HappyBuddha

Cupcakes - go sugar!

Video Games or Board Games?

I like this poem, I think it does really clever things with the structure to call emphasis to the small but not insignificant points it wants to make

Placing one word in the middle of each stanza is not only interesting and helpful, it's downright instrumental to making this poem as good as it is. I think using one word to form two distinct sentences prompts the reader to play the sentences off one another. That leads him or her to re-read the first sentence and in many cases reconsider or heighten his/her appreciation for what's being presented. Very good stuff, right up through the closing line, which is excellent in that it brings the poem to an end succinctly without losing the openness to interpretation that defines this poem.

HappyBuddha reaches for a piece of cake, only to stop himself and blush.

"Where are my manners? Birthday boys go first!"

Happy Birthday Patrick!

I'll take 11 - no deadlines though, we hates those precious!

HappyBuddha pauses from the eating, a leg-sized piece of cake suspended in his gigantic fist

"Thangf yoo aw so muts" he shouts happily, pausing to swallow before continuing

"I think you'reve actually made my dream from last night come true!"

With that, he bites into the cake and proceeds with laborious task, proceeding at a pace that would put Japanese World Eating Champion Takeru Kobayashi to shame.

Thank you all so much! You're all terrificly sweet and far too affectionate for a stony-heart like me! I feel tadpoles fluttering in my arteries! I think that's a good thing!

I really like "that cold and silent picture frame" - 'picture frame' just leaps out at me. I think the repetition of the ending lines helps to keep this poem together. A little cohesion goes a long way

Friendship, Ignored

I've neglected to repay the investors

who underwrote my personal growth

failing even to meet interest payments

let alone pay back the principle

This is all that's satisfactory enough to put up. This is most certainly incomplete but I needed to put this out there.

I don't have the time to give this poem the long reply it deserves, but I would like to say that "spew down luke" is really original, and the originality pays off. Since this is near the beginning of the poem, it helps to get the reader interested from the very start.

burns

Congratulations to everyone!

*welcoming hugs*

"He had missed the aggravation and tension of the city previous month, but leapt out of his bedroom window with an infuriated will that morning for an entirely diffrent reason than most of the rest of the city had for want to beat senseless a truly maddening pyromaniac"

The phrasing of this sentence is awkward and befuddling...see if you can't work out the kinks here.

"I admit to rather liking the idea of a flying superhero with laser vision called Redeye being a prime mover here too. Let's hear it for old school superhero naming! Woo!"

Let's hear it for Aristotelian references! =D Also, "Ubermenschen" made me laugh mightily.

P.S. Ha! I do too participate, Sweet! Just not often...

*Hugs*

Happy Birthday to both of you!

*Huggles and holds*

Laughs, giggles, blushes, and smiles all at the same time

Thank you all so much for the wonderful birthday wishes! They mean a lot to me :-)

(Bear)hugs all those who posted in this thread

The imagery in this poem is very good and you deserve kudos for that. The problem is, it's too good for the "empty" you inject twice and the "alone" you end upon. You seem a little bit afraid to let the imagery stand on its own, without a word blaring out its significance like a brightly lit neon sign. Don't be. The scene you paint does a damn fine job of making an emotional impact, but you clip its wings and reduce its effectiveness by bonking the reader over the head with "empty" and "alone."

I think that absent those two words, you'll need a closing stanza relating the poem to something human. I would suggest something along the lines of "Seated by a leaf-clogged fountain/I wonder where she went." But its your poem - do as you wish :-)

Hope I wasn't too harsh - I like what you've got so far, and it'd be a terrible shame if you didn't give it the little touch-up it needs to be really good.

Err, I'm not interested in RPing a character from Dune. But I'll be reading the WW and eagerly following the action :-)

There's a chance I'll join the next WW we hold, depending on what the next topic is.

She also has an MSN account, though she's fitful about signing onto it.

Wow! That's fantastic!

*hugs and the whole package*

Congratulations to the both of you :-)

Hehe. Very funny :-)

You're more than welcome :-)

I like the balance and repose of this poem. A very fine piece overall.

Welcome to the Pen :-)

Tom turned to face them, his soothing smile hanging like a pearly mirage before the eyes of his charges. Like all mirages it stretched and bent, rearranging invisible material until it became promising appearance. But as Tom knew all too well, like all mirages the reality was distant, so terribly distant from the tempting lie that prods the desperate on until entrapping illusion crumbles beneath their feet. Tom knew that any man lost within the glimmering crevices of that smile need only shift his glance to the eyes above, where far toothier sands spread like landfills into places only melanin was meant to go, leaving the irises wiggling for an escape from the encircling hollow.

Which is why Tom always wore contacts (Why no one but his mother had ever seen him naked. Would ever see him naked. Period. End of sentence. No ellipsis.) Tom found it funny that a melanin deficiency in the eyes could throw people so off-kilter like that. But the good host caters to company, and Tom was a good host, so contacts it was. “The fifteenth floor?” he asked, having already filed the group before him away into a neat little category during the jarring second it took for them to get beyond his smile. Tom loved categories; he was extraordinarily good with them. Take this group: a family for sure, the father with just a twinkle of pride in his eyes and a slight flush in his cheeks, both speaking volumes (only slightly abridged) to the thrashing he had just given to poor Lisa at the front desk. That told Tom enough; they’d undoubtedly bullied their way into that free room on the fifteenth floor, where they could get a good view.

The rise of startled eyebrows answered his question quite well; he had already pushed the button by the time the mother yelped, “Why, yes! How did you know?”

“Because I can read minds, of course!” he replied, pausing to reapply his smile before he continued with the standard routine. “They don’t let just any old bum get this job, oh no! Only special mind-reading bums like me!”

Amidst the ensuing chuckles came a giggling “Nuh-uh!” from a diminutive little girl.

Without breaking either his stride or his smile, Tom leaned down and brought his face within a foot of hers. “Yes I can! Right now, you’re wondering where I got this lollipop!” And with that his fist flashed open to reveal the promised candy. The girl lit up and snatching the candy without hesitation. Her laughter continued even after she’d plopped the sucker into her mouth (quite an amazing feat of ventriloquism.)

Ding!

The doors flushed open unto an empty carpeted hallway. Within nary the shedding of a second, the father had pulled the whole bunch off the elevator and towards their room, where his ever-so-precious view awaited – the view that he would be happily trumpeting for the rest of the vacation (the view that he would remember rather better than the actual vacation in subsequent years.) The girl turned around once, briefly mirroring Tom’s smile with her own. Then the doors slid shut before Tom’s face, and their ironclad silence snapped apart her giggles. Tom lost his own smile in the time it took to discern that the lobby was his next destination.

* * * * * * * * * *

That night, Tom briefly lingered in the doorway to the elevator shaft, as was his habit after his maintenance work was finished. He’d long ago taken the upkeep of his elevator upon himself, never trusting the shabby engineer they always hired to do a good job of it. It’s not like that fool would have to take responsibility for any catastrophe. The man never gave the elevator more than a cursory inspection, 10 minutes tops, and then spent the rest of his nominal hour of work cracking jokes in the lobby and helping himself to leftovers from the hotel’s dining room. Tom had rsolved to do independent elevator maintenance work after witnessing just one of these sham “inspections.” Once a week he would descend into this shaft and lovingly pour over the traction grooves, test the strength of the counterweight’s cable, inspect the hitch plate, examine the drive sheave, and (of course) oil the gearbox.

Nothing would go wrong on Tom’s watch, not tonight. Every item in his mental agenda had a merry little checkmark dancing inside the “Done” box to its side. Everything works like a charm, Tom told himself. Yep. Like a charm. Like you planned it. With a start Tom turned and slammed the door behind him as he hurriedly left the maintenance area behind. The door’s Boom! welled up within the elevator shaft and echoed back to him in a muffled yet insistent thunder that kept time with his hasty footfalls.

I love the poem - the style works excellently.

I agree with Wyvern; I think the dramatic effect is heightened and the overall poem enhanced if you axe "Exuent."

Hooray for happy! Hooray for birthdays! Hooray for people with birthdays!

*Whips out his kazoo and butchers a tune*

*hugs and holds*

Sometimes love is like faith...you want to believe in it, but it hurts so much sometimes that you wonder why, if it's really there, nothing comes. Here's hoping you're able to keep your faith in love.