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Young Writers Society


Event 9: Stock Photo Poetry



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766 Reviews



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Points: 650
Reviews: 766
Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:00 am
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Brigadier says...



Stock Photo Poetry


For this challenge, you must do the impossible and write a short and sweet poem of 5 stanzas with 4 lines per stanza -- Oh, that doesn't sound too impossible does it? Well you didn't hear the last part, it all has to go along with these 5, slightly crazy, but still somehow PG stock photos.


Guess they'll be sleeping with the fishes tonight.
Image
What? Even Jesus likes to shop till he drops.
Image
I'd be scared of a mouse too or just technology in general.
Image
Hugging the cat was obviously worth the allergy attack for this guy.
Image
Wake up and smell the roses! Or cactus! Really just do your own thing.
Image


You can about working these in however you like. Use them as a metaphor life, which they could certainly be. Or just write a literal poem about wanting to shoot your goldfish and smell a cactus while discussing hugging your cat.

Doesn't matter how you do it or in what order, these five things just have to be in there somewhere and incorporated in a way that makes slight sense. A poem that looks something like the following one, will not be accepted. Use some sense when you decide to try and cheat the system.

Fish, fish, fish
Lady, lady, lady
With, with, with,
A gun, a gun, a gun

Jesus
Jesus
Jesus
Jesus

etc
etc
etc
etc


Most of all, have fun.
It's not all about winning.
Except it is, just don't let it get too far out of hand.

To enter, simply do the same as in every other event. Post your finalized (or semi-finalized if you're going to come back and edit) product in this thread and any questions or comments in the DT.

the brigadier rides again!
LMS VI: Lunch Appointment with Death






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472 Reviews



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Reviews: 472
Sat Feb 17, 2018 4:13 pm
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Lightsong says...



Ez.

Spoiler! :
Dear Victoria, you kill me twice. I am a goldfish,
content in swimming around my safe space,
a pool in a jar, when you take me out of it.
I suffocate and yet you shoot me while smiling.

You liked to be worshipped like you are a god
while shopping in the mall, striking poses
to those who wanted to capture your beauty
in eternity. You were pleased with their reverence.

I was a wishful girl. I knew I could send you a message
just by a click on your Facebook, but I shied away
from the mouse, afraid it would determine my fate.
Could this bespectacled stranger even interest you?

And yet I did. After I clicked. You replied my message.
You said my grumpiness was like your neighbor’s cat
and while you were allergic to it, you didn’t mind
hugging me because I made you smile (you said it).

Dear Victoria, please kill me with your words again.
If I’m a cat or a goldfish, you are a cactus and a lily.
No one can touch you without hurting themselves,
But you turn to a flower the moment I hold your hand.
"Writing, though, belongs first to the writer, and then to the reader, to the world.

The subject is a catalyst, a character, but our responsibility is, has to be, to the work."

- David L. Ulin





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Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:17 pm
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alliyah says...



I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

Spoiler! :

Image


Spoiler! :

And because I'm paranoid my stock photo references are too subtle:
Gun Fish - Line 6, 7
Jesus Shopping - Line 3, 17, 19
Scared Mouse - Line 3, 18
Cat Squeeze Allergy - Line 3, 10, 12
Cactus Smell - Line 13, 14
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return





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498 Reviews



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Sat Feb 17, 2018 9:07 pm
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Que says...



I really liked the last picture, so this is mostly desert musings.

Spoiler! :
There are these people,
trying to find some form of God in
the desolate malls of suburbia.
But they don’t realize that he was never there.

I watch them the same way I
watch my goldfish — with distaste —
I sort of want to kill them all, but
our differences aren’t a good enough reason to.

Maybe I’m like the goldfish, after all, out of place,
because the desert sands don’t agree with me
and our love is one neither of us
can really bear. But we do it anyway.

I know others care about phones and
computer mouses, but I care for
kangaroo rats and coyotes.
They’re softer on the eyes and on the soul.

In my apartment, I inhale barrel cactus,
closing my eyes to imagine
the smell of desert earth after rain
because my feet are still planted in a wasteland.
Est-ce que vous parlez français?





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488 Reviews



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Sat Feb 17, 2018 11:32 pm
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Meshugenah says...



I don't even know what this is, but I don't think it's poetry.

Spoiler! :

musings of an almost spring

i.
i thought i saw god the other night
between stacked cans of cat food
and shopping bags piled high
enough to hide the smoking gun -

the cat and the fish tank tipped on its side,
chewed mouse tail seasoning the gills
before he’s caught in the act
(“but he’s just being a cat!”)

ii.
it’s dry enough to water the ferocactus
which leaves winter a fading memory
that can’t come back in time
to cool parched dirt and hot cement

iii.
there’s static in the air - a distant dream of thunder
holding on to everything you touch,
leaving fur stuck to bags,
and touchscreens unusable.

iv.
i thought i saw god the other night
nestled between stingers and the neighbor’s leaning tower
of recycling (topped off with last week’s not-so-fresh catch)
and thought, “Jesus, take the wheel.”
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia





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Points: 24185
Reviews: 299
Sat Feb 17, 2018 11:48 pm
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TheSilverFox says...



*audible gasp* Poems? My weakness. ;-;

Spoiler! :
Could you hand me a pinprick
plucked from the arm of a cactus
so I can stab my finger - any finger -
and see if I still bleed?

If I don't, I always suspected
that I wasn't alive to begin with,
since I spent the last week
envying the fish in its glass prison.

If I do, I suppose I'll keep going;
I'm a mouse in a maze, but there's food
laid out for me, summoned
by some vague and (hopefully) benevolent God.

And I suspect a cat will chase me
around corners, deep into dead ends,
but only to cough up a hairball and hiss;
I'm a few decades too young of a meal.

No, I'd rather kiss the cactus,
because I don't trust my fingers
(they spew lies all over my keyboard)
and it's better to remove all doubt.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sun Feb 18, 2018 2:30 am
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Mea says...



Here goes nothing!

Spoiler! :
do you remember the curve of our umbrellas
in the palace gardens, the squelching slap of shoes
along the pavement, our soft silence
as we sought the smell of cactus?

we only found the rain, a perfume
that can't come in a shopping bag,
a god stripped of its savor, falling
between foreign skyscrapers.

no stuffy ponchos; I wanted to breathe
you in, mark you with memories,
hold the weight of us in my arms
before you streaked away.

now I crawl between metal legs
that hold nothing up. now I clamber higher,
schrodinger’s problem, the mouse and the screen
my only connection to you.

years ago I leapt out of my bowl
and into a sea where I don’t belong —
but was it you who jumped
and brought my bulwark down.
We're all stories in the end.

I think of you as a fairy with a green dress and a flower crown and stuff.
-EternalRain

I think you, @Deanie and I are like the Three Book Nerd Musketeers of YWS.
-bluewaterlily








[as a roleplayer is feeling sad about torturing her characters] GrandWild: "You're a writer, dear. Embrace it."
— GrandWild