RD 1: dead man vs NYCSPITZ - DEAD MAN WINS!

dead man · 09-02-2016, 12:16 AM

goodbye

Goosefeather pillowcases, California king
i never ask this sort of thing. but are you worth it?
Forever 21 the rings you stole to prove to your friends
you were something less than perfect. i confess
you confided. let's be honest, there was passion and soul
a shaky kitchen table and a bag of Merlot
a speaker and an ashtray and 2 boxes of smoke
a different color filter at the end of our ropes
we made a mental note to keep eachother engrossed
so i stared directly through you at the dinners we toasted
to friendship, scented candles and your husband's cologne
garlic chicken and okra. together here all alone
vanilla bean afterdinner coffee creamer and cake
sweating through the polyester, lying awake
i know that i'm the mistake. another habit to break
you only know me as a walk to the lake, and nevermore
traversing yards and alleys towards Chicago and State
vodka straight like residents at YMCA
speaking in languages like a secretive braille
you've got a world to share and yet i've kept it myself
i rejoice when you fail. although it's prideful as hell
the only thing depressing is depression itself.
i found you as an adolescent cradling dreams
acne on your forehead and a fade in your jeans
living for the 3:15 where life can resume
4-wall bedroom and a 20,000-league solitude
waiting for the crackle that a vinyl produces
palmside sobs at sundown. stay asleep until noon
lose faith, gain weight. alcohol and Gatorade
soak in salty serenade. in a panic to paraphrase
articulate anxiety. parents there to interrogate
spit into your face. wait a minute to let it marinate
blank face to strangers and your lovers alike
getting up from bed to leave your husband at night
another gel capsule for a moment of rest
snap photographs of moments that you hope to forget
i'm a stone in your chest. nosy and possessive at best
stay with me. stay alone. stay or face consequence
you're an island in the rain. and you're an island in sun
the tattoo on your wrist should be reminder enough
surrounded in sorrow by all the people you love
so you lie and say you only need some time to adjust
what a joke. i've been questioning the point of it all
flip a coin, let it fall. that's the choice you're presented
i'm the voice. i'm a question mark. to live or to liberate
you haven't emptied a dinnerplate since we started to speak
talk to me. talk to nobody but cradle me slow
we're only free if we escape. this much i know.

- dead man

NYCSPITZ · 09-02-2016, 01:03 PM

Well,

I keep the peace in Centra-2, steady deforming the truth
Helped by legions of Sentrel Troops - "PLEASE CONFORM AS A GROUP"
in this bubble, the last domed city, they're docile as sheep
- but the latest person whose mind started throbbing is me.
No thoughts of retreat; you could just read the dockets and weep!
so the masses never ever connect their dots to a dream...
as CHANCELLOR OF THOUGHTS SUPREME I'm in control of the ship
so they inject NoxFloid-6 (read:may cause carnal bliss and chortling wits)
they'll never know the whole that exists so let them rest in their lies
cuz we're alllllll that's left of the bio-war. Earth is destined to die.
but...I did just meet a woman in the flow of a dream
her eyes bore into my own in loving knowing, serene
but the image is cloudlike; and since has presided as phantom -
while I bang hordes of prosti-borgs inside of my mansion
I think about the high council and its odorous lies
...how we painted the inside of our dome as a sky
cyber-tubes morph to moon or light's greatness inside
and as construction finished - became man's last place to reside.
so as I sit injecting pure NoxFloid (crystal 12) I start to laugh with my pain
as blood clouds into that tube then rushes back to my veins
wracking my brain, the pressure seeps out into willowy bliss
and my mind sharpens til all the little pieces brilliantly fit
dignity shift - all these small puppets are fidgety shits
I'm the man, GOD IN THIS SHIT and their captivity's slick
we're just aberrations of nature, just facsimiles clipped
out of consciousness - whose fabric was eventually ripped
born of pressure from nothingness, a trick of death or the hare?
life or the reaper; sight this creature who was made self-aware
born to control and climb, I simply heed to the call...
wonder without giving a fuck whether there's meaning at all
so my men calculate in high science - amidst this rubble they rush
we've got at least...eight years before we crumble to dust
but as the rush fades away I delve inside of my fears
stumbling upon a vial of Vera-Tru that I've been hiding for years
in an instant I concocted a strange plan which might be feeble to try
grit my teeth - smiled a bit and plunged the needle inside
500 milligrams of banned substance then pumped to my veins
I didn't feel euphoric glory - but the rush was insane
****SIRENS BLARED****. My droids' eyes all flashed red and poised for attack
hmmm...it seems certain high council members left this joyous old trap
dodging lasers and claws I ran upstairs, my face swelling enflamed
dispatching bots. I learned well from my hallowed neighbor HEAD BRINGER OF PAIN
I felt the wind from deadly beams flying by my temples and ears
made it to the control room! Slammed the door and stood with trembling tears.
I pushed the big red button which gave life to my Visi-Board
which connected to all the others. Necks snapped to attention as I talked to the many hordes:
"That we've been living a lie is the first fact. But there are many more..."

.

Eŋg · 09-07-2016, 10:19 PM

black - vintage form. i read this from the ambivalent perspective of a conflicted lover making a triangle of a hollow, somewhat false marriage where the female is inevitably damaged. aren't we all, though? there was an element of preying on her hurt - that could be way off, but there are a few reasons why i came to this conclusion - ultimately, the narrative is secondary to the writing for me. yet, the two existing in synergy can bolster certain lines:

i'm a stone in your chest. nosy and possessive at best
stay with me. stay alone. stay or face consequence

the duality here, particularly of chest (and to a lesser extent stone) just worked almost perfectly for me. a really resounding couplet. a few lines after, the subtle tattoo on the wrist as failed suicide note was stellar. a few hiccups in the cadence, if i'm being a pedant, but this was very good throughout. i'm liking your slightly less formulaic shit -- more inconvenient truths than reassuring lies.

nyc - this was some gangsta shit. even if it has a slightly ridiculous setting (which you invented perhaps for creative freedoms idk) the premise of the innate unrest even for an intoxicated official immersed fully, if ignorantly, within a conforming dystopia was profound. it speaks on a human condition many could, or should relate to at varying degrees. the writing rang with the idea of 'relax and consume' and there was a fairly solid arc formed, in verse, from beginning to end - though conceptually i question the necessity of a different drug to self-substantiate. i guess there's some precedence if already pumping your veins full of chemicals, and there was a fail-safe (the robots turning) to punish such an action. top notch storytelling throughout, good imagery, consumable narrative with real energy in its rhythm and movement. i think you might have lost a bit of general steam toward the end, but was satisfied with the resolution. as an aside: if the drugs were a reassuring lie, as per the topic, where was the possibility of an inconvenient truth? not swallowing the pill?

a close one, if nyc had kept the initial venom he started with throughout, i'd have probably tossed him the vote on this one. gonna go with black instead.

09-02-2016, 12:16 AM	#1
dead man living Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 3,485 Battle Record: 33-18 Accomplishments - Hall of Fame Champed - AOWL Season 1 - Art of Writing League - AOWL Season 4 - Write Week V - GWL Season 1 Rep Power: 77606679	goodbye Goosefeather pillowcases, California king i never ask this sort of thing. but are you worth it? Forever 21 the rings you stole to prove to your friends you were something less than perfect. i confess you confided. let's be honest, there was passion and soul a shaky kitchen table and a bag of Merlot a speaker and an ashtray and 2 boxes of smoke a different color filter at the end of our ropes we made a mental note to keep eachother engrossed so i stared directly through you at the dinners we toasted to friendship, scented candles and your husband's cologne garlic chicken and okra. together here all alone vanilla bean afterdinner coffee creamer and cake sweating through the polyester, lying awake i know that i'm the mistake. another habit to break you only know me as a walk to the lake, and nevermore traversing yards and alleys towards Chicago and State vodka straight like residents at YMCA speaking in languages like a secretive braille you've got a world to share and yet i've kept it myself i rejoice when you fail. although it's prideful as hell the only thing depressing is depression itself. i found you as an adolescent cradling dreams acne on your forehead and a fade in your jeans living for the 3:15 where life can resume 4-wall bedroom and a 20,000-league solitude waiting for the crackle that a vinyl produces palmside sobs at sundown. stay asleep until noon lose faith, gain weight. alcohol and Gatorade soak in salty serenade. in a panic to paraphrase articulate anxiety. parents there to interrogate spit into your face. wait a minute to let it marinate blank face to strangers and your lovers alike getting up from bed to leave your husband at night another gel capsule for a moment of rest snap photographs of moments that you hope to forget i'm a stone in your chest. nosy and possessive at best stay with me. stay alone. stay or face consequence you're an island in the rain. and you're an island in sun the tattoo on your wrist should be reminder enough surrounded in sorrow by all the people you love so you lie and say you only need some time to adjust what a joke. i've been questioning the point of it all flip a coin, let it fall. that's the choice you're presented i'm the voice. i'm a question mark. to live or to liberate you haven't emptied a dinnerplate since we started to speak talk to me. talk to nobody but cradle me slow we're only free if we escape. this much i know. - dead man __________________ Zack Wicks for president

09-02-2016, 01:03 PM	#2
NYCSPITZ SYRACUSE Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 4,031 Battle Record: 31-37 Champed - Write Night II - Alias Topical Tournament Rep Power: 4743547	Well, I keep the peace in Centra-2, steady deforming the truth Helped by legions of Sentrel Troops - "PLEASE CONFORM AS A GROUP" in this bubble, the last domed city, they're docile as sheep - but the latest person whose mind started throbbing is me. No thoughts of retreat; you could just read the dockets and weep! so the masses never ever connect their dots to a dream... as CHANCELLOR OF THOUGHTS SUPREME I'm in control of the ship so they inject NoxFloid-6 (read:may cause carnal bliss and chortling wits) they'll never know the whole that exists so let them rest in their lies cuz we're alllllll that's left of the bio-war. Earth is destined to die. but...I did just meet a woman in the flow of a dream her eyes bore into my own in loving knowing, serene but the image is cloudlike; and since has presided as phantom - while I bang hordes of prosti-borgs inside of my mansion I think about the high council and its odorous lies ...how we painted the inside of our dome as a sky cyber-tubes morph to moon or light's greatness inside and as construction finished - became man's last place to reside. so as I sit injecting pure NoxFloid (crystal 12) I start to laugh with my pain as blood clouds into that tube then rushes back to my veins wracking my brain, the pressure seeps out into willowy bliss and my mind sharpens til all the little pieces brilliantly fit dignity shift - all these small puppets are fidgety shits I'm the man, GOD IN THIS SHIT and their captivity's slick we're just aberrations of nature, just facsimiles clipped out of consciousness - whose fabric was eventually ripped born of pressure from nothingness, a trick of death or the hare? life or the reaper; sight this creature who was made self-aware born to control and climb, I simply heed to the call... wonder without giving a fuck whether there's meaning at all so my men calculate in high science - amidst this rubble they rush we've got at least...eight years before we crumble to dust but as the rush fades away I delve inside of my fears stumbling upon a vial of Vera-Tru that I've been hiding for years in an instant I concocted a strange plan which might be feeble to try grit my teeth - smiled a bit and plunged the needle inside 500 milligrams of banned substance then pumped to my veins I didn't feel euphoric glory - but the rush was insane **SIRENS BLARED*. My droids' eyes all flashed red and poised for attack hmmm...it seems certain high council members left this joyous old trap dodging lasers and claws I ran upstairs, my face swelling enflamed dispatching bots. I learned well from my hallowed neighbor HEAD BRINGER OF PAIN I felt the wind from deadly beams flying by my temples and ears made it to the control room! Slammed the door and stood with trembling tears. I pushed the big red button which gave life to my Visi-Board which connected to all the others. Necks snapped to attention as I talked to the many hordes: "That we've been living a lie is the first fact. But there are many more..." . __________________ UNIFIED THEORY Last edited by NYCSPITZ; 09-02-2016 at 01:26 PM.*

09-07-2016, 10:19 PM	#3
Eŋg rhyme capsule. Join Date: Sep 2018 Posts: 2,150 Rep Power: 0	black - vintage form. i read this from the ambivalent perspective of a conflicted lover making a triangle of a hollow, somewhat false marriage where the female is inevitably damaged. aren't we all, though? there was an element of preying on her hurt - that could be way off, but there are a few reasons why i came to this conclusion - ultimately, the narrative is secondary to the writing for me. yet, the two existing in synergy can bolster certain lines: i'm a stone in your chest. nosy and possessive at best stay with me. stay alone. stay or face consequence the duality here, particularly of chest (and to a lesser extent stone) just worked almost perfectly for me. a really resounding couplet. a few lines after, the subtle tattoo on the wrist as failed suicide note was stellar. a few hiccups in the cadence, if i'm being a pedant, but this was very good throughout. i'm liking your slightly less formulaic shit -- more inconvenient truths than reassuring lies. nyc - this was some gangsta shit. even if it has a slightly ridiculous setting (which you invented perhaps for creative freedoms idk) the premise of the innate unrest even for an intoxicated official immersed fully, if ignorantly, within a conforming dystopia was profound. it speaks on a human condition many could, or should relate to at varying degrees. the writing rang with the idea of 'relax and consume' and there was a fairly solid arc formed, in verse, from beginning to end - though conceptually i question the necessity of a different drug to self-substantiate. i guess there's some precedence if already pumping your veins full of chemicals, and there was a fail-safe (the robots turning) to punish such an action. top notch storytelling throughout, good imagery, consumable narrative with real energy in its rhythm and movement. i think you might have lost a bit of general steam toward the end, but was satisfied with the resolution. as an aside: if the drugs were a reassuring lie, as per the topic, where was the possibility of an inconvenient truth? not swallowing the pill? a close one, if nyc had kept the initial venom he started with throughout, i'd have probably tossed him the vote on this one. gonna go with black instead.