WK11: AOWL CHAMPIONSHIP- Zen King (5-0) vs. Pent uP (4-1) -- Pent uP wins 5-4

[King Ra.]

AOWL Season IV, Week 11


OFFICIAL RULES:

Verses are due Saturday, January 4th, 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 16 lines.

Votes are due Tuesday, January 6th, 11:00p.m. PCT/8p.m. EST/4a.m. UK. Failure to vote will result in automatic sign out for the next week.


TOPIC: Click here. (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=114477)



Good luck. Zen King Pent uP

[Zen]

Emily Dickinson

“I know there’s times where it feels like life is getting scarier,
but if you close your eyes, you can imagine me being there with ya.”
I told you life’s a circle, so now you want me to marry ya.
Instead I bought you a paradise, but I forget which pair it was.
You’d rather go to Paris in love,
but I’d rather get butt naked and fuck
with your tongue waving on my nuts till you're suffocating
and I'm aching to bust.
You’re like, “But baby, that’s lust!”
“But baby, enough!
I’m only fucking crazy in love when I’m butt fucking you, you crazy slut!”
She says I’m over-dramatic. I said, “You made me cuss.”
She says I need to grow up. I said, “You need to shave your bush.”
(She’s really touchy about that, if you know what I mean)
So she stormed out the door with her phone and her keys,
And I yelled out to her, “Hey, can you get me a coke from the machine!?”

[Pent uP]

How Curiousity Broke His Wheel


Clay colored canyons left the search limited -
with soil textures unknown to us before we first visited.
The rover was left to examine valleys and basins
until it was to be decommissioned in the path of its space trip.
Scientists marveled at the images sent -
when they noticed the hills had glistening heads.
Worried the path required too much torque from its engine
Curiosity was left exploring the trenches.
When the power sources end was in sight
the scientists decided to go ahead with the climb.
The machine revved and stressed to the top of the peak,
but the rubble crossed caused a POP! in the wheel.
The transmitted images homed the weariest of hours
- displaying a space station that was superior to ours.
Pictures of test tubes - in the dirt, planted,
and a banner of the solar system - circle on the third planet.

The past is the beginning of the beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. - H. G. Wells.

[Mr. J]

This was a great battle..

Zen, i feel like you adapted your verse perfectly to the subject
you brought out a broader aspect of the 'quote' and you rode with it
I'm digging how smooth it flowed together, and how you kept the pace just right
I know some people would be pissed over your over usage of one word
but fuck that you did good right here my dude, I feel like the vibe was great
nice work

Pent, I always enjoy your pieces when you decide to bring forth a conscious effort
and this was slick from beginning to end, I'm not quite sure of how you structure your pieces
but this one came off as a very strong piece that flowed very smoothly, nice work
I feel like your adaption to the topic was very emotional as well as introspective
nice read...

v/well this is going to be one of the tougher battles to vote on
but I feel the person who possessed the most strength here is the one who wrote from deeper perspectives..if you don't know you probably didn't read these
so I'm going to settle this by saying that Pent...Pent has got this one

[Adonis]

Zen - This fit the topic superbly my friend. I really enjoyed this verse. It wasn't head-scratchingly complex or mind-numbing with depth, it simply is what it is. The flow was good and I rather enjoyed the use of slang. It gave the character a identity with out having to give his background, as i wrote that I laughed because damn I must be racist. Anyone else picture some black dude??? Asshole!!!!!


PP - Flawless in the fluidity department, and I truly mean that. This short verse read seamless and with ease, despite the brevity you still managed to weave a solid story all the while not being up front in the beginning, or the end for that matter. What I mean is, I took this as Aliens, but it could very well be Earthlings exploring another planet or moon. I think you hit this topic clean and pure, the verse was good start to end, zero negative to say about it.


Close battle here, two polar opposite verses. One was more of a typical Topical, the other was flung from center-left field, yet both were extremely effective and equally enjoyable reads. This should be very close in votes and i'd imagine it all being based off of preference because these both are in different hemispheres. Except for the imagery part, you both shined there equally.

In the end, I got

ZenLand

Winning in a nearly too close to call bout. Its not often I read a what is mainly narrative with slang at that, and the writer not fall flat on his face. For that reason I gave extra points for degree of difficulty, thus my vote.

[Arid]

True Champ Match, Wonderful!

Zen King, funny. I really enjoyed your stripped down style, it fit the format restriction well and was a marvelous take on the topic. I could see someone thinking this way but not actually being so boldly cruel.

Pent uP, tight. You packaged this story so cleanly into the line restriction, I'm very impressed. The missed rhyme in lines 11 and 12 didn't get a notice til my second read through, the story just moved so naturally.

Vote Zen King on the technicality, and for having the guts to keep it simple. Pent did what he does best, while Zen did something unexpected and made it shine.

[NYCSPITZ]

cool battle

i liked zen thought he really brought a funny lil piece here...just didn't have the pizazz pent's had imo. that space race superior to ours and planning a takeover shit was flipped nicely...pent said more in less words this time.

close battle

v/ pent

[Vulgar]

Zen - Lust pretty much rules my life sometimes. This was a sort of quirky yet truthful example of how spiritually distorted a man's perspective on love can be. I thought it was cool. Good job.

Pent - Neat. Ace even. The short lines helped the progression, but I don't think you needed any help. You're adept at directing aggressive rhyme patterns without getting distracted from the task at hand, completing a successful story with a proper twist.

My vote goes to Pent Up.

[Frank]

MVGT: Zenland

Enjoyment factor

[Certain]

MVGT: Zenland

Enjoyment factor

Give me a little more. The voting has been extended a day.

[UnbornBuddha]

Zen had a verse based on concupiscence. You also thematically added a further notation in which you basically juxtaposed two lovers with contrasting perceptual differences in their relationship. The man has more of a lascivious demeanor with a need to continue participating in the ardent passions, while the woman preferred more of the traditional love ensemble. Go to Paris, and make love under the moonlight, while the man probably preferred the flood of adrenaline provided by the rush of animal magnetism, and afterwards smoke a cigarette as a reward of some kind as he contemplates the validity of his existence through the ecstasy provided by his impulses. You also ended the tale, I supposed, with a comment in which the man expressed his virility after the act wanting more even, Machismo at its best. The verse also had a flair of satire that pervaded at times over the emotional vehemence, albeit at times the mood became a bit discord as the two thematic dispositions clashed for spotlights. Mechanically it was fine, and though it was simplistic it delivered what it was intended to do.

Pent: I think you chose the most toilsome topic to depict, I commend you for that. The story flowed nice as well, a tale of scientists using a beat down machine on the brink of collapse, in the hope of attaining a glimpse of life on another planet. It is unknown if the scientists are even human, perhaps extraterrestrials, who become awed at humanity's space exploration achievements. That perspective would have been interesting. But, there is no specificity that this was the angle that this story was emanating from. I liked the obvious manner in which the pace of your story triumphed, it was free-flowing. Albeit, I will admit I found the greater theme a bit lackluster mainly because this kind of thing has been done before. Still, it carried a nice progression with mechanical proficiency.

Vote: Pent-Up

[timeless]

Weird battle to vote on. I enjoyed both verses to say the least. Zen's quick drunken sex/rape scene was great. The closer was dope. Pent's Mars exploration had a closer that wasn't that great, but pretty decent verse overall. I gotta give it to Zen here for more enjoyment and a better take on the topic.

V. Zen

[Certain]

Zen King: This was one of the first times where you translated your caustic but honest Open Mic stylings, which form sort of this mismatched dull boy-CopyPat-Fig hybrid that can be extremely emotive and potent, into a topical verse. You did so by twisting the topic into your own comfort zone, which I'm not a big fan of in the grand analysis of writers but tends to work on a week-by-week basis. The take on the topic was interesting and creative, but the vulgarity picked up a bit too much. You've done that before. Basically the first half of the verse was more enjoyable. But then you closed with that great open-ended scene and really brought the verse and topic full-circle. I like how you embrace the ugliness of life.

Pent uP: You hit all the check marks, to an almost disconcerting point. For one, you seemed to simply take the narrative structure of a larger verse and compress it into a shorter verse rather than fully embracing the 16-line maximum and writing something built to shine. You withstood your limitations rather than building off them. The content was creative and effectively broached the topic, with enough visuals and enough background to feel informative. But there was no sense of urgency at the end. The end was clunky as a whole, in fact. Yet here's this verse, and it's a very good verse. The rhyme break of peak and wheel disoriented me on first read but became a charming fuckup in an otherwise very polished read. And I respect how polished this was and how creative it was and how you took a great topic that wasn't great for a short-verse format and turned it into a very good verse. And I think your verse was much more challenging and much more directly related to the topic, but I also think Zen King's verse resonated with me a bit more. The difference is he had a section, maybe five-or-so lines in the latter third, that missed and broke his earnestness into a parody. The procedural nature of your verse felt a bit programmed, but the only slip up came on a single rhyme. And I'm a man of craftsmanship.

Vote: Pent uP