Keep It Colloquial - Contest Results!

Nov 5, 201314 min read

Deviation Actions

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Published: Nov 5, 2013

2.8K Views

Alright, I've finally gotten around to decision making. You guys really made me smile with these entries. That being said, I had a VERY generous deviant to donate an absurdly wonderful amount of points to this contest at the last minute. He's asked to remain anonymous, but with his help I was able to increase all the prizes AND give y'all who submitted an extra wallop of points just for giving the prompt a go. This made me ultra happy because I had such a hard time judging, and really felt all of y'all did such a good job. Make sure to scroll all the way down because there's another epic awesome contest to enter hosted by the ever-so-lovely LiliWrites

Without further yapping, here we go!

1st Place -- 1,000 Points:

2nd Place -- 700 Points:

An Old, Sweet SongMy heart aches for scorching summer afternoons
spent drinking lemonade in the shadow of
the old house on the hill, draped in ivy and shade.
I'd watch cars fly by:
Pick-up trucks sporting Confederate flags
and a lot of red clay and pollen,
which would rumble across old railroad tracks
on their way to churches whose steeples
could pierce the stillness of the sky;
SMART cars--the clean ones with
stick figure families--taking 75-south
ripping down the interstate, too important
to admire the cornfields or sip sweet tea.
Everyone was in a hurry
to collect scattered souls for Jesus
or to sit in miles of city traffic,
each secretly addicted to the gridlock.
We were all missing something,
clinging to our side of the juxtaposition,
but in reality nothing mattered more
than the harmony we couldn't see.

3d Place -- 500 Points:

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Annnnnd, just for funsies, I've added a few extra ways to win.

Best Drawl -- 250 Points :

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Most Facetious -- 250 Points:

(I made it very clear that no one

was to use the word stardust,

but she had to prove how well it

can be used. Harrumph.

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Most Colloquial-fied -- 250 Points:

The Cape of StormsThe Cape of Storms
27-9-13
Oom lights the fire with charcoal and blitz
In the scottle, while chewing biltong and droewors;
Not a better way to start a braai
While tannie makes the poitjie kos
And Patience, or Precious, or hell
wat die donner se naam is,
Cleans.
“Ms Crystal, the vacuum, she is broken”,
And uncle gets up to fix it muttering to himself
“Wat het daai vroumens noe gedoen”.
Shaking out the marbles from Johnny’s room oom gives a shout:
“Where is my shirt woman!”
“iHempe is, is on, is hanging Mr Frikkie”.
“Hoekom is dit nat?”
“Mr I just wash finish. All wet to hang.”
Doner se kind…”wat moet ek doen met niks to wear?”
Silence and cocoa eyes meet mahogany floors and blue
Eyes stare and a korrel-kop.
Braai with the ous, some wors and chops and
Ostritch steak fresh from the supermarket,
Where mom bought her groceries for the week
And some algae stuff for the pool
And a ne

Honorable Mentions -- 75 Points:

in the valley-heart of industrysplit pariahs shine on fret earth,
fat-fisted thick crusts
struck on wounds wept
entangled with webs of silicon(e)
fibers; (we are)
golden gods
soaking in the backwash
of oceans pacific. Drown us
in medicine and media
dull weight; dull selves spent
subterranean, a metaphor
buried in the cleft
of Marianas Trench or in between
Mary Anna's legs. Somewhere
in the deathdust of orchards
we decided we were righteous,
built no higher than the redwoods
and sold our idea(l)s to advertisers.

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NostalgiaMorning broke bright and hot as fire
Ants and flies, buzzing wasps and bees
Dirt roads through the sandhills, barefoot
Sunlit fields, tall trees
Summer days spent playing cowboys
Stopping only for the ice cream man
Throwing rocks at boxcars, the scent of tar
The days were endless then
Porch swing evenings listening
To Maw-Maw's stories of long ago
Rabbit for supper, thanks to Uncle Ernest
Muddy brogans left by the door
Sung to sleep each summer night
By chirping crickets and croaking frogs
Muggy as all get-out, but what peace there
In the land of cotton and pines

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And just because, an extra 25 points to everyone else. (:

the failed escape artistshe is a snowflake-skinned sigh
floating on the winds of Eurus,
playing tic-tac-toe on her skin.
she always comes out the loser
standing on the road between
two worlds, she wonders when
she started to read the map wrong,
     because this isn’t the
     second star from the right.
she can burn the pictures,
but she can’t burn her memories.
               and damn it,
her wanderlust is trying to
pull her up, up, and away
but the desolation is keeping
its slimy tentacle wrapped
around her ankle and
it
      won’t
                      let
                                go.

Wear BootsOur ants are meaner than your ants are mean;
Mini volcanoes scar every lawn's green,
Each mound of dirt spewing six-legged fires,
Red and black armies of acid and ire.

Forced ResponsibilityShoulders collide as we
walk a line that stretches
beyond frost and delicate
glass expectations;
the discontented hum of the masses
exacerbates headaches caused
by the ever-rising tide of
a standard of living.
Is it really too much to consider
that the things that are spinning out
your patience on a broken spool
are the very same things that
save rubber and spokes from disaster,
and your heart from rupturing
under the pressure of forced responsibility?

SaltwaterI was born of the sea,
And, no, that's not a metaphor.
My mother could see the ocean
From her hospital window
Just as her mother could,
And my father's mother could
Long before her.
But before we had found our home,
We came from deserts and forests
And had to follow the aching moans
For waterwaterwater
Straight to the sea:
The whispering and soothing sea,
The roaring and ripping sea!
And she is what binds us:
Her gritty bits of sand grinding between our teeth,
And her salt in the crevices of our collarbones
We craved these before we came,
And we will crave these after we leave
Because saltwater washes through our veins
And that's not something easily forgotten.

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Seasons Turningi)
There’s a laugh from the farmer
“Here, if you don’t like the weather…
Wait five minutes.”
ii)
The air, it tastes like decay,
The spring melt has arrived.
Find things thought long lost,
And things better not found.
Everything turned to slush today.
Take off your wet shoes at the door
And stare at the faint green of the grass.
Soon, you’ll feel the sun.
The air, it tastes like decay,
(Just the start of something new).
iii)
The air, it tastes like thunder,
In the dead heat of the summer.
Wear the weather like a weight,
Waiting for skies to open and rain to fall
But not today, no not today.
Dip your paddle in the water,
And glide over the water
(In one lake in half a million).
The air, it tastes like thunder;
You’re a long way from home.
iv)
The air, it tastes like frost
In the beginning of the autumn,
(The leaves are as red as the apples).
Which is worse, snow or rain?
Perhaps we’ll get both today.
Open your door
And stare out into the f

Winter: The 216I’m standing at the bus stop, earbuds deep in my ears and volume turned up so that even if a stranger tries to talk to me, I don’t have to fake it that I’m not listening. Not that this stops everyone; sometimes they’re really persistent and they tap you on the shoulder and then tap their index and middle fingers to their lips or make a flicking motion with their thumb. Apparently it’s impossible that I don’t have a light. It’s not even always a hobo. There are a surprisingly small number of really obvious hobos, and I’ve only ever seen someone arrested at gunpoint once. Pretty fair margin if I do say so myself.
Two pairs of pants, two shirts, a sweatshirt, a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves are all putting in a valiant effort against the wind blowing in off the lake, but I think I’m going to have to give the ensemble a C+ for effectiveness. There’s a few flurries on the wind, none of that lake effect bullshit. That’s

coming here is coming homeI remember coming back;
the sky was clear and I
was plastered to the airplane window
staring at mountains rising up beneath me
with a strange fascination,
as if I'd never seen them before,
as if I'd not noticed their wild beauty
while living among them,
all those years.
I remember feeling like coming home
was at the same time discovering
this very home; mountains, lakes and cities
from above, and from below
the mountains are growing even higher
the lakes are stretching wider
the cities are spreading apart, and I was
seeing it for the first time all over again,
discovering how it's so heart-achingly
beautiful, I never want to leave for good.
I remember getting swamped
with stereotypes at the airport;
someone yodeling, and cow bells
(the sound that wakes me in those
summer mornings I spend back where
I grew up) in the background,
and my family, pressing a square flag
in my hands in red and white (as if I could
have forgotten what it looks like).
Let me show you a picture book,
back from

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Golden Statemom was pushing me
up Via del Lobo
in my stroller
my pudgy baby hand
stroking the long grass
folded with dew
over the low-lying
yellow brick wall
it was cold that morning
the sky white
before the sun burned
all the sea-fog away
and so early
there were still
snails lining the sidewalk
i leaned out
deftly scooping up
one poor fellow
and turned
prize in hand
so show mimi
but we had stopped
dead in our tracks
snared by the gaze
of a coyote
across the street
those yellow eyes
like pale light
reflecting off of
high desert sand
eight hundred
miles away
a lifetime later
but nothing a
fourteen hour
drive northwest
couldn’t fix
the waters around the bay
are always cold
pulled from the northern pacific
and iced along the way
people all along the beach
give me the strangest looks
when i plunge in without
much hesitation
up to my shoulders
dancing with the surf
diving for sand dollars
but the truth is
the water is painful
shocking me to
the point of asphyxiation
i just miss it so much
it hurt

_____

_____

Lili's Contest!

Theme: Period Drama

Prizes: AWESOME

Deadline: November 30th

LOOK FOR YOURSELF:

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She is one of the loveliest people

on this entire site, so yeah, enter
on those grounds, at least. Also,
the contest seems like it'll be tons
of fun. DO IT. (:

© 2013 - 2024 FuzzyHoser

Comments60

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Thank you so much! This contest was so much fun to write for, adn the honorable mention was very nice of you! Thanks again!