WK9: Storyteller (1-2) vs. Arid (0-1) [Arid wins, 4-1.]

[King Ra.]

AOWL Season IV, Week 9


OFFICIAL RULES:

Verses are due Saturday, December 6th, 11:59p.m. PCT/2:59a.m. EST/7:59a.m. UK. There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Tuesday, December 9th, 11:00p.m. PCT/8p.m. EST/4a.m. UK. Failure to vote will result in automatic sign out for the next week.


TOPIC: From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate. - Socrates.




Good luck. Storyteller Arid

[Arid]

How do I explain who she is to me?
This misery, Miss Mystery
Sea full of fish so I hit the beach,
looking for a missing link
I'll Grow lungs when she kisses me
Convinced that it's destiny
Accept all her illusions as a test for me
Let her send me on a quest to free,
the pieces of her past that won't rest in peace
Sex could be a groping, unprotected exorcism
Passion buried in respected coping mechanisms
Second opinion appraisals lead to painful "best decisions"
To move on
To move out
To move mountains of regret, denied to the death
Trying isn't good enough when she lies silent in bed
The pressure of her discontent drawing a line in my head
Between my right to be judged and my will to be wed
That I'd gratefully blur as she sighed a goodnight
I'd turn on all the lights and hold on to her tight
Fight the urge to frighten her with honest admission
That my thoughtless indiscretion's how we got to this position
I'd have an alibi, a lie, a long pretended wisdom
Excuses are an alkali when her acid's in my system
I've a feeling she'd dismiss me well before the harm is done
This One, a Queen, Her lunar force reflected by the sun
Her passing me each day this way is fate, my karma come
The wheels of my car spun,
smoking on the cement
I may be sick but just her scent can tell me where she went
She'd be with me right now if I could find how to repent
flipped a U-turn, she's just ahead,
crossing Mill with her new "friends"
If she knew what they do behind her back those ties would end
I pretend to drive while every fiber of me bends
To feel what it'd be like to spend my time on her earth
Be the guy with the girl, Why is it absurd?
-I feel the car lurch-
Staring at her perfect pair of eyes, I've just swerved and hopped the curb
My head lights catch the last breath of a bike cop
Mashing down the break to stop,
I skid over his body into the facade of a coffee shop
My - last - thought - is - AIRBAG
POP!




....




I'm not real used to waking up between cloth hospital walls
But as one's thoughts drift in and out of recall, there's problems to solve
I've slept a few weeks off it feels, and real isn't what it was once
I've struggled through months of watching blood splatter the store front
I see it still
And my reasons for waking seem weak as my stomach
A doctor is summoned
I breathe pure oxygen, plummet into that moment to watch what I'd done again
Wake to find Her standing by the window of my punishment
I must be dead
I touch my head which is covered over with bandages
she's still standing there watching the sun set
The girl I love, I must have said aloud as she started
My heart hit a higher rhythm, monitor blipped as her lips parted
"you killed him" she blurted
Confused, I worked hard to refuse to believe that her words were targeting me
"You Killed HIM. I waited because I wanted to tell you that you killed my fiance, Tom.
His name was Tom, and because you were checking me and my friends out like a PERVERT, Tom is dead.
He was riding over to me to tell me his shift would end at five thirty, and he'd meet me......"
Here she couldn't seem to go on
Even her accusations had the cadence of a song
This arid air is no fit place for maidens fair, it makes them need to be strong
"Tom and I, were going to meet at his parents house to plan our wedding.
And you killed him for what? For This?"
with a swift motion she slit her shirt open, exposing her chest
"Tits? Big beautiful tits that you'll never get to touch!?!?"
The knife that she clutched had a hilt like a bayonet
I know because she drove it as far into the base of my neck
My blood on her face replaced his blood on my bumper
And I hope she gets away with it, my killer, I love her.

[Spoken]

Bouncing from here to there, a giant beast in the darkness,
Jubilee, a shooting breeze- the dying feast to be garnished.
Solicitation in a garden that grooms a demon- a Taurus,
Trimmin' corsages, tho it's restraint was the hardest.
Mutual pardon- I kept the medley with notes on a loop,
Eyes squandering to sooth in a scavengers room.
Shoulder to shoulder to say the least of this ruse,
Suffocating, no ventilation just the space between two.
It's like thunder with out the lighting- tormenting with sound,
Or like rocks skipping the ripples till it finally drowns.
Am I a poet? An artist? Or just a soul on the ground?
Yet I seem picture perfect; just a servant to crowds.
This facade of a dream is surreal, I'm tryna figure a style,
Supposed to be happy yet I struggle to keep up a smile.
It's like I'm cold to the touch, can't seem feel this one out,
Fine wine, a spilled bottle of amarone on the couch.
Purged in a drought with voices raging aloud,
Tell them to keep it down but I'm alone in this house.
Heart beating, a sworn keeping with scorched ambient clouds,
A found thesis in dyer speeches weaved with opium bounds.
.
.
.
It's never how but why one seeks to be renowned,
Thru the shrouds that are found, lays a king without a crown.



King ra Mr. J Certain dead man zygote Pent uP @unborn Buddha Witty Genocide

Open for business

[Mr. J]

I read this earlier but didn't want to vote on my phone
either way I feel the best part of this battle are the writers
both seem very well matched due to their often rare appearances
well...rare to me....

Arid, i think this is the first time I've read any type of verse from you
therefore I am uncomfortable in the fact that I don't 'know' you at all
either way your verse is nice due to the fact that you pour emotion into it
you write in a style that makes the read seem so smooth it's ridiculous
but as we reach the halfway point you seem to go in another direction
the piece takes a little detour but it doesn't effect the full read...

Story, You have the ability to toy with more words & you make the rhymes seem effortless
you shell out a piece that has a great beginning and a great end to it
I feel like you took time out to piece this all together and you did a great job
I can't really nitpick your verse due to the fact that it just seems perfect
...nice work...

v/Story, I feel like his verse came with the corrections needed
the other guy did a great job for my first read from him
but I feel like in the end that Story just came better prepared
nice battle fella's

[UnbornBuddha]

Arid: when I first read it, my first impression was it was a bit simplistic. Not a bad thing, but as you can probably gauge from the league there are a plethora of talented writers. Anyways, as I read on I began to catch the subtle eloquence in your writings. Images like "Excuses are an alkali when her acid's in my system" truly dazzle the reader with metaphoric currents. The story was basically about a lecherous man who was on a quest to fondle a woman's breast, and along the way in his mental daze he managed to kill her fiance during driving. Ultimately, she gets revenge. I also enjoyed how when she came to the hospital her remarks seemed like a cadence to this man, who was hypnotized by her features. I enjoyed it, some of your lines seem like filler though. And though I understood it, the first stanza seemed a bit muddle. Not the beginning, but as it progresses, especially the plot.

Storyteller: The words chosen are punctilious, yet even with it this verse remained a bit ambiguous, shrouded in mystery to me. How I finally chose to understand it was a regal who ended in a coffin of some sort, while a ceremony was being held for him. Honestly, this verse felt disconnected. There is this array of words that have no close correlation, for example opium, corsages, Taurus. There was a lot of going on that I couldn't decipher. You can write, but a little more straightforwardness would have shed the light for me. Truthfully, I couldn't figure out what you were talking about. I like the language of it, but everything just felt disconnected. I like abstract pieces, but I can't seem to figure out the relation to the topic. Perhaps, it's a regal whose quest for recognition led to acts of treachery of some sort. It also seems to denote almost a ceremonial rite in which there is a commencement of grievances, or of rejoicing exemplified by the jubilee. There seems to be this emotion of discontent that is draining the life force from the narrator, whose split between a deciding of what it is they are, a poet, or a soul on the terrestrial plane. The scavenger room, and the beast were perplexing, especially there being no ventilation between the two. Is there a soul who is separating from the departed's corporeality, and seeing everything from the perspective of an immaterial essence. Anyways, I really did tried to figure it out I had more thoughts, but there is no use putting them all out. Maybe a little bit more straightforward can serve you well. Keep your style, I like it, but I as a reader was lost in the mayhem of terminological melange.

My vote goes to: Arid

Thank you.

[Pent uP]

Arid -- excuse the comparison, but you remind me of an old RSTL style I was once familiar with. That aside - I disliked your ending, heavily...a knife in a hospital room? No cops? Usually a cop killer wakes up cuffed to the bed and watched by cops because flight risk. Lot of holes at the end...I misunderstood you part of the way..when u were describing him gawking at the girl I thought he was day dreaming so the dialogue confused me until I sorted it out. There was a section in the beginning around the description of sex that I thought was stellar. The narrative moved along fast, but it wasn't engrossing.

Story -- first of all please dont tag me for votes, ill vote when im ready. The verse had some nice depth to it for its length. Im gonna shotgun it and see what comes up. Up until the am I poet part I was sure this was mideival based times and people were fighting for the kings approval or position...then I got a little loat aftwr that. The last lines left me with the inclination I may be right, but the poet / struggle to smile / cold part kind of threw me off. I guess the way to interpret it that makes sense to me is that he was struck down, in his armor, and defeated but not dead and this was his reflection before the fight ends....the cool thing about this point of view is that the antagonist loses. I dont know why but u think thats cool. With this theory though, the ending makes it sound like the king loses (?)..I guess where u lost me on is clarity - and thats ok in a topical piece where I can interpret a string of ideas which ever way, but in a story its much more critical.

Vote - arid

[timeless]

v. arid

couldn't get into storytellers verse this week, felt incomplete but not at the same time. Arid is weird as fuck, but his ambition here got my vote. storyteller gathering ground though for sure shaking evry bit of that rust off week by week.

[CopyPat]

arid this was pretty long but at least your lines were short and the story kept progressing. if you wrote anything like you voted you'd be hard to beat, lol.
this was a weird fucking story, highly original but also random as fuck. it was decent and definitely hit the topic.

story thanks for keeping ur shit short but i just really didn't get what you were going for here? the writing was pretty damn good, better than arid's, but i flat out didn't see the connection to the topic. that's probly my bad but i read ur verse multiple times and i just have to give this to arid. arid i think ur verse was very average but story went way to obscure this time which gave u the win. you will have to step it up to compete in this league and i think we're all wondering what your deal is, and what you're capable of.. especially based on ur very detailed voting..its quite strange to be honest..

vote:arid.