There was only one input for the results of this round, the is once again rather one-sided and dry. The winners for Haiku and General Poetry are below, but first, some digression.
What are Floors? Floors are, unlike the ground, artefacts everyone uses everyday; yet, not one everyone has intimate experiences with (but certainly one everyone have intimate experiences upon), like computers or bowls. Floors are something everyone is comfortable with but it is also something to push everyone out of their comfort zone.
Conveyance of the theme of your poem, not necessarily the theme of the round, is crucial (unless the relation to the theme is almost nonexistent). Relating to the theme of the round is as easy as tacking it on somewhere within the body of the poem, which is not something someone should actively engage in, but being able to communicate what is being said in a way that makes sense to most people helps immensely. Vagueness and vagaries obfuscate intent and leaves the reader guessing. It helps to read a poem aloud, not just in your head to see if it makes sense on its own, outside of the context of the contest.
==HAIKU==
FIRST - EmperorPalapatine
Ding! The doors open;
People come and people go,
Some stay where they are.
Succinct and poignant. It evokes the sense of floors as a means of stratification. Not a word is wasted to paint the picture of an elevator lobby (or some sort of cooking competition involving the use of the oven and a timer that goes ding!), where some people come, some people go, and some stay where they are. This can be applied in a general sense to how people may handle life and other situations. That is not to say this falls into the trap of simply categorizing people as comers, goers, and stayers. Motives and possibilities must also be examined. Maybe those who stay are waiting for someone to come, or someone to go, or a different elevator. Who knows why people move about?
SECOND - ParsatLunchtime
on the gray carpet
sharing my homemade bento
munch, munch, poignant pause
Succinct and poignant. The floor is a thing upon which other things happen, not a medium but a substrate. This haiku applies not only to the grammatical subject of the poem, but also the reader. When the haiku is done, the reader is given pause before realization, maybe the same realization.
THIRD - kimo2001It's used to define
Levels of society
But it never works
Given no context, it could be said this is about floors and it might also apply to other things, but there is context given by the author. However, the poem doesn't suggest why it, whatever it is, doesn't work, though, and leaves the reader to fill in the gaps. It could be construed that people aren't and that is what I chose to take from it.
The rest by order of submission:
AxialCursesBe still, beating heart!
Curse you and the noise you make
under the floorboards!
This haiku was admittedly not very original, being based on Poe's
The Telltale Heart, but if the theme were something different, say Poe, this would certainly be a contender for placement. Floors are a means of hiding what's below.
HUA7XFan122396Old, wooden floorboards
Supporting my family.
I thank them for this.
This haiku is simple in its message in a person thankful for a home, however mundane.
MagicTreeThe Tower of Life
The Tower of Life,
Its steps winding upward,
Floors, to be conquered.
The commas here left me confused a bit as it's not really a grammatical sentence and I couldn't make sense of the breaks, but I do get the message. Floors are like levels in a video game. The goal is to get as high as possible.
HahiHaGot a promotion,
Up up to floor five hundred;
Embrace cold darkness.
Floors here are also to be conquered, but at what price? Similar in theme to other entries, but the imagery here is less strong. In what form does cold darkness take? Is floor 500 high enough to be in the outer atmosphere?
theniI lie on the ground
The earth solid below me
Moves on without me
Sometimes people are too tired to go on and just lay it all down. The floor is support for even the weariest and it never tires in its support.
SalvidianThe ground must shatter
We should take it down a notch
Though there's no hammer
What is the motive for breaking the floor and taking it down a notch with a hammer? Wild in it's content but confusing in it's intent.
killersup10Hard wooden blunt wall
Divides the up from the down
Protector of feet
The images here confuse me. The floors are walls that keep things out, but what is down that must be separated from the up to protect the feet?
nichodemusIs this the flat floor,
Or the ceiling of a room?
Inverse universe.
I like the question of what is up and down, but I find the last line to be redundant.
Reton8Creaking echoes out,
Smoothness underneath I felt,
A cold wooden floor.
The cold, smooth floorboards creak. Probably waxed recently. Probably no one else awake, if not no one else around at all, but I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Alone, but how alone? Maybe everyone's gone to bed or not yet woken up.
Goldfish13Walls, doors, floors and boards,
Avalanche falls. Rattling roars.
Moving floor - no more!
A rhyming haiku, or at least one with slant rhyme and some internal rhyme. The middle line actually has 8 syllables by my count. Perhaps the floor was destroyed or, like in TV-land, just surfed down the mountain undamaged.
pangtongshuThe mold crept along
Standing ground for times, destroyed
He finds fault within
The images here seem confused, or maybe it's the construction. Unfortunately, I can make no sense of the middle line and without it, any meaning is incomplete.
POETRYThere were only three general poetry entries, exclusive wolf1991, who won the last round.
wolf1991This is Where we Meet
Separating us, a rug,
An Afghan if I ever saw one.
Laying thing, lying there,
I'm not sure which, and,
To be frankly honest, to be
Frankly clear, frankly my dear,
I do not, so much, if it were,
Give a care. Just look at the
Afghan, laying, lying there.
There are a dozen dozen,
Dozen dozen, hundred spaces
Separating us, between you,
The rug (the Afghan) and I.
And for what? What? What?
Deaf men tell no tales. There's
The rug and nothing more.
The rug and the space. Between
Us, and that's all.
This is where we meet,
We meet here every day,
Every hour and minute,
I do not focus on you,
But the rug, between our feet.
Between our lives, on the floor
Fifty feet from the door.
Laying, lying on the floor. And
All that I see, that is left,
That is the tangible part,
Of whatever this is (was)
Is an Afghan.
An Afghan rug is laying,
(Lying) between us, on the
Floor. Fifty feet from the door.
FIRST - Quirinus1General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Towering brothers, offspring of hybris,
You call yourself fair, you call yourself free;
do you not see your true hypocrisy?
You will be ravaged, God is my witness.
My bauxite casing in sapphire air,
shall force itself in your virgin body
and leave blood-red scarring memory.
Everyone shall know, to God I swear.
Story. Upon.
Story. Upon.
Floor. Upon.
Floor. Upon.
You.
Hideous, heathen.
May the hatred in my heart
fill your house, your spouse your hearth.
Floors, not flowers shall cover my graveyard.
And in my death, you shall be my neighbour.
I get the picture of money and wealth and minerals, particularly ceramics (bauxite and sapphire) but this can be extrapolated even further to such ceramics (and ceramic composites) as granite and marble which are "foundations" of wealth. Marble and granite floors are certainly richer, more luxuriant than the a wooden floor, or cheap bathroom tiles, linoleum or brick.
This is a digression, but what strikes me is the ambiguity of gerunds and also aluminum. It's likely unintentional but a "bauxite casing" in "sapphire air" is very different from "bauxite" casing in "sapphire air". Some digression, but bauxite is naturally crude and rough, the mineral from which aluminum is refined and even in its refined state, it is still not comparable rough sapphire, which is alumina that isn't red (which is ruby). There is also the history of aluminum. Aluminum used to be worth more than gold, due to the difficulty in obtaining it from ore. Back on topic, a "bauxite casing" in "sapphire air" is something naturally rough in something naturally refined whereas "bauxite" casing in "sapphire air" is something naturally rough holding in something naturally refined. This spills into the next line where the bauxite, either in sapphire air or containing sapphire air, figuratively forces its way into the body of the grammatical object. I could ramble on, but this is getting long enough as it is.
Lonely WorldDarkness, in the lonely house,
My footsteps, falling on the wooden planks.
The silence hinting at the worse.
The world howls at my existence,
The floorboards moan their ghastly song,
When I let the pain out.
Ice in my once-warm heart,
The floor collapses beneath me,
For it cannot hold on anymore.
Neither can I.
This poem shows a creaky lonely house. This may be night time, in an abandoned house, maybe on a dare, or a looting. The imagery isn't as strong as in the other two submissions, as it's given to cliched metaphors.
THIRD - nichodemusStandby Bed
Fly, fly up the stairs!
Ten minutes and nothing more,
Run, run from his glare,
And for God's sake, clean the floor!
Recruit, in the toilet now,
Dry as his dead sense of humour,
Not a drop of water he'll allow!
Quick! Watch the sergeant's temper!
Scrub, mop, dry the tiles,
Wipe them with used newspapers,
Better yet, wipe off your smile!
You bloody maggot, you're a soldier!
Spotted the faint spot of grime,
What's this, he loudly bellows,
You've had far enough time,
So what should I do with you fellows?
Permission to carry on sergeant!
The whole lot knock it down!
Time ticks, make it urgent!
And I swear it lessens his frown.
I'll admit that this one threw me. The tone is confusing and that's what I counted against it. The poem has a strange lilting rhythm that's jarring in that it gives a sense of a singing swashbuckling crew of jolly pirates, but also the rush of getting things done as instructed by a sergeant barking orders. It's very dissonant feeling.
