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skonen_bladesI came in fifth place in the Vancouver Poetry Slam on Monday night after making it to the second round. Mostly due to the fact that the vast majority of the poets went over time. It was really a strange anomaly of a night. Usually a couple of poets will cross that 3:10 mark but on Monday it seemed to me like there were maybe three or four that didn't.
I started with a love poem that I pieced together from the strongest bits from the love ramblings I've been musing about lately. Here it is.
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as you. Your bark is as lovely as your bite. If every day’s a season, then let every dusk be an autumn that lets you lose your leaves in front of me. And if, beneath your absent leaves, you are evergreen in blushing to me and only me, then that’s okay. I accept the contradiction that you bring.
I have waterski-crashed into a different life that I did not expect and I am infinitely grateful.
I was sick of writing one-way letters. A wolf pack of jean jackets and forgetful sparrows made clothes for me and called me late at night. Numbers stamped with ‘only call when drunk’ flashed nicotine-quick through my phone. I became a postcard.
Love doesn't arrive on a train station hello from people you recognize. It's a cape that swishes in the darkness when you're trying to turn the page. The right needle to bring the song out of the valleys is flying through you twenty times a second, stitching moments in front of you and turning your past into a tail you use for balance.
The birds and the bees come in and make a hive out of drooling moments for humans to put in greeting cards and hope for in mirrors.
A crinkling at the side of the eye and I'm yours. Promises go unregarded, unimportant, fleeting and paper-plain as a weather report for next year. This is the love-swept shore of your bangs, the karate kicks of your eyelashes and the waves of your laughter. When I'm not touching you, it feels like the circuit is broken. Be it hips, lips or fingertips, that touch warms it up to audible and makes the reasons plain.
The times I'm around you are already so valuable. I'm a man that knows the face of loss, regret and boredom. I know the bad decisions, the dreary sentences of days without end, the impending aimlessness of just another day on the fire.
You are a unicorn on the starship enterprise.
Let’s give our bad judgment a head start. Let’s make our bodies into flint and spark fires to give love a chance to see in the dark. Let’s make prank calls to our past. Let’s get the future good and drunk and cheat at cards until we’re all naked in a dirty motel room laughing. Let me spend a little time colouring inside your lines.
I’m burning my flight plan with one hand and reaching for you with the other.
My days have become dreams in between the dreams I have at night that are made more vibrant by the fact that you are sleeping beside me. You have taken my present, both sleeping and awake, and made it better. Not to overshare the obvious but there are times when I am lost in this unexpected goodness, this lack of drama, this windfall oasis of peace.
I feel parts of me that I didn’t even realize were tense start to uncurl, daring the sun. Pieces of me long-since healed but still scared peeking between their fingers at what they thought was a horror movie. I notice glacial chapters tick over in the odometer of my chest. This is springtime finally catching me in a tickle fight.
You’re turning the strings of my heart into an orchestra. I want to swim forever in the high-tide line of your hips. You’re reminding me that there is such a thing as a safe place. I’m thrilled I make you happy.
Let’s go forward, hand in hand like kids at a playground.
Let’s skip until we break a record.
And then I read the this re-visited version of Animalpractice. Probably not a good choice. The venue was hot, a lot of the people had left after the AWESOME feature poet Dwayne Morgan. Most of the poems were passionate odes to something or other and I got up and did this wordplay piece. It was met with a lot of confused silence. I think about half of the place started to clue into what was going on about halfway through my poem. Other poets seemed to love it but the judges didn't. Booo. Oh well. It was still fun to read out.
The liger’s lie in time was lost
The lobster’s lobs were also tossed
The leopard’s paisleys turned to spots
The ocelittles turned to lots.
The Platy’s dogs were changes to pusses
From anima to animusses
Toucannots became toucans
Oranguwhites, orangutans
Spare-aisles all became sparrows
The min-yes changed to say minnow
The hundredpede was changed to cents
And then they starved the scorpulents
August bugs were switched to Junes
And crazy laughing ducks to loons
Tertotallies became ter-mights
Some saber-teeth lost overbites
Barricouldn’ts found that they coulda
Katydon’ts thought that they shoulda
Hyen-ums switched to Hyen-uhs
Pandoesn'ts all became pandas.
The pterodactyl’s wings were torn
Some creatures lost their unique horns
Mosques converted all churchitos
Caused drowsy female deer to doze
The mantis, scared, began to pray
The blue Jen changed her name to Jay
The A-bras were all switched to zees
And then the monkeys lost their keys
So there you go. Good times. Another fun poetry slam. I'm having a wonderful time with this community of poets. We've got a pretty good scene going here.
I started with a love poem that I pieced together from the strongest bits from the love ramblings I've been musing about lately. Here it is.
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as you. Your bark is as lovely as your bite. If every day’s a season, then let every dusk be an autumn that lets you lose your leaves in front of me. And if, beneath your absent leaves, you are evergreen in blushing to me and only me, then that’s okay. I accept the contradiction that you bring.
I have waterski-crashed into a different life that I did not expect and I am infinitely grateful.
I was sick of writing one-way letters. A wolf pack of jean jackets and forgetful sparrows made clothes for me and called me late at night. Numbers stamped with ‘only call when drunk’ flashed nicotine-quick through my phone. I became a postcard.
Love doesn't arrive on a train station hello from people you recognize. It's a cape that swishes in the darkness when you're trying to turn the page. The right needle to bring the song out of the valleys is flying through you twenty times a second, stitching moments in front of you and turning your past into a tail you use for balance.
The birds and the bees come in and make a hive out of drooling moments for humans to put in greeting cards and hope for in mirrors.
A crinkling at the side of the eye and I'm yours. Promises go unregarded, unimportant, fleeting and paper-plain as a weather report for next year. This is the love-swept shore of your bangs, the karate kicks of your eyelashes and the waves of your laughter. When I'm not touching you, it feels like the circuit is broken. Be it hips, lips or fingertips, that touch warms it up to audible and makes the reasons plain.
The times I'm around you are already so valuable. I'm a man that knows the face of loss, regret and boredom. I know the bad decisions, the dreary sentences of days without end, the impending aimlessness of just another day on the fire.
You are a unicorn on the starship enterprise.
Let’s give our bad judgment a head start. Let’s make our bodies into flint and spark fires to give love a chance to see in the dark. Let’s make prank calls to our past. Let’s get the future good and drunk and cheat at cards until we’re all naked in a dirty motel room laughing. Let me spend a little time colouring inside your lines.
I’m burning my flight plan with one hand and reaching for you with the other.
My days have become dreams in between the dreams I have at night that are made more vibrant by the fact that you are sleeping beside me. You have taken my present, both sleeping and awake, and made it better. Not to overshare the obvious but there are times when I am lost in this unexpected goodness, this lack of drama, this windfall oasis of peace.
I feel parts of me that I didn’t even realize were tense start to uncurl, daring the sun. Pieces of me long-since healed but still scared peeking between their fingers at what they thought was a horror movie. I notice glacial chapters tick over in the odometer of my chest. This is springtime finally catching me in a tickle fight.
You’re turning the strings of my heart into an orchestra. I want to swim forever in the high-tide line of your hips. You’re reminding me that there is such a thing as a safe place. I’m thrilled I make you happy.
Let’s go forward, hand in hand like kids at a playground.
Let’s skip until we break a record.
And then I read the this re-visited version of Animalpractice. Probably not a good choice. The venue was hot, a lot of the people had left after the AWESOME feature poet Dwayne Morgan. Most of the poems were passionate odes to something or other and I got up and did this wordplay piece. It was met with a lot of confused silence. I think about half of the place started to clue into what was going on about halfway through my poem. Other poets seemed to love it but the judges didn't. Booo. Oh well. It was still fun to read out.
The liger’s lie in time was lost
The lobster’s lobs were also tossed
The leopard’s paisleys turned to spots
The ocelittles turned to lots.
The Platy’s dogs were changes to pusses
From anima to animusses
Toucannots became toucans
Oranguwhites, orangutans
Spare-aisles all became sparrows
The min-yes changed to say minnow
The hundredpede was changed to cents
And then they starved the scorpulents
August bugs were switched to Junes
And crazy laughing ducks to loons
Tertotallies became ter-mights
Some saber-teeth lost overbites
Barricouldn’ts found that they coulda
Katydon’ts thought that they shoulda
Hyen-ums switched to Hyen-uhs
Pandoesn'ts all became pandas.
The pterodactyl’s wings were torn
Some creatures lost their unique horns
Mosques converted all churchitos
Caused drowsy female deer to doze
The mantis, scared, began to pray
The blue Jen changed her name to Jay
The A-bras were all switched to zees
And then the monkeys lost their keys
So there you go. Good times. Another fun poetry slam. I'm having a wonderful time with this community of poets. We've got a pretty good scene going here.