The Colosseum V [Duelling Grounds]

[omgChe]

So, I was gonna write up this relatively short poem. Now, I've added a bit of a loose form, and a bit of a loose metre. Oh, and it just gets longer. Think this is the longest I've ever spent writing a single piece.

[Mnemosynee]

omgChe

So, I was gonna write up this relatively short poem. Now, I've added a bit of a loose form, and a bit of a loose metre. Oh, and it just gets longer. Think this is the longest I've ever spent writing a single piece.

Can't wait to see it! heart

[omgChe]

3 part sections, 5 sections minimum. Oh, and I'm part way through the fourth having jumped ahead to carve out the very end. So, maybe still tonight if I don't get burnt out. This is the closing of hour two.

[Mahayr]

I canna wait to see it too!

[omgChe]

For the record, I am completely unhappy with a large portion of this; it turned into a chore. Still, I submit it with my full backing.

Adimurti

Enguard!

***Defender Name: omgChe
***Challenger Name: Nelios Inoue
***Judge: Adimurti
***Form: Free Verse
***Context: Corrosive Acids
***The Bet: 20,000 gold.

UOEAUOOIEOIEIIIEUOIA
0SPEAKINGINTONGUES0l
AIOUEIIIEIOEIOOUAEOU




Acrid allegory alleviates your ailing atmosphere;
so austere how you adhere to your alkaline absurdity.

Saliva has a pH of 7.
It is rated neutral.

Yet your words discharge caustic spittle:
preaching that hisses
as it attempts to convert my face
in a torrential
Laying on of Hands.



Expressive eulogies egress energetically,
escaping
on expressways
of enigmatic non-essentiallity.

Car batteries have a pH of 1.
It tops the acid chart.

Your personal conference with God
is spoken through me
as if my only role with you here
is to jump-start your
prayer for mercy.



Incremental incidents incarcerate innately:
irate
you isolate me;
inciting irreconcilability.

Drain cleaner has a pH of 14.
It's a strong alkali.

To wash your mouth with rosary beads
now: just as corrosive.
Your throat burn should come naturally:
a divine reflux
of gastric acid.



Overtly ostentatious,
our osmosis of odious outs:
obnoxious, oblivious, officious;
oratoriously.

Both ends of the scale are as abrasive.
Do not ingest.

I have filled on your holy crusade.
When these temple walls
erode away from your acerbic cries
I will no longer
guard your wasting faith.



Undoubtedly, your unforgiving ululation undulates
underneath an unrequitable ulcer until you upchuck --

vomiting vowels.

[Adimurti]

Defender Name: His Name is No More
Challenger Name: AlambiqueCiel
Judge: Adimurti
Duel Type: Regular Duel
Form: Open
Context: Open
The Bet: 4,500 gold

[Adimurti]

Defender Name: omgChe [X]
Challenger Name: Nelios Inoue [X]
Judge: Adimurti
Form: Free Verse
Context: Corrosive Acids
The Bet: 20,000 gold.

i wasn't asked for crits so i won't give them, but lemme know if you want one. =]

che: i love how persistent you were with the alliteration. i love alliteration, but i think i'd go insane trying to use it throughout that way. in a couple of areas the words felt clumsy when coupled with the alliteration (like in "Incremental incidents incarcerate innately: / irate / you isolate me; / inciting irreconcilability"; the mix of I, C and S being repeated rapidly in such a short space had me stumbling while reading out-loud), but on the whole it wasn't nearly as distracting as i'd expect such a heavy use to be.

luis: like i already said, i loved the idea of time being corrosive. the ideas and images were strong and held together without much jarring on the transitions. in a couple of areas i think your ideas clashed, rather than merged (for example: "I am lying beneath / the ground, eaten by a curse - deflowering my skin, / exposing my flesh to the sun / who learns my secrets of ancient scripture."; if you're beneath the ground, your skin is shaded from the sun, so although i can imagine being partially buried, that isn't the first image i get as it's not what it says).

i thought it was very really interesting that both of you coupled corrosive acids with relation to religion, although in different contexts.

this was a very close duel. both poems took completely different routes with style and context, but still held to standards and the duel's requirements brilliantly.

for this duel, i'm going to declare omgChe the winner, simply for the flow in amongst the most part of the alliteration which to me must have been painful to pull off throughout almost the entire piece. like i said, this was incredibly close, but the effort and standard of the alliteration use was the only thing i couldn't counter with luis' poem. really, congrats to both of you. =]

[omgChe]

Thanks for judging so promptly, Adi. ^ ^

Thanks for the duel, Inoue. =)




I find it pleasing that you decided to talk about the one part of the alliteration sections that I favour the most. =D

I really hoped that my enjambment would give cause to proper pause. But how does an author's hope change a poem?! XD Actually doing something more to make my expectations happen (more certain) is the way I should have gone. I just really like saying the first line from that bit aloud. It's fun. =P

Thanks again for the critical non-crit. 3nodding <3

[Eilianna]

omgChe

Thanks for judging so promptly, Adi. ^ ^

Thanks for the duel, Inoue. =)




I find it pleasing that you decided to talk about the one part of the alliteration sections that I favour the most. =D

I really hoped that my enjambment would give cause to proper pause. But how does an author's hope change a poem?! XD Actually doing something more to make my expectations happen (more certain) is the way I should have gone. I just really like saying the first line from that bit aloud. It's fun. =P

Thanks again for the critical non-crit. 3nodding <3

I almost defeated you and vespertine. That in itself is a victory of which I can be proud. Thank you kindly for the duel. It was most certainly fun. heart

[Adimurti]

my firefly heart is still right there in your glass jar...

you're most welcome. both were a great read. =]

i could read it fluidly enough, but it took me a couple of tries which i think took away from the initial hit. ><

and welcome again. i always feel i need to give some kind of feedback with judgements, so... d= ♥

...i never trusted anyone more to poke enough holes in the lid

[Adimurti]

Awaiting Entries

Defender Name: AlambiqueCiel
Challenger Name: TheFirstDodoBirdToDie
Judge: Open
Duel Type: Regular Duel
Form: Free Verse
Context: Open / Must Contain a Bagpipe Metaphor
The Bet: 10,000 gold
Awaiting: Entries and Judgment.

Defender Name: il faut
Challenger Name: knight_of_chivalry
Judge: Adimurti
Duel Type: Regular
Form: Verse Libre
Context: Madness
The Bet: 3,000 gold
Awaiting: Entries and Judgment.

Defender Name: ViewerDiscretionsAdvised
Challenger Name: Aphrodite F l y t r a p
Judge: Adimurti
Duel Type: Regular
Form: Haibun
Context: Open
The Bet: 3,000 gold
Awaiting: Entries and Judgment.

Awaiting Bets

Defender Name: Happy.Crack
Challenger Name: Adimurti
Judge: Zeo
Duel Type: Call Out
Form: Shakespearean or Italian Sonnet
Context: Judgement
The Bet: 3,000 gold
Awaiting: Bets, Enguard!, Entries and Judgment.

Awaiting Judges

Defender Name: TheAmberShrew
Challenger Name: Akashya Inoue
Judge: Open
Duel Type: Flash Duel
Form: Villanelle
Context: Open
The Bet: 10,000 gold
Awaiting: Judge, Bets, Enguard!, Entries and Judgment.

Defender Name: Adimurti
Challenger Name: Lovers Never Tell
Judge: Open
Duel Type: Regular Duel
Form: Free-Verse
Context: Religion
The Bet: 3,000 gold
Awaiting: Judge, Bets, Enguard!, Entries and Judgment.

Defender Name: Calviness
Challenger Name: Akashya Inoue
Judge: Open
Duel Type: Flash Call Out
Form: Free-Verse
Context: Open
The Bet: 4,000 gold
Awaiting: Judge, Bets, Enguard!, Entries and Judgment.

[Adimurti]

my firefly heart is still right there in your glass jar...

only three threads away from falling off the page bump.

...i never trusted anyone more to poke enough holes in the lid

[ViRabbit]

I didn't see this duel up under the "current duel" post.. neutral
Oh well. Here's my not-so-timely entry.

Zeo

The duel:

Defender: Virabbit
Challenger: Calviness
Judge I Prefer: Zeo
Duel Type: Regular
Form: Free verse
Context: Open
The Bet: 20k

ENGUARDE!

The words you strung around my neck in spring
went to seed: dandelion fluff I laced with wasted wishes
and blew along the path of Apollo 11.

Now the moon's ripe with the weight of
language cascades unraveled off your tongue.

The words meander in fields of tinsel stars
as I reach for them to feed back to you some day
and weave through your hair like a daisy crown-

I'm ocean waves unfurling at your feet
and you're the moon, wire walking the clouds.

We're parallel lines never to cross, so
I'll send rocket ships like champagne bottles
to the horizon: full of love letters for you.

[calviness]

yayness. Now I need to find a judge for that other judge...

[Zeo]

The Duel:
Defender: Virabbit
Challenger: Calviness
Judge I Prefer: Zeo
Duel Type: Regular
Form: Free verse
Context: Open
The Bet: 20k

ViRabbit

The words you strung around my neck in spring
went to seed: dandelion fluff I laced with wasted wishes
and blew along the path of Apollo 11.

Now the moon's ripe with the weight of
language cascades unraveled off your tongue.

The words meander in fields of tinsel stars
as I reach for them to feed back to you some day
and weave through your hair like a daisy crown-

I'm ocean waves unfurling at your feet
and you're the moon, wire walking the clouds.

We're parallel lines never to cross, so
I'll send rocket ships like champagne bottles
to the horizon: full of love letters for you.

There's a lot of movement in this piece that is conveyed strongly through the language. It has the feel of a painting with soft colors and smooth flowing movements (cascades, meander, ocean waves, etc.). The only thing that tripped me up a little was the second stanza. It took me a few reads to be sure it wasn't a syntax error. I'd suggest maybe finding a smoother way to say "language cascades unraveled" because my first instinct is to see "cascades" as a verb and not a noun. (Cascades being the thing that is unraveling off the tongue.)

calviness

June

In the still unfaded green
of early summer
I slipped into your paranthesis SP. Also, I wonder if maybe parenthesis should be plural, since brackets is plural in the next line?
trapped by the brackets
you wore on your wrists.

still, I would miss
your sprinkler kisses
when the frenzied grasshoppers
stained the hillside
it's usual brown. No apostrophe

In that after-fact swelter,
cicada nights,
I wished I had pretended
your lidless mouth more of
an exclamation point.

I love the juxtaposition of punctuation with summer imagery. I find myself wondering about the story behind this person--the brackets on wrist makes me think recovering cutter, while the lidless mouth makes me think of...I don't know. It has a gruesome feel to it, like something unsettling. I have no idea if that's what you were going for or not, but the interpretation makes me think this person was troubling and that the speaker is reflecting on how they are better off. There's more I want to know about this story but the poem is leaving it unsaid.

I pointed out a couple of minor errors. The last stanza I think is the weakest. The commas setting aside "cicada nights" trip me up, and it feels like the syntax is awkward with "I wished I had pretended your lidless mouth more of an exclamation point."

The judgment:

Although you guys didn't set any parameters in terms of subject, both of you submitted poems that seemed as though they could have fit into one. Both have colorful imagery that place the reader in the moment, and both flesh out the tone of the relationship being described through the scenery. It was a tough call, but I'm going to declare ViRabbit the winner for having the most polished piece. Good show, both of you!