Thanks for the entries, guys! Since I'm already a little late I'll post judging immediately. I think Blue Elephant really enjoyed reading them, and all of them made me laugh for different reasons. I won't post rationale this time, but if you want feedback I will be certainly happy to give it.

Here are the results:

Bronze: ChromeDeathRazor
Silver: Maverick4
Gold: Nichodemus
Ivory: MagicTree

Congrats, MagicTree, for the win. Wordplay, they say, is the lowest form of humor, but I'm a person of low tastes.

For the last contest of the year, we're going to be doing something a little different. The theme for the rest of 2012 is going to be "Year's Best." Basically, I want you to look through all the poems that you've written this year, pick one that you like the best, and revise it before submitting. If you haven't written anything this year you're satisfied by, don't let 2012 be a disappointment! This is the only contest where the "original submission" rule will be waived. I want to see your best work. Submissions will close Tuesday, January 1, 2013.

Congrats to MagicTree!

It's a tad depressing to look through my thread and realize just how little I've actually written in the past year. And 2011 was so fruitful...

Hey, I stopped in 2010 man, join the club.

I feel like this is the part where we get drunk on cheap alcohol as we ponder what was and what could have been. We're pretending to be Hemingway, if anyone asks. XD

If Killersup has yet to post any submission this year, what would the theme be?

It doesn't need to be something you wrote for this contest specifically; you can post any poem you have written this year. If you haven't written anything this year, you can count this as a free write.

oh my god, I didn't realise till now that I won! A great Christmas present. Thanks guys!

Now, Years Best. Hmm.....I'll get to that.

*begins scouring The Haiku Contest.*

I feel like this is the part where we get drunk on cheap alcohol as we ponder what was and what could have been. We're pretending to be Hemingway, if anyone asks. XD

Or, get drunk and start writing again! I'll opt to be a faux Douglas Adams.

oh my god, I didn't realise till now that I won! A great Christmas present. Thanks guys!

Congrats! :)

Message in a Bottle

Sent by sea to shore,
Resisting the salty spray,
My salvation sails.

originally here

This is about the new year. I haven't posted anything in a while, so here is a new original piece.
_____________________________________________________________________

Time slips by like water from a falling vase, slowly dropping.
A year gone by, having nursed bouquets inside its patterned form, now shatters. Less than a second to hit the ground and break, a year in the making. Forged by the hammer and steel of father time on the mountaintop of eternity, painted with tragedy and comedy and every work of man.
Time slips by like water from doomed porcelain, slowly dropping.
Twisted shapes, death, funerals, woven into the design, grief and misery make stains of black, so beautifully terrifying. Weddings, births, joyous occasions like gossamer threads gleaming in the sun over the cellar door. A new vase has been made. As the last moment ticks…
Time slips by like water falling through the floorboards as the vase fractures.