April 3, 2011 Poetry Challenge

Today’s prompt is “barbershop of the damned.”

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Chris Funkhouser:

Locomote to the shop of the people

Roll in the hay to understand daytime sunshine continues functioning after sundown
Be intimate to affiliate that evening day of rest’s failure’s clown
justification, young mammal, misfunction concludes in this town

Being aware of futurity like I sense nearby
Feeling hereafter like believing in solar sky
I’ll package my motor vehicle and offend my relay

Stability. gladness someone with Heart parcels band
breathing in that class or so by gland
If Heart wasn’t for Hand and Mind
That creature detests would abstain misfunction in no man’s land

Get to the barbershop of the damned
Where megrims can descend
man’s conclusion a country like a gynecologist holds down the land
who wouldn’t forbear catch thusly far from sand

hate labor like a school day offspring dislikes language
Like a jelly loving soldier detests his herb & Secale muesli
dislikes noncombatants till the crepuscule typifies transports glee

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Bill Riley:

“My Hair”

My hair is a hat.
My hair is a mask.
My hair is a rope to be hung by.
My hair is a cover.
My hair is a curtain.
My hair is a string to be strung by.
My hair will fall out.
My hair will grow thin.
It leaves as if I don’t own it.
When I have gone bald,
My hair will be gone.
At least then I won’t have to comb it.

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matt mcfadden:

The Barbershop of the Damned

I hear no wailing,
no gnashing of teeth.

I feel no lick of fire
or suffocating heat.

I see no goat-horned attendants
combing Hitler with a trident.

Instead,
there is just this need
to be seen
as somehow more handsome,
appealing, or successful
than I am.

So I sit down in the chair
and my barber does his best.

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Seth Brown:

“Barbershop of the Damned”

It’s been a long time
and I know my unkempt beard
will mark me as a target
I see the zombies as soon as I enter
but the first zombies a hero encounters
are always easily avoided
Soon
it will not be so easy
They will have numbers on their side
Overwhelming us slowly but effectively
Corralling me and the other remaining humans
into a small area that is obviously a trap
where their wretched hands will grasp at my flesh
The cruel masters of this place glare at me
furious at the audacity of my beard
as their minions pull at my clothes
And I tell myself this is the last time
I go through the TSA security check

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Shappy Seasholtz:

SHUT UP ALREADY!

Psssst.
C’mere a minute.
Stop trying to tell people you are a POET!

People nowadays can not process that statement.
In fact, it might anger and confuse them!

They don’t GET IT!
My own mother does not like the fact that I am writing about my childhood
Because she thinks I’m gonna talk shit about her.
WHY WOULD I EVER DO THAT?

I love my mom!
My childhood was pretty good considering all the Carter/ Reagan bullshit!
But POETS would have you believe there is no such thing as a “happy childhood”.

Look, assholes.
My mom and dad were awesome to me and my little brother.
We might have had to share some Star Wars playsets and Hot Wheels
But we learned how to share.

As our local schools started shuttering because the baby boom pool was draining
My parents kept moving us from district to district so we wouldn’t have to go to
school with complete strangers year after year.

I’m amazed at how supportive and loving they have been over the years.
My brother and I have made plenty of wrong turns.
I’m sure my parents have questioned our motives.
But me and my brother eventually made pretty good lives for ourselves.

So, I’m sorry I don’t have horrible stories about my parents.
I’m from Ohio.
We don’t talk shit about our parents in Ohio.

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Omar Holmon:

Gotham City: Year One

Welcome to Gotham, everything always happens here

My city substitutes gunshots for fireflies
it isn’t looking to redeem itself
my city is always
hungry even though
the body count will never understand the word “enough”

my city is masked men and victims,
clutched purses and martyrs
my city is gentrification and barrios

My city is “The police are doing their best”
is “tragedy turns boy orphan” on the front page
is “killer still at large”

My city has always been locked doors and chains
barred windows and “its none of my business”
been foreclosures and whatever makes ends meet

been cracked crack vials
it never understood thriving just dying
my city been dying,
my city still dying,
still dying,

still home
still all i got left
sill all I know

My city is a mouse trap without bait
but plenty of victims

(On being Batman)
“People think it’s an obsession. A compulsion.

As if there were an irresistible impulse to act. It’s never been like that.
I chose this life. I know what I’m doing. And on any given day, I could stop doing it. Today, however, isn’t that day. And tomorrow won’t be either.”- Bruce Wayne (Identity crisis, circa 2004)

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Robert Harrison

Johnnie’s Blue Barbershop of the Damned

Thought I’d try to getin before lunch.
Thanks for taking mewithout an appointment.
Just a bit off thetop.
You can take a littleoff the sides too.
I know, doesn’t seemlike there’s very much left.
I guess I come backhere more often than I should.
I don’t mind payingthough.
Just smooth down someof the sharp edges then.
Get me through therest of the day.

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Emily Pulfer-Terino:

The Barber

Look at the girl in the middle of the kitchen,
braiding her hair, which falls to her ribs;
she’s watching the sun cut into the room,
catch dust and shock it to life. And look
at her father, blinking slowly,
standing by her chair with shears.
Heavy iron scissors; he holds them at his side.
They’ve figured they can cut the braid off first
and see what shape they get, trim the rest
until it could pass for a real barber’s work.
Look at the father regarding the hair
she’s spent her whole life growing,
his daughter, squinting into the sun.
She loves her hair and now she turns away
so when it hits the floor, she will have closed her eyes,
she will have lost something she loves,
and she’ll look more like her father.

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Marina Yoshimura, Grade 9:

The Sun of Spring

It’s the sun.
The sun makes me happy.
Why? You ask.
Because I lived with it in the winter.
Or should I say, until yesterday.
And it was brutal, I say.
The sky is beautiful. The birds are chirping.
The grass is greener.
Maybe this is a good sign of spring.
I hope it is.

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By Catherine Wessel, Grade 9, Miss Hall’s School

The Demon Barbershop

The Demon’s Barbershop is on the side of a deserted road.
As if it got blown off course and landed in that place you’ve seen before.
You know it, it exists everywhere.
One of those lush abandoned towns that have a gas station off the highway.
Where the weeds grow through the cracks in the pavement,
and everything is quiet except for the zoom of the cars,
hiding beyond the trees.
The Demon’s Barbershop is in one of those places,
the sign written in curlicue letters.
And the red and white spiral turns lazily.
No one ever goes in.
You can pull off there anytime,
and you never see anyone.
You might wonder at the name,
and stare a the chipping paint.
But the thing that gets you the most is the competing hairdresser,
Satan’s salon.

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By Evie Monroe, Grade 9, Miss Hall’s School

The soft cool breeze kisses my skin
Birds come from their hiding places
And sing me sweet lullabies
I clench my teeth into the honey dew
Its flavors explode in my mouth
A delicious taste lingers for a while
I lick my fingers hoping to catch the remnants of this fruit