ILX Poetry Competition | 2020 Edition

It's looking more obvious every day that treeship has orphaned this thread, so I am proposing I take it to completion. Under the new regime, entries will be welcomed with enthusiasm until sometime roughly on or about midnight on January 31, 2021. Just figure on your local time, plus a bit of fudging. I'll assemble the ceremonial poll of ilx (mostly just the poets, if tradition holds) soon afterward.

Thanks for taking this on Aimless

Its a brutal business, Big Poetry, and only the toughest survive

thanks for taking this on, aimless. i haven been busy with things, new job and getting married, and this just kind of dropped. not cool of me but glad the vote will still go through.

new job and getting married

well, since you put it that way, I guess you're forgiven

Pfft ive seen the announcement snuck in slyer than that around here tbh

(grats)

love your saints piece Aimless

you can tell it is old because it mentions phone booths, which were still a thing when I wrote it

Reminder: only a short time left to the Jan 31, midnight (or thereabouts) deadline.

"Différance"

The take you shared, the hot one,
the one that’s roaring through the corridors of discourse
lopping off heads and limbs in a frenzy of
Enlightenment —

The take that’s taken you away from me,
carried you on a wave of blood
into the arms of a swarthy Frenchman —

Should I even say it?
Would you believe me if I said
that I'd arrived at this take before,
completely independently?

It came into my line of vision,
a burning star, a supernova:
I turned and ran and escaped.

But now, my love, it’s caught you by the ankles
and sucked you under the door.

rip

last stop before the end of the line

The competition is now officially closed. I'll prepare a poll thread later today for the voting. Because poets crave recognition, even if only from each other.

Thanks for your work here, Aimless

Poll thread here:

2020 ILX Poetry Competition: VOTE HERE

Please note I screwed up in transcribing the entries, failing to separate the end of imago's second poem and the start of JHM's second poem. The true copies are included here in this thread.