.
Eileen darts out in front of where they stand.

A trigger's ginger touch. One might believe
It thunder, bringing rain, not blood like sweat
Down brow and face to seal her martyr's stand.

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Saucy_Rodent posted:

Oh, and Lofi, brawl me. :toxx:

What pronouns would you prefer to be abused with?

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
He him his, you?

Armack
Jan 27, 2006
Reminder: less than two hours remaining to submit.

GenJoe
Sep 15, 2010


Rehabilitated?


That's just a bullshit word.
Anglerfish

“We men are wretched things.”
― Homer, The Iliad

It’s a weeknight and I’m sitting stiff shrunk into this microfiber
couch while Brad Pitt’s bronze rear end is staring back at me
and I’ve seen this movie about a half-dozen times before
because it’s 2007, year of our Lord, year of the flatscreen,
and year of scrollable TV Guide, and Troy, three and a half hours
long (edited, with adverts) spans the entire length of the neat
electro-blue row that’s been allocated for it this evening
impossible to miss, like the warm glow of an anglerfish
in the underdark

Armack
Jan 27, 2006
Submissions closed. Expect judgement today.

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
I liked this prompt a lot so I wrote a poem too and wanted to share. I’m always happy to offer critiques and welcome any feedback on my own work.


.

sephiRoth IRA fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Dec 3, 2019

Armack
Jan 27, 2006
Poem Dome Week II: Results

I was very happy we got a large cultural and geographical range of selection for the epigraphs, nice work.

Also, some of y’all are an angsty bunch.

SlipUp, true to your name, you have failed this week.

Djeser, don’t you have an interest in the ancient world? Why would you fail to acknowledge its poetry this week? I look upon your failure, and my throat stops up with phlegm.

flerp, contrary to the prompt’s thrice-mentioned requirement to quote from named poets only, your epigraph was composed anonymously. For this, you are Disqualified.

Meinberg, you reimagined Nothing Matters: the post as Nothing Matters: the poem. Alas, you have lost.

lofi, your piece suffered from flatness, excessive imprecision, and clunky verse. Receive this Dishonorable Mention; may it spur you to compose better work.

Weltlich, you fop. You have been demoted from contention for the win for misciting your epigraph.

I chastise your lack of awareness by quoting you the real Tao Te Ching #71:

Knowing ignorance is strength.
Ignoring knowledge is sickness.

If one is sick of sickness, then one is not sick.
The sage is not sick because he is sick of sickness.
Therefore he is not sick.


– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching #71 (tr. Gia-fu Feng & Jane English)

Oh, and you earn an Honorable Mention, I guess, for an otherwise strong piece.

sebmojo, your poem properly lives up to its epigraph. Its sharp language, clever line breaks, and balanced tone merit Honorable Mention. Your piece was in contention for the win.

Saucy_Rodent, you have won. Congrats on the tight relationship between your poem and its epigraph, both structurally and thematically.

Fast prompting, good prompting.
Crits will be up prior to Monday. :toxx:

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









If anyone wants to make a peomdoem winners gangtag/losertar, and if the thread is keen to have such, i will apply it as needed.

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
Saucy, hit me up for a forums upgrade (or a donation to the charity of your choice, depending on how virtuous you’re feeling. No pressure.)

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
I would prefer to keep poem dome losertar free. This is out of most people’s comfort zone and I’d prefer to encourage as much participation as possible. I do like the idea of a winner gang tag.

Meinberg
Oct 9, 2011

inspired by but legally distinct from CATS (2019)
Yeah! No loser av for me for my terrible, lovely af poem!!!!

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
gangtags are always nice

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
POEMDOME WEEK III: BATTLE RAPS

Get your crews together, cuz it’s a WAR WEEK. You will be split into two teams and pitted against one of your opponents. If you write a better poem than your sparring partner, your team gets a point. The team with the most points wins. Only poems from the winning team are eligible for the ultimate win. Only poems from the losing team are eligible for the loss.

You will be composing the lyrics of a diss track about your opponent. “But Saucy,” you say. “I can’t rap without a beat.” Lucky for you, four years ago I had the single whitest idea in history and wanted to record a rap album that heavily sampled Zbigniew Preisner’s Requiem for my Friend. Without any audio experience whatsoever, I created three of the most dogshit beats imaginable before getting bored with the idea. Your rap will be backed by one of the three following tracks:

Eternal Light:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2l0rFYKjjo-bzhLOGs5REh0WDQ/view?usp=drivesdk

The shortest of the three. All I did to make this one was put a drum beat under the song.

Cynic:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2l0rFYKjjo-OGMwNVNlc0c1TDg/view?usp=drivesdk

This is the first one I made. It’s technically the worst, since I had no idea what I was doing, but know what? I think it’s a jam.

Tears:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2l0rFYKjjo-c3JDX1pIUDh1Tzg/view?usp=drivesdk

What’s even going on with this one? I think I was going for a NiN vibe? I don’t know. If memory serves, that really high-pitched instrument is a sample of a woman screaming?

You and your opponent will have the same track. Pick your top two and I’ll try to make everything work out. If you join without picking a beat, I’ll pick one for you.

Please occasionally note the times in the track you’re rapping (after every line would be nice) to when you post them, as well as the lengths of breaks between verses.

Please sign up by Sunday at Noon Central US time. I’ll have your crews up by Sunday night. Raps due 1159 Wednesday US Central.

Judges:

Rappers:

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









sephiRoth IRA posted:

I would prefer to keep poem dome losertar free. This is out of most people’s comfort zone and I’d prefer to encourage as much participation as possible. I do like the idea of a winner gang tag.

Cool, check the artdome thread for the dimensions.

E: check your gdrive links, need to make it shareable

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Nov 28, 2019

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
Should be fixed

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
In

1. Eternal Light
2. Tears

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
I’ll also do poem rules if you ask.

It always said poem and nothing else.

Saucy_Rodent fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Nov 28, 2019

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
In, with prompter’s choice of tune

Weltlich
Feb 13, 2006
Grimey Drawer
Down 2 Judge

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




In, though I'll need to pick a track when I'm at my desk.

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
I change my mind, Saucy, if that's okay with you- if not I'll stand by my original post.

1. Tears
2. Eternal Light

EDIT
:siren: IF YOU HAVE IDEAS FOR A POEM DOME WINNER GANG TAG, PM ME OR POST HERE. I AM CONSIDERING STARTING AN SA MART POST FOR BUILDING ONE. :siren:

alternatively if you're artistic and would like to donate some time and an idea, do it!

sephiRoth IRA fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Nov 29, 2019

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




I'd like tracks: 1) Tears, 2) Cynic.

Oh yeah, while you're reading this rodent... *ahem*


quote:

POME BRAHWL WIT RODENT

I'll give him this, his 'poem' made me cry -
With laughter, that description was a crime.
It felt like getting grit in my mind's eye.

This is a guy who thinks 'have ate' is fine
Made this week's king, so here's his coup d'état;
It's time to storm your Groverhaus of rhyme.

This fool has called himself a horny rat,
But all I see from here is mouse purée
Smeared out below Sappho as though she shat.

:colbert:

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
*Shoutting incoherently in the background OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Saucy_Rodent
Oct 24, 2018

by Pragmatica
So you believe that crime will rhyme with fine
and counting syllables in your line one
the tally totals only up to nine!

Tis no one’s wonder that you didn’t stun
the judges in the round that I did dom.
The scoreboard: you dm’d and I have won!

While fornicating with your (lovely) mom
she told me how you used to poo poo your pants.
Your schoolyard chums thus called you “poopy bomb.”

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Don't doxx me pls.

(Do you pronounce 'poem' with one syllable? Fuckin heathen.)

sephiRoth IRA
Jun 13, 2007

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

-Carl Sagan
Inaugural Poem Dome Brawl
lofi vs Saucy_Rodent in Iambic Pentameter Insults

Lofi:
You’ve decided that iambic pentameter was optional, despite the rules saying otherwise. I like that in a brawler, big brass balls and enough edge to say “gently caress The Man”.

Your meter was all over the place and I agree with The Rodent, poem is one syllable because I come from America and in my head your line was nine. That was a rhyme, by the way, not the crime you committed with fine/rhyme.

That said, your last tercet was loving gold. Using the structure of his rhyme and the layering of him being poo poo figuratively and literally was pretty awesome.

Your Groverhaus stuff was a little ho-hum, but I think because while calling his house of rhyme equivalent to Groverhaus, I still wouldn’t want to storm it. Probably get electrocuted.

Your score: 3.2 rounds of a rap battle

————

Saucy_Rodent:

Meter was much more consistent. Your burns were okay, but I think lofi edged you out with the powerful image of Sappho making GBS threads you out vs you saying lofi shat his pants as a kid.

Your fornicating with his mom bit did make my wife laugh out loud though, and taking a “I hosed your mother” joke and putting it into formal iambic pentameter was quite deft.

Overall your poem’s rhyme and construction was more adept, and your burns were mostly effective. I wished you’d been a little more creative with them.

Score: 3.9 rounds of a rap battle

:boom:Winner: Saucy_Rodent:boom:

Thank you to our contestants. Come back for a rematch anytime.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Ta for the judging and brawling! I thought I did do iambic pentameter though?

Am I missing something, it's 'off-beat / beat' five times, right?

(Also a she not a he)

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply