THE CLUB'S POEMS AND SCORES #2

Lap 13
Round 4
Free verse

Panic Attack

Simple thoughts swirling about
above the crown of my head.
This halo of recollection
comes in the form
of relentless inspection
of myself, my soul
causing a brick to rest
on my chest.
Meditation
reverses the side
effects of
thinking too much
but always when
distraction and attraction
are absent,
the halo sits lightly
atop my blonde mop.

Lap 13
Round 5
Microscope

She leans,
probably too far
in her mini skirt,
over the glass eye
of the microscope.

In the microcosm of
the class room, a freckled boy
eagerly scopes out the view, as she
avidly admires the scope
of the whole tiny universe
that lives inside her cheek.
It swims with tiny creatures,
fluttering with cilia,
discovering a universe
of their own.

Lap 13
round 6 Wild card (cats)

cats

she sat hunched low to the ground
lithe and leathal
her tail the only thing that breathed
twitching in time with the wind
her prey close vigilant
with ears twisting turning
scenting not seeing
dropping its head once more
To graze on the luxuriant undergrowth
a breathless blur
commotion and sparks
haphazard brutal
death follows quickly
silence, almost once more
the beat of life goes on
for some

Lap 13
Round 7
Cats

Tough & Chewy

Those little
furballs are great.
I hear in some
off color jokes,
that they make
a good snack.
Personally, I'd be afraid
to eat a cat.
They are so
sly and cunniving
sometimes...
I bet their meat
would be tough to chew.

Lap 13,
Round 8
aabab

Friends With Benefits?

Naked flesh
is quick to mesh
but not to stay unhidden.
Modesty begins afresh,
when feelings are forbidden.

Lap 13
Round 9 - PnQ Member

Hellon my Scottish beau
Its good to have you back
Sit a while admire the view
We not that bad a crew

You fitted in very well
If only for, a very short spell
So don't rush off as you did before
Hang around, after we tally the score

Lap 13
Round 10
Alliterative verse

Twenty T's, or Tea With Tammy and Twelve Thai Twins

I live for alliteration.
My main motive
today is to try to take twenty
T's to town with two
teaspoons of tobasco and
twelve terrifyingly tall
and temperamental Thai twins
'til Tammy,
a family friend
informs me that my goals
are great but incoherent at best.

Lap 13
Round 11
Five lines

Five lines of what, I ask?

I was under the impression
the PnQ generally looked down upon
advocating for drug use, particularly
cocaine, that bane of star-crusted celebrity.
And five is far too much for any nose.

Lap 13
round 12 Halloween

Pitch and bump, troll and lump
Ghosts and skeletons
Kangaroos and elephants
All dancing down the street,
that run and skip
to pitter patter
splish and splatter
the hum of little feet,
the yells, the joy
wrapped up tiny toys
of what it does not matter,
door bells ring
chimes do ding
around they all do gather,
with out stretched hands
and gleaming eyes
they dance and sing and chatter,
till off they go back up the road
their tummies a little fatter

Lap 13
Round 13
Toilet

Dr. Doom Doesn't Doo

Do you think that
super villains have toilets?
Not me, they're too badass.
I bet they
make their cronies dispose of it
or perhaps they are so
powerful that they
process all of their food
that they
do not need to do the doodoo.
I don't think that villains poo,
and if they do,
I bet it comes in the form
of more super villains.

Lap 14
Round 1 - 21 syllables

Sometimes I feel like a hole
in a round
table.
Other times I am the round table.

Scoreboard updated. You have 1 personal HH remaining.

A new general HH has been announced.

Lap 14
Round 3 Water

Always down never up
sideways to sit and pool
to mirror and wave
gentle and clear
lap and tickle
or rage in violence
anger
but always it runs on
bubbling and slipping
skipping and jumping
round and down
Till
it can run no more
but sit and rest
to silently vanish

Psssssst.... you guys are actually in Lap 13, not 14. Dear sibyllene got a little ahead of herself up there. Your round numbers are unaffected so it doesn't really matter- please just amend the lap # in your next posts.

Lap..... 13!
Round 4
Free Verse

I'm about as French
as year without
going on strike,
which is to say
not at all.

But I would fake it,
if only to take full advantage
of their bakeries.

Thick, crusty bread, spread
with cool white butter.
the mille feuille, flaking
into a trillion pieces with
the soft sweetness of cream
and a haze of vanilla.
Croissants,
airy as the moon for
which they're named.

I have one waiting for me downstairs.
I'll dip warm segments in raspberry jam,
smear them with butter, and eat them
with milky coffee, as I read a book
about changelings and look out
on a brioche-colored morning.

Your scoreboard updated.

You have 1 personal HH remaining.

Remember to exploit the general HHs being announced on the main thread.

Lap 13
Round 6 - Wild [21 syllables]

In a Daze

Strangely, I stumble upon PnQ,
and I'm too drunk to worry
about contests...

General HH 8-9

Lap 13
Round 8
Acrostic

"Sibyllene" may be the
only submitter in this hour.

All my other erstwhile comrades,
ladies, wild, and foreign gentlemen both, are
observing other vistas, apparently.
No worries. Like the lone wolf I'll trot lightly,
extracting points from every lemming of opportunity.

Lap 13
Round 10
Cooking

With the subtlest flick,
I've turned you on.
A little sugar here,
a little spice,
there. Cloves,
vanilla, cinnamon. A little sweet heat
and I've brought you up to simmer.
A brush, a stir, a shake,
steam rises from the surface, coats
metal, linoleum, skin.
Everything is cooking.
We boil into something new.

Lap 13
Round 12
Seven Lines

Seven

The seventh son of a seventh son
is destined for oddity. He'll be born surely
during the new moon, when the
sky is darkest. His first words will be with
beetles, remarking on the weather. He
walks, long-legged, down streets that don't
exist, seeing what isn't there to see.

Lap 14
Round 1
Grandmothers

My grandma wears army boots
and tromps in them for miles,
through cow pies and cactus and
noxious cheatgrass, side-stepping
rattlers on her way to the cattle.

"That old B-572," she says, deftly
whipping up potatoes on the stove,
"that red one, she was the meanest
old thing we ever saw. Broke the fence
twice." A dash of salt.
"Toughest meat you ever tasted."

Lap 14
Round 3
aabba

There once was a woman named "Candy."
As a stripper, this name worked quite dandy.
But she felt her true calling
was in trashy pub brawling,
so she changed her name quickly to "Brandy."

Lap 14
Round 5
Squirrel

Squirrel, the Earl of Humperdink,
had a rough childhood any way
you cut it. He wasn't really an Earl,
of course, but his parents had
communed with the spirits at
5 AM on a Tuesday, and the spirits
were not in a particularly good mood
at the time.
In their defense, though, there
are only so many things
you can name a child who's
born with a bushy gray tail,
and a manic, fidgety look
about him.

HH 11:00 - 12:00

Lap 14
Round 7
Insect

Limbs folded back in
fiendish prayer, she twists
a saffron hammer head over
her leaf-green body. She
gives herself stoically to
her mate. It is brief and
necessary. Pleasure comes
afterward, when she'll devour him
greedily, voluptuously,
as a late breakfast.

Lap 14
Round 9
Mythological

Ariadne

She shared a womb with the monster;
this is something everyone has forgotten.

She was born first,
rose pink and healthy,
lustily shouting.

He was
the twisted afterthought,
blackened and horrid,
with horns and hooves,
eerily silent
with eyes open to the sky.

The joy of Ariadne was
deserted, perverted, even
as they bundled her away from
her monstrous twin.

The rest of her childhood
she was scrubbed and anointed,
cherished and feared. For always
her weaving, her play,
her very beauty carried
the faint scent
of disease.

Lap 14
Round 11
Nature

I used to kiss
the buds alive
each spring, igniting
life with my lips in
the apple trees.

They were sweetest
after a rain, swarming with
scent, nectar, a dozen
hurrying, tender bees.

Lap 14
Round 13
Magic

Magic is nothing more
than, merely, a soul
unaware of its thrumming,
a fern before unfurling,
a glint of dust in a library
filled to the brim
with unopened books.

Lap 15
Round 2
17 syllables

The sunflower hangs
its head, grown heavy with seeds,
shy with its sun-love.

Lap 15
Round 4
Free

Ariadne Continued!

The tarnished, gaudily guarded
childhood ended in the quickest
moment - in the first shy
flickering of her eyes onto
the young prince, newly
arrived and glittering
with cruelty. He caught her
gaping look, smirked, and
shot his eyes skyward,
forgetting her completely.
Ruffled off like some
dirty city bird, her heart
twisted in a new feeling.
Had she been older, wiser, less cursed,
she may have recognized it
for what it was: the dull, gleaming
pain of disgrace, which must be
passed on in order
to be lightened of it.

She thought she was in love.