Phylogeny
Were I to put myself behind-
Dark unseeing eyes,
Don a humble coat-
Of dust and pick apart your clothes,
I wonder still if I would ever-
Start to comprehend,
This haphazard path I make,
All for some unknown sake,
This everpresent urge,
Has me perpetually disturbed,
But maybe I thought wrong,
We all were like this all along.
---
Well, this is my last time judging, and therefore the last time I will procrastinate judging by having dinner, for the time being.
It seems that most everybody had the same idea when interpreting the theme of moths...which in a way made my job easier, but mainly made my job more difficult, because what differed was the approach in which similar ideas were presented! Most candidates seemed to have a curious predilection for bug zappers for some strange reason...is it the opportunity for some reflection on the capricious nature of life and death!?
In my own little way, therefore, points ended up being awarded for avoiding what I'll call the triad: the compulsion to follow light, getting zapped and...well, it actually being about moths. I can't blame people though, it is by far the most universal image (the light...the zapping if you have a bit of a sadistic streak, perhaps :P), and there is somewhat of a mystic, ethereal quality about the theme that everybody would just love to evoke.
Zootsuit_riot won the previous round, therefore I present to you, as the Champion's Exhibit his poem:
...wait, I can't find one. Oh well!
In that case I'll move onto the judging.
Grand Winner: Gantic- Dreaming on a Sunny Day
oh no.
from where do you come,
my little fuzzy friend?
you died.
on my windowsill you lay,
as if dreaming of the sun.
i mused:
when did you pass away?
how did you get here?
and thought:
were you that little guy
fluttering about my lamp?
i saw
your body on the windowsill,
as i was dreaming of the sun.
your body,
how do i notice only it now,
my little fuzzy friend?
I know Gantic wins this a lot (and furthermore never bothers to collect the merit associated with winning), but for the last time I can't help it. That poem above isn't something I merely recognise, it
is me. I'm not even going to try explain myself, only marvel at its stark honesty and hope you will agree.
Second Place: Aaroniscool-
Welcome to the NightOut of their cocoons,
they morph from an earth-bound state.
They use their new wings
And are spirited away.
Fluttering towards the moon,
towards it's lively night.
They fly and they sing,
"Welcome to the night!"
Goodbye, Earth.
Thanks for the stay!
I will never forget you,
Though I fly, fly away.
You'll always be below me.
I'll always be above.
Way high, in the heavens
To dance with my love.
The stars are my Children,
The moon is my Bride.
I live happy forever more.
Welcome to the Night.
This whimsy started out for me as a bit of a mystic cliche but ended up surprisingly delightful. I would say this was possibly one of the only poems in which moths seemed to be presented as something else, as opposed to the various other down-to-earth verses.
Third place: ArmorHero-
Amazing GraceDarkness, darkness this never-ending night
Yet in the distance I sense some light
Yes, yes I see it now, this vibrant yellow glow
But it is such a wonder that I don't think I know
Come closer, closer; what is this?
This feeling I get, this must be bliss
Yet blocked and pushed away I seem to get
From this warmth-sputtering spigot
Why do you resent me? I deserve you so
For forever it seems I have flown
Now come to me; heavenly light
For now I seek to end my flight
So now on you I turn my back
For you have greatly *-THWACK-*
Somehow in this I could see the psyche of the moth, in that I am fond of likening a moth's behavior to that of an addict.
Also the irony of the sudden death...there are ways to simply do it without overwriting it. In fact I bet you it would be even better if you had left out the THWACK and simply ended the poem "For you have greatly-"
Now that I've done the place getters, I'm going to test out a new style of judgment. Previously I actually discussed
all the other entries as "honorable mentions" but I feel this may be a little unfair, as it seems to betray the notion of there being standards for all but the first three placegetters. Since I'll never make everybody happy, I'll simply do the honorable mentions first, then the hall of oddities after!
So then, here are the
Honorable Mentions:
Most powerful image: Osynck...
Shockingly you thrust at it
Not afraid of the horrid fate
That lies ahead of you
If you should ever touch my flame
In context, they were the best four lines of the week, imho.
Unique approach: ParsatMy cousin is the butterfly
With vivid colors, gay.
Why then is my love denied
Because my wings are gray?
...
How come nobody else took this tack!? In the corners of my mind this thought lingered, the sentiment of pity.
I've always been somewhat partial to moths because of this.
The Visionary: Necromancer...
Aren't we all little moths?
We struggle vainly,
Flitting on fragile wings,
To reach the light,
Our Hope.
A little along the lines of what I thought to write, except I generally choose to be just a little less optimistic. After all, is it a hope, or is it an exercise in futility? Maybe you should decide for yourself!
The Hall of OdditiesI feel this is a slightly unfair title. I would not say "oddities" in the sense that there was something inferior about these poems, or in any way derogatory. But they were an eclectic mix, with the exception of...
The Exterminator SquadAdrecka_33: "My mother told me/Never to go near them."
Estel: "...let my life roast."
Jediboy277 also gets it, but he also gets:
MoonlaughMaster: "This is Bill." LOL. That divorce is permanent!
The Poem That Made Me Say "Whut", as he so predicted. I mean dude, what the hell?
The moth survives the vicious attack of the bug zapper!!
He lives on to be a great rapper.
word, peace out....yo!
...
There was also a mention for the
Exterminator Made of Epic Fail, which goes to Ubertuna. I'm sure the scientists were
thrilled that you attempted to use the Hadron Collider to kill one moth...albeit a moth of Poe-like maddening qualities.
And no, I will not stop looking at you, because a fish-man with facial hair is downright peculiar!
Look, It's a Haiku: Lynoth. Sorry dude, I'm not sure what else to say about this, because if there's a time moths are active, it's the nighttime!
So Literal, It Uses the Scientific Name Poem: Cenere. Sometimes the truth is best spoken plainly, in its entirety.
"And last, (but not least, but very certainly not most)"*
The Bogong Award- hahahahahaha, okay this is basically the goof prize.
kingryan
A Moth (Revised, 193th and three quarters Edition)
A moth did flyest around a head,
that doth belongeth to a horse.
The horse did get quite distressed,
And triedeth to swateth the moth.
But the motheth was too quicketh,
And on the noseth of the horse did it landeth.
So they horse did tryeth to kicketh it,
And knockethed himselfeth outeth.
I'm going to camp out with Parsat with my camera at the ready for when Chuck Shakespeare comes a-knocking at your door! That wasn't even iambic pentameter!
Afterword:I know I've harped on several things, or maybe just a few things many times, when it came to writing poetry, but here's all of that tied up into one single thought: It is all well and good to think of great images, and most, if not all of you, are capable of that. For many of you, I'd like to suggest thinking about
systems of images, or how those images stack together, and for what purpose. What is it you're trying to say, is there a message, or some impression, that you hope to impart? One English teacher summed up the core of my concerns with the written and spoken word with the advice, with every sentence you utter, "so what?"
Leave no word wasted, even if you have to carve yourself into a fraction of what your ideas once were, and, like a painter, take a look and see the whole of what you're picturing.
I only judged this contest for a few rounds because frankly most of it revolved around you telling me I was procrastinating too much. It's true. I'm already struggling to run the Art Contest in a timely fashion and while this contest put the love of poetry back into me, it also vastly increased the amount of time I spent thinking about it, and as you know there's simply never enough of time.
Speaking of which, here's your next theme:
This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!
(from
The Hobbit- J.R.R. Tolkien)
...GO FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF!
I shall leave the details of that and beyond in the capable hands of Ubertuna.
With that, I bid the position of poetry judge farewell.
*P.S. As if I would be that mean to Kingryan! This is a quote from
Dilbert.
