Round one: Pohfig vs. Topicaldood5 [POHFIG IS DISQUALIFIED]

[Adonis]

THERE WILL BE ZERO NO SHOWS...So if you do write a ten line no show verse live with the loss when a random alternate comes in and beats you..FY motherfucking I!!

16 lines minimum, 48 lines maximum. (if agreed upon by both participants, you may go beyond the limit at your own risk.)

Verses are due SATURDAY 6/8 at 11:59 PST.
Extensions are due SUNDAY 6/9 at 11:59 PST.

You must vote on at least 4 other battles and post links in the Voting Thread. For every absent vote, you will be deducted ONE vote next week. I am much less lenient on this rule then Keith, so please vote.

While there's no absolute criteria for voting, 1 line votes and criminally underdeveloped ones won't be allowed. I will holler via private message if I think a vote of yours isn't up to snuff and you'll be allowed to develop it, as long as you do it within the deadline. At a minimum, you should aim to include what you liked and what you didn't like (if anything) about each verse as well as an explanation towards why you thought one verse was better than the other.
There is NO RECYCLING.BITING.GHOSTWRITING.

Voting ends TUESDAY 6/11 at 11:59 PST.(Unless otherwise it may be extended another day at the most.)

You MUSTcheck in.


NOTE:
Swaying, excessive freeposting, voter fraud etc. are grounds for vote deductions at discretion of the moderators.
Editing your verse after the grace period, after your opponent posts, or after the first vote (especially this)- as well as biting- are grounds for disqualification at discretion of the moderators.


TOPIC: Incoming...
http://i41.tinypic.com/a2arsn.jpg


Good luck to both participants pohfig TopicalDood5

[Soulstice]

check

[Pent uP]

Youre gay

[Soulstice]

ext.?

[Pent uP]

I guess

[Soulstice]

Virus

It's impossible to remain focused with an earful of screams
And the gunshots imperious screams
Steel veering towards the true face of a supposedly fearless regime
Fearsome machines stained with bits of brain - ripped up physical frames
This is the spectrum from man to metal - beneath the blistering rain of falling shrapnel
The hostile narrows - where you pay in crimson for silver trades
Is where the panaroma slowly regains focus - his brain painting a strange opus
That forces him to remain hopeless - as he sees only meters before him
He thinks "Is fleeing a feat replete with treasons decorum?" as steel screams at his feet
But there is no retreat.. prorsum. He reaches down and has his dread confirmed
It's his friend, lower jaw snapped off
A violent medley, burns - limbs kised with hacksaws and his tongue is missing
He looks up again at the reckless purge
His head it hurts, it fucking hurts and hurts
and it's impossible to concentrate, slowly fading and twisting
But he knows his enemies must pay for their sins..

In the back alley of Chicago someone pays for battle
The receiving end of a historical rage that addled
This vet from it's place in shadows - his brains tainted thoughts
He tries to beat them out in vicious strikes
But they just get louder - the stringent cries
of the indifferent mines as they release the memory
In explosive bursts - his soul immersed in that terrible desert
Bullets marry to dust until he's entirely mentally severed
From the present forever, this innocent man is beaten
Until the sweet taste of red revenge drips from his glands

An enemy vanquished! to temporarily settle the anguish
His mind is all blue skies, he's tempered the hatred
But in a moment of clarity - he understands the condition
Revenge is the cause and he's the man for the mission..
... eternally so, this rancid derision, it fervently grows
- He can see on the horizon, the storm clouds fester and boil
In a moment of clarity, he sees that his destiny's soiled
No revery foil to the never-ending scenes of pain
A blue sky dream deferred to seething rage..

They say going to bed angry is something you shouldn't do..
Considering death after avenging a friend
before you revert to your drastic beginnings..
..wouldn't you?

[Pent uP]

Follow Your Dreams Avalanche

Her Body's a temple. Her blood is the atmosphere.
The thin air's the monitor and I'm struggling, backpacking here.
Her breath pattern is the wind chill factor
that makes me feel like a particle of skinless matter.
The drip of morphine is precipitation occulting
into a snowstorm, while I'm facing the whole thing.
I run my hands up her arms all the way past the cracks in her cheeks
with no safety line to the path of her peak.
I've got gravity beat - she's holding me up with one hand in her sleep.
The doctors are so busy that I practically freeze
into an act or a scene where I'm in a stationary moment
while my surroundings are racing where they're going.
A cynical humorist might call this a freeze frame.
Her temperature spikes and sweat dollops where she lays.
In her sleep, she squeezes my palm from a deep pain -
and when she wakes up its like I'm falling for Jean Grey.
Locked eyes with the Phoenix - radiating the highest of fevers
and lost her soul between the I.V. and needles.
It's like her head is out to lunch but her smiling is seamless.
At the same time someone else's mother is crying in pieces -
Causing an empty echo that starts dividing the peak tips.
Precipitation turns to snowfall and the sliding increases.
I keep ascending the limits against all resistance
by making jokes that distract her medical interests.
When the doctors finally come, I've got frost bite and lost focus,
and all they admit is that they cant decide the prognosis.
Inside I've exploded - blood boils enough to melt a path to the top,
but I'm facing a snowball effect that hasn't yet stopped.
There's a doctor who wants to send her home with me,
prescribe painkillers, and let her go to sleep.
There's surgeons who want her for an over-night stay,
and she's looking for me to go the right way.
A growing migraine peaks at this point. I'm holding my brain -
feeling so hot headed that in the cold it might break.
We close the curtain to discuss treatment and facts and stance -
Cliffhanger style in the steepest, sleekest, most freezing known habitat.
Ascent to the summit inside The Being when panic lands.
I'm a rock of ice that a myriad of feelings will travel past.
Clear my mind, before I concede and it has me trapped -
As my own enemy I need to realize its just me and the avalanche.

[Coup]

Topical Dood- I read this three times.

I have mixed feelings about this and am not too sure what situation and in what context I am reading this in or what you meant the reader to gather. I gather that a friend in the Chicago boom days of sky rise construction went down and died in an accident due to the dangers of building greedy empire. Lot's of themes I picked up on such as: revenge, friendships, greed, right and wrong, justice and tragedy. If I don't have this right is it not my fault. I gave this a few slow reads.

The rhyming in a lot of areas was jarring and sparatic, not establishing itself or sustaining itself...rather losing out to awkward phrasing and line structure. I think your structure was too lose and with too many syllables to pace this along nicely. I got jarred on many lines, being as to me they did not transition or set up/pay off well.

Not a bad piece, a bit confusing considering the verbiage and general ambiguity of this...it's open to lots of different interpretations as I am aware of that possibility.

This may seem overly negative, but keep in mind I am usually not as confused to meaning as I am with this one in particular.

I feel the emotions you gave us, and feel for the death of this man. May he rest in peace. Good job qualifying that. PROPS for real.

The strength was the framing, I think you did really well finishing what oyu strated in your first few lines, and leaving us with a situational question, provoking thoughts that linger even when this peice stops. I notice that and try to work on these myself and it seems you did that really well here. Something you should open up to more efficent word management and lien structuring.

Good drop DOOD.



Pent-

I'm not too keen on picking up and fitting this picture topic well into your verse at all tbh. But I also understand it's all retaliative and open to artist interpretation.

Good use of metaphor and analogy to really create a mood where this situation is a kin to a misty mountain peak and these two lovers, in their medical bed situation, are the elements that make up a great blizzard of drama and activity. What we really observe in nature is often what we feel in life. Good capturing this here. It was a focused read and you did not stray from these devices at all, making this easy to follow and understand. I felt smart reading this.

Very good use of slants and loose multis in this. Or mosaic rhyming. Nice work man.

The avalanche to me is the possibility, or your knowledge of the worst become reality, of losing both your lover who is very vulnerable, and represents the harsh elements of a winter mountain, and your very own definition of any normalcy you can get out of such a habitat.

The strength here was the inner play on metaphor into the realm of the mundane static that is everyday life, despite what's going on...hard to say in words. This was reinforced by clever mechanics, while weaker in some areas, feeling lazy but stronger in others.

+1 Pohfig.

[Adonis]

battle of the Alias??

Soul - I only read once so far, but I have to say it's pretty choppy bro. Some lines/bars flow is dope, then some are what ever the opposite of 'dope' is. Maybe second read will change my mind on that front...Yeah, I think it's because of line length here. Anyways, it stayed a bit choppy, wordy (extremely) and enjoyable. I, for the life of me, can not tie it to the topic which is a bit of a bother for me, but W/E. I loved the attention to detail as far as word choice, that was by far the most enjoyable thing here. Also, never heard "Prorum" before, tried looking it up...Nothing, Google searched, dope meaning. Love Latin, and wish I was born in it's age. All in all, a verse about revenge obviously. I took it as man vs. Machine, and the man (he was possibly a machine as well but doubtful) ends up fighting in back allies for a living. Forever killing the things that killed his friend. Nice concept, but not made for this topic IMO. The only way I can link the two is if this were literally a dream, but not even that ties in until the final couplet in which you talk about going to bed angry. I guess, in the end I'm not the biggest fan of this drop. I loved the word choice, and I think everything else was simply sub par as far as your name goes. IDK? blunt, sorry.

AND...its heroin? I now see that clear as day, fuck the machines. He was some sort of war vet, battling the demons in the back alley searching for that revenge some how. IDK bro, this shit IS mad layered though, I'll give you that.

Pent - Some dope meanings in every line, "I run my hands up her arms all the way past the cracks in her cheeks
with no safety line to the path of her peak." And... "A cynical humorist might call this a freeze frame. " Shit like that. I don't know the word for it, almost double meanings, or innuendo?? Anyways, some lines as far as flow go were rather simple, but the "Innuendo's" I spoke of kept me very intrigued. I see a man (You) struggling to write, fighting a uphill battle and explaining in dope and different ways over and over again the pain not having the proper inspiration causes. In the end, you realize the woman you're searching for (the inspiration to write) IS the struggle, and you deal with it writing through it. In NBA terms, we call this "shooting through a slump", and I think you did.


vote - Pohfig

To me, honestly, I can't connect either verse to the topic, which is weird, but I can't fault you either or I fault you both. Flow was pents, more simple but at the same time equally as beautiful in terms of word choice shit. I liked his take more though, maybe because I'm walking away from reading it feeling like it didn't completely fly over my head. Where with Soul, I feel like he simply didn't convey enough, or do his part to leave me a couple more clues for where he took his verse. As a writer I don't mind leaving shit open for interpretation, as a reader I do. But, in the end, as a writer and reader, I simply enjoyed Pent's verse more.

[Split]

Fucking LOL @ Pent recycling

No lie tho

I know a few people that can confirm. I would DQ, tbh. Shit is weak as fuck for playoffs.

[Split]

Pohfig's verse has been confirmed for recycling by two AOWL Moderators present when it was originally recycled at the NWL, the NWL Mod in charge at the time, and one respected member of the community.


The battle is null and void, pohfig is DQ'd for recycling, Topicaldood5 moves on.

[Adonis]

Agreed