TEAM TWO'S THREAD

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NARPH
POTP
AMREEN
EVERLASTING

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1. haiku/senryu
2. poem about hunting/ or fishing
3. poem with 28-30 syllables.
4. Winter
5. 6 lines
6. WILD CARD (any poem)
7. Include the words... "the new girl/guy"
8. a life jacket

Use the prompts however you want to. As long as your poem includes the prompt, or hints at the prompt, it will be accepted.

Good luck.

In the wilderness,
a duck landing, ducks bullets;
a fisherman bleeds

#2
tuna's in the wet,
scales slipping in the sea
the net hitched, the breath the breath
pushing from the light.
tuna's in a bucket
scales splinter sun from sea
the gills splayed the gills the gills
heavy liquid fight.

#3

This classroom is a playroom,
the teacher said with gloom.
I want it to be more like a courtroom,
But What should I do?

#4

He has hidden himself from me,
tangled in flannel sheets and
marshmallow dreams.
Spring gives birth to peonies
and wild daisies,
yet he still exists,
only poking his head out
to verify that his heart is
frigid and that the world
cannot be this warm.

I stay miles away,
trying not to be affected
by his gloom...
though I am reminded
of his scent, of peppermint
and bergamot
that linger during March.

He is nicknamed winter,
yet it is I who has become
frosted.

#5

This contest is a test that I can digest,
though I must confess, that it feels like a quest.
Can I suggest to not take a rest?
But if you must, please ignored my request.
We have no one to impress, I must attest.
This is a matter of expressing what we feel in our chest.

#6

No words to ease this headache.
Ache ache ache,
my head aches
when my many failures
are signals you receive
twenty miles away.
The radio and the clock
chase each other down
corridors,
and I am translated
in fragments.
Ache ache ache
until I can't think
for you or me.

# 7

The new girl here, sits in her chair;
in front of a desk that creaks and creaks.
It creaks like hard-wooden stairs
that squeak and squeak
as her brother's feet step the stairs
to be near her.

She sits and writes before he arrives.
And with a pen in hand, she smiles.
Though at times, she cries and writes.
Believing no one sees her.

But as her brother comes near her room
The desk creaks and creaks
and the stairs squeak and squeak
Yet she writes and cries,
Believing no one sees her.

#8

You are the water, I am the land.
Boats sneak past your conscious
while I am too shy to venture out.
Life has been guarded for me,
as two feet that travel in sure steps
for I am versed in sand and shore,
not in the swaying movement of waves.
Yet you always try to persuade me,
spitting out a life jacket
because you know I cannot keep
myself afloat.

#1

a man licks his lips
at the kids across the street;
hand closes shutters

#2

On a Maryland lake,
you and I fished for
opportunity-
the sun beamed
happiness
while we sat
on opposite sides
of a rowboat,
learning patience
and virtue.
We cast our lines
and the hooks dipped
into water,
where we deceived
the innocent silver
bodies.

#3

as the night sets,
He, the moon, drank stars
till full.

as the day came
She, the girl, watched the moon
from her room, in the afternoon.

#4

We made snow angels on that
Christmas eve,
pretending we were eternal-
made of fairy dust that would
waltz on our eyelashes,
and breathe spirit
into our senile hearts.

#5.

6 lines of people, people wearing suits
everyone stares at their watch
Time ticks and tocks, their glasses fall.
They are blind, blind, blind...
I see the train arrive, old man stands
tattered clothes, he smiles.

#6

Energized, you made me feel energized-
radioactive spiders crawled within me
and caffeine spiked my veins.
Soon, I was racing toward heaven,
climbing a 30-story building
in order to jump the night,
startle it, and fly to tomorrow.

#7

In the neighborhood, the new guy skateboards.
Every girl, watches. Every child, watches.
He skates and skates feelings in them.
Up and down.
Up and down, the feelings go.
"He is cool. He is not."
The new guy falls. Everyone laughs.

#8

She was the girl everyone recognized
twenty years after high school,
the hands they knew healed grudges,
the eyes that would speak of kindness.
Yet, her funeral is today.
Her coffin is unrecognizable as flowers
weep in all directions, stems holding each other
and petals tearing up.

The world was waiting for someone like her,
and she was waiting for someone to save her...
For God to send down a life jacket,
one that would ensure safety around her
thoughts, instead of her

unpredictable subconscious.

#1

a cellphone vibrates;
driving to the hospital
a future father

#2
when the tree fell,
the forest didn't cry out
or taste the metallic
earth seeping by the roots.
nor later did the forest cry,
though it certainly heard
the bullet screaming
through the air
the thickness amassing
by the ferns.

#3

Rain-soaked operators
have left my machinery
slick-
my soul has become
rusty,
a hurricane without incentive.

#4

There's a ball of snow in her hand,
where she feels the ice burn her skin.
flakes touch ground
flakes touch ground

Pines are covered in white.
a robin nestled in a branch, flies.

She feels bless
She feels bless
with the spirit of Christmas in her chest.

A voice calls out her name,
She looks left. She looks right.
The street is a ghost at night.
A lamp flickers atop her head.
She looks up. She looks down.
Her shadow showcases her silhouette.
The snow in the ground mounts her feet.
A voice calls out her name.

Flakes touch ground
Flakes touch ground

The ball of snow falls off her hand.

#5
There once was a man
who had only one nostril,
no other nostril could one see.
But lucky was he, for no other
could sneeze with such
elegant accuracy.

#6

Wild like a lion:
untamed, fierce, hungry.
He roars. He roars.

I made him french toasts.

But he wants meat!

#7

The new girl levitates;
she floats in crowded hallways
and never manages to
cause a scream.
High school is a new skin
she must wear,
without any excuses to escape.
The new girl is already a ghost
in this abused town,
unable to be remembered
at seventeen years old.

#8

You said:

I'm the ocean, I'm the ocean!
And you are, you are a castaway,
In me, you'll drown in.
soon
soon

You said:

"I'm the ocean, I'm the ocean!
Alas, do not resist."

I say:

You are the ocean. You are the ocean.
Sure, I'm a castaway.
But he, he, he is my life jacket.
He saves me from your shallow depths.

#1

Senryu

Pleading for your grace
on an old telephone line,
when nobody's home.

#2

Ravens croak their flight deep into the mountains,
hound dogs sniff deers from afar the distance.
A riffle shoots.
It shoots and kills tranquility off a forest.
Waterfalls mourn.

#3

You are needed on this Earth,
so riot against the habits
that mar your true character.

You are not a pattern.

#4

His character was Winter, cold, too cold.
but his heart was home:
warm like his hands, warm like his touch.

I had to knock his door
I had to knock his door

To refuge myself from the blizzards of love.

#5

Intense are your eyes,
gleaming behind spectacles,
distraught by the sounds
moaning from the alleyways.
Your world is not mine,
your fear is not what I know.

# 6

You are a blade for crimes:
too sharp, too sharp.
But not too sharp to cut deep flesh
and get away
without leaving at least
a single trace of blood.

#7

The new guy doesn't remember any of their names.
He doesn't choose to.
He calls them friends, but in reality, they are victims.
Each day his neighbors receive an invitation written
from a dusty typewriter.
But not just any neighbor,
the ones who have harassed him, embarrassed him
with stares that harden his face.
They don't know what's he's been through
yet they ruin the town with tales of his dirty culture,
arriving at his apartment for dinner, perfectly on time...
and they don't leave until the EMTs' have confirmed they are no longer living.

#8

footprints on the sand;
a life jacket lies forgotten
on the shoreline

#1

Midnight will combust
when humanity becomes
scared of transitions.

#2

May be, it was the smell of food from yesterday.
May be, it was the hunger in me..

that I hunted and I hunted the pantry for cereal.
that I fished and I fished a bowl with milk to catch some cereal.

But the hunter and fisherman in me, had no skills.

#3

Gas station blues-
the lights weren't Vegas
though I filled
the tank all the way
in hopes
of a new cross country
adventure.

#4 Winter

it must be your hands,
the bubbles in the chocolate at brewing point,
the taste of warmness dispersing through my bones,
the feeling in my chest like this is home,
the calmness radiated from your lips
when all I do is watch you...

It must be your hands,
the condiments tossed on a soup
the vegetables in the cutting board
the food you cook,
when all I do is watch you...

It must be your kind hands,
that welcomed me into your kitchen,
that greeted me in this cold winter,
without you even asking my name.

if it's not,
I don't know...

#5

You smeared her mascara,
inspired in her a new parasite
until everything about you became
a twisted romance;
you wanted what lovers drank to,
to never remember the awful yesterdays.

#6

letters bounce off the lines of my notepad.
I rubbed my eyes. But I'm too tired.
keyboard good night, I'll see you
when sleep no longer makes me blind.

#7

Every childhood memory you battled.
Each read like a horror story never finished,
an abandoned house you could never
warm up to.

Two doors down, you listen to a voice.
A song, for the first time in decades.
It is neither happy nor sad,
and the emotions intrigue you
as feelings flood your soul-
you are no longer numb.

The new girl,
becomes your rescue.