March 2005 Literotica Poetry Contest: smithpeter

[The Poets]

March 2005 Literotica Poetry Contest


Once upon a time there was a poet named smithpeter. He was zany and deep and silly and sexy and good-hearted, but mostly he was very, very talented.

We lost him one year ago--he died way too soon, too young. And he was a great friend to many of us, someone who supported poetry here at Lit and elsewhere. Like so many writers here, he was always ready to encourage other poets in his uniquely sweet and nutty way.

Smithpeter was a prolific poet, having 548 poems posted under the smithpeter name alone, but he submitted under a handful of others as well: 2rivers, air2o, oxalis, Palau, svelt walker, and more.


Our kitty mama Laurel has kindly donated a $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com as a prize for our March Contest, which we hold in honor of our dear friend and fellow poet, smithpeter.


And now, the contest:

Write a poem, of any length or form, inspired by one or more of smithpeter's poems--a poem from a poem (or poems), if you will. We'll be posting a handful of them here, and you can feel free to use those or any other poems posted on any of his various username pages (if you have a lot of extra time to read!) or read through SeattleRain's excellent mirror will be washed thread to discover the source of your entry's inspiration.

Send your poem via PM to The Poets, indicating the poem (or poems) that served as inspiration to your entry.

We will be accepting submissions until midnight EST, on Wednesday, March 30, 2005, after which they will be posted anonymously on public voting polls. The winners and runners-up of each poll will then proceed to the final voting.

 

[The Poets]

Poetry Sampler:

Dogwood
by smithpeter ©

Not in point or concept
Would any but a fool
Attempt to sway a delicate
White pink flower to a cage

Already in custody of the
Loving branches, in turn
Possessions of the trunk
For whom she sports
A cleft between
Her luscious lower petals

Holding her to light
The slender stems bring
Nourishment, umbilicals
Of life, till the need is met
Dropped, folded, renewal

Foolish too to capture,
Cut, snap or twist her free
To die in vessel clay
Or glass, looking forlornly
Over the edge, drowning


**********


Spending Time Near Her Face
by smithpeter ©

On the porch during storms
in late afternoon
with electricity inspires poems
for mathematics and ants.
All those lines and symbols in order
of chaos. Marching.

Waking next to your pucker
is more stirring.
You look sweet and sour.
There must be a bug in your nose.
The cure for that twitch is soft kiss of cheeks
and smoothing night ruffled hair.
My breakfast of sliced pears with sorbet and candle
does not dim from streaming morn.
We share licorice end to end.

You don a pair of smiles, dimples
and all the trimmings.
Good morning my lover's, lovely face.


**********


simple solar
by 2rivers ©

-introduction by moisture:
I am his sweet gooey pond
sticky below his fragrant flower
proper pruned to be,
just so

-flash back:
living in a foot hill cave
he runs to look down
waiting for the two inch heeled
mountain knobbed clog lady with great mirth and happy hair

-flash forward:
straws chock full of syrup
hard to suck due the chunks
of banana and berry,
they gape below the sun vacuum cheeked all rosy and cute

-secondary and primary characters:
the lone elk and wedded pair of wild boar
are dispatched with ease
to dinner and a show with extra butter
so waffle stomper woman can rest her curious poetic head

-real life:
he beams like a coal miner’s headlight
all switches on
he watches the semaphore dancing across her forehead
she dreams of spice and soft touch with edge


**********


five little stars
by oxalis ©

we run up
down the Ave.
dive to scoop ditch

spectral with finish
grinning beginning

wagging tails
slurring vision
in night, because of night

the heirs of night
and attitude
whom have
full light, new night
owning big huge
many million candles
occupy at last

lastly:
just us ditch sprites
so longer, never ending
in earthly dirt
or universal dust lasting
dance, reflect, genuflect
reject and move the spirit
upon wheels of ether and fire


**********


parts of speech
by svelt walker ©

I lost you
on the trip across the bay,
while four smart lean boys and one Lady
referred to your body,
about your stature
their admiration
their smutty mouths lubricated,
fast, sour and more interesting
to you
after each
soft sample of Bitch spit

your swallow tail skirt,
the slim slit I requested waves free
in the wind
down your left outer
silver stocking thigh
black against gray sky

smooth gentlemanly carnivores
with forceful manners
hold me, svelte companion down
to slat wood bench bolted
to wave slapped deck
as
My love descends,
curiosity drives her below,

inner thighs are darker
she learns, deep in hold
with Lady always small cap
tight to skull
shaved here and there
unable to tell all
in the dim and soon
eye closed suggestions
voluntary, relaxed, goose bumped
needing muscle supported
back
tipping
without fear of falling
too deep
so luscious fucking deep


**********


being as small
by 2rivers ©

mirror will be washed
soon as need to see
real
what is here and behind
in front eventually

a mirror is time travel
not space
best silvered glass, water too
sky below, self above
all as bottomless, next to each other
(viewing hint: tip head slightly)

swimming in the untouchable
long as wide pool
deep as shallow heaven


**********


simple solar
by 2rivers ©

-introduction by moisture:
I am his sweet gooey pond
sticky below his fragrant flower
proper pruned to be,
just so

-flash back:
living in a foot hill cave
he runs to look down
waiting for the two inch heeled
mountain knobbed clog lady with great mirth and happy hair

-flash forward:
straws chock full of syrup
hard to suck due the chunks
of banana and berry,
they gape below the sun vacuum cheeked all rosy and cute

-secondary and primary characters:
the lone elk and wedded pair of wild boar
are dispatched with ease
to dinner and a show with extra butter
so waffle stomper woman can rest her curious poetic head

-real life:
he beams like a coal miner’s headlight
all switches on
he watches the semaphore dancing across her forehead
she dreams of spice and soft touch with edge


**********


the cabaret owner
by oxalis ©

blue, a dusty Sunday morning hung over
fog and horns
shutters need raising
butts litter where dancers caroused
lifting spirits, skirts, lids,
trousers drop, there were tubas,
his minor key eyes
need sweeping.
there are few bodies buried here

green, beyond the study windows
vast square yards fescue and sod
during day lit life squinting
seeking shade, children singing
under epithermal rain

gray, dinner out of box
no more cigarettes, no wine, no TV
moon is free
cheapest entertainment
next to conversation, if you can find some
at the Cabaret

clear, missing stanza:
owner has cleaned, band is due, they are razor dressed,
kind but serpent like with messages rarely
in agreement,
dripping venom
out spit valves
blessing resolved discordance

red, they each touch him
his palm
his shoulder kneels,
walking talking, brass and wire,
weightless soft shoes
tapping
behind the bar
at the Cabaret


”salt n pepper,
keep on doin it”


**********


extended tether
by Palau ©

biographer birth to death
not my mud nor home brew
chalk on wall, down dark hall
it took many noisy foot falls to get here

tit for tat is typical for anger that does not debate
stolen ideas
applied to the concept of forgiveness
precarious atonement
tapestries of other peoples lies
difficult verse
complex lives
simple survival

one plus one
no matter
results


**********


a good thing
by air2o ©

sipping from a candle flame with my eyes
it’s lured oxygen transforms into light
as my memory seems to be trading places
with empty gaps

A small sign goes up in yard near road
Space Available,
No Experience Needed,
Good View of Road and Yard

people driving cars turn their heads,
too bald, too old, too empty, not lived in enough.
Former porn star Sharon Mitchell stops to draw blood

Another brush with greatness speeds away,
slight wave out window,
a fly is left behind. Sharon Mitchell’s fly.
A good omen

The fly and I live happy together for years.
Fly years


**********


Malaysia
by smithpeter ©

a piece of a pill I was crushing
jumped out of the bowl
and lodged in a pleat of my pants.
khakis, beige or light brown or khaki colored.
some small person in Malaysia whipped them up for me.
aren’t all persons, both men and women small in that place
we all knew about in high school? especially the little children are.
I don’t know. they are in hallucinations and documentaries.

it made me so upset, today to know that my shoes might have matched
my tan trousers if the lights were on
in the little closet next to the bed.
you must think I am upset or mad most of my day and night and dream
sick, curse filled mares.
but, I am just making fun of good humor and satisfaction, so cuss and unfold
polite little napkins like an autopsy in order to spill the finger bowl.
this invites frowns from my friend for lunch and the staff


**********


we room
by smithpeter ©

entering a different room
the lighting is similar
positions are different
I experience mannequin envy

we keep our hands warm in each other
our step is march
our heels clack, noses bleed
from our own loftiness

It is a wonderful life
being room to room led
fed and oiled and spoiled
food and water and sex

we are offered toys and tokens
which we grab, fight over
hide from each other
throw out crashing glass

smoke forced apart
pushed into door frames
separated by bulletins
scandal that brings back our drool

entering a different room
with soft surrendered animal fur
no sign of knives
hides for laying against

chant is appropriate
gospel singers surround us
their mission is to see every all
sing the notes, walk off with words

the hymns of time collide
Love is God
cross stitch cadence
quilt of pain, glued with passion

last room before journey begins

 

[The Poets]

Get to know smithpeter

The following is taken from an interview WickedEve conducted with smithpeter on her site a few years ago. It's a great introduction to his poems and him.

Eve: smithpeter, you have shared so many fabulous, complex poems that I found it nearly impossible to focus on only one. So I'd like to discuss certain groups of poems. The first one is Jazz inspired poetry.

Tell me about the inspiration behind your "Monday" poems?

Monday Night
Just a keyboard, a bass
Some congas and her

The perfect small crowd
Half devotees
The other their guests
For jaw dropping
Long set sessions
Stage lights untiringly still

After this night
We will have power
To plink empty cans
Over with rays from
Our finger tips

monday inspiration
sitting here
feeling so good
rising, stepping about the room
angel falling into my arms
so smart so funny, such a good kisser
soul searching is cliché
soul found is lost art
soul sister, don't wave goodbye yet
stay inside with the ones that
care to keep opening the tin
the skin that cools my touch
nothing is worth throwing away
don't make me afraid again

smithpeter: Those two poems have to do with a singer named Monday Michiru. I first heard her work almost a year ago. She describes herself as bi-racial, born and raised in the US and living in Japan. Her music jumps from moody ballads to electrifying salsa flavored tempos with incredible backup. It’s good played loud and her lyrics often so poetic I have considered stealing them. “Monday Night” is a fantasy of mine to see her in a small club with no frills. The audience is in awe and so inspired that they feel the experience was almost religious. I have always appreciated the work of singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Sara Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Nina Simone. In Monday’s voice I feel the influence of what has come before. They are the spring board and she an Olympic diver twisting in the air. Causing new currents.

“monday inspiration” came about while listening to a cut entitled “Full Bottle Of Soul”

I am listening to your silence
Yesterday was a sigh that escaped
Then tomorrow the dream that waits
Then today is a moment cherished
I’ve got a full bottle of soul over you

One of those poems must have mentioned Charles Mingus. If not I will mention him now. He was a big mean jerk of a bass player who could make me cry. He shoved me aside on his way back to the stage with his Holy Cow, (scotch and milk) back in 1974 at the Rainbow Room in Detroit. A brush with greatness.

Eve: I know a few of your poems are inspired by your work. Radon Daughters is one. Also, there is a sassy little poem called Hair Chick.

Hair Chick
Hey, it's Valentine's Day!
I can look at that hair stylist's ass
Walking down the hall dumpster bound
If I want to, after all
It is a perfect heart shape

If she worked for my boss
She wouldn't be wearing
Those tight, high waisted,
Thigh clinging, erection bringing,
Cobalt hued jeans

I asked her to trim my mane
Three years ago, chickened out
-Quite a fuss over a hair cut-

She must be miserable with that
Bubbly baby and husband
Muscled, beaming, smoking in bed
Next to her exhausted smiling body,
His brand: "AfterAll"
His slogan: "After Anything, AfterAll"

smithpeter: Eve? Men think about sex every how many seconds? The often made claim is 8 seconds. It’s called an urban legend by some. The source I used for this research concludes that thinking about sex usually lasts longer than 8 seconds so that blows the whole concept.

I do think about sex. That may be because sex is nice to think about.

Hence “Hair Chick.” It took her longer than eight seconds to walk down the long hallway leading to the dumpsters with that armload of waste from the hair salon.

We recently had a staff meeting where the wearing of jeans in the work place was declared taboo. That has nothing to do with the women of the salon or the women of the tanning spa next in line. Down the long hall.

Hmm, Tanning Chick.

Eve: And who or what are the Radon Daughters?

Radon Daughters
I leave the brutal day behind
Submerge to the imagined lure of debauchery
A hotel bar home to hook and nook
Dual nylon liaison peppered with flesh and flex

Looking for someone to fit the frame of fancy
The image and gentle punch of pictorial
For real touch, actual kink for link
Like of lick to teasle lo squeasle

Old saying:
Do unto yourself
As you would have others
Do unto yourself

Faux sisters so in love with love
So in love with spring lovers
Pondering on the lovers coloring
Me outside the lines with spoons
And butter knives slapping sugar packets
Cross table, ashtray as lone player marooned

Introductions, Peter to the Radon Daughters in fishnet
Ready to kiss with vodka gin lips red and blue tint
So lovely in the neon of knight attraction
Attraction so dimly lit that cheekbones rose
Like models of popular distress
Needing rescue, white horse and long lance poised
Tucked at the ready

Soon popcorn greasy hand prints on all our thighs
Through worn jeans mine offer little but commitment
For dawn, for breakfast of the daughters of radon
Drinks and sloppy handling till the full moon
Slips, dragging its sad craters home to the buttside
Of earth,

Student nurses, graduated candy strippers,
Red and White twist studies in counter and clockwise rotation
Shared lubrication, dry winds from puckered lips
They share me and each others private moments
With strangers on the phone
A computer glows, a webcam is moved

About the room, their shared dorm is stainless with hooks
For all occasion, in the floor, walls littered, the toilet is solemn
In its solitary commitment to imprisonment
With cloth cloaked springs of pinching
Capabilities

They squeezed citrus between each others calves
And thighs, soaking the now tattered fishnet
Holes having grown
From finger and tool, organic, Petric and mechanical

Between the breast of faux sisters
I emerged and each converged
Spreading, saluting wet breath
Pleading before I leave to slide
With rapid motion between cheeks four
Slick with sweat from one
Spit from the other while parked
Rear to rear from above

What a wonderful dualism

They point on fours then threes each
Finding a head for their glorious cheeks
Craning to let me kiss as I so want
Each face now the most beautiful
Of any morning

New sun, the moon will remain
As full to our eyes next eve
Unless observed too closely
Usually an hour later
Arched higher
Pancake syrup and my own
Flavor remains between the memory

smithpeter: Radon Daughters are tiny invisible bits that escape from deadly radon gas.

They’ll kill ya! Especially if you smoke. I understand that the daughters can cling to smoke because they are very attractive. Does that make sense?

Sitting in a seminar on household air quality issues I was taking notes and suddenly thought that these babes could be pretty naughty.

But it is really about the fascination/problem of some men to be in bed with two women at the same time and the women are so experienced that the guy can put his life in their hands and experience the ecstasy that only exists in porn and in certain poems and stories at literotica.

Or a certain bar home to hook and nook

BTW, if you smoke, the possibilities are endless!

Eve: You've written many erotic poems, smithpeter. Would you say that love, and romance, and the women you've encountered along the way have had the biggest influence on your poetry?

smithpeter: I think that love and romance have had a very significant influence on mine and most everyone’s poetry and lives in general. There is always the blue or gray sky with singing birds and trains wailing mournfully. All along those tracks everyone follows are remains and tokens of past misery, folly and joy. We can’t go back down the track to live them again. That’s why this train has a baggage car.

Eve: One of my favorite erotic poems of yours is Mona Spice. Was Mona Spice inspired by a real woman, or by a hot and spicy fantasy?

Mona Spice
She showed me her spice rack
As we cooked
Side by side, hip pressing at times
In her cramped Cajun kitchen
Below the braid of garlic
Beside the hanging basket of dusty
Herbs and dried peppers

We fought for/against the last shrimp
Red sauce stained her bare wooden table
She cursed as loudly as she laughed
I laughed as loud as my mouth allowed
Stinging but thirsting for more hot
So we smoked unfiltered in the dusty kitchen
Her menthol curled up her face like a curtain
She pierced it like a hazy sheet
She exhaled at my chest
She rung loose tobacco off her tongue with her lips

Mona's music is from the window
Beats and bass, chords with moans
A hundred neighbors tastes entered the room
Into ears and nostrils, morsels of twisting lives
So bitter but sweet twists that blend and sticking
Flavoring Mona on her bare back
Her lack of inhibition and ample marinade
Peppered hips pressed with her invitation

Her nipples sucked red
My nipples sucked red
Mona's legs slung over my shoulders
Holding her rear aloft in the middle of our lust
I spanked her particular with the back of two figures
Rapidly while a thumb strays south
Wanting to hear Mona swear again

smithpeter: The character, Mona, is fantasy. Some of the events are based on real fighting for the last shrimp. In part this was written in memory of life in a big city low income apartment building where there were nightly competitions for the loudest/coolest music. There were many cook books with pages stained with chili sauce and trial mustards. Mice would sometimes do us the favor of book marking favorite recipes.

Eve: I read A Romantic In Hell. Are you in love with love? Do you think your poetry shows that?

A Romantic In Hell
At 17 I liked a girl in school
The first to wear hot pants
Olive skinned slender Sicilian Linda
My pal said I was
In love with love

My pal said I was not a eunuch
With fortification and demonstration
I strolled in dapper fashion
To the nearest dictionary

~

No woman ever flung a plate at me
To crash on a wall
The only thing near
Was my typewriter
Discovered mangled

Just one part functioned
A political sticker
Above the keyboard
On Olivetti steel
"STOP THE WAR"
I extracted the bell

smithpeter: The woman in this poem, Linda, really existed. I would drive around in my mom's Type 3 Volkswagen Squareback. Linda gave me a bumper sticker that said, “HONK IF YOU’RE HORNY”. I was so innocent that I actually hung it in the rear window and drove around. To this day I still don’t understand why so many weird, creepy men would pull up behind and beep their horns.

In love with love?

That’s something else I don’t really understand. If I was with my lover and she asked me if I was in love with her or if I was in love with love I would simply say, “I’m not sure I understand.”

The second part of this poem concerns the end of my first marriage. I felt the two poems worked for me as companion chapters. That bell is alive and well.

Eve: smithpeter, how long have you been writing poetry? Do you have any formal training? Classes?

smithpeter: Hey girl, I’ve been writing poetry since before you were born. I still remember that day in 4th grade when Mrs. Hosfeldt made me stand up and recite the poem below.

Edison was his name
He had a lot of fame
He invented the electric light
So we could see at night

That was also my first and only experience of reading a poem in front of an audience.

It was also the last timed I rhymed.

Eve: Do you often read poetry? Which poets or poems have made an impact on you?

smithpeter: I have not read much poetry in my life until lately. Of course Billy Collins in recent days and poems from a small book called “No Golden Gate for Us” by Francisco X. Alarcon.

My golden age of reading were those wonderful Golden Books of youth. After that period ended I was caught up in supermarket trash paperbacks about UFO sightings and abduction. Maybe a logical transition. Something scared me about the authors of these humorless and intellectually void accounts that must only exist to milk income from the gullible.

So, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula K. Lequin, Jack Kerouac and H. P. Lovecraft were some that I sucked in to fill the vacuum.

For early inspiration I must admit that J.R.R. Tolkien made a major dent in popular literature but C. S. Lewis most dented my personal reading as a kid.

Oh Eve, I am slightly psychic and figured this would answer your next question:
Lau-tzu and Samuel Clemens stone skipping on the Mississippi because it is closer to my house than the Yangtze.

Eve: I know that you occasionally combine your poetry with your drawings.
Tell me about your love for art? Is it as strong as your desire to write?

smithpeter: I know as much about art as I do about writing. That should be self evident.

The simple fact is that it feels good to create when the result is pleasurable to the creator. If someone else gets a kick out of it then that’s swell. Eve, you know about swelling.

Eve: During the interview smithpeter told me that he has never counted the seconds it would take a naked woman to slide down him if she was stuck to him with molasses. That statement intrigued me enough to ask him what else he has never done.

smithpeter: Eve. You know I am naïve. You thought you could catch me with one of your infernal conundrums. Just so you know, I have perfect recollection of many times in my life that have not happened. For instance, there was the time that Lover and I stayed at our local NoTell Motel. We were having a cocktail in the lounge next to a booth where a couple were speaking French mouth and finger to wrist and forearm. We decided they were so in love and Lover insisted they were speaking Portuguese, “Que você começou a mãe?” she purred. Ooh Lala.

Handsome and Titillated left early to retire in the room next to ours. Headboard to headboard.

Stepping onto the veranda below our rooms I stood waiting for Lover to adjust the drapes in our room from opaque to translucent. My neck got a little sore so I moved further back on the green space so the show of her self dance could be viewed better. Further back I ventured to the center of roadway and was almost killed by an ambulance.

Lover’s show was so so similar to the figure in the neighboring window. I took little notice as the ambulance must have been called because of her contortions.

Later, Lover and I listened to the love pouring through the walls. Titillated was upstaging the television infomercial about steamed food and cutting glass with fishing magic tools in the garage, basement, hallway. Anywhere you need a light just tap it. Clap it. Shout its name.

The morning sky sunk behind billboards. The fascination of last night will never know much more than this meager mention of proof that sometimes, things just never happen.

Eve: Can you give me some insight into your unusual way of perceiving your world?

smithpeter: That is the toughest question.

everything is there
before and behind
invisible as air
uncork the mind
Burma Shave

Eve: Thank you so much for the interview. I feel like I've barely scraped the surface that is smithpeter. I hope everyone enjoys this taste of you.

smithpeter: This was a pleasure indeed. Thank you, Eve, for scraping the surfaces you did. They will never be the same.

 

[The Poets]

A few More Guidelines

Here are the additional guidelines that came up in response to questions from the discussion thread:


OK, time to be assertive, again.

1. Only new and previously unposted poems can be submitted for the contest thread.
2. Everyone is allowed to submit poems for the contest, but moderators will not be able to vote.
3. Each person can only submit up to three poems for the contest thread.
4. There will be a non-competitive thread, where everyone can post older poems, or pieces he or she does not wish to be part of the contest.

Any questions?

And we have submissions! Yay poets!