I was going to make Culture the theme of this combat, but culture is only one of the many means through which our reflexes are shaped. Family, trauma, love; playing it safe, playing it dangerous: all of these factors contribute to the responses that shape who we are. Genes play a role, but so does art. In the 60s, lots of speculative fiction called androids 'reflex machines.' Is that all we are? A bundle of reflexes? Is BF Skinner right in the essential, even if he was wrong with particulars?
Combat Expiration: 9/12/2010, Midnight, PST
Critique Expiration: 9/13/2010, Midnight, PST
Bonuses: +3 if posted by 6pm PST (9/10/2010), +2 if posted by 9pm PST (9/10/2010), and +1 for midnight PST (9/11/2010) posts. -1 per hour, for posts that go up after Combat Expiration: Max -2.
Yellow Cards/Red Cards: This is a game of literary combat. Have a grudge? Try OUTWRITING your nemesis. Ordinary shit talk is not allowed, except as critique. You get one shot at critique, so get all your licks in one post. I don't mind bending the rules a bit, but problem posters get one warning in the form of a yellow card. Additional, blatant violations of the rules will result in a red card. Red cards mean I will delete all that poster's identifiable posts on the thread. I will permaban anyone who is persistently disruptive. If you can't be bothered to even try to outwrite your enemies, you don't belong here.
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
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ReplyDeleteTwo for Flinching
ReplyDeleteThe boys loved to discover new ways
to inflict pain, a sado-masochistic
Vasco da Gama eager to chart a route
from fine to tearful in record time.
It was always a game, and the loser
suffered. Like Burn Ball, also called
Suicide; fumble and you were pelted
with the tennis ball you dropped.
Punch Buggy, Slug Bug, no take backs,
loser hit in the arm. Out Like a Light,
strangle each other until someone
passed out. Bloody Knuckles, crack
closed fists together, sometimes
with quarters wedged between fingers.
The eternal rule: Two for Flinching.
A reflex common as a breath or a blink,
punished by double the damage, twice
as hard. Everyone eager to prove
toughness, to be unflappable, real men
instead of children hitting each other
for no good reason. A slow push back
against nature, primitive impulses
harnessed and reconditioned. React
impassively when confronted by the ringing
slap of an angry girlfriend. Stand
stolid when your brother dies
from a bullet to the chest in a gang fight
because he didn't retreat or yield.
Sit patiently when your daughter
paints your nails pink and orange. Watch
the dying of the light and do not rage
against the inevitable, because God
punches harder than anyone, and to flinch
will only make it worse.
Chess Machine [CombatWords Poem, September 10, 2010]
ReplyDeleteSensei twitches: brainstem itches.
Scores of insect lords infect
Boards of wooden brains, he's lain
Bones on benches. Crones and wenches
Feed the dusk their seed on husks.
Peeling clothing, feeling loathing,
Lain his stilts, he's slain with guilt.
Chess board master; stress-disaster
Sleepy screamer, creepy dreamer;
Knight of weed, he's slight in deed:
Diving boards through thriving gourds—
Swimming pools are trimming fools
Playing toys like praying boys,
Frisco-banned lout, schizo handout:
Corrective gears, reflexive tears.
@Valerie:
ReplyDeletePro:
"React
impassively when confronted by the ringing
slap of an angry girlfriend. Stand
stolid when your brother dies
from a bullet to the chest in a gang fight
because he didn't retreat or yield.
Sit patiently when your daughter
paints your nails pink and orange. Watch
the dying of the light and do not rage"
The back and forth here is good +1
"Vasco da Gama eager to chart a route
from fine to tearful in record time." +1
I liked it +1
Con: The turn was too expository "A slow push back
against nature, primitive impulses
harnessed and reconditioned." -1
Ending was too pat. Cliche? Wouldn't go that far. -1
Misc: This one will be killer when you clean it up. The mistakes harm it pretty badly imo.
+3 -2 = +1
I AM WINSTON SMITH. YOU ARE WINSTON SMITH. WE ARE THE DEAD
ReplyDeleteOnce a year, for the rest of my life, I sit in a chair/look in the sky/eat a bowl of ice cream and think to myself, Holy shit…It’s 9-11. This year, it was at Disneyland of all places, staring at a woman wearing an American flag kerchief while riding around on a mobility scooter.
I realized yesterday that my conditioned response to 9-11 is righteous indignation. People invoke the act of terrorists to justify political means and we become outraged, invoking the dead in our attempt to shame them. All 9-11 did was harden our sense of moral certitude. It happened because of this. It happened because of that that. It happened because of them. It happened because of you.
That’s what I felt looking at this woman, sitting on her little go cart gnawing on a greasy turkey leg. She was overweight, but she wasn’t obese. Just enough to pull my outrage trigger.
We were all trapped by the parade, Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear high fiving as they strutted around the mobile dance stages. She stood up a few times to catch a better glimpse of Peter Pan hopping around, clapping his hands above his head. I watched her tap her feet and clap along. A little boy on forearm crutches stood next to me, his legs dangling limp beneath him, his face filled with the kind of dewy eyed wonder you see in children at Disneyland. An obese couple with their obese couple t shirts, their obese couple denim shorts, and their obese couple ankle socks, stood arm in arm, the backs of their shirts speckled by tiny pinpricks of sweat. We were all standing, watching this garish display of American extravagance, this waste of oil and resources, this oft-cited reason “they hate us.” She sat on her little machine, giggling, stomping her feet, clapping her hands.
I wanted to scream at her. Scream at her like Outer Party members beating their chests, pulling their hair. In this annual Two Minutes Hate that I will have every year for the rest of my life, people like her are the enemy. They are the reason Oceania was bombed. We are at war with people like her. We have always been at war with people like her.
GET UP AND WALK YOU USELESS OF SHIT! PEOPLE DIED! GET UP AND WALK! YOU DON’T THINK THIS CRIPPLED KID NEXT TO ME WOULD LOVE TO FUCKING TAP HIS FEET AND CLAP LIKE YOU? YOU LAZY PIECE OF GARBAGE. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE REASON THEY ATTACKED US.
I had these thoughts, while staring at the same parade, eating the same overprice food, wasting roughly the same amount of gas to get there.
9-11 isn’t about coming together as a nation and a people. It’s about pointing fingers and assessing blame. This is what I realized yesterday. Whatever sense of respect we had for those we disagreed with, whatever hope of reconciliation we had, died that day. They put that cage of rats on our heads and released the first lever, and then the second one, until we begged for them to take it off, to do it to someone else.
Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime is death.
I blame you. You blame me. I sell you out. You sell me out.
We are the dead
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ReplyDeleteI propose a combat extension to midnight PST tonight, and a critique extension of 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteIf you're opposed, just say so--although, I think only Valerie or I should have any say in the matter, as we both posted. Hey, we already have clock advantage, so I don't think it's too much skin off us--though Chon wrote a crazy-good piece & might win just off merit... that is, if the combat's extended.
I don't mind, extend away.
ReplyDelete