Assorted battles
Battle Arena: Phrase Topical
Posted on Aug. 8, 2014
Topic: Hoop Dreams
Result: Beat timeless 3-0
Pressing the hardwood, the spindly-armed descendant of Sharman,
spinning with hard turns, flips his wrist with the rim as a target.
Splash. Buckets. Jack tucks his hair behind his ear
and faces up his defender with a stare, refined and fierce.
He's tougher than them. He's got to be.
The white kid with the shot from three who often seems
athletically outmatched by kids with melanin and fast-twitch
who aren't even impressed when he runs drills better than them — backwards.
Low to macadam, the sweat drips off his shoulders and backbone,
sizzling when it hits the blacktop mid-dribble. Cross over and pass them.
Tyrone soldiers with madness, head down as he scoops through the lane
and flips a teardrop over the outstretched arms consuming the paint.
He's quicker than them. It's his only hope.
The broken-home short kid with the chip too wide for his shoulder's slope.
The smallest at 5-1 but balling like Iverson. His anger was managed;
failing in math class but sees the court as a series of angles and tangents.
With the sight of his reach, the envious gasps run rife in the bleachers.
Grown men sidle next to him, perplexed at the size of his T-shirt.
Chisulo speaks four languages and prefers "Malawian" to "African."
His favorite players? Shaq and Tim. But he's new to organized practices.
He's bigger than them. It's how he got this gig.
From a Bamako soccer pitch to the dishonest grips of AAU promises.
Two years in the sport. But they say if he can block these kids,
they'll send him to a first-rate U.S. college on scholarship.
The court's buzzing. Talent overflowing in Springfield Hoophall,
where ESPN cameras soar over the rims, track every loose ball.
College coaches and NBA scouts sit, scribbling thoughts,
when in comes that blue-chip 6-10 forward with the skills of a guard.
He's better than them.
Write Week #4
Posted on Sept. 3, 2014
Topic:
Result: Did not win
We came like midnight mauraders, in the heat of the night.
Scenic. Squeezing you tight. Aimless drifts, speechless requites.
Queasy from wine, we waddled back under the sheets,
as the whips of the waves whisp us away over the tumbling sea.
It's only here that I ever feel.
Seperate people, fingers rapt. Winking laughs turn desperate squeals.
Sinking back, that aimlessness that once defined, divides.
The swaying ship's sways and dips. Unbroken. Resigned to pride.
I'm tracing your back. It's become your face. Slowly but surely,
the cold of the early morning becomes the only thing certain.
Reposed. Ghosts at sea, movements in delicate shadows.
Glimmering as still water. But we're destined for shallows.
And though the precipice narrows, the surface exposes a lie.
They'll find a discarded picture frame. No photo inside.
'Ship, wrecked.
Battle Arena Tag Tournament: Round 1
Posted on Aug. 13, 2014
Team: Coats (with oats)
Result: Lost to Alpha Omega (Beyond and Paradigm) 7-4
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paradigm
Give me complete control over it and I shall resurrect the Battle Arena.
I shall become the Certain of the Text side of this site because right now whoever runs things sucks.
That is all.
|
You'll never be me. I'm a legend, a champ. You're worthless, dude.
namix practically begged me to mod. He had never even heard of you.
Bey, you used to be respected, revered, even significant,
but you had such an abrupt fade to black it makes Aero look legitimate.
Still Bey’s clearly carrying the team, your odds at a glance are a joke.
Look at the ratio: For every three eyes, you have ONE chance at a vote.
Yeah, we'll be Robin the higher seed, setting off a masterful win streak.
But don't get depressed, Bey. We've already had one Patch hang himself this week.
That persona's projection. No dad, dyke mom — it scarred your rep.
Hate to pull the rug out from under you ... I just wanted your mom to starve to death.
But we all know Beyond won't show, asking his partner to spare some lines.
Jay Z was cheating, sure, but it's Bey who's fucking a pair a' dimes.
And he knows his place. Bey's Alpha, Para's deep on his own list,
so when I blast Omega One, he'll go to sleep with Mike's goldfish.
We'll leave that alpha talk deaded, literally, don't test or try us.
Flirt with fate and you'll end up in the friend zone ... with Zephaniah.
Battle Arena: 10-Line Topical
Posted on July 25, 2014
Topic: If You See Me Again
Result: Lost to dead man 5-2
The air becomes Spanish profanity. A knife's produced.
It shimmers for one hopeless second, slicing through
as the white consumes the table, unleashed, while the staring match
enables a peace, the slightest truce amid careless acts.
One wave of the heat. One chamber release.
Ruckus ensues. Ducking, I move from range of the AR-15,
lying, splayed in between the sofa and wall.
Then, surveying the scene, holding them off,
the enemy enters the frame of my scope, sentenced to die.
But while aiming the blow, I catch a glimpse of his eyes.
Summer Classic VII: Round 1 Reserve Match
Posted on July 14, 2014
Result: Beat Doug Funny 8-4 (but declined a second-round battle)
Doug's a cartoon character, and I'll still gladly take his dame.
No Cali-style hamburgers, but I'm spreading Patti Mayonnaise.
If his pickup lines are as bad as his punches, this fellow's jerking.
The only time you'll see Funny bone is when his elbow's working.
I'm not a mellow person. I've got a gun in the waist; see
that Quailman costume's a bad idea when I'm hunting like Cheney.
This dude claimed he was Bags. Doug, don't lie to impress me.
You could never replace A.C., like when Zack tried to date Jessie.
Your attempts are terrible. Your lines just depress me.
Step to the Götze, one kick'll leave you lyin' all Messi.
Battle Arena: Phrase Topical
Posted on March 6, 2014
Topic: Tomorrow is gravid
Result: Won via Maximus no-show
So I walked into my mechanic's the other day for a token oil change,
and I said — I said, "Mike, I think I've got a broken coil spring.
Can you check the suspension?"
Now I had his attention.
"What made you think you got something like that? It could start in the engine."
I said, "I don't know, Mike. Just seems to shake when I drive,
especially when I hit about 85."
"So you got a problem? Couldn't just be these fuckin' roads now?"
"Well, it happens every time I hit 85, especially when it's cold out."
Mike turns to me, shrugs his shoulders and raises his whole brow.
"So then, I gotta ask — why the fuck don't you slow down?"
...
Broaching cataclysm, we've overcrowded the 36th chamber,
flirting with hangers ready to remove the future, loosely sutured
into the womb. I did consume more than my fair share of Soy(lent) sauce,
so why don't you pour your salt in my wounds until the boiling stops?
Recoil and drop — there's nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.
Defined by chauvinist times, original meaning: copius pride.
We're spinning heads on swivels but can't axis information,
so prime another layer of didactic insulation.
We carry cancer in our pockets, put the cancer to ears,
breathe the cancer as a toxin as we're answering our peers.
We are the champions of fear but never know what we're afraid of
until that last bump in the dark severs hope and smears our makeup.
But we've got to keep moving: This hamster wheel is spinning with force.
And we've got to keep moving: This wooden foundation is splintered and warped.
So we've got to keep moving: The yellow-brick road's been smelted for gold,
and all we've ever exposed is a series of irrelevant tomes.
(Sort of like this one?) Something like this one,
which is neither beginning nor destination.
When you clear a house for zombies, never forget to check the basement.
And when you sneer and shout and lobby and flail your fists at me,
you'd better be damn sure tomorrow's the most important day in history.
Battle Arena: Story Lead Topical
Posted on Feb. 27, 2014
Topic: You are a rapper or musician getting ready for a concert.
Result: Beat FloSoIll 4-0
Green room inventory:
23 cigarette butts. 36 beer cans, withered and crushed.
3 Chips Ahoy packs, chunky. 1 unfinished Brass Monkey.
1 washed-up rock god, spilling his lunch.
And 1 teenage girl, face down in a river of blood.
Three hours earlier ...
"One more, bro!"
I place my nose squarely over the line and enter.
An inhale evacuates my sinus pressure.
Rise and breath. Rinse and repeat.
Quickly release. Tight fit in vintage-ripped jeans.
I want to show them a time, explosive design.
We, too, were children of music, its fuses corroding our minds.
She came with ... I don't know.
She is there, though. Looking on from the corner.
Looking on like a scarecrow. I quickly notice her hair's flow.
She dyes it blue, the gentle, cerulean sort
that seemed to express a moodiness or youthful extort.
I invite her over. Another beer can hits the wall, empty,
"We're all empty," she says, trying to sound deep, but instead
she's acting her age. Sixteen by the looks. Nineteen by the hopes.
She grabs a cookie. Crosses her legs. Bright sheen on her hose.
I smile back. My daughter's probably 15 now.
(Don't think about your daughter.)
What should I call her? "Babe" is dated. "Sexy" is trite.
"Honey" makes me sound like her father.
(Don't think about your daughter.)
Two hours later ...
Katherine says she's a senior at West High. Her friends call her Katie.
She's legal to smoke and ... thinks menthols are tasty.
She licks her lips. Grabs another cookie.
We're alone now, across the hall.
The rock star gets his own green room, with locks and all.
She's behind me. Runs her 18-year-old fingers through my chest hair.
Breasts bare. More action and less stare.
She flings herself on the couch. I kiss her lips, soft and humid
and the exact same shade of pink my daughter uses.
Battle Arena: Picture Topical
Posted on Feb. 1, 2014
Topic:
Result: Beat Split Eight 5-2
Cheeks flushed. I've got dirty little secrets tucked away
underneath, crushed.
My humble Venus, something sways,
the trees, brush and leaves gust.
We're on our dune, lust and trust.
Astray. Why do you touch and play?
I've got heartburn.
I've got nothing much to say.
I've got so much to do, but gumption fades.
And if you work hard enough,
you, too, will stop giving a fuck someday.
Baritone creaking. Standing sideways on the broken path.
That's about the time I felt the ocean splash.
Ebb and flow. You're playing with my convulsions,
and my hope has passed.
Every joke and laugh exposes throats to chokes and gags,
and I'm already coughing enough as is.
Scoffing. My crutch dragging.
We climbed mountains together.
Mostly you stood on my shoulders and looked out to the heavens.
Chamomile tea, with an ounce of confection.
No, it's too late. I'm burning the world down.
Turning a girl's frown into a permanent mural now.
Getting my rocks off. Cursively curse the town.
Purging my patience.
And maybe there's another reason to look to the sky when the churches are vacant.
And you? You're nervously pacing.
So take a picture before it all gets turned into pavement,
before tonight is a blur for the vagrants,
before I author my cobblestone opus.
Because I've never looked so pretty,
and you've never bothered to notice.
Fight Night LXXXIV: Round 1
Posted on Jan. 13, 2014
Result: Lost to Allen Knight 3-0
Certain's got this. Allen, you're best leaving.
Knight's stepping four spaces away like chess pieces.
I'm a dedicated wordsmith. This is your second language.
How can you battle when you type like a dyslexic Spaniard?
Check this anguish. I'm bringing the pain.
Diagramming your verses would look like Simon SeversTons' English explained.
Your Fight Night's through, impostor.
This dude won the Grand Prix and is as brain damaged as Michael Schumacher.
Write Week #3
Posted on Oct. 30, 2013
Topic:
Result: Placed 11th out of 12
Battling the open road.
This shit is hideous. It's about time the highway's leveled.
Road has more patches than the Yankees' jerseys after 9/11.
Those lines must have been drawn by kids with autism.
Looking like the highway crew was mid-withdrawal symptoms.
And we're wondering why throughway's empty?
Rocking more craters than the faces of all of the white dudes on Netcees.
There's only one solution: violence. My stompings are fatal.
So when I say I'm hitting macadam, I'm not talking 'bout Rachel.
You're worse than any street I've ever driven, though
Looking like the set from Cars — by that, I mean fictional.
It's not just the picture. I'm seeing how you're awful,
and I'm buying a Chevy Blazer — as a vehicle to off road.
I've driven on the GWB in rush hour and find you inferior.
The last time anyone liked The Streets was Original Pirate Material.
Write Week #2
Posted on Aug. 8, 2013
Topic: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." — T.S. Eliot
Result: Placed third out of nine
I wore baggy jeans with the carpenter strap.
Harnessed my rap in the parking lot back with the hardest of acts.
I'd hardly react when dinner time came. I'd be late.
Never went starving, in fact, my mother saved me a plate.
She was hard on me back then, on my grades and my weight,
not quite calling me fat, but her thoughts were betrayed in her face.
My eyes rolled. She always worried 'bout college or money.
Mostly college and money. She'd research scholarships for me.
But I was 17. There were cigarettes and chronic to smoke.
Girls to poke. Mixtapes to burn. Parties to host.
I'd heartily coast through senior year. It was clear
my future was shifting gears, all while my eye's in the mirror.
I wear black slacks with the crease and a belt.
Decent in wealth but still scheming to ease up my bills.
Work 60 hours a week on the hill. A slave with no break.
But every few months, I head home. She still saves a whole plate.