MIND YOUR METAPHOR SPLASHHALL MEMBERS' CONTEST

[Kay]

Hi Splashhall Members: 

I am offering this members' contest to inspire, kick start
your writing skills and reward your hard work.

MIND YOUR METAPHOR

Write a poem containing the most original
metaphor you can come up with.
This can be rhyme, zen, nature, spiritual, free verse, any length
and subject.  A fine metaphor is what I am looking for.
Not several different ones in the poem, but one solid, extended metaphor.

GUIDELINES

*Participants must be SplashHall members
*Only one entry per person
*Poem must be titled.
*Judges will not be eligible to enter or receive prize money
*Please enter your poem in this thread.

First prize is $50
Second prize is $20.00
Third prize: $10.00

I will be coming in frequently, but not to critique.
All prizes will be awarded via money order and winners have the option
to donate their winnings to Splashhall.

Edit as much as you need up until the close of the contest.
You have from beginning May 1, 2007, with the deadline for submission being 8:00 AM (PST) Thursday, May 31, 2007

The winners will be announced the first week in June, 2007. Good luck!

 

[IamDanWormek]

Entry . . .

(Revised 5 May)

Upon the Stovetop

My fellow dwellers soften o’er warm abyss
—Yearning that the flow of filling grace
Decant warm breaths beneath their soft'ning base—
Engulfed, for life, by tongues of old Hephaestus.
And I, the one who's free of such distress,
Rely, and know, that life which I embrace,
Embodied as my fill of neg'tive space,
Shall cast afloat the rise of life's caress.
To her!—the one, within my void who flows,
And ebbs, and bursts, as though Poseidon's straits
Let birth to her, whose form mine does enclose,
Loft up, and through her all my heat abates—
I, the pot, do write and wish I know
Existence not, when she evaporates.

[Kay]

Ah, we have begun!

 

[GaerLlwyd]

Entry

Captains' Cause

The Great Ship sails on;
mad Ahab stalks quarterdeck;
destruction's fiery terror.
He sees his towers falling.
His book with Farsi verses
tutors his revenge:
leviathan found wanting;
harpoon weighed against whale's oil.
Mate Starbuck supports
profit's murderous campaign;
mothers' sons man boats,
cutting through adversaries.
Lifeblood flows upon whale's way.
Seabirds' screaming angst,
predators circle the hunt,
dark shadows feed on chaos.
Fate's mad Nantucket sleighride:
days' work: death's promise.
Widows keening in hamlets;
campaign runs to endlessness,
demands loyalty.
Rejecting calls to withdraw;
captain's speech incoherent;
opponents' alarms
clamored down as mutiny.
Quequeg, fate's hammer in hand.
Crew's confidence lost;
prepare calling consensus.
Great whale turns toward vessel.

. . . and so it goes.
                  -- Kurt Vonnegut

[thepoetryman]

THRUSTING AMERICA'S LOVE OUTWARD


I compel you to love your country.

To draw her into your arms ever so tenderly,
To embrace her softly, dearly to your heart,
To huddle close, near together her masses,
And sense her least sustained yearning.

I compel you to love your country.

A nation that lifted the breast of humanity
Caressing it tenderly toward equality’s rapture
With gentle fingers of selfless, searing desire
Exploring over her ever toward paradise.

I compel you to love your country.

Freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing
Stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery,
Softly probing her robust and supple liberty,
Heed now her cries of woeful sovereignty!

I compel you to love your country.

Between her Trail of Tears and Mount Misery
She still waits upon the coupled plains of affection
Ready for our design and mastery of this worlds love
Panting heavy expectation upon her shape.

I compel you to love your country.

Perched upon the shore of Rolles Creek she waits
With Mount Pleasant in reach of her willing fingers.
With expectant sounds of closure now within her folds
She lunges forth with an expectant mouth!

I compel you to love your country.

O! Gentle sleep now beckons to her languid pink flesh
As the rogues tongue laps at her ebbing shores of joy
And beckons her let go of her valuable love’s embrace
Lunging forth behind her eager lips!

She counters not… for she is the boiling hunger we seek.

What a devoted worship we’ve had with the motherland.
Many a great poet has written their songs upon her flesh;
Their bright and shimmering waters lapping her shores
In ardent freedom’s want of hopes howling, dripping heat.

I compel you to love the world!

On this day of days let us remember her youthful glow,
Her ripe fruit of wonder, her drowsy ache of emancipation,
Her most alluring burnish upon our exploring of her skin.
(The burden of immense throbbing now falls upon her heart!)

I compel you to love the world!

America, carry your waves to all shores. Hope, not savagery,
In your goodness, not in impudent desire to control destiny.
Leave not the naked child, but your desire alone on the road.
Shelter not your intentions, but those most needful and hungry.

I compel you to love the world!

We have been witness to our dove, crippled and flailing in terror!
We’ve been onlookers to our expectations emerging fruitless.
Watching unmoved while our oily desire bleeds into the waters
And the cold white eyes of death tread progressively before us.

I compel you to love the world!

Come now, peace. Come now, warriors, lay down your guns
To witness the beauty at your hands as she lays down your sword
And with dripping red lips envelops your craving to possess her.
Do you not hear the night voices calling you with an angels whisper?

I compel you to love the world!

To open the door and step out into the bright sun, desire can wait.
Take notice of the many tender, breathing, soul-caked living.
Gaze upon the world’s most unbendable faith in humanity.
Gently touch her skin, delicately massage her furious soil.

I compel you to love the world!

Enter her sculpting space and weave a covering made of lifeless war.
Paint upon her face a gentle art made of your temples sweat.
Scribe a love song upon her back with the eagle’s most willing blood.
Erect in her a tower of light for all to see that they might weep.

I compel you to love the world!

The masses of age lie here and we should not be so ready to die
Like confused animal’s hooved in selfishness, deficient and artless.
The world is full of freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing
Stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery, tenderly probing liberty.

I compel you to love the world!

Amid her supple lands and majestic mountains she waits our affection,
Ready for our desire and design embracing her most ready warmth
Needing our hot hope upon her shape, wanton as wide-eyed first love.
(Heed now the world’s hot desire for freedom pulling us in.)

With hopeful whisper's within her waters, she leans forth, expectant.

Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman

[Kay]

poeteryman, 


thank you for the entry!  You posted  the same one twice, so I'm sending the other off.


 

[Sartor]

Ro’Tras

I am Ro’Tras and I serve only one,
My Master’s opposite, yet much the same,
The rose would smell as sweet when all is done,
As once the Bard said, “What is in a name?”

I work the canyons and the deep ravines
To search the caves and caverns for my worth
To find the prop on which one’s talent leans
That one may find true destiny from birth

Much like the image in a looking-glass
or photo negative of black and white,
a perfect opposite, both base and crass,
that wanders through one’s memories at night.

Within the cracks and crannies of a mind,
among forgotten memories of thought,
where brilliant bits of wisdom I may find,
In perfect harmony of those one sought.

Sartor

[dedm]

*

Burial Jar

The urn is not biodegradable.
My mother’s ashes will not meld into the earth.
She will not flower into the energy of a daisy.
When an urn doesn’t break down, dust keeps dust.

On a day of burdened air, I bury my mother’s ashes.
Always, there is more than one way to bury the dead.

In an urn:
Flowering spring
Forever
Cloisonné
Seashell

In my arms, I carry to the cemetery, what’s left.
My heart is an urn.
A few of my brothers don’t show up.
What do they know about ashes and urns.

I tell the mortician, an urn is eternal.
I wish this urn was made of rice paper.
Anything other than that which is cold.
I tell him, I wish my mother’s urn could be

Satin or silk, a canister of starlight.
The recycled feathers of birds.
Made from the wings of white bats,
An urn should be a nest.

It should be held together
By the strumming song of crickets.
Urn of sand --
Carved from a desert rose.

Made of wind the leaves steal,
My mother’s urn.
So much like winter —
Funereal and austere.

[Kay]

Oh, now I'm getting excited. Two new entries!!  I love this.

You guys are awesome!!!
 

[Kay]

Okay ---  you people--- there has to be more metaphor out there!!

 

[Rach]

Sonday

Look up.
Bow low like the angels, lay
All distress, free now to trade.

Find joy in the gentle smile.
A soft whisper to 
listening ears, stop awhile.
Minutes come to us so few.
 
Laud this day
Give back the gift
More than just a head to nod.
Not a fluke or merely whim.
 
Live this day.
Wait for the sound,
a child's voice to float up heaven's way.
This day, it was and is.

[hush]

The snow is dancing with the wind

The snow is dancing with the wind!
they are dancing to Brahm’s sonata,
lushmaple-cello and icyivory-keys.

The wind sweeps up the flakes,
waltzes in a whirlwind of white,
with violent flips and twists I can almost see
faces, legs and arms, and tempestuous elegance.
A window frames the movement,
and the maple’s weathered leaves bestow redbrown,
to the cello-keys scene.

The leaves take the liberty of jumping from the tree
and joining the dance,
the small children pleading
to join the grownup’s ball,
they awkwardly tumble along,
the surface of the ground,
unable to lift themselves,
to the bounds of the wind and the snow.

And the mother tree sits and watches with me
its branches full, swaying its arms to the silent song
of the snow rising with the wind .

[Kay]

We are heading into the final 10 days of the contest!  I'm so glad to see more entrants!

 

[poppy]

A Stroll through Annuals, Perennials, and Weeds
 
 
It was never meant to be a practical path;
having found little intrigue in the linear,
you’ll choose a gradual  S.
                                                             Such anticipation
appeals to the eye, reveals skill possessed,
honed within its curve.   Or perhaps you knew

the day would come there'd be no need
to race for minor destinations or back
to home again.
                                    Along the way, lives
succeed on either side and in the cracks
between the blocks of moss-painted clay:
                                   
For the flutter-by, grounded in day’s absence,
age-worn bricks hold infrared memories of
longer days;  volunteer basil sprouts;
 
sage blossoms after thyme, year to year; 
neglected rosemary still sends fragrant arms
across the breadth, implores for more

high hours of sun; and those dandelions
you’ve pulled so many times, stand again—
immutable monuments
                                                  to what is inevitable. 

[Abdur Rahman]

Peace Kay,

I hope it's not too late to enter.

The Maker of All Cloth

If this world is a marketplace,
then take care
when you enter
the spirit’s bazaar,

for though you will find
wares both colourful and exotic,
bright colour and foreign fragrance
are not guarantees of authenticity.

My friend, you must fashion
the cloth you buy there
into Love-garments
of your own design.

Many will offer to help you
and claim to work for naught,
but be on your guard, O beloved soul,
lest their cloth becomes a straightjacket to trap you.

But be not downcast,
for tailors of goodness and skill,
of honest blood and bone,
exist in all places.

And, beyond them
stands the Maker of All Cloth,
who will fashion all your longings
into never-ending brocades of Love.

Abdur Rahman

[Kay]

Abdur,

No, not too late at all. The contest will run through May 31st. Thank you for entering. 

[poppy]

Hi Kay,

I (again) hit new topic instead of reply, so my entry is A Stroll through Annuals, Perennials, and Weeds. 
I've asked cafeRg to move it to your thread. 

I'll catch on eventually.




EDIT: Taken care of. No problem Poppy, glad we can help. BTW Kay and the other SplashHost can move stuff around. I dont mind just thought I'd let you (and everyone) know. ~ cafeRg

[poppy]

Thanks again.

[Kay]

Color me stupid, Poppy, what happened to your poem?

[poppy]

No, Kay, that's my nickname. 

cafeRg took care of the transfer.  It's just above the Abdur Rahman poem.