Held: Apr 9-15, 2009 Participants: Charles Fry, Noah Gibbs, Tom Lokovic, Rob Malkin, Charles Schafer, Dom Widdows Challenge: Write a poem in 20 lines or less that satisfies AT LEAST THREE of the following four constraints:
what a night. was I lucky, or just dreaming? distracted by the obvious. global coincidence. local meaning. -- Charles Fry Four One Nine, A Poem You must remember my last speech with you last May -- it cost a lot. I've used most of your cash to teach good English to the Hottentot. Creative Writing they love best and mysteries and fantasies. Their ministers and princes wrest great fortunes to send overseas. For me to grade would be unfair. My students email to your dad. What luck! He's unbiased as the air. Their tales distract 'til he's been had. Back to the point, I wrote to say I mailed your check just yesterday. --Noah Gibbs (guest contributor) Little Haiti Look around--it's paradise! Exotic spices ride the breeze through tropic sun and sidewalk vendors haggling in foreignese. I'm visiting a far-off land today. It cost a dollar eighty on the bus through Chinatown, past Wal-Mart here to Little Haiti. A portly tattoo-covered lady fortune teller draws my eyes with signs: "I Do Do Voodoo" and "Large Medium, Small Price." She scatters shells, a chicken foot, some roots and seeds, then draws a breath-- "Your future holds adventure! Travel! Acid reflux! Love, and death!" Amazed, I ask for more. She looks around, alert, and draws me in. "The key to growing wealth is-- do you have a lucky bank card PIN?" "I hope so--is mine lucky? I use Fifty-Seven-Eighty-Two." She frowns. "It's not too bad, but you should have me charm your bank card too." She's been away a while--it must be a complicated spell. But when she brings it back, my luck is changing, baby. I can tell. -- Tom Lokovic All the world's a stage, they say, but this one's mine. Stumbling toward the show, reluctant, purposeful, counting the cracks so I can't see it coming, I'm just a speck in the crowd. Crossroads approaches and I don't break stride; the light changes behind me. They're all stuck watching traffic and I'm on the other side. I guess I was the lucky one. But that's nonsense; I've seen hints of the Plan. -- Rob Malkin Tokyo to New York Guess you called it in the air But first the small talk -- Charles Schafer Resolution He raced the passageway beyond the bolted door As the past in furies strove to catch The night shadow. Keeping to the last Their record of conviction, the company of the chosen Beholding a miracle signed in destiny Fallen one by one as heroes. Now surely, he the final blow to strike, Rushed, darting left and right Flitting in the shadows of the fears of the faithless Bold, charges forth, spills and mingles The blood of the quest completed. More he senses like a hare in flight. Later, legs bloody but arms still strong He throws, the oldest trick in the book Stone clatter rattles the stable's sleep Guards scramble to thwart his imagined flight. He breathes, whiles on, wanders free Through the shadows in the scaffold. -- Dom Widdows |