Irrelevant.net is sponsoring a poetry writing contest. All entries should be posted in this thread before January 31, 2009, and the winner will receive $100.

Any kind of poem is okay, haiku, sonnet, whatever. Enter the contest as many times as you like. The decision of the Irrelevant.com judges is final.

You'll need a Paypal account to receive the funds.

Irrelevant.net has plans to launch multiple writing contests with various themes, so be sure to register an account and stay tuned.

Here's one I wrote back in 2002 after a hard breakup with a girl. It was the last poem I ever wrote.

Title: Realization

No more discontent
Nor anguish and despair

Only the realization
Of a love left unshared

She never felt remorse
Not a moment of regret

Never shed a tear
For love she never meant

Still she led me
And blindly I believed

That perhaps one day
New love would be conceived

But finally truth is shown
And my heart becomes anew

For never will she get
The love she once knew

The antelope was ugly. Her face
was ugly, her smell was ugly. Sleeping
in the dining room like a drunk guest,
wife of the deacon of a church, maybe,
who had sipped too many and was snoring it off,
her horns brushing the toes
of the grandfather clock.
Looking up, eyes closed, expecting
stars there and seeing only spackle.

It was Christmas. I had a poem with no name, I had
an antelope asleep by the dining room table. The only
truly beautiful thing about her was her nose,
shiny in the chandlier light. Pushed the front door open
with the nose, I guess, and somehow shut it behind her.

That winter the snow fell dope eye blank
and I could not name the poem. Brown acorns
showed through the ice cracks like nipples
or bare chocolate cake. A pile of Jay feathers,
that blue mystery of bird’s flight, were lover’s noses
peeking in. Our house quieted in the small hours --
I could not name the poem.

She never returned, the antelope. When I rutted
a garden that spring, my rake hit a single shrunken antler
then another. Her horns, not quite human, were frozen
tip to tip as if
she’d been praying for us.

Good stuff, guys. Looks like we already have a couple of strong contenders.

__________________
"Even though I'm no more than a monster - don't I, too, have the right to live?" -- Oldboy (2003)

I'm enjoying everyone's offerings. I had to turn on my old iMac to dig out some stuff from ten years ago. This is for all the poets out there with writer's block.

Title: By The Numbers

The experts say to write about
What you know; but mostly,
All I know is being stoned
On daydreams about half-naked
Women with few or any morals.
I know about sweating fingers
Clamped on a remote while
Considering the latest tv schedule,
Or sometimes in the winter
Freezing on the steering wheel
Coming to and from work,
Or at best exercising themselves
And perhaps my brain by playing
Around on this computer screen.
In truth, I hardly live beyond
The end of these fingers
And really couldn't make them
Sounds very interesting with
All the words that I control.
So I'll probably just continue
To dream of half-naked Women
And perhaps other half-naked
Women and what they might do
To one another if they feel like it.

I wake up but my eyes stay closed..
My lover lays beside me, his chest rising and falling to the sound of the rain.
We've waited so long, some days in sadness and others in disappointing pain.
He rolls over and kisses my lips..
My eyes open to see a new look in his eyes.
As we read into each others souls, my body reacts to his fingertips.
His hand brushes my bulging midriff as we both begin to cry.
Today we will become complete...
Tomorrow we will come home with 2 extra hands and 2 little feet.

I'm not sure if this is a poem or not. Freestyle I'm guessing. I wrote this one a while back.

My Conscience.

I'd give it all for just one break,
So I don't have to think about what to say.
I have to think about you everyday,
cause in my mind is where you stay.
I can't sleep at night while you play games
are you running with scissors inside my brain?
some times I really feel insane
but most the times I feel the pain.
I can't tell you leave me be,
if you were gone there would be no me.
so I smile and say that life is good.
Knowing you would kill me if you could.

We've got some really talented people here on the forums.

Great job everybody! I'm really enjoying reading all your work.

I'm feeling inspired myself, so I'll try to get something up before the contest deadline.

Given my Japanese heritage, I've always been very fond of Haiku. Here's one I did in college (which wasn't that long ago). If you're interested in trying some Haiku for yourself, here's all you need to do:

- Poem has three lines
- The first line has five syllables.
- The second line has seven syllables.
- The third line has five syllables.
- Traditional haiku always includes a seasonal reference.

Anyway, here's my entry into the contest:


Winter Love (by Satomi Oguri - that's me )


A small winter day;
Your breath coming down on me
like waves of white snow.

"The Pessimist Under Glass"
(by Satomi Oguri)

If it's not one thing
it's certainly another.
Life sucks then you die.