20 Questions: A Confessional Poetry Challenge

Question #5: Where was your face before you washed it this morning?


morning brings the dawn stallion
riding through the mountain of sheets
as I scouted ahead through the foothills
working out an ambush
making sure she had no escape
eventually deciding on a full faced charge
taken by surprise, her resistance futile
as I headed for her heartland
 
sent via pm by Madame Champ herself....Thanks!



Question #6 Explain the circumstances surrounding the last time you genuinely laughed at yourself.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch
Which bus goes to Schonberg?
Ich spreche kein Englisch
Ich fragte Sie, wenn Sie Deutsch sprechen
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch, Englisch nicht

You'll have to work it out. Some days there are just too many languages in the world
 
Question #9
Who* was hanging on your wall as a child**?


*who/what
**teenager/young adult

Lawrence
Lawler, Byrne
Strong, Yeats, Stevenson
Callaghan, Hunt, St John, Smith, Thompson​

For all of you with no soul
that's the 1965
Liverpool cup winning team
 
Sprechen Sie Deutsch
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch
Which bus goes to Schonberg?
Ich spreche kein Englisch
Ich fragte Sie, wenn Sie Deutsch sprechen
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch, Englisch nicht

You'll have to work it out. Some days there are just too many languages in the world

ha! this is straight from a comedy show!
 
Question #7: Do you believe in ghosts*?

she deals tarot cards, read palms
and cunjured up ghosts on polished tables
but I prefer spirits in a glass
to women who ask invisible presences
for advice about love and life
and whether the male showing interest
has more than her body in mind
for why would he care for her mind
after she'd proved it was so gullible
 
Question #10 I wanna know: "Have you ever seen the rain comin' down on a summer day?"

I'm English
of course I've seen rain
on a summer's day

I'm English
I've seen weather from every season
on a summer's day

I'm English
I've had sex in the rain
on a summer's day
 
EroticOrogeny asks:

Question #11: How was it the first time you were naked in front of others outside your immediate family?

:eek:

football at school had a sting
so chest out and hoping
the dangly bits looked manly enough
and a steady 'he man' walk
into the communal showers
should anyone get the wrong idea
I'd heard of men with strange ideas
and I had my doubts about our goalie
who played like a woman
 
Question #12: Have you ever won a prize based purely on chance?

each Saturday, the blokes
studied form and weighed their chances
convinced they had got it right this time
each Saturday their horses ran
like nags with broken legs
so I chose mine with names I liked
Captain's Wings had chicken wings, they said
who'd ever seen a chicken fly
well, no one, not until Captain's Wings flew
 
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Sprechen Sie Deutsch
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch
Which bus goes to Schonberg?
Ich spreche kein Englisch
Ich fragte Sie, wenn Sie Deutsch sprechen
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch, Englisch nicht


ha! this is straight from a comedy show!

Yep. I don't know why I asked a German in Berlin if he spoke German. I don't know why I then asked him in English about which bus to take. My German isn't that good but its good enough to ask that. I was with a Belgian friend at the time who only spoke French and OK Flemish. My tongue was in knots.
 
Question #13: Is a dozen usually enough?


a dozen eggs is one short, should you
buy a baker's dozen of bread rolls
something to do with Christ and the last supper
Carol was my thirteenth
my baker's dozen, the irony being
she was the baker's daughter
and when I think of her, I think, Christ why?
not that she wasn't pretty
or her figure, out of sorts
she was a delicate bake
puffed up in all the right places
you were seduced into biting more off than you could chew
before you swallowed the first mouthful
she was considering her decoration
for the wedding breakfast
when asked if there was a bun in the oven
she'd pound your head like a pile of doe
a baker's dozen is one too many
 
Question 14: If you could rename yourself, what possible names would you choose? Or: If the universe chose a name for you, what would it call you? Or: Make up your own name question.
 
Question #13: Is a dozen usually enough?
Twelve

A dozen drinks doesn’t do it
dazed descent into drunkenness no delight
Deepening darkness demands daily diligence.
Drink and die, drink or die dilemma.
A dozen steps, done one by one,
develop deliverance from demons.
What would one wee wine do?
Would it work witty wonders or wash wisdom away?
Do I dare despair or devote today duly to duty?
 
Question 14: If you could rename yourself, what possible names would you choose? Or: If the universe chose a name for you, what would it call you? Or: Make up your own name question.

Katydid Possibilities

Up from ghost birch perches
they called out for insect love
Katy-Did! Katy-didn't.
Katy-DID! Katy-didn't.


All night the argument
reflected in a schizo chorus
that sparked the split of insomniatic adolescent
psyche, metal springs in pulled,
released into harmonic motion
pulsing fairly steady
until eventually
Katie's did's trampled the "didn'ts,"
"would-never-do-that-evers" and
even the "who-the-hell would even want-to-do-thats"

Yes, my name is Mrs. Him,
mother of Them
but not tonight.

Tonight we count the beats,
mark the temperature
follow and swallow each other's songs
names on tongue invented, passed.
Katie, my name
is Katie. Or was it Jenny. Sometimes Kiki
or Anna. And you lover are usually David,
Roberto, James.

We call each other out by scent
and slippery trials of distinction.

Little green wings of self conflict
chirp behind tinted windows
of anonymity.
 
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Question 14: If you could rename yourself, what possible names would you choose? Or: If the universe chose a name for you, what would it call you? Or: Make up your own name question.
Adam Does Not Like His Name

(HEAVEN opens and A VOICE LIKE THUNDER speaks.)

Spoonbread.

What?

Spoonbread. You heard.

That's not a name.

Sure it is. I just named you that.

I mean, it isn't a real name. No one is named "Spoonbread."

You are.

Well, yes, but it's not fair.

I don't have to be fair.

That's true, I guess, but doesn't speak well of you.

Alright, then. Frank. Or Solly. Fistula. Combustible.

I could live with Frank, I suppose.

Vertigo. Mainwaring. Applesauce.

I said, Frank is fine. I'm good with Frank.

Immelman. Hornpipe. Accelerator.

Frank. I said...

Genealogy. Motorboat. Capricorn. Ice shelf.

Frank, dammit! I like Frank.

Fine. Then don't complain, Emmenthaler.

You mean Frank.

Yes. I do. Don't complain, Frank.

You know, "Adam" wasn't that bad. I might have been being overly picky about that.

(SILENCE.)

I said...

I heard you, Frank. Perhaps you're right. "Frank and Eve" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, now, does it?

What's Eve?

I'll get back to you on that.
 
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Question 14: If you could rename yourself, what possible names would you choose? Or: If the universe chose a name for you, what would it call you? Or: Make up your own name question.

Mungo. The name
makes me grin
like the moon,
makes me think
of lazy susans
and sunflower days.
Makes me chirp
at the earth, lets
the stalk of myself
bend in the wind,
catching whatever
comes my way.
 
Question 15: What color is your crayon?

My crayon changes colour
according to it's duties, scoring out
passages of life, yet here and there
fertile patches of green
stumble upwards from the red, underlined.
More resilient than anger,
as always was. Each has it's place
just remember the box is full of different
colours existing side by side.
 
Welcome back!

lovely poem :)

My crayon changes colour
according to it's duties, scoring out
passages of life, yet here and there
fertile patches of green
stumble upwards from the red, underlined.
More resilient than anger,
as always was. Each has it's place
just remember the box is full of different
colours existing side by side.
 
Question 15: What color is your crayon?

Sitting at an intimate little table,
lonely for just one,
I doodle with crayons left
for fidgeting children.
Not that I am fidgeting,
just looking for other things
to think about.
Red for the passion we shared.
Green for the envy
of another man.
Blue for the sadness
since you left me.
Black for the darkness
that crosses my thoughts,
scrawled quickly,
my entree is here.
 
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