slam

Aren’t we all too opinionated?
Somebody’s grammar has to be wrong
I won’t get my point across exactly & someone will notice.
I look good today
Or am I wrong?
I start too many sentences with “I”
So that’s wrong
In someone’s opinion.
Think it all through; make the decisions of your opinion & you’ll be just short of genius
Because somebody has to decide.
I feel smarter than I am or I know I’m less than I feel because
I don’t think it all through
I leave the ends of a thought hanging
--like a noose for an idea to be hanged in

SLAM POETRY COMPETITION AT A YOUNG WRITERS CONFERENCE

Nick: Alright...ahem...this is just a short poem I wrote...not that any of you will like it...

Judge: Clock's ticking, Nick.

Nick: DON'T OPPRESS ME!

Judge: Um...I'm not oppressing you, it's just that there is a time limit. It's an established rule.

Nick: The establishment has no power over me! FIGHT THE ESTABLISHMENT!

Judge: Nick?

Nick: Yeah?

Judge: Just read the damn poem.

Nick: Alright, here goes...

I sit in my loneliness,
Darkness consumes my soul,
Annihilation is my only escape,

Hookup

Bump the bass
And tune the tone
Magnify the music
Because tonight it’s time

Scream the sounds
And amplify the amp
Pump up the pulse
Because you’re actually here

Hum the harmony
And clarify the chords
Whisper the words
Because it’s time to be quiet

And let the touch do the talking

here's what makes you who you are:
dark green silk with a lightning scar,
princess shaped shadows on a rainforest cascade,
gerber daisy chain surf, juicebox lemonade,
minty musk
driving at dusk.

you'll shiver
at every touch.

a topaz ring around your shoes,
a tassle full of painting you,
thin black lace
to encase
the asphalt tete a tete.

you
can't
forget

the blink of empty correspondence,
the predetermined automobile dents,
the prying, crying months
of tugging fish hooks.
but take a look.
your bait was sand,

the deck is empty, check your hand.

Calmly exploding
barricade slowly eroding
if I ever live to see another day
bomb drop's surely foreboding
another riot; another face
fast track to my disgrace
dispel the human race
genocide without a trace
never mind your track lines
shooting up misinformation
you have quite the inclination
to laceration, innovation
your nation
has quite the unhealthy fixation
with federation
perhaps right now is just about the right time
for deinstitutionalization .

a hundred years
as many tears
like a soul straddled
battled scarred
war riot in the yard
birth to death only testing me

There's nothing to fear here
But a revolt of lethargy
Depressing to see and
Impressively free
From the ability to think
Connected to some sort
Of chemical dependency
Connected to constraints of this
Megalomaniacal society
Trying to buy the world
To fry and dry the youths minds
And hurl the waste products to the birds
Word on the street
Is that they're vultures of culture
They cured minds with torture
Called interrogation
But the truth is a nation
Headed straight to the mortuary
For far to many days
We've waited for the rain to stop
To drain the top levels

How could I ever doubt you?
How could I contradict you?
How could I challenge your evident truths
With my blunt oppositions?
Your daring statements
Must certainly remain undisputed
So confident are your
Perfect words
You’re right
You’re always
Right
Yes you’re fat and you’re ugly
And did I mention you’re normal?
You would never starve yourself
Never stop eating to lose weight
No
Not you
Not poor, troubled you
With your tight jeans
And your v-neck shirts
And your way way WAY too short skirts
No
And you wouldn’t dare put that heavy knife to your pretty wrists

That boy you cried over last night—
hello, do you realize he’ll disappear tomorrow?
He’ll abscond from your misery,
and all you’ll be left with the dust of his memories.

Darling—do you realize he’s gone forever?
And that tomorrow “he” will be the boy next door,
or the boy at school,
or the boy who drifted off with you in your dreams?

Raindrops fall slower than you fall in love—
and yet, they consider their every shift,
their every move, and every minute that they go somewhere.
And you don’t budge.

Each boy for you is another adventure,

I’m no animal,
just a robot in a cage.
It’s not that surprising
in this day & age.
They gave me no heart
but they gave me a brain.
A spark in the circuits
programmed me insane.
They told me they couldn’t
code my DNA.
They unwired my genes
& they started to fray.

Now tell me -- where is the justice I’ve yet to be served? The punishment for the crime I never did earn? Who in their right minds would have taken that turn? That road to salvation with its bridges burned?

I am a king
standing at the threshold
of his soapbox,
his people scattered
like so many mechanical ants

We all own time but
We dole it out like
Gamblers on a losing streak gonna
Win the next one, that’s
All we’re hoping and
I’m still waiting for my life to begin,
To win you, to own somethin’ true cause
The longer I stick around
The harder joy is to be found it’s like
Waiting for the grass to grow in winter I know

Here I am, here I go, my wheels are spinning but
I’m tired of sittin’ gotta
Plane to catch gotta
Get outta this mess and
I’ll miss you but I’ll send a card
Cause time’s still ticking and
I’m gonna start winning gonna
Live while I’m still alive

The rain froze me to the bone but I braved it anyway, saying that perhaps it would leave for the rest of the day. I biked past stores and homes and shops, didn’t leave my mark on the place where it was locked. I danced through a heaven full of books, tried to avoid the glaring looks from the people who disapproved of my humming. Guess they disapproved of the girl I am becoming.

Ten things I hate about you. There are so many things that I hate about you, but there are ten that beat the rest.

1. I hate your amazing smile, and how happy I feel when I see you walking down he halls
2. I hate your cowboy boots and how you tuck in your shirt to look decent
3. I hate your amazing voice when I hear you singing one of my favorite country songs
4. I hate how you seem to glow with happiness and light whenever I see you
5. I hate your beautiful eyes that draw mw in every time I look into them
6. I absolutely hate everything about your personality as a whole

Slammed at CCYWC's rooftop open mic.

We are all breaking down typing our confessions because we cannot speak, we cannot make a sound–someone to talk to, please. Someone to wrench these words from my body, pull them from my throat, ease this pressure–someone to kill the guilt. Someone to tear down these walls I’ve built. Thebes was conquered early today, dragged through the school the halls on the way to a joke to a pun to a play on normality–on reality–I dip a bow–the starring role!–& turn to walk away–

I loved you man,
I really did
But you just broke my heart.
I took you in
And let you stay
So baby, please don't start.
You lied to me
I know you did
You did it all the time.
You had my trust
You had my heart
I thought you were sublime.
You lived with HER
And I should have known
That you would put me through s***.
Yes, I was dumb
And I was blind
But you didn't have to do it.
So I'm glad you're gone
And I don't care
What happens to you now.
Forget us all
And don't come back
This is my eternal vow.

This discrepancy, disparity, duality of two-worlds-in-one-head of a reality, of a word that by my definition has no definition anymore, has no meaning nor significance to my day-by-day existentialist existence that for a lack of a better word I call my life. I admit sometimes I am inclined to lie back in my chair and stare at the sky and ask, “What does it all mean?” It’s just a thing I do. I don’t expect a solution, resolution, absolute absolution; I’m not that dense. I prefer to quip a snarky “Forty-two” and that’s the best answer I’ve found as of yet: Nonsense.

So you caught me lingering
Fingering
This improbable dream
Where the unseen
Can wake up
Just become seen
Yeah it's moments like this
That make me who I am
Instead of just ogling the person I wanna be
I've never been this particular version of myself before
It's kind of frightening to become who I am
I'm livin' in an alien body
With an alien inside my head
Yeah I'm out here studying this world so tall
Hoping i'll still be able to here the call
And all these bruises can not phase me
This half-assed feeling can not replace
My wonder
Yeah I can hold my own

You'll find me pushing pollen
and planted problems
in summer breezes
that forecast an autumn
that comes every year
but manages to keep
that element
of surprise.
You'll find me in solid skies
In nagging questions
and I wonder why's
that pull at your hello happenings
and frame your gracious goodbyes.

You'll find me steeping in hot water
bleeding shades of the lessons I'm learning
in perfect placed steam
that leaves the air churning
in an overcast dream.
Always suspecting rain
you'll find me on the paper's plane.
Dancing in lines that draw up
my angle.

Clip at the beginning & end by The Mountain Goats.

--not fucked up enough to be statistically significant, just critical enough to envy the magnificent, standing in bookstores and museums imagining my work here, here, here; picturing myself in textbooks, this photo, this page, this moment of my life that made me great—fate—heavensent—

I have been waiting for slam poetry
to come to me, but
when the wind leaves 
the heat
is just heavy. There is so much
beauty in a silent knoll 
and a notebook. I wish the world could see. 
But mostly, I wish they never see-
because then we're just not
special. (And they don't deserve it)
I think the cruelty in this
frame of mind has
crippled me and cursed me
infertility. I'm not conceiving 
similes like I used to. 
Because when the wind leaves
the heat is just heavy. 

And I do recognize the irony 
in a poem about poems. There is a
mutual respect in the rhythm and 

Writer's block, you pretentious bastard, glaring at me with eyes reminiscent of those godsdamned devils incarnate, why so invasive? You pervade, persuade my train of thought, persuade my train of thought to derail. You can't look away from a bad train wreck &, baby, let me tell you, this one's gonna be ugly. Forget about those scary things you've hidden away in your closet -- this brand, your brand of pervasive, pervasive action is something only the creative could surmise.

This is true happiness
being silly and laughing.
this is true happiness.
sitting her beside you all
laughing
smiling
This is happiness
forgetting all that is wrong
laughing. smiling.
This is happiness
when the beat of our hearts is
quiickened,
not by the stress of a test
not by the anger in our vains
not by the sorrow in our lives
but by the laughter
this is true real happiness

This is true happiness
being silly and laughing.
this is true happiness.
sitting her beside you all
laughing
smiling
This is happiness
forgetting all that is wrong
laughing. smiling.
This is happiness
when the beat of our hearts is
quiickened,
not by the stress of a test
not by the anger in our vains
not by the sorrow in our lives
but by the laughter
this is true real happiness

This is true happiness
being silly and laughing.
this is true happiness.
sitting her beside you all
laughing
smiling
This is happiness
forgetting all that is wrong
laughing. smiling.
This is happiness
when the beat of our hearts is
quiickened,
not by the stress of a test
not by the anger in our vains
not by the sorrow in our lives
but by the laughter
this is true real happiness

This one is for the all the kids
who fell asleep in Latin class freshman year
because you were up too late on AIM
because that was the cool thing to do.
This one is for all the times we
punched in our lunch account numbers
and Betsy, with a sad face and soft expression
said: “You’re negative thirteen, honey”
-but still let you get the cookie.

This one is for the winter flip flop wear-ers
the midnight tire to road tear-ers
and every single gangsta rap blare-er
Nothing is set in stone.

This one is for the new tattoos
the broken glasses, and

Brittany Pratt---- Helium’’

www.chemicalelements.com
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/he.html
This page was created by Yinon Bentor.
Last update- unknown

Symbol- He
Atomic number- 2

i. My cough is back.

fvbvv

You’ve got a set of glassy eyes
that gaze upon my seventeen year old face.
Look at you,
all dressed up in that black button up,
reeking Ralph Lauren cologne.
The weather is right for lovin’
so why aren’t you touching me?
A long deep sleep
will help my mind get away from you.
All the signs were there,
clean truck, clean jeans,
good conversation, a date to watch the sunset.
You’ve got my phone ringing every three hours,
and you can’t even draw your hand
from your pocket to grace my fingers
and ego with a gratifying moment of contact?

i. They look at me like I have some kind of disease. Oh, right. I do. They whisper behind their hands, as if that makes it less obvious. Here's a clue, guys: if you're looking straight at a person and speaking into someone's ear, everyone's going to be able to tell who you're talking about. They could go into show-biz the way they talk about people behind the scenes. Sometimes I catch snippets of their conversations- not that I need to hear "...lesbo...""...girl on girl..." to know exactly why they stare. Those looks- one eyebrow raised, wrinkled forehead, flick of the eyes down and up.

Yesterday's footprints have melted down from white to green to brown to black, stones slick & exposed, stonewalls in rows & footsteps sloshing there & back through snowmelt thick with birdcalls, flower petals crushed flat & stalks leaning in the mud; I walk/ along yesterday's footprints--

I walk inside the flood.