Gather: contestants index

[HarryHill]

Hello and welcome to the contestants and submissions page, the following is a list of poets who have contributed to date and a link to their works. I'll add others as they come in, remember there is a $100 Amazon gift card for the winner, After the contest deadline on 4/27/2015 all poems will be posted here in no particular order. Please do not post on this thread
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Piscator E
greenmountaineer I, W, OO
BlindKitsune J
todski28 M, BB
butters N
Trixareforkids O, KK, X
UnderYourSpell Q, Y, LL
pelegrino S, JJ, HH
MirrorsImage B, T, Z
Stlgoddessfreya C, U
legerdemer G, V
EllenMore P, CC
AMoveableBeast K, DD, PP
Magnetron L
Gorev_Reighl R
Remec F, NN
Lyric_Calli H
sheablue A
flyte D
Dianthus EE, MM
Tzara AA
Seanathon GG
ninianne FF
parodyluvr75

 

[HarryHill]

A

..... ADVANCEDby sheablue
False Season

Spring is a sickly season,
halfway between the cold hard certainty of winter,
and the heart’s hot promise of summer.

Spring hides it’s malice in false hopes and fresh blooms,
reminding me not to bet on early green buds teased from the hard dark ground by
warm breath, only to be choked out by the next frost.

Spring is more gray skies after an endless winter of gray skies.
Spring is gray snow that melts to black slush to reveal the dead brown grass beneath,
hard twisted things we’d rather leave buried.

So give me a wet blanket of humidity and temperatures that melt shoes to pavement.
Give me a blinding hot sun that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.

Give me the ice and the snow and the frost in my nose.
Give me a cold winters death.
Just don’t give me Spring. Give me anything but Spring.

 

[HarryHill]

B/ MirrorsImage

.....
An Afternoon Romp

Traveling in a land, that you’ll find far from here
You’ll find a meadow in an area clear

There, in the shade if you take a good look
You might see the lass who strolls alongside the brook

She smiles and waves as a young man appears in her sight
And he bounds forward, running to her with all his might

He begins to shed his clothing with each step he comes near
Her shout he hears as welcome and not one of fear.

Finally in all his glory, intent is clear – here and now
His manhood bobbing happily in search of it furrow to plow

And as he draws closer she looks up with fear
The cause for this is abundantly clear

For the social group is just over the hill
Food spread out and chicken to grill

And his manhood who a moment ago was king
Still proudly stands and he prays does anything but spring

And in haste and hurry, because logic is not in mind
He bid’s them afternoon and hurriedly shows them his behind.

 

[HarryHill]

C

..... FINALIST

Somewhere, Something Incredible

Carl Sagan drew me a map
Of all the signals arcing off into black possibilities
Opening like the petals of a camellia
Wrapped around the whole where of history.

Somewhere in the x-rays, the radios, the eternal pity of Mr. T
A rider clings to the looping waves,
The tremble in my fingers all along the wireless lines,
Jangling with words I know I shouldn't say.

I would have them cut deep as the date on a cornerstone
I would have them float out to the edges of where we are paramecia on a pinhead.
I would have them do anything, anything but spring back into my fingers
The only part of me with guilt enough to shed
In shaking.

We are made of star stuff but only see heaven in invisible parabolas.
To stop the tremble of my fingers with your steady grasp
I would give anything, anything but spring
Which has opened me like a camellia in your cupped hands
and poured you out in my lap.

 

[HarryHill]

D

..... ADVANCED

Ice Age

Our fathers, uncaring of the future,
left us a dying earth. To heal herself,
she sealed herself in perpetual ice.
We became winter people living where we could,
wrapped in fur from birth to burial. Our newborn
swaddled, still slick and the dead left fur-bound so cold.
Long days’ wander over featureless freeze,
hunched into wind and snow, numb or pain
much the same.
After the frigid wilderness years rumours came
of a warm place and green they called spring,
ice that ran making its own way. We listened,
left in hope expecting nothing, everything, anything.
But spring was warm and green. Ice ran liquid in pools,
cascading in torrents and gentle in brooks edged by reeds.
One by one we bare-toed the still cold, gasping laughter
until adults, children, aged, as one, we stripped away
the reeking skins from our crusty flesh and plunged.

 

[HarryHill]

E

..... ADVANCED

Anything but spring
I've no time for frivolity
and the increase in daylength
constricts my nocturnal emissions .
The snow is almost gone,
white replaced by mud,
and the red bird's cheery call
curdles the cream
in my morning coffee.
Yet as catkins emerge
from budding willows
and the wind softens
inevitably
comes the time
to break from hibernation.

 

[HarryHill]

F

.....
Anything but

Came across the first robin of the year,
it was yesterday morning,
couldn't help it as I damn near killed myself
tripping over his inert little form,
all balled up
with feathers fluffed for warmth that
should have been a given except for one small problem
Mother Nature has apparently gone senile,
Temps in the twenties and snow flurries midway
through March?
I should count myself lucky it was just a robin
and not that semi-stray black cat that keeps trying to
get itself adopted by various members
of the household,
Happened to run into a friend a day or so later who
asked how my Spring Break was going,
"Would be going so much better except for one little problem...
this has been
anything
but
Spring."

 

[HarryHill]

G

..... ADVANCED

Anything But Spring

If I send out my heart to meet his,
waltz they together, float in the dance,
or two-step Western swing exuberance?
Will our hearts return in one piece?

Speak they in tangled tongues,
bemused, aloft, a-soar?
Or will they drift becalmed,
without a harbor to call home?

I do not dare to ask too much,
nor settle for too limited a dream.
Do not wish to mire in the mud, nor fly
too close to Icarus, draw flame from his sun.

What say you now, oh silly heart that beats
and gives no rest from dreamy flighty springs?
I hear your words, as soft as whisperings.
You tell me, “Anything but spring
or any new beginning fling.

“No more, you’re too old, too few years left.
Let ridicule and distance save you from your self.”
And yet… hope remains.

 

[HarryHill]

H

.....
Give me air
With its slow escape

Give me water
With its rolling waves

Give me down
Or sand or hay

Anything but spring
In the end
It's always a pain in the a

 

[HarryHill]

I

..... ADVANCED

Mud Season in Vermont

It's nothing like Moonlight as in the song
nor spring as much as winter undone
with anything but spring in your step.

It's doing your best to persevere,
muddling along checking for mail.
It's boulders you see as the snow recedes
and still frozen cow pies left from last year.

It's sap from a tree that plops in a pail,
the chirp, chirp, chirping of chickadees
and a postcard beach babe at whom you leer

that fell in the mud whose red polished nail
points to the caption "Fun in Belize."

It's rubbing your nose in "Wish You Were Here."
It's you there sinking while reading your mail.

 

[HarryHill]

J

.....
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
That's what her sweet mama chided
So young lass skipped into the park
With kneeling gardener collided

Fell on green lawn, white skirts outspread
“Dear one, I've come for a rose; you
Have the loveliest that I've seen.”
He said, “Pray let me taste its dew.”

Lifted her hem, let sunlight in
She blushed and smiled, pink among white
He leant in and tasted her bloom
Gasped, eyes round, his maidenly sprite

Half hour he devoured her petals
On the green, warmed by sun, soft moan
Built up a hunger for something
Inside, fed her his shaft, full grown

Man and maiden rut on the grass
Both lost in their rose garden fling
We both watch and wonder what they're
Thinking of? Anything but spring!

 

[HarryHill]

K

..... FINALIST


Snowmelt

I've a winter's will
Cold and long as January
Packed tighter than a post-Christmas budget
Too dense to be salted by any pleading tears

I am married to frost, fortified with isolation
Loyal to layered clothing and cracked skin
I have chopped desire on the ax of reason
And piled the dry bodies high by the stove

I am frozen to anything, anything but spring
anything but you

You come in like a lion
Your roar stronger for your time in wool
Microwave smile and heat-lamp heart
Persephone come home for spring break

Sporting a snowmelt trampstamp
Still swollen and raised like a storm-fed creek
You swallow my fingers and my resistance
Washout my plans as easily as a rural road

I lick the dew from your crocus and
Melt against your fertility same as any other winter

 

[HarryHill]

L

.....
Harry's Law

Sniper Harry, soon to marry a British chick
Did inspire me to be just a bit poetic today
Got off his ass and lead me away in a hurry
And scurry we did through a drain pipe so scary
Towards a grassy knoll of a hill where he was gay
Fully intented upon showing his canary colored daffy-dil
Doh! he sniped and grumbled while over bented
Having tumbled onto his now indented hiney
Slipped during a sudden downpouring of rain
Ripe for a falling that fell for quite a spill of a spell
After dilly-daffying away the morning sunshiny
He mumbled in the most jumbled of mutters,
Well, ain't that just motherfucking swell!
At the overflow from my inspirational well
That unfortunately began to fill up his potato cellar
Where his lovely Butters had gone nutters
Fondling a perfect pair of round spudders she found
A bitter pill to swallow as I heard him yell down to tell her,
We would still be vacationing in the town of Taterhole, Idaho
if it were anything but Spring here dontcha know, eh?

 

[HarryHill]

M

.....
summer again
thoughts of rain long gone*
less clothes though on the women folk
one night stands melt into puddles like ice
left on a bench along with all the dishes*
growing mold cultures*
because that is culture to the bottom rung
sing me a song, sung by the downtrodden
and I'm sure it'll contain anything but spring
because spring is the time the world
says go fourth and multiply
where the weather smiles
and fuck smiling it hurts my face

the past is like herpes sometimes
springs up on you when you least expect it*3
brings with it those weeping sores*
maybe not providence
we all have to believe in something though.

 

[HarryHill]

N

..... FINALIST


As Alice dreams

Sleep's white tide pulls us
under...

and the rabbit
a hare's breadth from madness
folds his waistcoat
lays down his silent watch
curls his pink tongue
in a yawn

watches the fox
still as snow
his breath a mist to
mask his stiffened whiskers
muffle the tapping of his claws
till all the world
drifts away
in foggy thoughts of
gold eyes black...

till everything
is anything
but spring

 

[HarryHill]

O

.....
Blooming Lazy

Flowers are blooming
Annoying my sinuses
My house is clean
As it'll ever be
Now I'm waiting the rain
So I can laze abed
As there's anything but spring
In my step

 

[HarryHill]

P

..... ADVANCED

Vernal

The grass is growing thick and green.
The cherry blossoms, soft pink clouds,
Shade farmer's fields, now freshly plowed.
Can this be anything but Spring?

The birds perch high among the boughs
And chirp and trill from dawn to dark.
Our yard's made pleasant as a park
With Spring's forthcoming, here and now.

But then there is this other thing--
How even young men purse their lips
To whistle at my aging hips.
This can't be anything but Spring.

 

[HarryHill]

Q

.....
"What makes you shed your clothing?"
enquired the young Hussar
as his fingers travelled downwards
and spread her legs ajar.
"The splendour of my uniform,
perhaps my fine physique.
Are these what pulses racing
brings the color to your cheek?"
"My Lord" she smirked whilst dimpling,
"There's no way that I would fling
my vest and pantaloons aside
for anything but Spring!"

 

[HarryHill]

R

.....
Cheers

Bears and wild beasts hibernate when the snow and cold offend
A long droggy sleep that preserves their caloric spend
It’s a good choice, to stay curled up in bed skin to skin
But for us, sleeping is just a consequence of our raging sin
In December I made you sing

We were both virgins when we headed down the aisle
An October event that all our friends thought was beautiful and wild
I have to admit my thoughts were lustful and wanton
As you waggled your bottom covered in satin and chiffon
By January we broke the bedsprings

Lingerie, candles and a little champagne create the obvious mood
But I was surprised with how small things can change my attitude
You make hot chocolate, I want to lick marshmallows from your breasts.
You brush your teeth in flannel pajamas, I need to press against your soft flesh
By February I had drilled you through the earth to Beijing.

And then it happens. Snow melts, and bears emerge from slumber
I suddenly find my honey-do list gets long with work that is needed
My own organic wood is replaced with shovels, paint and actual lumber
To make the yard and house ready for the family we just put to seed
I can’t help but think, anything but spring.

 

[HarryHill]

S

.....

A NEVER COMING CALL

Been in this land after so long,
with haunting tunes and haunting scents,
I'll make my every fake song
accept whatever heaven sends.
I am a southerner, full stop,
I function just by drink and dope.

First time I think of no girl friend,
the time away took its toll,
in its "Big Scheme" I've made a dent,
waiting a never coming call,
it looks as if what I can sing
will sound as anything but spring.​

 

[HarryHill]

T

.....
The challenge is simple but that is the problem and thing,
The submission must contain a segment of anything but spring.

20 lines is your limit, but you can word and phrase how you swing
But you must be reminded of the words anything but spring.

You can write about autumn and birds, sun on a wing
Please, please, please include anything but spring.

Summer is wonderful, though full of insects that bite and sting
Keep in mind here of those fateful words, anything but spring.

Now winter, my friend, full of snow and ice crystal bling
It might be difficult to keep from those words anything but spring.

And the last season, what was it? Full of flowers and fling
Doesn’t matter the time of year, mention anything but spring.

But you can do it, we have faith in that talent you bring
Looking forward to the that poem that says …

Anything but spring

 

[HarryHill]

U

..... ADVANCED

Proposal Ghazal

Bring me a calendar and your mother's ring
Pick out a date for us; anything but spring.

Set me a reminder, a note on the fridge
Black marker on my hand; anything but string.

Write me out a play list, start with our first dance
"At Last?" "You're My Best Friend?"; anything but Wings.

Fill in all the song slots, old Muscle Shoals hits
Something kids will dance to; anything but swing.

Don't play Big Band for us; that's music from war
Life will remind it does anything but sting.

Make us both forget there are shrouded days
Shape our mouths not to do anything but sing.

Pick a day bells won't do anything but ring
Out days we grew as one; anything but spring.

 

[HarryHill]

V

.....
Vera, Primed

More sentimental tripe I scribed,
on pixeled parchment, dried.
Reader, tonight I felt your pain,
or was it mine?

I write inadequate thoughts down
to soothe myself, and yet you frown.
How differently can I express
my tongue's tied under duress?

When "anything but spring"
you shout, it's difficult to bring
about the notion
that I miss it now, so soon...

Already miss what's barely come,
before it's had the chance to strum
its wings and take flight
into that starry night.

Oh, anything but that, the lissome
smell of daffodils and iris,
lavender and lilac's more my taste,
the lighter shades don't satiate.

And now I've done
my joking, had my fun,
and wait, eager to see
what others weave.

Harry's notes: I believe the last 4 were an aside taking the poem over the 20 line limit. just caught it

 

[HarryHill]

W

..... FINALIST


Cruising

Her cruise is a magazine ad
of an oversized martini glass
filled with something coppery red,
dog-eared to read later on the deck
while sipping a cup of Earl Gray tea;
his will be an Old Fashioned glass
next to a book he'll never read.

There's almost no drama but for the shows
she doesn't like, he does,
such as The Late Show before it's too late,
before the both of them fall asleep
with anything but spring in the bed,
except for the sharing forty-some years
spring come winter, winter come spring

of Fred is Maggie, Maggie Fred
whose left hand's on an ample ass,
right arm cradling a smiling face
that leans into a double chin
there in their stateroom, mortgage paid,
on Staten Island by Raritan Bay.

 

[HarryHill]

X

..... ADVANCED

I see emerald swords
With crystal scabbards
And the sad alchemy
That turns golden globes
To fruitless plains
As I prepare to march
Armored with potions and poisons
Cloak and dagger
Though I be not
Warrior, wizard or wiseman
I know my future
Lies in the grounds before me
And I will yield to
Little bells and cockle shells
And pretty little maidens
To anything
But spring
For I am Mary
And my garden must grow