I crave adventure in my bones, but I receive it in my mind. I am safer and less traveled as a result. I'm extremely wary of a single expedition causing my total ruin, but I take little risks. We all do don't we? To live is to risk. The best we can hope for is to manage our risk. When we increase our risk, we're taking a chance; for risk is exposure to the odds of negative contingency. While I may want to take a road trip to discover something novel, I have far stronger urges to stay with what I know: a job, a news poem... whatever. So I adventure in my mind; I use paper, computer, or even a vista. I have a favorite place in San Francisco; I can see most of the city. I imagine when the hill was born and what animal first appreciated the view. I consider the first humans who watched the Pacific pass through the Golden Gate and then the Spaniards who wandered to the wrong side of the peninsula. Finally, I consider the first American to look out from that vista. There are so many stories to explore in each of these thoughts—and the vista is so fine that it's an adventure for my eyes—I do not feel a genuine need for adventure. I can roam with my mind and leave others with the risks.
Combat Expiration: 12am PST, 2/21/2011
Critique Expiration: 12am PST, 2/23/2011
Bonuses/Penalties: **New** +1 for 1st post, +1 for post with the most individual comments, +2 if posted by 7pm PST, 2/18/2011, +1 if posted by 2am PST 2/19/2011, -1 if posted by 6am PST 2/21/2011, -2 if posted by 12pm PST 2/21/2011.
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
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Experience/Expiration
ReplyDeleteForty seven summers
have passed too quickly
and at this latitude
winter clings to the concrete
like dog shit on a shoe.
The longer you live the less
you care about adventure;
endurance is your mantra
I want to chase the moon
across the night sky until it hides
behind the sunrise like I did
in my eighteenth spring,
or make backseat love
to a girl while too drunk
to remember her name,
the way I used to in Julys
twenty one through twenty five.
Spring number forty eight
waits in the wings and I wonder
if there is any wonder left;
something more that a tally
of days and nights expired.
They say you are only
as old as you feel, god
I hope that is not true.
I really think mine is the best one posted!
ReplyDeleteWars of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow [Combatwords Poem, 2/20/2011]
ReplyDeleteI like robots at war, explosions galore—
It's anonymous mayhem, bloodless—still death.
I like dramas with weasels—thieves who get caught.
They're morality tales; a caution I heed.
I love history—scholars toppled the blade,
But the blades shall return; I study and wait.
In the future, the past, today there is war;
With our flesh, with our money—proxies someday.
For our business is war so office is war,
And our dreams for tomorrow: robots at war.
We will war with no guilt, and children will live
To admire the mechanic armies at play,
It's like death by a blade, but money's the stake;
And today—in accounts—our spirit is gauged.
When a robot's destroyed, a family starves.
Where no camera watches, nobody cares.
We will dress in the robes of circuit and wire;
Like the universe, stars and galaxy: boom.
this is your brain on drugs
ReplyDeletewith a side of bacon
:good morning
i am careful to keep my voice studied neutral;
they believe machines talk like this
so i will play along
modulating my tones
to a paper gray with ones and zeroes
as if my toner
needs shaken
:what day is it?
shaken seas and i will build a kayak
from straws and cling wrap
a vessel light as a bird
to fly upon the waves and carry me
dry as houses
safe as mouses
to a copper-plated shore
where a mainspring will be installed
by a man with eyebrows
like the sargasso sea
:could you tell me your name?
i just need a spell of adventure
a rubber-tipped snout
to smell about
to breath melodies
the shape of sleep
the distance of inconsolable beaches
reaching
into the core of the sun
as we
as all of us
in here
stagger in the airless breeze
:she's gone far away again
my batteries are empty
i have been on this adventure
for days
compliments of the black cat
i am miss eveready
her black cat parts missing
i walk these tv halls
at a steady pace
the wiremesh windows
the look on his face
and here
i
am
having
fun
a little out there tonight so i will keep the reviews short. love the theme but i didn't do it justice.
ReplyDeletesteven, yours is depressingly reluctant to leave the comfort of an overstuffed chair. very good. +1 for winter clings like shit on shoe and +1 for the line breaks in the second stanza, but -1 for the waits in the wings section just because your words could pull more from behind those red velvet curtains.
khakjaan, this has a good rhythm, +1 for something i started reading aloud to feel the words jumping off my tongue into the february night. the robot stuff pisses me off because it is true and yet it is false because if it's not worth dying for, what the fuck are we fighting for? +1 for an emotional response which is tempered by enough distance for me to consider your words.
sorry for not reviewiing last time.