Week 8 Championship: GodComplex 5-2 vs. YDK 2-1 [YDK 6-0]

[Adonis]

AOWL Season V, Week 8


SUMMARY OF RULES:

Verses are due
Monday at 11:59 p.m. Western / or Tuesday 2:59 Am Eastern / 7:59AM UK
There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Western / or Friday 2:59 Am Eastern / 7:59AM UK. Failure to vote will result in automatic sign out for the next week.

All competitors must vote on THREE battles and post links/ references in the voting thread.

Read the full rules here!

TOPIC:

Trail of Tears

Good luck!


@Godcomplex @YDK - please confirm if you are still participating to me personally. Next in line is YDK

[YDK]

Check @Adonis

[UnbornBuddha]

In

[YDK]

At peace; within hell,
These are the reasons that the leaves have all fell.
Released every season, each leaf is a bell
Beckoning "come forward" each crunch is compelled.
Memories of myself have been repeating for 5 years,
So when autumn replaces summer I remember, you died here.
Dried tears on my cheeks still wet in my beard,
I'll never forget your last breath, in my ear.
Not a single last word just a deep exhalation,
As if your body commanded your souls abdication.
I was waiting; impatient for you to breathe in,
But like the leaves on the trees, you were released in the season.
September 16 will always have a hold on my heart,
Controlling emotions so sporadically my soul could impart
The devastation I've been feeling through a poem; its art
And you can understand the verbiage that i used at the start.
Every step that I've taken toward improving my life,
Have all been second guessed so I've been doing it twice.
You raised me the best and taught me better, I'm still pursuing advice
About living righteously but I'm reviewing the price.
The toll that it took on you, my mother, is sickening
Seeing you sweat from chemotherapy, your skin sweaty and glistening,
Yet you smiled and shared your heart to whoever was listening
When to anybody weaker the ordeal would be crippling.
You were easily the strongest person I have ever encountered,
And you were my mom! How could I NOT feel empowered!?
But now I'm here with a bouquet of flowers and a note for your grave,
The only way to show my love is through emotional displays.
Every year I think I'm stronger and every year I'm proven wrong,
I start crying when I pull into the parking lot because I know I don't belong.
Eric Clapton, tears in heaven, it used to be our favorite song,
I could sing it word for word to you, I just wish that you could sing along.
I've cried my tears and brought the grandkids to say that they love you,
So that they could walk this trail of tears to you and see these leaves fall too.

[UnbornBuddha]

Trail of tears

I could not describe the joy after I resigned
It was like peering into Nirvana with my eyes.
For just a short moment,
I transcended matter and space-time
As I closed the darkest chapter of my life.
And all I had to was hand over my badge and gun
But, ingrained in our nature is to be attached to stuff
-For justice seekers like me, the hand and ankle cuffs.
Though, no manacle can restrain a man’s miasmic thoughts.

Years later,
Post-traumatic stress still has me waking up in night sweats.
I should be grateful I made it, but I’m frightened
It’s like that tale when Hades when to fight death
Only to enlighten himself on how mayhem has blind him.
I too share the same fate and harbor plagues in my iris
I’ve scathed my eyelids because I’ve embraced the sightings,
Reminiscing on them takes me to horrific events;
Tragedies only malignant spirits consent.
I’m part of the stream of an apocalyptic conscious,
A blissful omniscience that craves intrinsic conflict.
What I saw that day,
I wasn’t prepared for- such vivid content.

My partner and I were working the night shift
Dispatch will call in with all sorts of assignments;
We’ll flip on our sirens and follow them blindly
As soon as we took them, my mind went on autopilot.
That night though, a gut feeling bled into my psyche.
Our task was a simple one,
Sort out a dispute of domestic violence
Arriving onto the site, we saw two meth heads fighting.

Upon questioning, I sensed something was deeply wrong.
Both were strung out silly, on their sickly love. Deeply numb.
Yet, the woman kept screaming “thee God please stop”.
The man smiling, said to us: “his almost done, go and look inside”
We went and saw another man with the most inhuman eyes
He had a baby mounted to a pike, mouthing to it his delusions of life;
Musings divine to those seemingly consumed by the pollution of light.
I said freeze, but my partner shot him dead on sight
He told me, “let the vermin die”.
And so, we proceed to search inside
We then saw another holding an infant, but this time injecting him,
Announcing how the meth will purify him for the Nephilim
It was then; a horde of similar of others appeared
Apparently, this was a gathering of “meth seers”,
Who sacrifice children to gain some form of insight.
We then saw 20 or more performing live morbid crimes
Without the means to stop them all, I was ambushed.
My partner revealed himself to be the ringleader of this bunch.
He only shot the other man for mere pleasure
The woman we first saw was pleading for her daughter’s betterment
Yet, the trap was set, and after the ritual
My partner said in a religious tone, “you will never forget this visual”
And if I ever did confess,
He will release a video of when I was forced to slit an infant’s throat.
The purpose was to transfer the child's purity onto another living soul
I did it because I cowardly wanted to live
But, that’s no excuse, now I’m haunted by it.
5 years later, I can see the child without even summoning him
As for my partner, before I die I will punish that Son of a bitch.
The path I’m on is a trail of tears; every drop unveiling nightmares
Offering glimpses of dead children wailing in fear,
Because the real monster of Elm Street is near!

[Adonis]

Buddha - the opening of this verse is LOLz for me man, it reads ironic as hell, like a dope metaphor for dropping out of the league with the belt. Not sure where you are going, but this is what I thought of on first read. Ahhhh, not a big fan of this one conceptually or content wise rather I guess. The writing was really good from mechanics to execution, and the morbid is something I enjoy on all occasions. However, this felt stale and more shock value then a masterful verse. This read as unbelievable and fictitious from the middle of the second stanza on. I assume you wrote this is one sitting because the story was extremely linear, something you don't do often and given this take I think you should do more, you do have a way of telling a story in which draws me near. but this verse just didn't have the weight behind it story line wise, you made some wrong turns taking the easy way out and the verse lacked because of it. Again, solid writing all around, just not the best path taken for allowing the story to unfold, that and you had quite a few of simple grammatical and tense errors that you would normally correct on second read.

YDK

I'll never forget your last breath, in my ear.
Not a single last word just a deep exhalation,
As if your body commanded your souls abdication.
I was waiting; impatient for you to breathe in,

WOW is the only way I can explain this portion of visual and emotional pictures through words. It's very hard to write something that is a physical feeling in a manner that it transfers over to the reader. In this case, I feel the air on your ear, heart sinking and stopping, waiting for the inhale. Solid writing to say the least. Well I loved the use of seasons especially in the beginning as you gave a specific date and scenery for when the character is overcome with sadness and why, I did not much like the ending with the grandkids and stuff. Seemed just tossed in for the sake of wrapping it all up. I will also add, and I hope I don't offend you because I have never, and hope to never, experience anything minutely close to this, I think this character is bit of a pussy. Sorry man. I don't much enjoy the emotional side of life, I prefer blood and death movies to romance you know? but this verse was dope all things considered. Powerful writing overall in the grand scheme of things.


v/YDK

His verse was better written with far fewer errors, and my connection to his character and story were both stronger then the champs.

Solid battle. Was looking forward to reading this one all week, I can't lie. Did not disappoint for the most part.

[Flow]

So i wrote the largest feedback ive ever wrote ever... and lost it. So fucked off i cant bring myaelf to do it again right now. Sorry guys i really went to effort for this battle cus you both deserved it. Such a good battle. Ill vote now and get you guys feedback on pm tomorrow or summin.

Vote ydk

[EtH]

YDK - As I just PMed you, it's absolutely nuts you that I'm sitting here thinking of an emotional cancer based piece which weighs heavily on the seasons. I was specifically on the Autumn part when I was reading this so it really really bizarre. I actually read most of this like it was the father because of my own piece haha. The rhyming and flow were solid, but they could have been amazing and it'd have been irrelevant. Flow and rhyming was merely an accommodation for this piece because it's entire purpose was to be a gripping blow right to the feels. Heavily emotional start to finish and a really really good job of conveying absolutely everything you wanted it to. I find myself always being critical when I read stuff these days but nothing to be critical about here. A simple, yet extremely memorable piece. Also, did you intend for the protagonist to be female? Something about the way you wrote things, perhaps the highlight on the word empowered or maybe just the idea that you're second guessing yourself based on your mother, it felt like a very feminine perspective which was done amazingly if intended because it was never revealed to my knowledge. Fantastic drop though, fitting of a championship match.

GodComplex - A very bizarre story. I'm not really sure about the twist. Like your long term police department partner is a meth addicted child murdering ringleader? You've never noticed that? Also, you didn't explain what so ever why he for some reason wanted you to murder a baby. I'm assuming to this bunch, babies are pretty precious commodities. Their entire being is purposed around the murder of said babies. So why did he toss one to you to kill? What did he gain out of it? I also don't think you really put across your characters cowardliness enough. If you'd weighed on that, I'd have maybe understood the final decision a bit more. The rhyming varied throughout. At times you had some good multiple syllable schemes and a solid flow but at other times it dropped to a very simplistic one word style. A bizarre piece through which I imagine if you're at this stage of the game, in a championship match, you would be able to produce much better than at other times.

Overall, I felt the winner was quite clear. One really really drove home his message while the other seemed a little bit scattered, rushed and not properly thought out.

MVGT - YDK.

[Mr. J]

this was a cool battle tbh...


YDK, you came through with a slick verse, one of the best I've seen from you
the flow of the piece is consistent & it never lets up you trailed of towards the end...
buuuut I feel the emotional impact of your verse alone has allowed you to do so.
I enjoyed it because it was more focused than Complex's verse, which is usually tough to do
really enjoyed the subtleties you took this time around, really nice work tbh...

Unborn, I felt like you did a nice job for not putting your all in this verse...
it's nice, but it is missing some of that quality you bring to your verses, I enjoyed the intro though.
as we progress you add more and more to bounce off not using it to it's full extent
I'm unsure if you had time to edit or not but this felt like it could have used some slight work
although I am still impressed, the ending was the boiling point while you started off slow to me..
either way this was decently worked out...

I know that GC was going to back out from the jump of this battle, but I hoped he'd go out with a bang
I'm saddened by the fact he was unable to showcase what had placed him in the holiest of hollies though
although seeing YDK deliver such an impressive yet emotional piece really drives the stake into the coffin so to speak
he came with an impressive piece, and deserves the shine he has achieved here...
nice battle fella's

v/YDK

[timeless]

Will edit with vote in 2-3 hours.

[NYCSPITZ]

lol Godcomplex dope shit bro. I think you maybe rushed this though. Some parts of it like "And all I had to was hand over my badge and gun/But, ingrained in our nature is to be attached to stuff" read as sooo glib to me because you have far more to offer on the subject of spirituality and in this case a sort of zen/buddhist renunciation of attachment than to say something like that. Could've at least flipped it way better or gone deeper with the concept and created dope lines that encapsulate the concept rather than say it outright like that in a sort of novice way. You're better than this.

YDK dope story, you had great emotional content and you have clearly elevated you game. I think it helps that you don't drink as much alcohol as most of us do. That shit gave me some heart turbulence, which is a ggood, good thing. I think the section Adonis quoted was really dope. Don't have much bad to say about this one.

V/ YDK

[2tripple0]

aye I also got ydk I thought he wrote a decent verse and it had everything that was needed to take the win on the other hand godcomplex came real hard in the beginning and I thought he was going to win until he started talking like police and it just didn't sound as ill as it could have been I thought he was dope in the beginning and really showed some excellent story telling skills and I thought well this is all over but then you kept writing and it just took away from everything u worked on in the beginning I really enjoyed ydks adaptation of his mothers dying and related to it because an aquiantance of mine just lost his mother about a year ago to this day last week so I thought that it was put together really well and looked like something that you have produced time after time in this league.... I think you both did well though for your thing and I cant wait to read more in the coming weeks....good job to both of y'all

vote ydk

[sral]

Closing at 6-0 and congrats to our new champ YDK!