The Walls of the City Shake
Red figures dance on a surrealist vase
Dubiously reciting Lutheran verse.
NB: This contest requires at least two lines, and no more than ten, in which the words "Lutheran" and "surrealist" are each used at least once.
Contest closes at midnight on Groundhog Day (February 2nd). Voting is on February 3 with long-term contributors and commenters each allowed one vote which must be for someone else.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
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25 comments:
Pope tripped
Lutheran
Lady Optimism
Surrealist
I'd like take the under on --
The Birthers vs. the Truthers And.
We'd be boring but have better lawns,
If we all was Lutheran.
Imma gonna let you finish -
Your little dance just ain't Surrealist.
Brett,
You haven't seen my lawn :-(. The Catholics in my neighborhood do a better job.
As for dancing… some things are simply too awkward and painful to watch to bear public discussion. Lutheran dance, for example.
Faith or Works
Lutherans submit
to a surrealist gospel, lost--
replacing works with words
and Christ with the cross.
Oh no, GM's in the lead. God help us.
Best man at my wedding was raised Lutheran,
A momma's boy from Garrett County
Maryland.
His dad was a banjo picking turkey farmer
Who joined the Navy, converting from Catholicism
To psychiatry.
My friend planned to write short stories,
But his life took a surrealist turn.
He lives in his mom's basement now,
When he isn't in jail.
Brett's second entry:
The skeeziest
of surrealists,
was a-pooperin'
on the Lutheran.
Lutheranism: high criticism.
Surrealism: Schmalkaldicism.
A surrealist view, a chance meeting the umbrella and sewing machine.
But still a reflection in a Lutheran eye.
A surrealist view, a chance meeting the umbrella and sewing machine.
But still a reflection in a Lutheran eye.
A surrealist view, a chance meeting the umbrella and sewing machine.
But still a reflection in a Lutheran eye.
She said goodbye, for good I think. Then I left to seek surreal solace in the dark Lutheran night.
She said goodbye, for good I think. Then I left to seek surreal solace in the dark Lutheran night.
out of the hole popped a groundhog head
in the mind of the groundhog were these thoughts
(o yes groundhogs think)
what a dreadful grey day
this will go on for ever
surreal shapes and expectations are everywhere
dangling in the atmosphere
of a frightfully lutheran town
there's always more darkness
always more winter
get used to it
brother sartre rejected
sola fides
be happy in your minimalist distorted dreams
at the very least
make the best of them
the cross askew looms above the toilet
jh
I like JH's poem a lot but only the first ten lines can be considered for the contest! Those lines are better without what follows I think. The last lines are DQ'd. However, the first ten lines are my favorites thus far in the contest. Hurray for JH: lawbreaker.
i prefer "outlaw"
thank you berry berry mucho
ok
revised poem
out of the hole popped a groundhog head/
in the mind of the groundhog were these thoughts/
(o yes groundhogs think)/
what a dreadful grey day
this will go on for ever/
surreal shapes and expectations are everywhere/
dangling in the atmosphere of a frightfully lutheran town/
a cross askew looms above the toilet/
I like the first quatrain of Brett's first effort by itself, it's almost perfect. I think GM's piece is quite good. I like parts of Craig's piece. We have two new entrants: Tanja and Sorin! (Who get to vote!) Stu's piece remained obscur even after the explanations. I am voting for JH's piece, the revised version (slightly truncated due to my Procrustean demands in terms of length). Wonderful to hear from Barghest again, although it sounds as if he may have met with a calamity woman-wise.
JH's piece is poetry -- free like Dionysos, yet having a point, like Apollo (prophet of archery). Whammo.
Surrealism is Dionysian. Lutheranism is Apollonian. As Brett says, we have the best lawns of all the denominations.
I'm voting for Barghest. The other poems are clever, his is engaging. I'd like to tip my hat, too, to GM's poem, which contains a valid criticism of Lutheranism, at least as we tend to explain it when we're trying to differentiate ourselves from other Christian confessions.
craig's poignant narrative has my vote
i always enjoy craig's personal and family history vignettes
and that he bring's it around to a certain lyricism is all the better
it seems the constrictions in the rules brought about a certain zeroing in on the floating concepts
in the air
kahboom
jh
I will vote for bretts second job.
I vote for Brett's first poem. "Birthers vs the Truthers"
doesn't all conflict boil down to this? What is truth?
Besides, Lutherans ARE boring.
When I was growing up we had dichondra, not real grass for a lawn. And it was THE BEST in the neighborhood. But then again, we were the only ones with dichondra instead of grass, so naturally we were best. Perhaps that's the nature of Lutheranism.....we're the only ones to have it so of course we're best.
Do I get a t-shirt????
My vote goes to GM's Methodist poem. Their basement's are filled with lost Lutherans.
I think the vote has gone six or seven ways, and is even. Brett got two votes one for each poem, and GM got a vote, and Craig got a vote, and JH got a vote, and Barghest got a vote. So, it's a six way tie. If there's a moral winner it's Brett since his poems got two votes, but no one poem won the contest. Let's reload in a couple of weeks and try again. I'd like to thank Sorin and Tanya for adding some newbies to our contest, and Stu for adding mathematical obscurity that it might take about ten years for any of us to understand.
The Lutheran groundhog is too shy,
so it votes for a surrealist named Kir - bye.
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