Best Poetry Contest - Ever!

Well, it's getting to be that time of year again. Thanksgiving time, perhaps? Nope! It's time for the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. If you're a poet and you've never heard of the Wergle Flomp, then this is your year to enter.

In the past, the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest was all about submitting your poems to a "vanity contest" (such as poetry.com) as a joke before submitting them to the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest. Sadly, this is no longer a requirement, but you can still do it for fun and let the judges know via the comment section on the online submission form.

The goal is obviously to write a humorous poem, but it also has to be a good poem. The contest is free to enter and there are cash prizes totaling $3,600, with a top prize of $1,500. The deadline is April 1, 2010, so there's plenty of time to think up that winning gem.

Interested?
Visit the website for examples from past winners and more details: http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_guidelines.php

Why You Should Stop and Pray for Roadkill

The kittenish
skunk,

lays alone,
unloved.

A fluffy,
white tail,

caught up
in the wind,

wags
from side to side,

happy
to see you.

A lifetime
of hate,

waits
for redemption.

If you
would only,

kneel
instead of driving

by.

How To Be More Canadian Than When You Lived In Canada

Be polite. Be overly polite. Be so obnoxiously polite that people comment, “I’ve always heard Canadians were polite.” When people ask you to say about placate them and say aboot. Say jag-you-ire as well.

Bake butter tarts. Bake sugar pie. When people ask you if you speak French, say yes. Say something in French and be sure to roll your Rs. But don’t curse. That wouldn’t be polite.

Insist that washroom makes more sense than restroom or bathroom. Philosophize that you don’t rest or bathe in the washroom, but you always wash (hopefully). Refuse to refer to elastics as rubber bands.

Iron maple leafs (yes, spell it leafs) on your denim jacket. Iron maple leafs on your luggage. Iron maple leafs on everything.

Insist that Moxy Früvous is a serious band – and the Barenaked Ladies too. Order Canadian CDs on Amazon; even though you never owned any while you lived there. Give a running commentary on the lives and hometowns of the band members while playing them for your carpoolers.

Take out library books. Change the spelling of color and honor to include U’s in the proper places. Change your spell check to English (Canada).

Get a pet beaver. Name him Moose and take him for walks. Never laugh when passersby remark, “Nice beaver.”

Explain that Victoria Day is a long weekend in May that everyone calls May-two-four because you are obligated to drink a 24 case of beer. Show your friends how to drink a 24 case of beer. Try to remember while outrageously hammered, never, ever, regardless of circumstances, admit how much you enjoy living in the United States.

Suit of Armor

Below is the result of a writing exercise from our last writers' group. The challenge was to write something "dark" in fifteen minutes.


Suit of Armor

"Where did they mark you? Shiro, the artist, asks me.

I roll up my pant leg and reveal the black ring on my thigh.

"Then that is where we start, Hiroshi-san."

He points to the mat and I lie down. Bamboo instrument in hand, he dips the row of bone needles into black ink.

"I'm going to begin tapping," Shiro says.

He strikes the instrument with a wooden hammer, and forty razor sharp points impale my flesh. Red droplets pool, making a trail that follows his progress. I focus on the clock, counting the blows as the seconds pass.

Shiro strikes me sometimes eighty, sometimes, ninety times a minute. The first few minutes are the most intense. Then, my body starts to accept the pain.

"How long will it take?" I ask. "To do the whole body suit?"

Shiro shrugs. "Some take nine months, some take years."

A peony starts to take shape. Shiro trades the needles for a chisel, coating the splitting edge with green.

The real pain begins as he moves the chisel in and out of my flesh. A burning like I have never felt. But, the marking is now virtually invisible among the flower's leaves.

"How long were you in?" Shiro says.

"Eight years."

Eight years as a marked man. Branded an outcast. But now I have ownership over my status. Everyone will see what I am.

A man tattooed by the underground.

A criminal.

Yakuza.

The Way Life Really Is

“Sometimes at night, if I pretend I’m asleep, I see glowing things fly out of that stain in the ceiling. They hover over my head until I open my eyes. Then they disappear back into the drywall.”

“That’s interesting,” I reply banally.

I’ve heard him say this before. Different stories perhaps, but the same thing. My husband, still suffering from the magical thinking of adolescence, is naïve about how the human brain works. He wants to believe he is special and the world isn’t so boring. Finding a story I can’t explain has become his obsession; something extraordinary that my medical background has never encountered. They’re true stories; just with unconventional interpretations.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had night visitors. When I was a teenager, I used to feel an evil presence. It would sit on my chest until I couldn’t breathe. I’d cross myself and say the Our Father until it went away.”

His folded arms betray his disappointment that I’m not giving more of a reaction. Should I tell him what it is? The scientific name for it is hypnopompic phenomena; a common occurrence found in about a third of the population. Your body wakes up when your brain is still dreaming.

I have experienced this state of consciousness myself. Well, the other way around. My mind becomes alert while my body is still paralyzed. Once, I swore I felt a cat skulking around the edge of my bed; a frightening feeling, but an ordinary one. No magic there. Deciding to have some fun, I look ruminative and pause for a moment before answering.

“Wow. That’s really creepy. I’ve never heard of anything like that. What do you think it is? Demons?”

“No. Aliens. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh my God, you’re right! I mean, what else could it be? Are you afraid they’ll come and take you away?”

“Yah, I am,” he says earnestly. “I’m not sleeping well.”

“You’d better be careful.”

He nods gravely.

Turning my back to him, I smirk. What an idiot!

We don’t speak about the aliens after that. The rest of the day comes and goes – just ordinary and boring – the way life really is.

I go through my usual routine; kiss him goodnight, say “I love you,” turn off my lamp, roll over, and pretend to be asleep. Through the slits of my squinted eyes, I see something oblong. It hovers near my head. Forcing my eyes open into blinding light, the object swiftly retreats into the ceiling.

“Honey, did you see that?” I whisper.

I reach over to shake him, but grab only blankets.

Tick, Tick, Tick…Happy New Year!

I opened the hospital website for the third time in ten minutes. The DRMC had outdone itself: a motorized swing with an iPod attachment, a DVD video camera, a flat screen television, an all-terrain stroller, and a skyscraper of diapers. I wet my lips and looked up at the clock – 9:54 – only six minutes until it was time to get started.

“Honey,” I said. “Get the exercise ball.”

Jake sat up in the recliner and closed the footrest. “You know this is madness, don’t you? The baby will come when he’s ready.”

I swiveled the office chair around so I could glare at him. “Don’t be patronizing. You know it’s my dream to have the first New Year’s baby. Besides, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy that TV.”

Jake sighed and shuffled to the closet. He retrieved the ball and put it next to me before shuffling back towards the recliner.

“Just where do you think your going.” I plopped myself onto the ball and began bouncing. “I need you to squeeze my pressure points.”

Jake turned, eyebrows raised. “You can’t be serious?”

I beckoned him with my finger and pointed to the floor. “Sit here. And do it like they showed us in birthing class. That’s right. Get the web of my hand and this spot, here, on my ankle.”

After a while, I was tired of bouncing. I looked up at the clock – 10:46 – just over thirteen hours until midnight. If this labor was going to start, it had to start fast. I yanked my hand from Jake’s massaging fingers.

“This isn’t working, I’m going for a jog.”

I grabbed my water bottle (supplemented with evening primrose oil and false unicorn root), ignored Jake’s shouts (“you’re going to scramble our son’s brain” and “what if you fall?”), slipped on my coat, and slammed the door. No time for stretching. Run. I had to run.

Breathing was hard enough without gulping air so cold it burned my throat. After one block, there was no change. I sped past another block, then another, and still nothing. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to check the time – 10:59 – only twelve hours left. My heart was racing, my palms were sweating, and my head swam with images of someone else’s baby in the newspaper. This labor had to start now.

That’s when I broke into jumping jacks. The jumping jacks segued into karate kicks, and the karate kicks into traveling squats. A man walking his golden retriever sped past me with a surreptitious what’s-wrong-with-you-crazy-pregnant-lady? look. When he was out of sight I tried one last thing, one desperate thing, a remnant from my figure skating days: a split jump. My landing wasn’t right. My center of gravity had changed. My ankle rolled and I pitched forward.

I had fallen. Something wet ran down my leg. Relieved tears flooded my face. I pushed myself up from the pavement and wobbled over to sit on the curb. I pulled out my cell phone again.

“Honey, it’s hospital time. Bring the overnight bag and lots of towels.”

I had been in labor for almost eleven hours when the doctor said it was time to push. That gave me less than an hour to get this baby out. The pushing was harder than I expected. I made use of muscles I never had a use for before. I couldn’t take my eyes from the clock – 11:57 – I pushed and pushed with all the strength I had, ignoring the doctor’s command to rest between contractions, blocking out everything but the pushing. Abruptly, the pressure was gone. And then the nurse said the sweetest words I had ever heard.

“Time of birth, 12:01.”

Surely, I had done it. I had given birth to the first New Year’s baby.

I looked at my son, covered in red. His head was a perfect sphere topped with matted curls. Under the blood, his skin was sort of bluish. Was that normal?

The noise of the room thundered against my ears: the metallic clang of instruments, the thudding of frantic feet. I looked at Jake for reassurance. His eyes were accusing.

“I told you,” he mumbled. “I told you not to.” He turned away.

Time and movement lengthened; shocked, I watched them hoist my son onto a steel table and press a resuscitator mask to his tiny lips. My hands were shaking in disbelief. I held them against my empty womb. Lying there, clutching at my hollowness I made a silent resolution. A New Year’s resolution I knew I wouldn’t break.

And then the nurse said the sweetest words I had ever heard.

“He’s breathing.”